英语四、六级段落信息匹配题
一、英语四级段落信息匹配题是什么？
长篇阅读理解篇章后附有10个句子，每句一题。每句所含的信息出自篇章的某一段落，要求考生找出与每句所含信息相匹配的段落。有的段落可能对应两题，有的段落可能不对应任何一题。四级考试需要各位同学做的是，大家需要去看十个左右的段落，然后去匹配十个信息点。但是到六级当中，我们的难度就要增加了，我们见到的情况是六级当中变成了15个段落，去匹配十个信息点。但总体来看，不管题型怎么变，其实学习方法没变，还是仍旧需要大家提高阅读的能力，比如说读文章的时候，是不是直接拿英语读，如果读快速阅读的时候，还是拿中文边翻译边读的话，会发现阅读速度一直会比较慢，所以那么长的文章很难找到细节，所以大家一定要养成拿英语直接阅读的这样一种习惯，这样才能保证我们的阅读速度又快又准。
二、信息匹配题难点分析
1. 考生难以按照阅读题一贯遵循的“顺序原则”解题。由于这一题型要求考生把细节信息与其所在的段落进行匹配，因此细节信息的排列绝对是“乱序的”，这就意味着考生从文章开头到结尾按顺序定位的方法是行不通的。
2. 题干信息复杂，考生难以迅速抓住要领。题干中的细节信息通常是极复杂和繁琐的名词短语或长难句，考生往往在寻找到合适的定位词之前，就已经被题干信息的复杂表述弄得晕头转向了。
3. 考生难以寻找到合适的定位词。即使考生能够读懂题干中晦涩难懂的细节信息，但也会在寻找定位词时遇到很大障碍。因为题干提供的细节信息中往往不会出现非常明显的定位词(如数字、时间、地点、人物、特殊字体和特殊符号等) 。即使考生能够找到一个定位词，这一定位词也通常和
文章主题密切相关，会在文章中多次出现，因而也没有太大的意义。
三、匹配题出题特点及应试技巧 匹配类题型有很多种，常见的种类有：1）人名-观点匹配；2）. 地名-描述匹配；3）句子-句子匹配；4）分类题(Classification)；5）段落-标题匹配；6段落-细节匹配。其中前四种做题方法比较类似，而后两种相对较复杂。这里将阐述前四种题型的做题方法。
1. 扭转做题思维
先要扭转做题思维，不是找到句子答案所在，而是判断这句话在哪一段
会出现。所以我们首要明确，考官出这个题是要考察我们什么阅读能力，我认为不是细节阅读能力，而是对文章框架思路的把握能力。
2．预览题干，明确关键词 该题型的解题基本思路是：先快速地将题干读一下，划出关键词; 然后采用skimming 和scanning 的方式通读原文，匹配信息。
3．快速掌握文章脉络
通过阅读中心句快速掌握文章脉络。中心句一般出现在首位句，转折词如but 或者因果关系联接词如 as
a result 引领的第二句，或者问句后面的答句。一般建议在找到中心句后，读一下末句，可以更精确地掌控段意。若无特别明显的中心句，首尾句的阅读也有助于理解段意。阅读过程当中，有的信息点明确可直接先去选出答案。这里我们也要明确要多看英文，掌握英文的行文思路。一般而言剑桥里的文章组织有三大类。一是按时间，如货物运输，这是最简单的。 二是按观点—原因—发展—瓶颈—措施—目标的布局来分析一件事物。三是 偏科普的 夹杂很多不同派别的理论，这个相对而言比较难。
4. 注意字句的形式变化。
在长篇阅读中寻找相关信息的难度很大程度上取决于考生对字句形式变化的辨识能力。需要注意三种变化形式：1）题干只对原文中个别单词或词组进行同义改写或转述；2）题干对原文中整句话进行同义改写或转述；3）题干对原文中几句话或整段内容进行综合概括或推断。这就对考生的单词量、对某一单词多重释义的了解以及对句意的概括或推断能力提出了新要求。
5. 注意标记。
在首次阅读的过程中如果不能确定某些单句是否与该段落相匹
配，最好做个记号，以便第二次阅读时更有针对性。第二次阅读的目的：一是检查已初步确定的段落与单句是否确实匹配；二是完成第一遍阅读中尚未解答的题目。
6. 注意时间的合理使用，不要为确定某个细节问题而浪费大量的时间。 【关键词的类型】
1. 人名、地名和专有名词
2. 一些拼写较长的词，比如：internship ，competitiveness ，globalization ，integration ，sustainability ，innovative ，
immigration 等。这些词属于低频词，一般不会大篇幅地出现。利用这些词可以高效地查找匹配段落。另外，这些词有时会作为生词在文中标注出来，像internship ，在原文中用斜体印刷，并以括号备注中文。我们选它做关键词，瞬间就能找到原文出处了。
2. 数字，包括年代、百分比、特殊事件等。如四级样卷中的：
mid-1970s, 3.9 percent，20 percent，September 11等。教研君利用这些数字进行定位，测得的准确率是100%哦!
3. 以连字符连接的特殊词汇。如：university-based ，one-child 。这些词是由两个(或三个) 单词连接的新词，一般当成形容词使用。三个单词的例子如：hard-to-grasp 难以理解的。这些词也属于低频词，一般不会大篇幅出现。需要注意的是有时候我们需要将这些词拆开来定位，如one-child 在原文中是没有的，原文是这样的“They often compromise by having just one child. ”这里的one child 就不是整体作为形容词使用了。
4. 研究、报告、书籍型词汇，如：report ，study ，books 等。一般来说
研究、报告等内容都是易考点，这些信息经常出现在特定的段落里，所以根据这些词汇作为关键词也很容易定位。
5. 最高级，如best ，worst ，most 等。如六级第54题，关键词之一为the best solution。然而仅凭此关键词我们可能无法迅速地找到答案，因为原文的表述是the most effective
method ，用的词汇是完全不一样的。这时，我们还需要增加一个关键词pension ，帮助我们定位。这就提醒我们在平常的阅读中应多关注最高级出现的地方，因为它常常是考点。
6. 具有特殊意义的指示性词汇。这类词汇虽然不是通常意义上的定位关键词，但其特殊含义可将考生的注意力指向原文的开头、结尾或是某个具有特殊特征的段落。 这些词通常包括如下三类：①能够指示开头段的词汇(如overview 、introduction 、initiation 、main idea、definition 等) ；②能够指示结尾段的词(如overview 、future 、 solution 、conclusion 、suggestion 、summary 等) ；③能够帮助考生回原文定位的特殊词汇(如rate 、ratio 、proportion 、percentage 等词往往对应含“%”的段
落；number 、figure 、statistical demographics 等词往往对应数字集中的段落；financial 、income 、
revenue 、salary 等词往往对应含诸如“$”“￥”等货币符号的段落) 。考生能够通过这些指示性词汇缩小回原文定位的范围，从而快速判定
表1—四级样卷长篇阅读
表2—六级样卷长篇阅读
Passage One
Universities Branch Out
A) As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive
advantage. But at the same time, the opening of national borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and geopolitical stability.
B) In response to the same forces that have driven the world economy, universities have become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire range of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an interconnected world and collaborative (合作的) research programs to advance science for the
benefit of all humanity.
C) Of the forces shaping higher education none is more sweeping than the movement across borders. Over the past three decades the number of students leaving home each year to study abroad has grown at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, from 800,000 in 1975 to 2.5 million in 2004. Most travel from one developed nation to another, but the flow from developing to developed countries is growing rapidly. The reverse flow, from developed to developing countries, is on the rise, too. Today foreign students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the number crossing borders for undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the
undergraduates at America’s best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates in the U.K. In the United States, 20 percent of the newly hired professors in science and engineering are foreign-born, and in China many newly hired faculty members at the top research universities received their graduate education abroad
D) Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate years in another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the Erasmus program each year, taking courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating institutions across the continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping place students in summer internships (实习)
abroad to prepare them for global careers. Yale and Harvard have led the way, offering every undergraduate at least one international study or internship opportunity —and providing the financial resources to make it possible.
E) Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Tian Xu directs a research center focused on the genetics of human disease at Shanghai’s Fudan University, in collaboration with faculty colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has 95 employees and graduate students working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory
facility. Yale faculty, postdoctors and graduate students visit regularly and attend videoconference seminars with scientists from both campuses. The arrangement benefits both countries; Xu’s Yale lab is more productive, thanks to the lower costs of conducting research in China, and Chinese graduate students, postdoctors and faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S. team.
F) As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the world in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe computer and the integrated circuit of the 1960s to the Internet infrastructure (基础设施) and
applications software of the 1990s. The link between university-based science and industrial application is often indirect but sometimes highly visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by Stanford University, and Route 128 outside Boston has long housed companies spun off from MIT and Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model, perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of other leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the university.
G) For all its success, the United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the research-university model. Most politicians recognize the link between investment in science
and national economic strength, but support for research funding has been unsteady. The budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled between 1998 and 2003, but has risen more slowly than inflation since then. Support for the physical sciences and engineering barely kept pace with inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up lost ground is welcome, but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable increases in science funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of inflation plus 3 percent per year.
H) American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international understanding. Adjusted for
inflation, public funding for international exchanges and foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake of September 11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the number of foreign students seeking admission to U.S. universities, and a corresponding surge in enrollments in Australia, Singapore and the U.K. Objections from American university and business leaders led to improvements in the process and a reversal of the decline, but the United States is still seen by many as unwelcoming to international students.
I) Most Americans recognize that universities contribute to the nation’s well-being through their scientific research, but many fear that foreign students threaten American
competitiveness by taking their knowledge and skills back home. They fail to grasp that welcoming foreign students to the United States has two important positive effects: first, the very best of them stay in the States and —like immigrants throughout history —strengthen the nation; and second, foreign students who study in the United States become ambassadors for many of its most cherished (珍视) values when they return home. Or at least they understand them better. In America as elsewhere, few instruments of foreign policy are as effective in promoting peace and stability as welcoming international university students.
1. American universities prepare their undergraduates for global careers by giving them chances for international study or internship.
2. Since the mid-1970s, the
enrollment of overseas students has increased at an annual rate of 3.9 percent.
3. The enrollment of international students will have a positive impact on America rather than threaten its competitiveness.
4. The way research is carried out in universities has changed as a result of globalization.
5. Of the newly hired professors in science and engineering in the United States, twenty percent come from foreign countries.
6. The number of foreign students applying to U.S. universities
decreased sharply after September
11 due to changes in the visa process.
7. The U.S. federal funding for research has been unsteady for years.
8. Around the world, governments encourage the model of linking university-based science and industrial application.
9. Present-day universities have become a powerful force for global integration.
10. When foreign students leave America, they will bring American values back to their home countries.
Passage Two
Into the unknown
A) Until the early 1900s nobody thought much about the whole populations getting older. UN had the foresight to convene a “world
assembly on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable.
B) For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, surrounded by the alarm. They had titles like Young vs. Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare.
C) Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject.
Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organizations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including the newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage.
D) Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an
eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades.
E) The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的) meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP’s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than
their retired peers.
F) Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labor force, increasing employers’ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey.
G) In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labor force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off).
Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing Western Europe for about 90%.
H) On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in the need of jobs, many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labor forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe ’s most youthful countries, and three
times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible.
I) To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old” countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They
often compromise by having just one child.
J) And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater numbers than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so.
K) Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families. In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week. L) Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America’s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of
serious security implications.
M) For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world’s defense effort. Because America’s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).
N) There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave, need not be catastrophic. Most
countries have recognized the need to do something and beginning to act. O) But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is historically unprecedented. The director of Economics and Demography of Ageing at the University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don’t really know what population ageing will be like, because nobody has done it yet.”
1. Employers should realize it is important to keep older workers in the workforce.
2. A recent study found that most old people in some European countries had regular weekly contact with their adult children.
3. Few governments in rich countries
have launched bold reforms to tackle the problem of population ageing.
4. In a report published some 20 years ago, the sustainability of old-age pension systems in most countries was called into doubt.
5. Countries that have a shortage of young adults will be less willing to send them to war.
6.One-child families are more common in ageing societies due to the stress of urban life and the difficulties of balancing families and cancer.
7. A series of books, mostly authored by Americans, warned of conflicts between the older and younger generations.
8. C ompared with younger ones, older societies tend to be less innovative and take fewer risks.
9. The best solution to the pension
crisis is to postpone the retirement age.
10. Immigration as a means to boost the shrinking labour force may meet with resistance
countries.
in some rich
英语四、六级段落信息匹配题
一、英语四级段落信息匹配题是什么？
长篇阅读理解篇章后附有10个句子，每句一题。每句所含的信息出自篇章的某一段落，要求考生找出与每句所含信息相匹配的段落。有的段落可能对应两题，有的段落可能不对应任何一题。四级考试需要各位同学做的是，大家需要去看十个左右的段落，然后去匹配十个信息点。但是到六级当中，我们的难度就要增加了，我们见到的情况是六级当中变成了15个段落，去匹配十个信息点。但总体来看，不管题型怎么变，其实学习方法没变，还是仍旧需要大家提高阅读的能力，比如说读文章的时候，是不是直接拿英语读，如果读快速阅读的时候，还是拿中文边翻译边读的话，会发现阅读速度一直会比较慢，所以那么长的文章很难找到细节，所以大家一定要养成拿英语直接阅读的这样一种习惯，这样才能保证我们的阅读速度又快又准。
二、信息匹配题难点分析
1. 考生难以按照阅读题一贯遵循的“顺序原则”解题。由于这一题型要求考生把细节信息与其所在的段落进行匹配，因此细节信息的排列绝对是“乱序的”，这就意味着考生从文章开头到结尾按顺序定位的方法是行不通的。
2. 题干信息复杂，考生难以迅速抓住要领。题干中的细节信息通常是极复杂和繁琐的名词短语或长难句，考生往往在寻找到合适的定位词之前，就已经被题干信息的复杂表述弄得晕头转向了。
3. 考生难以寻找到合适的定位词。即使考生能够读懂题干中晦涩难懂的细节信息，但也会在寻找定位词时遇到很大障碍。因为题干提供的细节信息中往往不会出现非常明显的定位词(如数字、时间、地点、人物、特殊字体和特殊符号等) 。即使考生能够找到一个定位词，这一定位词也通常和
文章主题密切相关，会在文章中多次出现，因而也没有太大的意义。
三、匹配题出题特点及应试技巧 匹配类题型有很多种，常见的种类有：1）人名-观点匹配；2）. 地名-描述匹配；3）句子-句子匹配；4）分类题(Classification)；5）段落-标题匹配；6段落-细节匹配。其中前四种做题方法比较类似，而后两种相对较复杂。这里将阐述前四种题型的做题方法。
1. 扭转做题思维
先要扭转做题思维，不是找到句子答案所在，而是判断这句话在哪一段
会出现。所以我们首要明确，考官出这个题是要考察我们什么阅读能力，我认为不是细节阅读能力，而是对文章框架思路的把握能力。
2．预览题干，明确关键词 该题型的解题基本思路是：先快速地将题干读一下，划出关键词; 然后采用skimming 和scanning 的方式通读原文，匹配信息。
3．快速掌握文章脉络
通过阅读中心句快速掌握文章脉络。中心句一般出现在首位句，转折词如but 或者因果关系联接词如 as
a result 引领的第二句，或者问句后面的答句。一般建议在找到中心句后，读一下末句，可以更精确地掌控段意。若无特别明显的中心句，首尾句的阅读也有助于理解段意。阅读过程当中，有的信息点明确可直接先去选出答案。这里我们也要明确要多看英文，掌握英文的行文思路。一般而言剑桥里的文章组织有三大类。一是按时间，如货物运输，这是最简单的。 二是按观点—原因—发展—瓶颈—措施—目标的布局来分析一件事物。三是 偏科普的 夹杂很多不同派别的理论，这个相对而言比较难。
4. 注意字句的形式变化。
在长篇阅读中寻找相关信息的难度很大程度上取决于考生对字句形式变化的辨识能力。需要注意三种变化形式：1）题干只对原文中个别单词或词组进行同义改写或转述；2）题干对原文中整句话进行同义改写或转述；3）题干对原文中几句话或整段内容进行综合概括或推断。这就对考生的单词量、对某一单词多重释义的了解以及对句意的概括或推断能力提出了新要求。
5. 注意标记。
在首次阅读的过程中如果不能确定某些单句是否与该段落相匹
配，最好做个记号，以便第二次阅读时更有针对性。第二次阅读的目的：一是检查已初步确定的段落与单句是否确实匹配；二是完成第一遍阅读中尚未解答的题目。
6. 注意时间的合理使用，不要为确定某个细节问题而浪费大量的时间。 【关键词的类型】
1. 人名、地名和专有名词
2. 一些拼写较长的词，比如：internship ，competitiveness ，globalization ，integration ，sustainability ，innovative ，
immigration 等。这些词属于低频词，一般不会大篇幅地出现。利用这些词可以高效地查找匹配段落。另外，这些词有时会作为生词在文中标注出来，像internship ，在原文中用斜体印刷，并以括号备注中文。我们选它做关键词，瞬间就能找到原文出处了。
2. 数字，包括年代、百分比、特殊事件等。如四级样卷中的：
mid-1970s, 3.9 percent，20 percent，September 11等。教研君利用这些数字进行定位，测得的准确率是100%哦!
3. 以连字符连接的特殊词汇。如：university-based ，one-child 。这些词是由两个(或三个) 单词连接的新词，一般当成形容词使用。三个单词的例子如：hard-to-grasp 难以理解的。这些词也属于低频词，一般不会大篇幅出现。需要注意的是有时候我们需要将这些词拆开来定位，如one-child 在原文中是没有的，原文是这样的“They often compromise by having just one child. ”这里的one child 就不是整体作为形容词使用了。
4. 研究、报告、书籍型词汇，如：report ，study ，books 等。一般来说
研究、报告等内容都是易考点，这些信息经常出现在特定的段落里，所以根据这些词汇作为关键词也很容易定位。
5. 最高级，如best ，worst ，most 等。如六级第54题，关键词之一为the best solution。然而仅凭此关键词我们可能无法迅速地找到答案，因为原文的表述是the most effective
method ，用的词汇是完全不一样的。这时，我们还需要增加一个关键词pension ，帮助我们定位。这就提醒我们在平常的阅读中应多关注最高级出现的地方，因为它常常是考点。
6. 具有特殊意义的指示性词汇。这类词汇虽然不是通常意义上的定位关键词，但其特殊含义可将考生的注意力指向原文的开头、结尾或是某个具有特殊特征的段落。 这些词通常包括如下三类：①能够指示开头段的词汇(如overview 、introduction 、initiation 、main idea、definition 等) ；②能够指示结尾段的词(如overview 、future 、 solution 、conclusion 、suggestion 、summary 等) ；③能够帮助考生回原文定位的特殊词汇(如rate 、ratio 、proportion 、percentage 等词往往对应含“%”的段
落；number 、figure 、statistical demographics 等词往往对应数字集中的段落；financial 、income 、
revenue 、salary 等词往往对应含诸如“$”“￥”等货币符号的段落) 。考生能够通过这些指示性词汇缩小回原文定位的范围，从而快速判定
表1—四级样卷长篇阅读
表2—六级样卷长篇阅读
Passage One
Universities Branch Out
A) As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive
advantage. But at the same time, the opening of national borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and geopolitical stability.
B) In response to the same forces that have driven the world economy, universities have become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire range of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an interconnected world and collaborative (合作的) research programs to advance science for the
benefit of all humanity.
C) Of the forces shaping higher education none is more sweeping than the movement across borders. Over the past three decades the number of students leaving home each year to study abroad has grown at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, from 800,000 in 1975 to 2.5 million in 2004. Most travel from one developed nation to another, but the flow from developing to developed countries is growing rapidly. The reverse flow, from developed to developing countries, is on the rise, too. Today foreign students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the number crossing borders for undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the
undergraduates at America’s best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates in the U.K. In the United States, 20 percent of the newly hired professors in science and engineering are foreign-born, and in China many newly hired faculty members at the top research universities received their graduate education abroad
D) Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate years in another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the Erasmus program each year, taking courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating institutions across the continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping place students in summer internships (实习)
abroad to prepare them for global careers. Yale and Harvard have led the way, offering every undergraduate at least one international study or internship opportunity —and providing the financial resources to make it possible.
E) Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Tian Xu directs a research center focused on the genetics of human disease at Shanghai’s Fudan University, in collaboration with faculty colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has 95 employees and graduate students working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory
facility. Yale faculty, postdoctors and graduate students visit regularly and attend videoconference seminars with scientists from both campuses. The arrangement benefits both countries; Xu’s Yale lab is more productive, thanks to the lower costs of conducting research in China, and Chinese graduate students, postdoctors and faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S. team.
F) As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the world in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe computer and the integrated circuit of the 1960s to the Internet infrastructure (基础设施) and
applications software of the 1990s. The link between university-based science and industrial application is often indirect but sometimes highly visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by Stanford University, and Route 128 outside Boston has long housed companies spun off from MIT and Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model, perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of other leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the university.
G) For all its success, the United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the research-university model. Most politicians recognize the link between investment in science
and national economic strength, but support for research funding has been unsteady. The budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled between 1998 and 2003, but has risen more slowly than inflation since then. Support for the physical sciences and engineering barely kept pace with inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up lost ground is welcome, but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable increases in science funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of inflation plus 3 percent per year.
H) American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international understanding. Adjusted for
inflation, public funding for international exchanges and foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake of September 11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the number of foreign students seeking admission to U.S. universities, and a corresponding surge in enrollments in Australia, Singapore and the U.K. Objections from American university and business leaders led to improvements in the process and a reversal of the decline, but the United States is still seen by many as unwelcoming to international students.
I) Most Americans recognize that universities contribute to the nation’s well-being through their scientific research, but many fear that foreign students threaten American
competitiveness by taking their knowledge and skills back home. They fail to grasp that welcoming foreign students to the United States has two important positive effects: first, the very best of them stay in the States and —like immigrants throughout history —strengthen the nation; and second, foreign students who study in the United States become ambassadors for many of its most cherished (珍视) values when they return home. Or at least they understand them better. In America as elsewhere, few instruments of foreign policy are as effective in promoting peace and stability as welcoming international university students.
1. American universities prepare their undergraduates for global careers by giving them chances for international study or internship.
2. Since the mid-1970s, the
enrollment of overseas students has increased at an annual rate of 3.9 percent.
3. The enrollment of international students will have a positive impact on America rather than threaten its competitiveness.
4. The way research is carried out in universities has changed as a result of globalization.
5. Of the newly hired professors in science and engineering in the United States, twenty percent come from foreign countries.
6. The number of foreign students applying to U.S. universities
decreased sharply after September
11 due to changes in the visa process.
7. The U.S. federal funding for research has been unsteady for years.
8. Around the world, governments encourage the model of linking university-based science and industrial application.
9. Present-day universities have become a powerful force for global integration.
10. When foreign students leave America, they will bring American values back to their home countries.
Passage Two
Into the unknown
A) Until the early 1900s nobody thought much about the whole populations getting older. UN had the foresight to convene a “world
assembly on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable.
B) For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, surrounded by the alarm. They had titles like Young vs. Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare.
C) Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject.
Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organizations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including the newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage.
D) Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an
eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades.
E) The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的) meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP’s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than
their retired peers.
F) Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labor force, increasing employers’ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey.
G) In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labor force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off).
Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing Western Europe for about 90%.
H) On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in the need of jobs, many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labor forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe ’s most youthful countries, and three
times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible.
I) To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old” countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They
often compromise by having just one child.
J) And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater numbers than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so.
K) Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families. In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week. L) Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America’s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of
serious security implications.
M) For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world’s defense effort. Because America’s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).
N) There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave, need not be catastrophic. Most
countries have recognized the need to do something and beginning to act. O) But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is historically unprecedented. The director of Economics and Demography of Ageing at the University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don’t really know what population ageing will be like, because nobody has done it yet.”
1. Employers should realize it is important to keep older workers in the workforce.
2. A recent study found that most old people in some European countries had regular weekly contact with their adult children.
3. Few governments in rich countries
have launched bold reforms to tackle the problem of population ageing.
4. In a report published some 20 years ago, the sustainability of old-age pension systems in most countries was called into doubt.
5. Countries that have a shortage of young adults will be less willing to send them to war.
6.One-child families are more common in ageing societies due to the stress of urban life and the difficulties of balancing families and cancer.
7. A series of books, mostly authored by Americans, warned of conflicts between the older and younger generations.
8. C ompared with younger ones, older societies tend to be less innovative and take fewer risks.
9. The best solution to the pension
crisis is to postpone the retirement age.
10. Immigration as a means to boost the shrinking labour force may meet with resistance
countries.
in some rich