Question: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: For the most part, schools are designed to produce people who fit into society, not people who set out to change it. However, schools, particularly universities, may not only spread culture; they may add to the cultural heritage. Today American society places a good deal of emphasis on the development of new knowledge, especially in the physical and biological sciences, medicine, and engineering. In recent years, the nation's leading universities have increasingly become research centres. An emphasis on research has led universities to judge professors not by abilities as teachers, but as researchers. Promotions, salary increases, and other benefits have long been dependent on research and publication. However, the most important is no longer publishing. To be successful these days, professors have to bring in money provided by government and private industry. Critics claim that academic success is most likely to come to those who have learned to "ignore" their teaching duties to pursue research activities. Defenders say that even when students themselves are not involved in research projects they benefit from such an emphasis on research. Major research universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have also cooperated with industrial companies to develop technology and products with commercial potential. With university-industry ties continuing to grow, debate has increased about the consequences for basic science, academic openness, the control of information, the direction of research, and the influence on students. Question: The author seems to be _ the move of emphasis to research. Options: A: totally against B: sorry to see C: in favor of D: neutral about
Answer: D

Question: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: It's a nightmare for Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST): within a week, two students committed suicide by jumping off dorm buildings. Officials from the university are reluctant to give interviews. "We had a hard time calming down students who were shocked at the suicides," said Zhang Jingyuan, head of HUST's center for research and guidance for students' development. "Media coverage may arouse some students' negative emotions again. Suicide can be contagious ," Zhang said. The university reacted promptly to the first suicide on October 23. Advisors and class leaders conducted dorm-to-dorm checks to find students suffering depression. Then psychologists offered one-on-one counseling to them. Notice boards publicizing tips for identifying peers' mental problems and offering help were set up in front of dorm buildings. Leaflets carrying similar information were handed out to each dorm. However, the second suicide came seven days later. Both students were described as men of few words. Their schoolmates didn't see anything to indicate suicide. Zhang revealed that the two students had been bothered by mental disorders. But the school didn't know this until the students' close friends outside school and their parents unveiled the truth after the suicides. According to Zhang, there are only three full-time counselors working in the university's counseling center for its 60,000 students. He complained: "It's unrealistic to rely only on counselors to detect students' mental problems." Some universities in the US may be able to offer solutions to Zhang's worries. They have established programs to train students to be the bridge between troubled friends and counselors. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, at Worcester, Massachusetts, US, young people in the Student Support Network role play to learn how to detect SOS signals from their schoolmates. They also practice how to gently persuade emotionally troubled students to go for professional help. To develop such empathy , many universities in... Question: In which column of a newspaper would you most probably read this passage? Options: A: Forum B: Campus C: Advertisement D: Culture
Answer: B

Question: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: High-tech gadget shows draw throngs of excited consumers each year in the United States, Japan, Europe and the Arabian peninsula. Though many people are already surrounded with all kinds of smart electronic devices, some always need one more -- better and smarter than the previous one. At electronic shows, visitors flock around the newest tablet computers, cameras, 3D television screens, even small robots, dreaming of taking one home. Consumers spend hours waiting in lines and spend hundreds of dollars to be among the first to get the latest smart phone. The modern world seems to _ shiny expensive objects that keep us connected, help us navigate, record our thoughts and memorable events, and even talk to us. So infatuated, we no longer merely "own" our gadgets -- we have relationships with them, according to clinical psychologist and life transition therapist Francine Lederer. "It's a lot easier to have, right, a one-sided relationship with your computer, your phone, than it is with a live person. So that at the end of the day, you don't need to worry about somebody being angry with you, you don't need to worry about getting blamed for anything," she said. Magical devices Although having a thousand Facebook friends may be perceived as equivalent to having a thousand real, authentic friendships, Lederer said in reality it is not so. "It comes down to a lot of the internal stuff. How we feel about ourselves, our own sense of self-esteem, our self-worth, a lot of those things," she said. But gadgets are magical. They fascinate us the same way we are intrigued by a magician's trick, said psychology professor at the University of the South Pacific, Robert Epstein. "If you don't know how they're doing it, that's very fascinating and intriguing. But if they do it 10 times or 20 times or 100 times, it gets boring and you want something else. That's why magicians do not repeat the same trick over and over again," he said. Plugged in, isolated Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine, said he is... Question: What's the similarity between gadgets and magicians according to the passage? Options: A: They both make people happy. B: We will be bored with them. C: They both cheat people. D: They both don't use the same trick repeatedly.
Answer:
D