I like sitting in the cafes,()the newspapers and()people .
The habit of reading newspapers is _____.
Passage 2
What do student newspapers complain about these days?
How about this headline in Swansea University’s student paper following the recent bad weather.
“Students lose? 20 a lecture after snow sends university into lockdown.”
It pointed out that fee-paying students are not getting full value for money if lectures are cancelled.
Students were seeing their “money disappear quicker than the snow melted”.
It illustrates something about changed attitudes on campus when students are complaining that they are not getting enough lectures.
Paying fees means that students are customers as well as learners.
The student union president at Swansea University, James Houston, says that going to university is “still different from a shopping experience”—but that paying fees is pushing it in that direction.
“There is a strong argument that if you charge more, then people will want to know where their money is going” he says.
Universities are more than a business, he says. But he fears that fees are driving a campus consumer ethic.
The students’ union already has complaints from students about not getting “value for money”.
This shift in attitude is also reflected in an increase in complaints by students to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education—which it attributes to fees.
“We believe that one reason for the increase is the rise in tuition fees. There is also more consumerist thinking amongst students. Students have become more assertive about their rights, and the services they are entitled to,” said chief executive, Rob Behrens.
While the debate about fees was once about whether it would be a social barrier to poorer students, in practice there have been other less expected changes.
The combination of fees and debts from student loans means that university courses are judged by their price tags as well as academic worth.
Frank Furedi, social commentator and academic at the University of Kent, says that the campus culture is “unrecognisable” from a generation ago.
Students now ring lecturers at home at the weekend, he says, seeing this as being part of the service they are buying with their fees.
“They feel they can make all kinds of demands,” says Prof Furedi.
“Fees give a clear and tangible form to the idea of students as consumers.”
“The relationship with the student is no longer academic, it’s a service provider and customer.
The academic relationship is an endangered species.”
But the landscape is one in which many students expect to have everything done for them.
“School has extended into higher education. Students behave like schoolchildren.”
If tuition fees are hiked further, he says it will intensify the sense of consumerism among students.
There are other signs of how fees have changed life on campus.
Students are more careers-focused than ever before, the accumulation of large debts putting pressure on them to get a degree that will help them in the jobs market.
Beginning a university degree course is a serious financial undertaking and that now shapes the experience of student life.
There are other practical changes. More students than ever are living at home while at university—with surveys suggesting that perhaps a fifth of students continue to live with their parents.
This in turn means that more students, particularly from less well-off families, are choosing from universities close to where they live.
The role of parents, who pay towards student costs, has also been seen as becoming more prominent.
This has been caricatured as “helicopter parents” who hover over every decision taken by their student offspring, including contacting lecturers.
Parents can now act as agents for their children in university applications—and have even been allowed to sit in on admissions interviews.
Cary Cooper, pro-vice chancellor at Lancaster University, also points to the structural consequences of a further increase in fees.
At present, he says, the current level of student debt means that many more students have to take part-time jobs to pay their way.
Another hike in fees will mean even more students will need to work—including those who will only be able to study part-time.
This will mean universities will have to adapt, such as providing courses which can be passed in individual units, accumulating credits over a number of years.
Professor Cooper says this could mean a fundamental change for higher education, moving away from the traditional model of 18 to 21-year-olds taking a three-year degree course.
1. Describe Frank Furedi’s viewpoint of the present relationship between professor and student and the reason.
2. How do the hiked fees change students’ choice of majors and universities?
3. What changes are likely to happen if there is another jump in tuition fees?
The habit of reading newspapers is ______.
"If there is one thing I’m sure about, it is that in a hundred years from now we will still be reading newspapers. It is not that newspapers are a necessity. Even now some people get most of their news from television or radio. Many buy a paper only on Saturday or Sunday. But for most people reading a newspaper has become a habit passed down from generation to generation.
The nature of what is news may change. What basically makes news is what affects our lives-the big political stories, the coverage of the wars, earthquakes and other disasters, will continue much the same. I think there will be more coverage of scientific research, though. It’s already happening in areas that may directly affect our lives, like genetic (基因) engineering. In the future, I think there will be more coverage of scientific explanations of why we feel as we do-as we develop a better understanding of how the brain operates and what our feelings really are.
It’s quite possible that in the next century newspapers will be transmitted (传送) electronically from Fleet Street and printed out in our own home. In fact, I’m pretty sure that how it will happen in the future. You will probably be able to choose from a menu, making up your own newspaper by picking out the things you want to read-sports and international news, etc.
I think people have got it wrong when they talk about competition between the different media (媒体). They actually feed off each other. Some people once foresaw that television would kill off newspapers, but that hasn’t happened. What is read on the printed page lasts longer than pictures on a screen or sound lost in the air. And as for the Internet, it’s never really pleasant to read something just on a screen.From the passage, we can infer ().
I like sitting in the cafes,()the newspapers and()people .
Publishing horoscope columns in newspapers helped to make astrology spread across the world widely.____
Which of the following is NOT an advantage of computer newspapers?
Novels, magazines, and newspapers—many people read these in their spare time. These days it is easy for most of us to get hold of the latest books or magazines. We can go to bookstores, order them through the Internet, or borrow them from the local library. Now imagine having to walk miles and miles through a hot sandy desert just to borrow a book. This is the reality for people living in the villages of the Garissa region of Kenya in East Africa.
In 2006, librarian Wycliffe Oluoch used to spend each day waiting for people to come to borrow some of the 24,000 books in his library in Garissa. The library had no shortage of books, but people weren’t coming to read them. It was too much effort to walk through the desert just to borrow books. Oluoch racked his brain for ways to attract people into the library. After a lot thought, he hit upon a great idea. If people wouldn’t come to the library, then he would have to take the library to them. Oluoch strapped boxes of books onto the backs of camels and invented the Mobile Camel Library.
Starting with three camels in 2006, but more recently expanding the service to six camels, the Mobile Camel Library serves over one million people. Twice a month, the camel library can be seen carrying books all around the Garissa region. These hard-working animals need little water and can altogether carry up to 1,200 kilograms of books across the sands. A librarian, a library assistant, a herdsman and a lookout all travel with the camels. The lookout helps protect the books from thieves.
The children of Garissa love the camel library and appreciate Oluoch’s efforts. Eleven-year-old Mohamud Mohamed reads his library books carefully and always returns them on time. He knows the Garissa library punishes people for losing books, just like any other library. However, the punishment is very stiff compared to that of other libraries. If someone in a village loses a book, the camel library stops visiting the village.
Read the above passage carefully and answer questions 66 to 70. Complete each answer with no more than 10 words.
1.Why didn’t people visit the library in Garissa?
2.How many kilograms of books does each camel carry?
3.What makes camels good animals to carry books through the desert?
4.What’s the responsibility of the lookout in the Mobile Camel Library?
5.What’s the punishment if a person loses a book?
Passage 6 ● Read the text below about some of America’s newspapers, which are facing extinction, unless they evolve.
● Choose the best sentence from the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.
● For each gap 9-14, mark one letter(A-H) on your Answer Sheet.
● Do not use any letter more than once.
● There is an example at the beginning (0).
On the brink The New York Times was once the best example of all that was great about American newspapers. The Grey Lady’s circulation is tumbling down another 3.9% according to the latest data from America’s Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). (9)______.
Pick almost any American newspaper company and you can tell a similar story. The ABC reported that for the 530 biggest daily newspapers, average circulation in the past six months was 3.6% lower than in the same period a year earlier. As for Sunday papers, it was 4.6% lower.
Ad revenues are plunging across the board: by 22.3% at Media General, for example. In 2007 total newspaper revenues fell to $42.2 billion. (10)______.
Much of this decline is being blamed on the rise of the Internet, which offers free, round-the-clock coverage. What’s more, Internet has provided a new, better home for classified advertising, which was once the source of most newspapers’ revenue. (11)______. The number one cause is the troublesome housing market, which contributes a large slice of classified advertising.
Industry experts such as Lucas Rich Fine of Kent State University do not think that the Times is responding forcefully enough. (12)______. Mr. Fine also points out that although all newspapers are being affected by the Internet, their ability to respond will probably depend on whether their audiences are national, metropolitan or local. The first category can afford to invest in distinctive international or business coverage, while the last can prosper by becoming ‘more intensely local’. But he fears that the big metropolitan newspapers may find themselves trapped in the middle.
Not all is lost, however. (13)______. For instance, a number of newspapers are becoming ‘information and connection utilities’, through such offerings as local internet forums. The Pocono Record has renamed reporters ‘content managers’, since they oversee all the coverage of their beat, both in print and online, and get a bonus for higher web traffic.
The hero for industry optimists is Brian Tierney, a former public-relations executive. Last year, he led a group of investors that borrowed heavily to buy Philadelphia’s two main dailies. (14)______. He is also finding new ways to drum up advertising, such as introducing a business column sponsored by a local bank.
A. Certainly, it was not something to be sniffed at, but much less than the peak of $48.7 billion in 2000.
B. However, some of the fall in revenues is actually due to the economic slowdown in America.
C. Its advertising revenues are down, too, 12.5% lower in March than a year earlier.
D. He has since revived them with a vigorous marketing drive.
E. Nevertheless, as a major newspaper, it still boasts a well-educated readership.
F. Plenty of innovation is taking place, particularly at local papers.
G. ‘Now is the time to beef up its business section’ he says.
H. Now it symbolizes the difficult situation the whole industry is faced with.