2016年6月英语六级真题及答案

　　Hartwick College, a small liberal-arts school in upstate New York, makes New York, makes this offer to well prepared students: earn your undergraduate degree in three years instead of four, and save about 543,000—the amount of one year’s tuition and fees. A number of innovative colleges are making the same offer to students anxious about saving time and money. That’s both an opportunity and a warning for the best higher-education system in the world. The United States has almost all of the world’s best universities. A recent Chinese survey ranks 35 American universities among the top 50, eight among the top 10. Our research universities have been the key to developing the competitive advantages that help Americans produce 25% of all the world’s wealth. In 2007, 623,805 of the world’s brightest students were attracted to American universities. Yet, there are signs of peril (危险)within American higher education. U.S. colleges have to compete in the marketplace. Students may choose among 6,000 public, private, nonprofit, for profit, or religious institutions of higher learning. In addition, almost all of the 532 billion the federal government provides for university research is awarded competitively. But many colleges and universities are stuck in the past. For instance, the idea of the fall-to-spring“school year”hasn’t changed much since before the American Revolution, when we were a summer stretch no longer makes sense. Former George Washington University president Stephen Trachtenberg estimates that a typical college uses its facilities for academic purposes a little more than half the calendar year.“While college facilities sit idle, they continue to generate maintenance expenses that contribute to the high cost of running a college,” he has written. Within academic departments, tenure(终身职位)，combined with age-discrimination laws, makes faculty turnover—critical for a university to remain current in changing times—difficult. Instead of protecting speech and encouraging diversity and innovative thinking, the tenure system often stifles(压制)them: younger professors must win the approval of established colleagues for tenure, encouraging like-mindedness and sometimes inhibiting the free flow of ideas. Meanwhile, tuition has soared, leaving graduating students with unprecedented loan debt. Strong campus presidents to manage these problems are becoming harder to find, and to keep. In fact, students now stay on campus almost as long as their presidents. The average amount of time students now take to complete an undergraduate degree has stretched to six years and seven months as students interrupted by work, inconvenienced by unavailable classes, or lured by one more football season find it hard to graduate. Congress has tried to help students with college costs through Pell Grants and other forms of tuition support. But some of their fixes have made the problem worse. The stack of congressional regulations governing federal student grants and loans now stands twice as tall as I do. Filling out these forms consumes 7% of every tuition dollar. For all of these reasons, some colleges like Hartwick are rethinking the old way of doing things and questioning decades-old assumptions about what a college degree means. For instance, why does it have to take four years to earn a diploma? This fall, 16 first-year students and four second-year students at Hartwick enrolled in the school’s new three year degree program. According to the college, the plan is designed for high-ability, highly motivated student who wish to save money or to move along more rapidly toward advanced degrees. By eliminating that extra year, there year degree students save 25% in costs. Instead of taking 30 credits a year, these students take 40. During January, Hartwick runs a four week course during which students may earn three to four credits on or off campus, including a number of international sites. Summer courses are not required, but a student may enroll in them—and pay extra. Three year students get first crack at course registration. There are no changes in the number of courses professors teach or in their pay. The three-year degree isn’t a new idea. Geniuses have always breezed through. Judson College, a 350-student institution in Alabama, has offered students a three-year option for 40 years. Students attend 2016年6月大学英语六级考试CET6真题