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  3. It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing b

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing b

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问题     It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it.
    The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators.
    Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence.
    Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds.
    It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole? Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.
The term "bursaries" (Paragraph 5) most probably denotes
选项 A、free stationery and accommodation.
B、sheltering and meals.
C、preferential policies.
D、scholarship or grant.
答案D
解析 这是一道词汇题，测试考生对原文词语的理解能力。全文尾段倒数第二句中的“bursaries”一词的含义是“奖学金”。故本题的正确选项应该是D“scholarship or grant”(奖学金)。考生如果不认识这个单词可以根据上下文进行合理的推断。
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