Question

Most academics would view a post at an elite university like Oxford or Harvard as the crowning achievement of a career—bringing both honour and access to better wine cellars. But scholars desire such places for reasons beyond glory. They believe perching on one of the topmost branches of the academic tree will also improve the quality of their work, by bringing them together with other geniuses with whom they can collaborate and who may help spark new ideas. This sounds reasonable. Unfortunately，as Albert Laszlo Barabasi of Northeastern University，in Boston (and also, it must be said, of Harvard), shows in a study published in Scientific Reports, it is not true.

Dr Barabasi and his team examined the careers of physicists who began publishing between 1950 and 1980 and continued to do so for at least 20 years. They ranked the impact of the institutions these people attended by counting the number of citations each institution’s papers received within five years of publication. By tracking the association of individual physicists and counting their citations in a similar way, Dr Barabasi was able to work out whether moving from a low to a high-ranking university improved a physicist’s impact. In total, he and his team analysed 2,725 careers.

They found that, though an average physicist moved once or twice during his career, moving from a low-rank university to an elite one did not increase his scientific impact. Going in the opposite direction, however, did have a small negative influence. The consequence is that elite university do not，at least as far as physicists are concerned，add value to output. That surprising conclusion is one which the authorities in countries such as Britain, who are seeking to concentrate expensive subjects such as physics in fewer, more elite institutions—partly to save money, but also to create what are seen as centers of excellence—might wish to consider.

1. What is the fundamental reason why scholars want to get a post at an elite university?

A. Their academic career can benefit from it.

B. It is an access to better wine cellars.

C. Reasons beside glory.

D. They can win honour.

2. On what basis did Dr Barabasi’s research team draw conclusions that getting a post at a higher-rank university won’t help scholastic impact?

A. His team examined the 20-year careers of physicists.

B. He came from Havard, a top-ranking university himself and knew it well.

C. Individual physicists’ citations by other authors increased within 5 years.

D. They ranked the physicists’ institutions according to citations to these universities’ paper.

3. Which of the following is true of Dr Barabasi’s research?

A. It proved that a post at an elite university helps academics.

B. It began in 1950 and ended in 1980.

C. It calculated the citations of the physicists’ institutions.

D. It is based on a lot more than 2,000 scholars of various fields.

Answer

1.A

2.D

3.C

【解析】

试题分析：本文是记叙文,主要讲述了许多学者认为,进人精英级别的大学搞研究可以提高自己的学术成就。然而事实真的如此吗？ Dr Bambari和他的团队进行的研究将告诉你答案。

1.A细节理解题。 根据第一段 They believe perching on one of the topmost branches of the academic tree will also improve the quality of their work,可知他们的学术生涯可以从中受益。故选 A。

2.D细节理解题。根据第二段 They ranked the impact of the institutions these people attended by counting the number of citations each institution’s papers received within five years of publication,可知他们根据这些联合国的引文排名物理学家的机构。故选 D。

3.C推理判断题。根据第二段 They ranked the impact of the institutions these people attended by counting the number of citations each institution’s papers received within five years of publication它计算了物理学家机构的引文。判断应选 C。

【学法指导】

细节题，是指原文提到了某事物、现象或理论，题干针对原文具体叙述本身发问。一般包括直接理解题（在原文中可直接找到答案，常用who, what, when, where, why和how等提问。）语义转化题（需要将题目信息与原文相关信息进行语义上的转换，两者存在表达上的差异，有时需要进行加工或整理后方能得出结论）、数字计算题、排列顺序题、图表图画题等。抓住文段中的事实和细节是做好该题型的关键，也是做好其它类型问题的基础。4. They ranked the impact of the institutions these people attended by counting the number of citations each institution’s papers received within five years of publication,判断应选 D。

考点：考查记叙文阅读