2013考研英语泛读文章.docVIP

这是一篇关于英国教育现状的文章，英国人其实和我们一样遭受着大学资源匮乏的困境，英国的中学生想读好大学依然不容易，即使是交高价也不行，A-level的信封和装有我们的大学通知书的印有刘翔的EMS信封没有两样。?IT IS as much a summer ritual as Wimbledon. Every August Britain’s 18-year-old school-leavers tear open envelopes containing their A-level results and see whether they have done well enough to get into their chosen universities. The most successful students (and the prettiest ones) find their pictures splashed across the national newspapers. The less fortunate face the prospect of trying to get a place through “clearing”, the mopping-up exercise in which state universities offer their unfilled places to the best of the rest.??But this year, thanks to both the parlous state of government finances and renewed attempts to make universities compete among themselves for students, the landscape is significantly different. Undergraduates starting in the autumn will be the first to pay up to 9,000 ($14,000) a year for tuition, almost triple the previous maximum. Fears that higher fees would deter poorer students from applying have not been borne out. While there has been a small fall in the application rate among English students (somewhat different rules apply in devolved Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), the drop was sharper among those from wealthier areas.??The problem is not lack of applicants but lack of places. As David Willetts, the universities minister, points out, universities are still heavily oversubscribed—even with higher fees, around a quarter of students will fail to get places. Since fees are paid upfront by the government and repaid by students only if they get a decent job, to keep down costs to taxpayers admissions are determined by strict quotas. In effect, the state decides how many students will go to university.?In previous years, quotas applied to all students at state-funded universities. This year the best-performing among them—those with AAB grades or better on their A-levels—are excluded, which means that the universities able to attract