<p>Was trundling along until I met the may 2012 section 9 CR.
Got 4 wrong on this section, 1 I understand but the other three i need help!!!
I put exclamation marks on the sections of the passage mentioned in the questions</p>
<p>These two passages are adapted from books published in 2000 and 2004, respectively.
Passage 1
A takeover is under way in higher education. All over the world, universities are offering their research facilities,and priceless academic credibility, for corporations to
use as they please. Corporate research partnerships at universities are used for everything:</p>
<p>designing gear for athletics companies, developing more efficient technologies for energy prospectors, testing the consumer demand for new telecommunications products, etc.Dr. Betty Dong had the misfortune to be involved in one of the most egregious of these new assignments as the director of a study sponsored by a British pharmaceutical company. The fate of that partnership does much to illuminate precisely how the mandate of universities as sites for public-interest research is often squarely at odds with the interests of corporate sponsorship. Dr. Dong’s study compared the effectiveness of the company’s drug with a generic competitor. !!! The company hoped that the research would prove that its drug was better than the generic one—a claim that, if legitimized by a study from a respected university in the United States, would increase sales. !!! Instead, Dr. Dong found that the opposite was true, but the company successfully halted publication of her findings, citing a clause in the partnership contract that gave the company veto rights over the publication of findings. Her university, fearing a costly lawsuit, sided with the company. Only after the whole ordeal was exposed in the media did the company back off. “The victim is obvious:
the university,” wrote one commentator.“Each infringement on its unwritten contract with society to avoid secrecy whenever possible and maintain its independence from government or corporate pressure weakens its integrity.”There is another kind of commercialization that takes place at universities daily. As one university president says, “We have taken the great leap forward and said:</p>
<p>‘Let’s pretend we’re a corporation.’ ” This idea is disturbingly evident in what professors describe as the mall mentality—the more college campuses act and look like places where everything is for sale, the more students behave like consumers. Professors tell stories of students filling out their course evaluation forms with all the smug self-righteousness of a tourist responding to a customer satisfaction form at a large hotel chain. “Most of all I dislike the attitude of calm consumer expertise that pervades the responses. I’m disturbed by the serene belief that my function—and, more important, Freud’s, or Shakespeare’s, or Blake’s—is to divert, entertain, and interest,” writes one professor. Another, who teaches at a school with a full-fledged mall on campus, laments the way his students slip into class slurping expensive coffees,chat in the back, and slip out. They’re cruising, shopping,disengaged.</p>
<p>Passage 2
History has featured prominently in recent debates about the commercialization of higher education.One university official has noted that “commercial collaborations” are part of “the very heritage that has allowed the university to thrive.” He points out that his school is “one of the original land-grant universities,*whose stated purpose was to marry scientific insight with practical knowledge to improve agricultural productivity.This might not sound like commerce, but it was and still is.”He has a point. Certainly in comparison with their European counterparts, universities in the United States have always displayed a strong utilitarian bent. This conception of education reflects deeply ingrained American values. As a nation of pioneers, pragmatists,and entrepreneurs, Americans have long taken to viewing knowledge as a means to other ends, rather than a value in and of itself. One renowned historian has asserted that,for typical nineteenth-century Americans, education was their “religion,” provided that it “be practical and pay dividends.” Another historian has shrewdly observed that,while Americans profess universal admiration for people of intelligence, they don’t necessarily feel the same way about intellectuals. The intellectual heroes of the United States have tended to be inventors like Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin, practical individuals whose contributions arose largely through direct interaction with the “real world.” Common sense over abstract learning,hands-on experience over erudition:
this has long been an unspoken national creed. Within such a culture, it’s no surprise that universities have often sought to legitimate their existence by emphasizing their utility,
training students for practical careers and generating scientific and technological breakthroughs to spur economic growth. But while all of this is true, it does not follow that the level of commercial engagement in higher education today is unexceptional or that universities have been guided solely by utilitarian aims. Throughout American history, there have been prominent voices who called on universities to preserve their autonomy and primary commitment to teaching and research. Indeed, much of what we value most about higher education today—academic freedom, the commitment to free inquiry and disinterested research, the ideal of a well-rounded education—exists because such voices warned against allowing external forces to threaten these distinctive values. It may be true that universities in America have never been completely removed from the marketplace. Yet it is precisely because !!! they have stubbornly resisted forsaking their independence !!! and have refused to adopt narrow market values that universities have played such a unique
role in American life.</p>
<ul>
<li>Educational institutions funded by grants of federally controlled land, made possible by congressional passage of the Morrill Actsin 1862 and 1890.</li>
</ul>
<p>10.
Lines 17-21 (“The company…sales”) indicate that the company was seeking primarily
(A) pharmaceutical expertise
(B) sales and marketing advice
(C) corporate self-sufficiency
(D) a cost-effective research solution
(E) a prestigious endorsement</p>
<p>I chose (A) because I thought the company was seeking evidence on the medicine which is equivalent to pharmaceutical expertise.
The answer is (E), I don’t see how consultation is endorsement.</p>
<p>15.
The claim in lines 102-103, Passage 2 (“the yhave…independence”), is most directly contradicted by which information in Passage 1 ?
(A)That university research partnerships with corporations sometimes generate new products
(B) That Dr. Dong’s university initially condoned suppressing her findings
(C) That the media exposed the British pharmaceutical company’s actions
(D) That students are viewing their education as a consumer experience
(E) That college professors are becoming disenchanted with a consumer culture</p>
<p>I was completely clueless about this one. I chose (D). The answer is (B). Doesn’t the sentence mean universities have always stayed partially commercial and partially academic? Then how does Dr Dong’s university initially condoning suppressing her findings support this? How do the two relate? I can’t get my head around this.</p>
<p>18.
Which point is made in Passage 2 but NOT in Passage 1 ?
(A) American universities should seek to maintain independence from external influences
(B) By the end of the twentieth century, the commercialization of American universities was an indisputable fact.
(C) Corporate and commercial pressures can threaten the integrity of American universities.(D) The stance of college professors is evidence of the commercialization of American universities.
(E) Historical precedents and cultural values have influenced how American universities perceive their mission.</p>
<p>I chose (B) because twentieth century wasn’t mentioned in the first passage. The answer is (E). I thought that because the text writes “I’m disturbed by the serene belief that my function-and more important, Freud’s or Shakespeare’s or Blake’s-is to divert, entertain, and interest”. Isn’t this a historical precedent that influenced what professors in universities perceive as important? And teaching important knowledge the mission of universities???</p>
<p>Sorry for the wall of text but I’m quite confused and, really, out of time</p>