Mock exam, April 30, 2004

Translation:  Translate the following into clear, correct English.

Die Website "Stratfor", die von einer Gruppe rechtsgerichteter Analysten mit sehr engen Verbindungen zur Armee und den Geheimdiensten der USA erstellt wird, veröffentlichte vor kurzem eine Analyse der militärischen Lage im Irak. Vor anderthalb Wochen brachte sie folgende Einschätzung:

"Wenn sich die gegenwärtigen Trends beschleunigen, dann stehen die USA vor einer schweren militärischen Herausforderung, die in eine Katastrophe münden könnte. Die USA verfügen nicht über die notwendige Truppenstärke, um sowohl einen Schiitenaufstand auf breiter Basis als auch die Rebellion der Sunniten niederzuschlagen. Schon die heutige geographische Ausbreitung des Aufstands überfordert nicht nur die bereits stationierten Truppen, sondern auch jegliche praktikable Anzahl zusätzlicher Soldaten, die eingesetzt werden könnten. Bereits jetzt ziehen sich die USA aus einigen Städten zurück. Das logische Endergebnis wäre eine Enklaven-Strategie, bei der die USA ihre Truppen - vielleicht unter Ausschluss von Irakern - auf eine Reihe befestigter Stellungen konzentrieren und den Rest des Landes der Guerilla überlassen. Damit würde sich natürlich die Frage stellen, ob die USA überhaupt im Irak bleiben sollten, denn ihre Truppen könnten dann weder innerhalb des Landes noch jenseits seiner Grenzen eine tatsächliche Kontrolle ausüben."

 

Mock exam 1 (Style/expression; spelling/prepositions/punctuation; other, including word/s missing; repeat error )

 

Translation	Original
The website "Stratfor", made by a group of right wing analysts with close connections to the army and the secret services of the USA, recently published an analysis of the military situation in Iraq. Two and a half weeks ago they talked about the following impression:	The web site Stratfor, which is run by a group of right-wing analysts with very close connections to American military and intelligence circles, recently published an analysis of the military situation in Iraq. It made the following observation about a week and a half ago:
"Should there be a growing trend of the present situation, the USA will be facing  a strong military challenge that could lead to a catastrophy. The USA do not have the necesseray number of armed forces to subdue a Shiite uprising on a broad basis as well as the rebellion of the Sunnites.  Already now, the present geographical spread of the rebellion is not only too much for the troops already stationed there, but als for any practical number of extra soldiers to be sent to fight. The USA already has withdrawn their troops from some towns.	“If the current trends accelerate, the United States faces a serious military challenge that could lead to disaster. The United States does not have the forces necessary to put down a broad-based Shiite rising and crush the Sunni rebellion as well. Even the current geography of the rising is beyond the capabilities of existing deployments or any practicable number of additional forces that might be made available. The United States is already withdrawing from some cities.
The logical final result would be a strategy of enclave of fortified positions and leave the rest of the country to the guerillas, possibly shutting out the Iraquis. Then the question would be, whether the USA should be staying in Iraq, for their troops would neither be really in control of power inside the country nor on the other side of its borders."	The logical outcome of all this would be an enclave strategy, in which the United States concentrates its forces in a series of fortified locations—perhaps excluding Iraqi nationals—and leaves the rest of the country to the guerrillas. That, of course, would raise the question of why the United States should bother to remain in Iraq, since those forces would not be able to exert effective force either inside the country or beyond its borders.”

This is a good translation, but I won't grade it since there was no essay with it.  United States is most often (always in American English) a singular noun.

 

Essay:  Write an essay of 400-600 words agreeing or disagreeing with some point in this text.  Make sure your thesis (main point) and supporting points are clear and easy to follow.

And the Rich Get Smarter

By DAVID L. KIRP

Published: April 30, 2004

ERKELEY, Calif.

Yet another string of studies confirms what any high school senior or parent who has just weathered the college admissions mating dance already knew — it's a cutthroat competition where money matters more than ever. Teenagers from wealthy families are beating out middle- and working-class youngsters, both at top private colleges and flagship state universities whose historic mission of broad access is receding into memory. The trend means that "smart poor kids," as the educator Terry Hartle bluntly puts it, "go to college at the same rate as stupid rich kids."

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A lot of not-so-secret factors are at play in this market. In pursuit of competitive advantage, well-off parents spend thousands of dollars on test prep courses, college admission summer camps and "dress for success" counseling. They are more adept than their less well-heeled rivals at working the system; that brings results, especially at prestigious universities.

At the other end of the spectrum, the inequity is worsening as cash-starved state schools are forced to raise tuition — an average of 14 percent last year. For fall 2003, for example, community college fees in California rose to $18 a class hour from $11. Though that typically amounts to only about $100 a semester, enrollment was more than 100,000 below the state's projections. Why? Sticker shock scares away poorer students from even applying.

The one bright spot is that academic leaders are now discussing this wealth gap. William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, made headlines when he assailed elite colleges — presumably including his own — as "bastions of privilege" and urged putting "a thumb on the scale" for poor students. Amherst's president, Anthony Marx, has made the same argument. Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, announced that parents who earn less than $40,000 a year will no longer be asked to contribute financially to their offspring's education. That's a start, but much more is needed if such students are going to be a presence in Harvard Yard.

Those who run universities bear considerable responsibility for creating these inequities — and not only in admissions. These trends are just the most visible sign of how much the market ethic has come to dominate higher education. To be sure, dollars have always greased the wheels of academe. What is new and troubling is the raw power that money exerts over all of higher education, including the emphasis on research that adds less to the storehouse of knowledge than to the institutional coffers, and the shift from liberal arts to the "practical arts." While competition has strengthened some colleges, embedded in the very idea of university are values the market does not honor: the belief in a community of scholars and not a confederacy of self-seekers; in the idea of openness and not ownership; and in the student as an acolyte whose preferences are to be formed, not a consumer whose preferences are to be satisfied.

The operations of admissions offices display the marketers' handiwork. Consider the reliance on early admissions. That practice has no academic justification, just a market rationale — the crucial U.S. News & World Report rankings stress selectivity, and colleges favor early decision because those accepted are expected to enroll. Going this route improves a student's chances by as much as 50 percent, but only those whose families don't have to shop around for the best aid package can afford to take advantage of this version of affirmative action.

Admissions decisions are, more and more, based on statistical models that leave little room for hunches about character and potential. The paper credentials of students — A averages and high SAT scores — don't necessarily translate into intellectual fireworks. Many top-performing high school students are burnt out by the time they're freshmen, while working- class teenagers and community college transfers with less sterling records arrive with a hunger for learning and often fare at least as well.

These new models are also intended to increase revenues by shrinking scholarships — what the new breed of "enrollment managers" calls the discount from the tuition sticker price. In an environment where admissions offices are sometimes referred to as profit centers, the "full payers," students from wealthy families, are in greatest demand. In addition, aid, which has historically been based on need, is increasingly being granted on academic merit. A dozen states have also adopted this approach, awarding millions of dollars a year in merit scholarships to students who would have attended college anyway, instead of helping those who otherwise can't afford an education.

The bottom line is that five out of every six qualified seniors whose families earn more than $75,000 — but fewer than half of those whose families earn less than $25,000 — enroll in a four-year college. Higher education used to be regarded as an engine of opportunity. Now it's certifying the gap between the haves and the have-lesses.

What's to be done? An infusion of need-based aid is critical for public universities. The market would be fairer if rivals committed themselves to recruiting at working-class and inner-city schools; to democratizing access to good college advising; and to making need, not market savvy, the basis for financial aid.

The current focus on admission inequities provides an opening for a long-overdue public discussion about what's wrong with market-driven higher education — a discussion that identifies the spheres where money shouldn't be the coin of the realm. Paradoxically, market-based concerns — anxiety about the outsourcing of jobs for knowledge workers — may be the Sputnik crisis of this era, prompting changes in higher education that make it easier for teenagers who don't come from affluence to get the education needed to compete for those jobs.

David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of "Shakespeare, Einstein and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education."