发表时间：2021.03.01
作者：Jingyi Li
来源：ShoelessCai
阅读：549
2021年版本 录音于 Starbuck
2022年版本 录音于科海大厦
REMARK: From 'The Advanced Course of Interpretation' Test One Reading One, this audio contains TWO articles, namely 'Gap Year' and 'Emotion Setection System'. Please DRAG the bar to get lessons DIRECTLY.
For the teenagers who cast off their daily lives and head off for South America, Africa and Asia, it may offer the time of their young lives. But research published yesterday shows that the so-called “gap year” between school and university is not as beneficial as has been suggested. In five years the gap year has metamorphosed from a radical activity of a rebellious student generation into an obligation that must be fulfilled by ambitious future professionals. It has spawned in the process a lucrative commercial market providing tourists style trips.
Prince William's gap year venture to Chile in 2000 created Institutional acceptability, and about 200,000 people a year between 18 and 25 now take 12 months out of study. “No longer were gap years for rebels and dropouts and people with nothing better to do; now they were for hopeful professional and future kings,” said Kate Simpson, from the school of geography at the University of Newcastle, who based her research on projects in South America, and talked to hundreds of students on their return.
“A gap year has become a requirement for success. It is now part of your progression to employability, as necessary as you’re A-levels and as inevitable as your degree. As the gap year has been professionalized, so it has increasingly been marketed as future professionals, with an assumption that further education and successful employment are to follow.”
Ms. Simpson said that without explaining how values such as “broad horizons” and “character building” are supposed to be achieved by gap years, they have been promoted by people such as the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the University College Admission Service (Ucas). Mr. Straw said: “Our society can only benefit from travel which promotes character, confidence [and] decision-making skills.” According to Ucas:” The benefits of a well-structured year out are now widely recognized by universities and colleges and cannot fail to stand you in good stead in later life.”
However, these statements did not always reflect the reality. Many of the 50 organizations providing package trips for gap year students this year designed them to be acceptable to parents and future employers, and had little concern for the communities the students were volunteering to help. One example was in Ecuador where students had been sent to “help the local community.” The villages returned home from work to discover their houses had been painted by the volunteers without prior consultation.
“Groups of 18-year-olds arrive somewhere with no skills and set about building a bridge or school often without proper consultation with the local community about what they might want or need. They get a level of experience and decision-making which they would not get at home, but also doing things in other people's hospitals and schools they would never be allowed at home.” Gap students had been involved in delivering babies, construction projects and teaching without prior training — something banned in Britain.
A typical provider advertised: “Are you looking for a travel adventure with a purpose, one that gives you experience beyond tourism and provides practical help to local communities.” Its slogan was: “Develop people. Share cultures. Build futures.” For Ms. Simpson, the industry “appears amateurish and outdated”. The idea seemed to be that ancient, highly civilized cultures could benefit from the introduction of large numbers of unskilled 18-year-olds. “While such an approach may produce some valuable contributions, the risks are high. The gap year industry cannot rely on its good intensions to assure the quality of its work.”
The projects are often used to the benefit of the visiting students, as opposed to the residents. In many projects, the students practice being adults and professionals using local people as guinea pigs. “Projects did not have to be based on the exploitative and dehumanizing relationships. I am sure that many students learn a great deal from their gap years, but they could gain so much more if they experiment with local people.” The best projects were those residents know in advance in which the local people participate and ask for what they want. “If the students and locals work together to form friendships, then the true potential of the gap year could be realized,” Ms. Simpson added.
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