こちらの続きの文です。
http://okwave.jp/qa/q7824837.html
This kind of reaction to what are seen as unfair (1) by the government isn't unheard of in British society but it hasn't happened for a long time. Similar attempts by other European countries, such as France, Italy and Greece to introduce cutbacks in educational budgets brought (2) similar violent protests. Western European governments are attempting to deal with a continuing financial and economic crisis by reducing public spending and that inevitably means that education budgets have to be cut, for education is a big ticket item. But these cuts are painful and go against the grain of social trends that have been a central part of European life for the past century. It is just unthinkable to many people that education should be a business like any other where customers are simply charged the going rate.
But there are people who are very willing to pay the going rate and even more. Such people are the rich. There are rich people in Britain and rich foreigners who view the rises with equanimity and who think the price of admission to a British education is worth every penny. Over the last decade there has been a huge influx in the number of foreign students to Britain. Rich Russians, Chinese, Arabs, and Indians are more than willing to shell out the 27,000-35,000 GBP it takes to educate a student each year, including living expenses. That is more than the average British person makes in a year. Ordinary British people view with horror their education system being hijacked by the rich from both inside and outside the country. But the policy of the present British government is to encourage this practice and indeed rich immigrants are being welcomed to come and live in the U.K. whilst ordinary immigrants face a cap placed on numbers allowed in.
Thus the education policies fit nearly into the immigration policies of the government. However, we should ask, “What is the price of this commercialisation of education?” At the moment around half the number of graduate students at Cambridge University aren't British. This is reflected in the figures for students in graduate education in universities up and down the country. This is a good thing in that Britain is benefitting from the input of the cream of the world's young minds. However, does this mean also that standards might be dropping with the inflow of so many foreign students who sometimes get a place simply because they have the means to pay the fees? University administrators and academics assure us that this isn't the case. However, we need to take those assurances with a pinch of salt. It is a fact, for example, that many of those students need language support at the universities and programmes for English for academic purposes, both pre-sessional, are expanding. There are services being advertised on the Internet that, for a price, offer to write essays and academic papers for those students who lack the skills to do so themselves. These developments point to an academic literacy black hole. Perhaps more importantly though, I wonder whether people like me who couldn't afford higher education at will lose out in this new education business.
【設問】
・(1)に入れる適切な語
アassurances イissues ウmeasures エproblems
・(2)に入れる適切な語
アabout イin ウout エover
・文中、with a pinch of saltの意味
ア額面通りに イ誇張して ウ大胆に エ割り引いて
・文中、for a price の意味
アcheaply イexpensively ウpricelessly エpeasonably
自分はウアアイを選びました。一つ目の設問の選択肢中の、issuesとproblems二つとも「問題」の意味になるのが気になり、選びにくかったです。
お礼
回答、ありがとうございました。 訳例と共に、文中の単語熟語も書き出して頂き、参考になりました。 文を読んで行く上で、自分が気になった語がほとんどで、辞書を引いても良く分からなかったものだったので助かりました。 良く知る単語でも、未だ知らなかった意味を発見しました。