You’re busy filling out the application form for a position you really need. Let’s assume you once actually completed a couple of years of college work or even that you completed your degree. Isn’t it tempting to lie just a little， to claim on the form that your diploma represents a Harvard degree？ Or that you finished an extra couple of years back at State University？ More and more people are turning to utter deception like this to land their job or to move ahead in their careers， for personnel officers， like most Americans， value degrees from famous schools. A job applicant may have a good education anyway， but he or she assumes that chances of being hired are better with a diploma from a well-known university.
　　Registrars at most well-known colleges say they deal with deceitful claims like these at the rate of about one per week. Personnel officers do check up on degrees listed on application forms， then. If it turns out that an applicant is lying， most colleges are reluctant to accuse the applicant directly. One Ivy League school calls them “impostors （騙子）” ; another refers to them as “ special cases”。 One well-known West Coast school， in perhaps the most delicate phrase of all， says that these claims are made by “no such people”。 To avoid outright （徹底的） lies， some job-seekers claim that they “ attended” or “ were associated with” a college or university. After carefully checking， a personnel officer may discover that “attending” means being dismissed after one semester. It may be that “being associated with” a college means that the job-seeker visited his younger brother for a football weekend. One school that keeps records of false claims says that the practice dates back at least to the turn of the century—that’s when they began keeping records， anyhow. If you don’t want to lie or even stretch the truth， there are companies that will sell you a phony diploma.
　　One company， with offices in New York and on the West Coast， will put your name on a diploma from any number of nonexistent colleges. The price begins at around twenty dollars for a diploma from “Smoot State University”。 The prices increase rapidly for a degree from the “University of Purdue”。 As there is no Smoot State and the real school in Indiana is properly called Purdue University， the prices seem rather high for one sheet of paper.

1. The main idea of this passage is that ______.
A. employers are checking more closely on applicants now
B. lying about college degrees has become a widespread problem
C. college degrees can now be purchased easily
D. employers are no longer interested in college degrees

2. According to the passage， “special eases” refers to cases that ______.
A. students attend a school only part-time
B. students never attended a school they listed on their application
C. students purchase false degrees from commercial firms
D. students attended a famous school

3. We can infer from the passage that ______.
A. performance is a better judge of ability than a college degree
B. experience is the best teacher
C. past work histories influence personnel officers more than degrees do
D. a degree from a famous school enables an applicant to gain advantage over others in job competition

4. This passage implies that ______.
A. buying a false degree is not moral
B. personnel officers only consider applicants from famous schools
C. most people lie on applications because they were dismissed from school
D. society should be greatly responsible for lying on applications

5. The word “phony” （Para. 2） means ______.
A. thorough
C. false
B. ultimate
D. decisive

參考答案：
 

1. B。人員在求職過程中對自己的學歷弄虛作假這一社會現象，然后在第二、三段分別給出一些具體的例子進行說明，所以B正確。

2. B。由第二段中前半部分的If it turns out that an applicant is lying…school calls them “impostors”；another refers to them as “special cases”可知，imposters和special cases指的都是編造虛假學歷，所以B正確。

3. D。由文章第一段倒數第二句中的for personnel officers，like most Americans，value degrees from famous schools可知，中比其他人有優勢，所以D正確。

4. D。文章講述的是在簡歷中對學歷弄虛作假這一問題，同時也指出，問題出現的原因是大家都很看重學歷，特別是名牌大學的文憑，由此可知，這是一種社會現象，全社會對此都負有責任，所以D正確。

5. C。該詞所在句意為“如果你不想撒謊又不愿和盤托出，會有公司愿意賣給你____文憑”，再結合下文提到的售賣假文憑的公司的情況可知，C（假的）正確。thorough意為“徹底的”，ultimate意為“最終的”，decisive意為“決定性的”，均排除。