What will help you get into Harvard? Super-rich parents with a chequebook and pen

1. pen在上一篇说金庸的那篇文章学的是动词撰写。这里作为名词为什么没有加冠词a？顺便查了一下pen的其他用法。

• V-T If people or animals are penned somewhere or are penned up, they are forced to remain in a very small area.关 (人或动物)
  e.g. The cattle were penned for the night. 这头牛晚上被关了起来。
  e.g. The animals were penned up in cages. 这些动物被关在笼子里了。

Want a place at Harvard? Persuade your parents to give the university a nice gift. While it is no secret that offering financial gifts to certain Ivy League universities may compensate for a lack of natural gifts, the extent to which Harvard’s admission process favours relatives of big donors is only now being laid bare.

1. persuade sb to do sth说服某人做某事
2. it is no secret that...不是什么秘密了(强调句)
3. Ivy League universities常春藤名校
4. compensate for a lack of natural gifts弥补天资不足
   e.g. Her hard work will compensate for her lack of experience.
5. admission process录取过程
6. The extend to which+ 事件：事件可能发生的程度。
7. only now
   e.g. This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. 这一特异现象早在1970年代即有论著记叙，然而只是到了现在，科学才开始解说其中原因。
8. lay sth. bare暴露某事

This is thanks to a lawsuit currently under way against Harvard that accuses the university of discriminating against Asian Americans. In seeking to determine how Asian Americans are treated by Harvard, the lawsuit has unearthed a number of internal university documents that give unprecedented insight into its (seemingly money-centric) admissions processes.

1. This is thanks to a lawsuit against Harvard.这要归功于对哈佛的诉讼
2. under way在进行中；开始
   e.g. The next presidential election is already under way.
3. accuse sb of doing sth
4. discriminate against
5. in seeking to determine为了查明
   e.g. In seeking to establish the identity of the reconstructed statue ,the archaeologists tried to determine which goddess it represented .
6. unearth v. 发现揭露 reveal release
7. unprecedented adj. 空前的，前所未有的
   e.g. unprecedented sales
8. give insight into...给出对...的深刻理解
9. seemingly money-centric貌似以金钱为中心

While the lawsuit has brought attention to the way in which donations and admissions are intertwined at Harvard, this wasn’t its primary motive. The case, brought by a controversial conservative, Edward Blum, is rather more complicated than that. While ostensibly about racial bias against Asian Americans, the lawsuit is widely seen as an attempt to dismantle affirmative action policies that give traditionally underrepresented groups such as African Americans and Latinos a better chance at attending elite universities such as Harvard.

1. way n.方式manner

• in a friendly way以友好的方式
• in more ways than one (= in a number of ways) 在多方面
  e.g. The changes will benefit the company in more ways than one.
• that’s no way to do sth (= used to tell someone that they should not be doing something in a particular manner) 不能用这种方式做某事
  e.g. That’s no way to speak to your father!不能这样跟你父亲说话！

2. intertwine v. 紧密相关
   A and B are intertwined.
3. motive n.动机，目的
4. bring charges/a lawsuit/a court case/a prosecution/a claim (against sb)
   to begin a court case in order to try to prove that someone has done something wrong or is legally responsible for something wrong 起诉（某人），对（某人）提起诉讼
   e.g. Survivors of the fire later brought a billion-dollar lawsuit against the company. 火灾的幸存者后来对该公司提起诉讼，索赔十亿美元。
   e.g. The police say they are planning to bring charges against him. 警方说他们准备起诉他。
5. controversial conservative有争议的保守党党员
6. ostensibly /ɑːˈstensəbli/ adv. 表面地
   ostensible adj. seeming to be the reason for or the purpose of something, but usually hiding the real reason or purpose 〔理由或动机〕表面上的，貌似真实的，诡称的
7. racial bias种族偏见+ against
8. dismantle /dɪsˈmæntl/ v. 废除
   e.g. The government was in the process of dismantling the state-owned industries.
9. affirmative action平权法案
10. underrepresented adj.代表名额不足的；未被充分代表的
11. chance（/不知道为什么这后面跟了介词at，字典里找不到这样的用法/）

• ADJ A chance meeting or event is one that is not planned or expected. 偶然的
  ...a chance meeting. …一次邂逅。
• V-T If you chance something, you do it even though there is a risk that you may not succeed or that something bad may happen. 冒…险
  Andy knew the risks. I cannot believe he would have chanced it.
  安迪知道那些风险，我不能相信他会冒那个险。

Conservatives love to decry affirmative action as “reverse racism” and condemn the idea of racial quotas. What this lawsuit, perhaps inadvertently, has made abundantly clear, however, is that the most widespread affirmative action programmes at play in elite institutions don’t help minority racial groups—they help rich, predominantly white people. These programmes just aren’t labelled “affirmative action”. They are labelled the status quo.

1. decry /dɪˈkraɪ/ v. （公开）反对，谴责
2. reverse racism 逆向种族主义
3. condemn /kənˈdem/ v. （通常指出于道义而）指责，谴责
4. quota/ˈkwoʊtə/ n. 配额
5. inadvertently /ˌɪnədˈvɜːrtəntli/ adv. 不经意地
6. at play 生效
7. predominantly /prɪˈdɑːmɪnətli/ adv. 绝大多数的
8. status quo 现状
   e.g. Certain people always want to maintain the status quo.

什么能帮你上哈佛？富豪爹妈签张支票就行！

想要进入哈佛？那就说服你父母送这所学校一件大礼吧。虽然在某些常春藤盟校的申请中，通过赠予金钱来弥补学生的天资不足已经不是什么秘密了，但哈佛的录取程序对大金主亲属的偏袒竟到如此地步，这点才刚刚被揭露得体无完肤。

这都要归功于目前一起针对哈佛的诉讼，该诉讼控告哈佛歧视亚裔美国人。在查明哈佛是如何对待这些亚裔美国考生的过程中，这项诉讼揭露了许多学校内部文件，这些文件让人们对哈佛大学（貌似以金钱为中心）的录取过程有了前所未有的深刻理解。

虽然这起诉讼让哈佛大学捐赠和录取之间的紧密联系备受关注，然而这并不是该诉讼的最初目的。这件案子的起诉者是位有争议的保守主义者——爱德华·布鲁，并且案子本身要比“金钱交易”复杂得多。虽然表面上是关于对亚裔美国人的种族偏见，但这项诉讼被广泛认为是一个对废除平权法案的尝试，而平权法案是一项针对传统上未得到充分代表的群体（比如非洲裔美国人和拉丁美洲人）的政策，给予他们更多进入像哈佛这样精英学校的机会。

保守主义者喜欢谴责平权法案是一种“逆向种族主义”，并且指责种族配额的想法。然而，这起诉讼却可能不经意地揭示了，在精英大学里最普遍实行的平权法案计划并没有帮助到少数裔群体，它们帮助的是富有的，占绝大多数的白人。只不过帮助有钱人的这些方案并没被归类为“平权法案”，它们被归为现状。