Reading passage:
Dodgson College, a small private institution of higher education, received a huge bequest from one of its former students. The only stipulation on this tremendous bequest was that the money should be spent to make the college an even nicer place to study. A committee of college administrators and faculty was formed to determine the best way to put the bequest into use. At the first committee meeting, the committee quickly split into two factions, with one faction led by a representative of the administrators and the other faction led by the head of the faculty. After considerable wrangling, the two factions decided to go their separate ways to come up with separate plans for dealing with the bequest. The committee would meet in one week so that the factions could present their plans. A week later, the committee came together, and the administrators’ faction began presenting its plan for the bequest. The administrators felt that there were many worthy uses for the money. First of all, they recognized that a new classroom building was necessary because the campus did not have enough space for all the classes it wanted to offer and was turning away additional students—and much-needed additional tuition money—because of a lack of classroom space. In addition to the new classroom building, the administrators also wanted to spend part of the bequest on a new gymnasium because the gymnasium they had was more than 70 years old. Finally, the administrators wanted to spend any money remaining in the bequest on pay raises for the administration, citing the fact that administrative pay at this campus was ten percent below the national average.
Question: What information does the listening passage provide to supplement what is presented in the reading passage?
The reading passage presents several ways that were suggested by the administrators of the university about how to use money that was donated by the former students. However, the lecturer casts doubt on these ways and mentions other solution suggested by the faculty.
To begin with, the lecturer states that the faculty members agree with the administrators about the construction of the new classroom building. However, they explain that the number of students in class room is higher. If the money is used for the new class room building, the problem of the overcrowded class room will be solved, but if additional class room are used to attract new students to join the University, the class size will not be decreased. This appears to be a contradiction to the information stated in the reading passage that new class room will bring the new students to the university.
In addition to that, the lecturer states that according to the faculty, the old gymnasium should be repaired and addition facility should be added to the old one. This disputes the point made in the reading passage that the money should be used for building the new gymnasium.
Finally, the reading passage says that money from the bequest should be used to raise the salary of the administrators as it is 10 percent below the nation average. However, the lecturer claims that the salary of the faculties is below the nation average. He also mentions that according to the faculty, this money should be used on the scholarship of the students. Thus this point also challenges the assertion in the reading passage about the raise in the salary of administrators.
TOEFL listening discussions: Why are these young men in conversation?