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  3. Or Maybe Major in Comp Lit? Let’s not exaggerate: science and engineering are not the new Comp Lit or philosophy, those unde

Or Maybe Major in Comp Lit? Let’s not exaggerate: science and engineering are not the new Comp Lit or philosophy, those unde

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问题                     Or Maybe Major in Comp Lit?
    Let’s not exaggerate: science and engineering are not the new Comp Lit or philosophy, those under graduate majors for which employment prospects are so uncertain your parents practically beg you to go to a trade school instead. But about those claims that the nation suffers from a shortage of scientists and engineers—claims such as the National Science Foundation’s warning in 2004 of "an emerging and critical problem of the science and engineering labor force"— Vivek Wadhwa, founder of Relativity Technologies and executive in residence at Duke University, has a brief response-. "It’s a lie."
    So why do people keep telling you there’s such a shortage of scientists and engineers that you’ll have your pick of jobs? Partly because even a tiny shortfall in S&E leads policymakers and corporate giants to issue warnings of a kind no one does when the nation is short in, say, marketers. "Science and engineering are perceived as so crucial to our economic engine and national security, it’s easy to get people panicked over the possibility of a shortage," says demographer Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. But those who do not have a financial stake in getting more students to choose S&E are catching on. Science magazine recently noted " the striking discrepancy between the overfull market for early-career scientists and the numerous prestigious reports [about]... a looming shortage."
    So, first the good news for students drawn to S&E. The overall unemployment rate for scientists and engineers in the United States was a mere 2. 5 percent in 2006—the lowest since the early 1990s. Overall unemployment was 4. 7 percent.
    Now the bad news. Demand for scientists and, especially, engineers rises and falls more sharply and unpredictably than in any other sector. Unemployment was 2. 6 percent in 1993—and 50 percent higher in 2003 before it fell again. Even that undercounts the jobless: you’re not included if you gave up on finding a job in, say, electrical engineering and instead became a real estate agent. S&E jobs rise and fall for the same reasons they do in other sectors, including overall economic conditions, but also booms and busts in military spending, NASA projects and the budgets of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. A 2008 report by the RAND Corporation, requested by the office of the Secretary of Defense, concluded that " there is no evidence of a current shortage of S & E workers. " To their credit, students seem to have gotten wise to the mismatch between rhetoric and reality: bachelor’s degrees in S&E have been hovering at about 32 percent of undergrad degrees, compared with 35 percent in the1960s, as many students smart enough to master Hamiltonians or the Hardy-Weinberg Law realize they can put their brainpower to more profitable ends on, say, Wall Street.
According to the last two paragraphs, which of the following is true of S&E majors?
选项 A、Social demand on them is decreasing.
B、Their employment prospects are unstable.
C、They are financially assisted by many institutes and departments.
D、They are more likely to make job-hopping.
答案B
解析 本题考查事实细节。第四段第二句指出，对理工专业的需求涨落幅度大且难以预料(rises and fails more sharply and unpredictably than．．．)，也就是说他们的就业前景不稳定，[B]选项正确。[A]无从推知，事实上根据第三段末句和第四段首句可推知，2006年的失业率小于2003年，即2006年的社会需求量可能大于2003年。文章第四段第五句提到理工科类工作的需求状况受到多种因素的影响：如军费开支、宇航局项目以及全国卫生研究所、能源部预算等，而非受到此类机构和部门的资助。[C]错误。第四段第四句和最后一句提到有些学生并未从事理工科方面的工作而转向其他行业，但原因并不是他们更容易跳槽，而是由于就业的现实压力所致(Unemployment was．．．50％ higher；．．．have gotten wise to the mismatch between…)，[D]错误。
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