There is a widespread belief that humanities Ph. D. s have limited job prospects. The story goes that since tenure-track professorships are increasingly being replaced by contingent faculty, the vast majority of English and history Ph. D. s now roam the earth as poorly-paid adjuncts or, if they leave academia, as baristas and bookstore cashiers. As English professor William Pannapacker put it in Slate a few years back, "a humanities Ph. D. will place you at a disadvantage competing against 22-year-olds for entry-level jobs that barely require a high-school diploma. " His advice to would-be graduate students was simple: Recognize that a humanities Ph. D. is now a worthless degree and avoid getting one at all cost. It is true that the plate tectonics of academia has been shifting since the 1970s, reducing the number of good jobs available in the field. In the wake of these changes, there is no question that humanities doctorates have struggled with their employment prospects, but what is less widely known is between a fifth and a quarter of them go on to work in well-paying jobs in media, corporate America, non-profits, and government. Humanities Ph. D. s are all around us—and they are not serving coffee. The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) have staked out the position that the lack of reliable data about employment outcomes is hindering any productive discussion about the future of academia. Preliminary reports released in the past few months show that 24. 1 percent of history Ph. D. s and 21 percent of English and foreign language Ph. D. s over the last decade took jobs in business, museums, and publishing houses, among other industries. Humanities Ph. D. s typically secure non-academic jobs through their own networks, without the support of their departments. For those Ph. D. s who ultimately find work outside academia, the job-hunting process is often longer and harder than it needs to be. Few universities offer humanities doctoral candidates career counseling for non-academic jobs, which would help them market themselves and leverage alumni networks. As a solution to the shrinking academic job market, several top Ph. D. programs have opted to reduce the number of incoming doctoral candidates to limit their oversupply. However, some argue that this approach does not recognize that many humanities Ph. D. s will go on to positively impact other industries, as many already have. "Academic institutions hold a responsibility to advance knowledge," Victoria Blodgett, director of Graduate Career Services at Yale University, argues. "We should be in the business of putting Ph. D. s in government, non-profits, the media and lots of industries where we will be better off if we have people who are trained to think as deeply as they are. "
单选题 Many people think some Ph. D. s have trouble finding jobs probably because______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:细节题。答案可定位到本文第一段第二句“终身教授正逐渐被临时教师替代,大多数英语及历史专业博士生只能得过且过”。选项[A]“将来入职后不会再被视为不可或缺的员工”正确。选项[B]“不经意地产生了离开高校的念头”;选项[C]“不能保持超越文科硕士生的竞争力”,文中说的是临时教师而不是和硕士生相比;选项[D]“所要求的工资对所有人来说都是负担”未提及。
单选题 The underlined sentence "the plate tectonics of academia has been shifting" most probably means that______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】解析:句意理解题。该句字面意思是“学术界板块构造一直在漂移”,结合上下文可以确定该句包含修辞手法,将大学员工的组成比喻为the plate tectonics of academia。正确答案是选项[D]“大学内部的员工聘任经历了巨大的变化”。选项[A]“对地球构造的研究得出了不同的结果”和选项[B]“地球的各大板块在移动”,这两个选项仅停留在该句的字面意思(word-forword meaning)上,均为迷惑性很小的选项;选项[C]“大学的组织结构一直以来受到人们的审视”,原文未提及,所以也不正确。
单选题 What can be inferred from Para. 3?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:推理判断题。答案可定位到第三段第一句:“AHA和MLA明确了他们的立场:由于缺乏可靠的就业数据,很难就高校未来的就业形势开展任何有成果的讨论”,选项[A]正确。选项[B]“AHA和MLA欢迎有关于就业情况的任何讨论”,文中没有相对应的内容;选项[C]“针对人文学博士的就业数据到目前为止是精确的”,跟原文第三段相关内容正好相反;选项[D]“进入除了商业和制造业以外行业的人文学博士更少了”,原文也没有提及。
单选题 How do humanities Ph. D. s usually find jobs?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】解析:细节题。答案可定位到第四段第一句Humanities Ph.D.s typically secure non-academic jobs through their own networks。与此句意思最接近的是选项[D]“人文学博士找工作时,往往向自己的朋友、亲戚和校友求助”。选项[A]“人文学博士通过他们的人脉(connections)找到(land)大学里的教职工作”,但文章提及的是“非学术类工作”(non-academic jobs)。选项[B]“人文学博士为了找到非学术类工作,接受就业指导”,与原文相悖。选项[C]“人文学博士在找白领工作的时候得到了实质性的帮助”,而原文第四段倒数第二句Few universities offer humanities doctoral candidates career counseling for non-academic jobs…表明事实上他们中的大多数并没有得到过实质性的帮助。
单选题 According to Victoria Blodgett, Ph. D. s______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:细节题。答案可定位到文章末段的最后一句…in the business of putting Ph.D.s in government,non-profits,the media and lots of industries where we will be better off…,即应当让更多的人文学博士毕业生涉足非学术领域。选项[A]“各种各样的职业领域中都非常需要博士”。选项[B]“博士们应当为造成这种供求不平衡负责”。选项[C]“博士们过于深刻的思考能力妨碍他们从事非学术类工作”。选项[D]“只要坚持不跳槽,从事非学术类工作的博士们日子会变得更好”。[B][C][D]选项在原文中均没有对应内容。