单选题 When they advise your kids to "get an education" if you want to raise your income, they tell you only half the truth. What they really mean is to get just enough education to provide man power for your society, but not too much that you prove an embarrassment to your society.
Get a high school diploma, at least. Without that, you are occupationally dead, unless your name happens to be George Bernard Shaw or Thomas Alva Edison and you can successfully drop out in grade school.
Get a college degree, if possible. With a B. A., you are on the launching pad. But now you have to start to put on the brakes. If you go for a master"s degree, make sure it is an MBA, and only from a first-rate university. Beyond this, the famous law of diminishing returns begins to take effect.
Do you know, for instance, that long-haul truck drivers earn more a year than full professors? Yes, the average 1977 salary for those truckers was $24,000, while the full professors managed to average just $23,930.
A Ph.D is the highest degree you can get, but except in a few specialized fields such as physics or chemistry, where the degree can quickly be turned to industrial or commercial purposes, you are facing a dim future. There are more Ph.Ds unemployed or underemployed in this country than in any other part of the world by far.
If you become a doctor of philosophy in English or history or anthropology or political science or languages or—worst of all—in philosophy, you run the risk of becoming overeducated for our national demands. Not for our needs, mind you, but for our demands.
Thousands of Ph.Ds are selling shoes, driving cabs, waiting on tables and filling out fruitless applications month after month. And then maybe taking a job in some high school or backwater college that pays much less than the janitor earns.
You can equate the level of income with the level of education only so far. Far enough, that is, to make you useful to the gross national product, but not so far that nobody can turn much of a profit on you.
单选题 According to the writer, what the society expects of education is to turn out people who ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 本题的依据是第1段的最后一句话:just enough education to provide man power for your society。因此D项为正确答案。
单选题 Many Ph.Ds are out of job because ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 本题的依据是第5段的第1句话:A Ph.D. is the highest degree you can get. but except in a few specialized fields such as physics or chemistry, where the degree can quickly be turned to industrial or commercial purposes,据此可知他们的学识不能很快应用在工业或商业上。因此B项为正确答案。
单选题 The nation is only interested in people ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 本题可参照文章的第2段和第3段。这两段告诉我们社会对有文凭的人感兴趣。但我们不能选择A项,因为文中也提到有些学历太高的人,社会也不需要,有的是卖鞋、开出租车和填无用的表格的博士。再参照最后一段,对国民生产总值有价值的人才能获得较高的收入,因此C项也对。所以D项为正确答案。
单选题 Which of the following is NOT true?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 从文中内容可知,你有可能受教育过度。对国民生产总值有价值的人才能获得较高的收入。又根据第4段里讲到的例子——长途运输司机的收入比教授的高,因此C项为正确答案。