A high-profile push by business groups to double the number of U. S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in science, math and engineering

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问题     A high-profile push by business groups to double the number of U. S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 is falling way behind target, a new report says. In 2005, 15 prominent business groups warned that a lack of expert workers and teachers posed a threat to U. S. competitiveness, and said the country would need 400,000 new graduates in the so-called STEM(science, technology, engineering and math)fields by 2015.
    In an update to be published Tuesday, the group reports the number of degrees in those fields rose slightly earlier in the decade, citing figures from the years after 2001 that have become available since the first report was published. But the number of degrees has since flattened out at around 225,000 per year.
    The coalition, representing groups such as the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Defense Industrial Association, said there has been substantial bipartisan support in Washington for boosting science training, including passage last year of the America Competes Act, which promotes math and science.
    But Susan Traiman, director of education and work force policy for the Business Roundtable, an organization of corporate CEOs, said there’s been insufficient follow-through with funding to support the programs. Other countries, she said, are doing more to shift incentives toward science training. "The concern that CEOs have is if we wait for a Sputniklike event, it’s very hard to turn around and get moving on the kind of timeline we would need," said Traiman, referring to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite in 1957, which prompted a massive U. S. commitment to science investment.
    The report by the group Tapping America’s Potential, which has grown to represent 16 business groups, also argues that the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform has hurt U. S. competitiveness by making it difficult to retain high-skilled workers who study at American universities. While there appears to be, if anything, a surplus in the job market of scientists with doctoral degrees, the case for boosting bachelor’s degrees is stronger—particularly for people who go into teaching, where teachers who have college level subject training are generally more effective. Last week, The National Research Council—a group that provides policy advice under a Congressional charter—issued a report calling for more support for professional master’s degrees programs. The idea would be to provide advanced training to more people in fields like chemistry and biology, which require less time and money than doctoral degrees.
From Paragraph 1, we can infer that

选项 A、the process of doubling the number is gaining ground.
B、the reality of degree doubling is lagging behind its objective.
C、the number of skilled workers and teachers has dramatically decreased.
D、There’s a long way for U. S. to strengthen its competitiveness.

答案D

解析 从第一段我们可以推断出,[A]将数量翻一番的进程正在推进。[B]将学位数量翻一番的行动现状还未达标。[C]熟练工和教师的数量已经大幅减少。[D]美国要增强自己的竞争力还有很长的路要走。[D]“美国要增强自己的竞争力还有很长的路要走”可以从第一段第二句中的15prominent…U.S.cornpetitiyeness以及后文对于专业硕士研究生的培养推断出。[A]不属于推断的内容;[B]是对第一句中的falling way behind target的解释;[C]也是对文章内容的陈述。故选[D]。
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