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Spring is here: flowers are in bloom, birdsong fills the air, and the inboxes of employers are filled with desperate appeals for

admin2014-01-07  74
问题     Spring is here: flowers are in bloom, birdsong fills the air, and the inboxes of employers are filled with desperate appeals for summer internships. College students and graduates are well aware of the impact a desirable placement could have on their careers. With ever fewer entry-level jobs in many industries, internships have become a critical first step into employment. In America, three-quarters of students on a four-year university course will have toiled as an intern at least once before graduation. Up to half of these workers will have given their services free. Some may even have had to pay for the privilege of coming to work.
    Unpaid internships seem to be an example of mutual utility: inexperienced youngsters learn something about a chosen field while employers get to farm out some unskilled work. The arrangement is consensual, and companies often use internships to test potential recruits. But the increasing popularity of these unpaid placements has caused some controversy lately. Nick Clegg, Britain’s deputy prime minister, recently launched a crusade to ban them, arguing that they favour the wealthy and privileged. Others complain that uncompensated internships violate labour standards, exploit new workers and surely depress wages for everyone else. In America, they tend to be illegal at for-profit companies, according to guidelines set out in 1947. But the Department of Labour barely enforces such rules, in part because interns are often too afraid to file complaints.
    Organisations in America save $2 billion a year by not paying interns a minimum wage, writes Ross Perlin in "Intern Nation", a new book about the "highly competitive race to the bottom of the corporate ladder". Perhaps one-third of all internships at for-profit companies are unpaid, and interns now often fill roles once held by full-time employees. "Young people and their parents are subsidising labour for Fortune 500 companies," Mr Perlin comments.
    To avoid legal complications, companies often encourage students to work in exchange for academic credits from their college. But such credits can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Some colleges abolish their fees or earn them by offering guidance and oversight. For many institutions, however, they are an easy source of revenue, more beneficial to themselves than their students.
    Calls for new labour laws that reflect the growing prominence of internships have got nowhere. Instead, interns will have to look out for each other, for example by rating their experiences on websites such as InternshipRatings and Internocracy. At any rate, students may be buoyed by a rare bit of good news from the National Association of Colleges and Employers: employers intend to hire 19% more graduates this year than last. This should spare some from the misery of working without pay.
What is the best title for the passage?
选项 A、Reform of Internships and Employment
B、Employment at For-profit Industries
C、Desperate Graduates
D、Ordeals for Interns
答案D
解析 本文第1段先提出了“实习”这一话题，第2段将话题收窄，讲“无薪实习”，接下来的三段都围绕“无薪实习”这一话题，讲到了无薪实习的现状和相关法规。在四个选项中，与此话题最贴近的是D“实习生的苦难经历”，它既暗示“无薪实习”这一现象，又带有同情，与作者对毕业生“无薪实习”的感情色彩相符。A虽然有Internships这一关键词，但reform和employment都不是文章的主题；B中的For-profit Industries严重脱离文章中心，故排除；而C的Desperate Graduates带有贬义，且不能预示文章内容，也无概括性，不可选。
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