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In the thrilling progressive years of the early 20th century, few things were more attractive than the promise of scientific kno

admin2013-09-07  84
问题     In the thrilling progressive years of the early 20th century, few things were more attractive than the promise of scientific knowledge. In a world struggling with rapid industrialization, massive immigration, and chaotic urban growth, science and technology seemed to offer solutions to almost every problem. Two world wars and a Great Depression rocked the confidence of many people that scientific expertise alone could create a prosperous and ordered world. After World War II, the academic world turned with new enthusiasm to humanistic studies, which seemed to many scholars the best way to ensure the survival of democracy and to resist tyranny(暴政).
    Behind every statistic, there’s a good story: facts and figures can add up to something greater than each of themselves.
    In the America of our own time, the great educational challenge has become an effort to strengthen the teaching of what is now known as the STEM disciplines(science, technology, engineering, and math). There is considerable and justified concern that the United States is falling behind much of the rest of the developed world in these essential disciplines.
    At the same time, perhaps inevitably, the humanities have experienced a significant decline. Humanistic disciplines are seriously underfunded. Humanists are usually among the lowest-paid faculty members at most institutions and are often lightly regarded because they do not generate grant income and because they provide no obvious certificates for most nonacademic careers.
    There is no doubt that American education should be training more scientists and engineers and should be teaching scientific literacy to everyone else. But the idea that institutions or their students must-decide between humanities and science is false. Our society could not survive without scientific and technological knowledge. But we would be equally ruined without humanistic knowledge as well. Science and technology teach us what we can do. Humanistic thinking can help us understand what we should do.
    The humanities are not simply vehicles of aesthetic reward and intellectual inspiration. Science and technology aspire to clean, clear answers to problems. The humanities address ambiguity, doubt, and skepticism—essential supports in a complex and diverse society and a turbulent world.
    It is not surprising that many of our greatest scientists are also deeply committed to humanistic knowledge and values. Nor should it be surprising that many humanistic fields find scientific tools essential to their work. Among academics, scientists and humanists not only coexist, but often work together. It is mostly in the politics of education that debates over the relative value of these different disciplines take place.
    It is almost impossible to imagine our society without thinking of the extraordinary achievements of scientists and engineers in building our complicated world. But try to imagine our world as well without the remarkable works that have defined our culture and values. We have always needed, and we still need, both.
What is the author’s attitude towards the concern that the United States is falling behind in the STEM disciplines?
选项 A、He finds it groundless.
B、He finds it sensible.
C、He looks at it with doubt.
D、He looks at it with caution.
答案B
解析 原文该句中的justified表明作者觉得人们的担心是“有道理的”、“正确的”，因此，本题应选B。
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