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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

admin2014-05-30  59
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.
By mentioning the "good story" "behind every statistic", the author intends to
选项 A、value both science and humanities
B、put facts and figures before statistic
C、indicate the correct way of research
D、illustrate his point by using statistic
答案A
解析 本题实际上是主旨大意题。只要通读全文，就可以发现作者将科学学科和人文学科的关系比喻为facts和figures之间的关系，而第2段表明应将facts和figures结合起来，由此可见，facts和figures是同等重要的，即科学学科和人文学科也是同等重要的，因此选A。
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