For years, university administrators, corporations, and government agencies have been predicting an imminent and catastrophic shortage of scientists and engineers. ███ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████████████ ██ ██ ████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ██████
The author concludes administrators, corporations, and agencies were incorrect when they predicted an imminent, catastrophic shortage of scientists and engineers. Why? Because the salaries of scientists and engineers haven’t increased much, and their unemployment rates aren’t especially low.
The author assumes any catastrophic shortage of scientists and engineers would have caused upward salary pressure or low unemployment for them. In addition, he assumes the administrators, corporations, and agencies predicted the imminent shortage would be at the present time, not in the past or future.
Which one of the following ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██████
The proportion of ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ █████ ███████ ███ ██ ████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████
This doesn’t mean there are plenty of scientists and engineers. It’s possible all sorts of institutions would be doing more research if there were more scientists and engineers available.
Most students choose ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████████
This doesn’t imply the number of scientists or engineers meets the demand for them—nor even that lots of students choose to study science and engineering. The author doesn’t say science and engineering offer a prospect of financial success that other fields don’t.
The number of ████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ ███ █████████ █████████████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██████
This makes the author’s key claim—that there’s no shortage of scientists and engineers—more likely. It suggests circumstances have changed to allow for more scientists and engineers to enter the workforce since the predictions were made.
Certain specializations in ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████████
If anything, this weakens the argument. It implies there are shortages of at least some types of scientists and engineers, making the author’s key claim—that there’s no widespread shortage—less likely.
The knowledge and ██████ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ███ ████████████ ███████████
This requirement could help explain a shortage—it doesn’t make a shortage less likely. If anything, this extra requirement for scientists and engineers to remain proficient makes a shortage slightly more probable.
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