Part B
Directions:
In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swollen by about 11% every year since 2000.
Yet this enormous resource in not contributing enough to today’s global challenges including climate change, security, sustainable development and health.(41)______Humanity has the necessary agro-technological tools to eradicate hunger, from genetically engineered crops to artificial fertilizers . Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity.
(42)____This is a shame—the community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpeter: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction.
Today, the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact.
Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords “environmental changed” or “climate change” have increased rapidly since 2004,(43)____
When social scientists do tackle practical issues ,their scope is often local: Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium for example .And whether the community’s work contributes much to an overall accumulation of knowledge is doubtful.
The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding (44)____this is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today’s economic climate.
The trick is to direct these funds better. The European Union Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that system be changed: Horizon 2020,a new program to be enacted in 2014,would not have such a category ,This has resulted in protests from social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science; rather, the complete opposite. (45)____That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems.
[A] It could be that we are evolving two communities of social scientists: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing elsewhere, such as policy briefs.
[B] However, the numbers are still small: in 2010, about 1,600 of the 100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of these Keywords.
