Critical Reasoning

While political discourse and the media in the United States have focused on the rise of job outsourcing, few have mentioned the sharp fall of talent “insourcing,” or the drop in enrollment of foreign-born graduate students since 2001, and its dire results. The decrease in such insourcing will hurt America’s competitiveness in basic research and applied technology, with serious consequences for years to come. The de-internationalization of graduate programs across the country will also negatively affect the global outlook and experience of the American students remaining in those programs; they will not have the opportunity to learn about foreign cultures directly from members of those cultures. What distinguishes the decline of talent insourcing from the rise of job outsourcing is that the former can be easily rectified by a policy change of the United States government.

The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the author’s claim regarding the impact of decreased insourcing in America?

a) What is the cost to reverse the trend of insourcing in America?

b) How does insourcing replace domestic jobs lost from outsourcing?

c) Since 2001, what has been the decrease in the number of foreign-born students in America?

d) What opportunities do American graduate students have to interact regularly with foreigners who are not students?

e) What effect would a government policy have on the number of foreign graduate students?

OA after some discussion

is it C ?

IMO D

I think E.

i chose E, between D and E. hard choice, but E deals with grad students.

IMO, D.

To paraphrase the question, of all the answers for the listed questions, which one would best determine if the negative impact of decreased insourcing is really as bad as the author claims.

the author claims that decreased insourcing will:

1. Hurt America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology.
2. Hurt American student's world views because de-internationalization of graduate programs across the country will diminish opportunities to learn first-hand about other cultures.

Therefore, "C", the answer to this question will determine whether american students are really hurt by decreased insourcing.

For example, maybe american students can learn about other cultures through guest lecturers from foreign countries, thereby eliminating the need to learn directly from foreign students (decreased insourcing really won't hurt american students)

That's my rationale.

What is the OA?

penumbra547 wrote:IMO, D.

To paraphrase the question, of all the answers for the listed questions, which one would best determine if the negative impact of decreased insourcing is really as bad as the author claims.

the author claims that decreased insourcing will:

1. Hurt America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology.
2. Hurt American student's world views because de-internationalization of graduate programs across the country will diminish opportunities to learn first-hand about other cultures.

Therefore, "C", the answer to this question will determine whether american students are really hurt by decreased insourcing.

For example, maybe american students can learn about other cultures through guest lecturers from foreign countries, thereby eliminating the need to learn directly from foreign students (decreased insourcing really won't hurt american students)

That's my rationale.

What is the OA?

The OA is 'D' but I got terribly confused by your explanation. You mentioned 'C' as the answer in the middle of your post.

sorry chap, yes, "C" was a typo. my rationale strictly applies to "D"

I must admit that D seems to be the answer. What's OA?