A graduate in marketing spends her mornings answering routine customer emails. A biology major learns to sell insurance scripts she does not...

A graduate in marketing spends her mornings answering routine customer emails. A biology major learns to sell insurance scripts she does not believe in. At family dinners, both are told to be grateful they have work at all, and in one sense they should be. Yet gratitude can sit awkwardly beside a private grief. The trouble is not always unemployment. Sometimes it is the slower disappointment of waking each day to a job that pays the bills while leaving a hard won part of the self unused. Across many countries, this kind of field of study mismatch has become a familiar feature of working life rather than a rare detour.

The OECD defines field of study mismatch simply: people trained in one area end up working in another. It also notes that the story is not just about poor choices by students. Labour market saturation matters, and so does the transferability of skills. In other words, a degree is not a key cut for one door only. Some people do move across fields and still use their abilities well. Done freely, such movement can widen a life. But when the shift is forced by scarce openings, it feels less like exploration than drift, a quiet bargain between ambition and necessity.

Rarely is this experience described with much tenderness. Public talk often swings between two lazy extremes. One romanticises reinvention, as if every mismatch were proof of resilience. The other mocks “useless degrees” and turns stalled careers into content. Raising awareness means showing the mechanism clearly: crowded fields, employer demand, and the uneven value placed on different kinds of knowledge. Exploiting suffering means packaging someone’s uncertainty as a cautionary tale, stripped of context and offered up for easy judgment. The difference is moral as much as rhetorical. This is a labour market problem, not a character flaw.

Still, the answer is not to shame every unexpected path. Some detours become real callings, and some borrowed jobs teach durable strengths. What deserves scrutiny is a society that tells young people to specialise, then shrugs when many cannot work where they trained. Not only wages but also confidence and job satisfaction can be affected when mismatch deepens, especially when it comes with overqualification. A forced career, after all, is more than income. It is one of the places where effort asks to be recognised.

[Adapted from OECD]

Question 23. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2 as part of the reality of field-of-study mismatch?

A. Some graduates work in jobs unrelated to what they were trained for.

B. Skills learned in one field can sometimes still be useful in another.

C. Labour market saturation can push people away from their original field.

D. Most students choose the wrong major because they ignore career advice.

Question 24. The word “drift” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. gradual movement without clear direction        B. immediate success after careful planning

C. determined progress toward a fixed goal        D. sudden change caused by personal ambition

Question 25. The word “forced” in paragraph 2 is OPPOSITE in meaning to __________.

A. planned        B. intended        C. chosen        D. preferred

Question 26. The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to __________.

A. the shift        B. exploration        C. a degree        D. one door

Question 27. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 3?

A. Field-of-study mismatch should be understood mainly as a structural employment issue rather than a sign of personal failure.

B. People experiencing mismatch often struggle because they lack determination and adaptability in the labour market.

C. Employers usually create mismatch in order to expose weaknesses in young workers’ attitudes and abilities.

D. A person’s character matters less in the workplace because labour markets now reward almost every degree equally.

Question 28. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 4?

A. Every unexpected career path should be criticized because it reflects poor planning.

B. Mismatch mainly affects income and has little influence on confidence or job satisfaction.

C. Some jobs outside one’s trained field may still help develop lasting abilities.

D. Overqualification becomes less serious when mismatch continues for a long time.

Question 29. Which paragraph focuses on the contrast between raising awareness about mismatch and exploiting it for easy judgment?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2        C. Paragraph 3        D. Paragraph 4

Question 30. Which paragraph presents field-of-study mismatch as a complex outcome shaped not only by student decisions but also by labour market conditions and skill transferability?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2        C. Paragraph 3        D. Paragraph 4