Directions: Each passage in this section is followed by a group of questions to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. For some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer, that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question, and blacken the corresponding space on your answer sheet.
The labor force is often organized as if workers had no family responsibilities. Preschool-age children need full-time care; children in primary school need care after school and during school vacations. Although day-care services can resolve some scheduling conflicts between home and office, workers cannot always find or afford suitable care. Even when they obtain such care, parents must still cope with emergencies, such as illnesses, that keep children at home. Moreover, children need more than tending; they also need meaningful time with their parents. Conventional full-time workdays, especially when combined with unavoidable household duties, are too inflexible for parents with primary child-care responsibility.
Although a small but increasing number of working men are single parents, those barriers against successful participation in the labor market that are related to primary child-care responsibilities mainly disadvantage women. Even in families where both parents work, cultural pressures are traditionally much greater on mothers than on fathers to bear the primary child-rearing responsibilities.
In reconciling child-rearing responsibilities with participation in the labor market, many working mothers are forced to make compromises. For example, approximately one-third of all working mothers are employed only part-time, even though part-time jobs are dramatically underpaid and often less desirable in comparison to full-time employment. Even though part-time work is usually available only in occupations offering minimal employee responsibility and little opportunity for advancement or self-enrichment, such employment does allow many women the time and flexibility to fulfill their family duties, but only at the expense of the advantages associated with full-time employment.
Moreover, even mothers with full-time employment must compromise opportunities in order to adjust to barriers against parents in the labor market. Many choose jobs entailing little challenge or responsibility or those offering flexible scheduling, often available only in poorly paid positions, while other working mothers, although willing and able to assume as much responsibility as people without children, find that their need to spend regular and predictable time with their children inevitably causes them to lose career opportunities to those without such demands. Thus, women in education are more likely to become teachers than school administrators, whose more conventional full-time work schedules do not correspond to the schedules of school-age children, while female lawyers are more likely to practice law in trusts and estates, where they can control their work schedules, than in litigation, where they cannot. Nonprofessional women are concentrated in secretarial work and department store (department store: n.百货公司) sales, where their absences can be covered easily by substitutes and where they can enter and leave the work force with little loss, since the jobs offer so little personal gain. Indeed, as long as the labor market remains hostile to parents, and family roles continue to be allocated on the basis of gender, women will be seriously disadvantaged in that labor market.
1. Which one of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
(A) Current trends in the labor force indicate that working parents, especially women, may not always need to choose between occupational and child-care responsibilities.
(B) In order for mothers to have an equal opportunity for advancement in the labor force, traditional family roles have to be reexamined and revised.
(C) Although single parents who work have to balance parental and career demands, single mothers suffer resulting employment disadvantages that single fathers can almost always avoid.
(D) Although child-care responsibilities disadvantage many women in the labor force, professional women (such as teachers and lawyers) are better able to overcome this problem than are nonprofessional women.(E)
(E) Traditional work schedules are too inflexible to accommodate the child-care responsibilities of many parents, a fact that severely disadvantages women in the labor force.
2. Which one of the following statements about part-time work can be inferred from the information presented in the passage?
(A) One-third of all part-time workers are working mothers.
(B) Part-time work generally offers fewer opportunities for advancement to working mothers than to women generally.
(C) Part-time work, in addition to having relatively poor wages, often requires that employees work during holidays, when their children are out of school.
(D) Part-time employment, despite its disadvantages, provides working mothers with an opportunity to address some of the demands of caring for children.(D)
(E) Many mothers with primary child-care responsibility choose part-time jobs in order to better exploit full-time career opportunities after their children are grown.
3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about working fathers in two-parent families?
(A) They are equally burdened by the employment disadvantages placed upon all parents—male and female—in the labor market.
(B) They are so absorbed in their jobs that they often do not see the injustice going on around them.
(C) They are shielded by the traditional allocation of family roles from many of the pressures associated with child-rearing responsibilities.
(D) They help compound the inequities in the labor market by keeping women form competing with men for career opportunities.(C)
(E) They are responsible for many of the problems of working mothers because of their insistence on traditional roles in the family.
4. Of the following, which one would the author most likely say is the most troublesome barrier facing working parents with primary child-care responsibility?
(A) the lack of full-time jobs open to women
(B) the inflexibility of work schedules
(C) the low wages of part-time employment
(D) the limited advancement opportunities for nonprofessional employees(B)
(E) the practice of allocating responsibilities in the workplace on the basis of gender
5. The passage suggests that day care is at best a limited solution to the pressures associated with child rearing for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
(A) Even the best day care available cannot guarantee that children will have meaningful time with their parents.
(B) Some parents cannot afford day-care services.
(C) Working parents sometimes have difficulty finding suitable day care for their children.
(D) Parents who send their children to day care still need to provide care for their children during vacations.(D)
(E) Even children who are in day care may have to stay home when they are sick.
6. According to the passage, many working parents may be forced to make any of the following types of career decisions EXCEPT
(A) declining professional positions for nonprofessional ones, which typically have less conventional work schedules
(B) accepting part-time employment rather than full-time employment
(C) taking jobs with limited responsibility, and thus more limited career opportunities, in order to have a more flexible schedule
(D) pursuing career specializations that allow them to control their work schedules instead of pursuing a more desirable specialization in the same field(A)
(E) limiting the career potential of one parent, often the mother, who assumes greater child-care responsibility
7. Which one of the following statements would most appropriately continue the discussion at the end of the passage?
(A) At the same time, most men will remain better able to enjoy the career and salary opportunities offered by the labor market.
(B) Of course, men who are married to working mothers know of these employment barriers but seem unwilling to do anything about them.
(C) On the other hand, salary levels may become more equitable between men and women even if the other career opportunities remain more accessible to men than to women.
(D) On the contrary, men with primary child-rearing responsibilities will continue to enjoy more advantages in the workplace than their female counterparts.(A)
(E) Thus, institutions in society that favor men over women will continue to widen the gap between the career opportunities available for men and for women.
Critics have long been puzzled by the inner contradictions of major characters in John Webster’s tragedies. In his The Duchess of Malfi, for instance, the Duchess is “good” in demonstrating the obvious tenderness and sincerity of her love for Antonio, but “bad” in ignoring the wishes and welfare of her family and in making religion a “cloak” hiding worldly self-indulgence. Bosola is “bad” in serving Ferdinand, “good” in turning the Duchess’ thoughts toward heaven and in planning to avenge her murder. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle implied that such contradictions are virtually essential to the tragic personality, and yet critics keep coming back to this element of inconsistency as though it were an eccentric feature of Webster’s own tragic vision.
The problem is that, as an Elizabethan playwright, Webster has become a prisoner of our critical presuppositions. We have, in recent years, been dazzled by the way the earlier Renaissance and medieval theater, particularly the morality play, illuminates Elizabethan drama. We now understand how the habit of mind that saw the world as a battleground between good and evil produced the morality play. Morality plays allegorized that conflict by presenting characters whose actions were defined as the embodiment of good or evil. This model of reality lived on (live on: v.继续生活), overlaid by different conventions, in the most sophisticated Elizabethan works of the following age. Yet Webster seems not to have been as heavily influenced by the morality play’s model of reality as were his Elizabethan contemporaries; he was apparently more sensitive to the more morally complicated Italian drama than to these English sources. Consequently, his characters cannot be evaluated according to reductive formulas of good and evil, which is precisely what modern critics have tried to do. They choose what seem to be the most promising of the contradictor values that are dramatized in the play, and treat those values as if they were the only basis for analyzing the moral development of the play’s major characters, attributing the inconsistencies in a character’s behavior to artistic incompetence on Webster’s part. The lack of consistency in Webster’s characters can be better understood if we recognize that the ambiguity at the heart of his tragic vision lies not in the external world but in the duality of human nature. Webster establishes tension in his plays by setting up conflicting systems of value that appear immoral only when one value system is viewed exclusively from the perspective of the other. He presents us not only with characters that we condemn intellectually or ethically and at the same time impulsively approve of, but also with judgments we must accept as logically sound and yet find emotionally repulsive. The dilemma is not only dramatic: it is tragic, because the conflict is irreconcilable, and because it is ours as much as that of the characters.
8. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) clarify an ambiguous assertion
(B) provide evidence in support of a commonly held view
(C) analyze an unresolved question and propose an answer
(D) offer an alternative to a flawed interpretation(D)
(E) describe and categorize opposing viewpoints
9. The author suggests which one of the following about the dramatic works that most influenced Webster’s tragedies?
(A) They were not concerned with dramatizing the conflict between good and evil that was presented in morality plays.
(B) They were not as sophisticated as the Italian sources from which other Elizabethan tragedies were derived.
(C) They have never been adequately understood by critics.
(D) They have only recently been used to illuminate the conventions of Elizabethan drama.(A)
(E) They have been considered by many critics to be the reason for Webster’s apparent artistic incompetence.
10. The author’s allusion to Aristotle’s view of tragedy in lines 11-13 serves which one of the following functions in the passage?
(A) It introduces a commonly held view of Webster’s tragedies that the author plans to defend.
(B) It supports the author’s suggestion that Webster’s conception of tragedy is not idiosyncratic.
(C) It provides an example of an approach to Webster’s tragedies that the author criticizes.
(D) It establishes the similarity between classical and modern approaches to tragedy.(B)
(E) It supports the author’s assertion that Elizabethan tragedy cannot be fully understood without the help of recent scholarship.
11. It can be inferred from the passage that modern critics’ interpretations of Webster’s tragedies would be more valid if
(A) the ambiguity inherent in Webster’s tragic vision resulted from the duality of human nature
(B) Webster’s conception of the tragic personality were similar to that of Aristotle
(C) Webster had been heavily influenced by the morality play
(D) Elizabethan dramatists had been more sensitive to Italian sources of influence(C)
(E) the inner conflicts exhibited by Webster’s characters were similar to those of modern audiences
12. With which one of the following statements regarding Elizabethan drama would the author be most likely to agree?
(A) The skill of Elizabethan dramatists has in recent years been overestimated.
(B) The conventions that shaped Elizabethan drama are best exemplified by Webster’s drama.
(C) Elizabethan drama, for the most part, can be viewed as being heavily influenced by the morality play.
(D) Only by carefully examining the work of his Elizabethan contemporaries can Webster’s achievement as a dramatist be accurately measured.(C)
(E) Elizabethan drama can best be described as influenced by a composite of Italian and classical sources.
13. It can be inferred from the passage that most modern critics assume which one of the following in their interpretation of Webster’s tragedies?
(A) Webster’s play tended to allegorize the conflict between good and evil more than did those of his contemporaries.
(B) Webster’s plays were derived more from Italian than from English sources.
(C) The artistic flaws in Webster’s tragedies were largely the result of his ignorance of the classical definition of tragedy.
(D) Webster’s tragedies provide no relevant basis for analyzing the moral development of their characters.(E)
(E) In writing his tragedies, Webster was influenced by the same sources as his contemporaries.
14. The author implies that Webster’s conception of tragedy was
(A) artistically flawed
(B) highly conventional
(C) largely derived from the morality play
(D) somewhat different from the conventional Elizabethan conception of tragedy(D)
(E) uninfluenced by the classical conception of tragedy
Cultivation of a single crop on a given tract of land leads eventually to decreased yields. One reason for this is that harmful bacterial phytopathogens, organisms parasitic on plant hosts, increase in the soil surrounding plant roots. The problem can be cured by crop rotation, denying the pathogens a suitable host for a period of time. However, even if crops are not rotated, the severity of diseases brought on by such phytopathogens often decreases after a number of years as the microbial population of the soil changes and the soil becomes “suppressive” to those diseases. While there may be many reasons for this phenomenon, it is clear that levels of certain bacteria, such as Pseudomonas fluorescens, a bacterium antagonistic to a number of harmful phytopathogens, are greater in suppressive than in nonsuppressive soil. This suggests that the presence of such bacteria suppresses phytopathogens. There is now considerable experimental support for this view. Wheat yield increases of 27 percent have been obtained in field trials by treatment of wheat seeds with fluorescent pseudomonads. Similar treatment of sugar beets, cotton, and potatoes has had similar results.
These improvements in crop yields through the application of Pseudomonas fluorescens suggest that agriculture could benefit from the use of bacteria genetically altered for specific purposes. For example, a form of phytopathogen altered to remove its harmful properties could be released into the environment in quantities favorable to its competing with and eventually excluding the harmful normal strain. Some experiments suggest that deliberately releasing altered nonpathogenic Pseudomonas syringae could crowd out (crowd out: 挤出, 推开, 驱逐) the nonaltered variety that causes frost damage. Opponents of such research have objected that the deliberate and large-scale release of genetically altered bacteria might have deleterious results. Proponents, on the other hand, argue that this particular strain is altered only by the removal of the gene responsible for the strain’s propensity to cause frost damage, thereby rendering it safer than the phytopathogen from which it was derived.
Some proponents have gone further and suggest that genetic alteration techniques could create organisms with totally new combinations of desirable traits not found in nature. For example, genes responsible for production of insecticidal compounds have been transposed from other bacteria into pseudomonads that colonize corn roots. Experiments of this kind are difficult and require great care: such bacteria are developed in highly artificial environments and may not compete well with natural soil bacteria. Nevertheless, proponents contend that the prospects for improved agriculture through such methods seem excellent. These prospects lead many to hope that current efforts to assess the risks of deliberate release of altered microorganisms will successfully answer the concerns of opponents and create a climate in which such research can go forward without undue impediment.
15. Which one of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
(A) Recent field experiments with genetically altered Pseudomonas bacteria have shown that releasing genetically altered bacteria into the environment would not involve any significant danger.
(B) Encouraged by current research, advocates of agricultural use of genetically altered bacteria are optimistic that such use will eventually result in improved agriculture, though opponents remain wary.
(C) Current research indicates that adding genetically altered Pseudomonas syringae bacteria to the soil surrounding crop plant roots will have many beneficial effects, such as the prevention of frost damage in certain crops.
(D) Genetic alteration of a number of harmful phytopathogens has been advocated by many researchers who contend that these techniques will eventually replace such outdated methods as crop rotation.(B)
(E) Genetic alteration of bacteria has been successful in highly artificial laboratory conditions, but opponents of such research have argued that these techniques are unlikely to produce organisms that are able to survive in natural environments.
16. The author discusses naturally occurring Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria in the first paragraph primarily in order to do which one of the following?
(A) prove that increases in the level of such bacteria in the soil are the sole cause of soil suppressivity
(B) explain why yields increased after wheat fields were sprayed with altered Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria
(C) detail the chemical processes that such bacteria use to suppress organisms parasitic to crop plants, such as wheat, sugar beets, and potatoes
(D) provide background information to support the argument that research into the agricultural use of genetically altered bacteria would be fruitful(D)
(E) argue that crop rotation is unnecessary, since diseases brought on by phytopathogens diminish in severity and eventually disappear on their own
17. It can be inferred from the author’s discussion of Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria that which one of the following would be true of crops impervious to parasitical organisms?
(A) Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria would be absent from the soil surrounding their roots.
(B) They would crowd out and eventually exclude other crop plants if their growth were not carefully regulated.
(C) Their yield would not be likely to be improved by adding Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria to the soil.
(D) They would mature more quickly than crop plants that were susceptible to parasitical organisms.(C)
(E) Levels of phytopathogenic bacteria in the soil surrounding their roots would be higher compared with other crop plants.
18. It can be inferred from the passage that crop rotation can increase yields in part because
(A) moving crop plants around makes them hardier and more resistant to disease
(B) the number of Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria in the soil usually increases when crops are rotated
(C) the roots of many crop plants produce compounds that are antagonistic to phytopathogens harmful to other crop plants
(D) the presence of phytopathogenic bacteria is responsible for the majority of plant diseases(E)
(E) phytopathogens typically attack some plant species but find other species to be unsuitable hosts
19. According to the passage, proponents of the use of genetically altered bacteria in agriculture argue that which one of the following is true of the altered bacteria used in the frost-damage experiments?
(A) The altered bacteria had a genetic constitution differing from that of the normal strain only in that the altered variety had one less gene.
(B) Although the altered bacteria competed effectively with the nonaltered strain in the laboratory, they were not as viable in natural environments.
(C) The altered bacteria were much safer and more effective than the naturally occurring Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria used in earlier experiments.
(D) The altered bacteria were antagonistic to several types of naturally occurring phytopathogens in the soil surrounding the roots of frost-damaged crops.(A)
(E) The altered bacteria were released into the environment in numbers sufficient to guarantee the validity of experimental results.
20. Which one of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the proponents’ argument regarding the safety of using altered Pseudomonas syringae bacteria to control frost damage?
(A) Pseudomonas syringae bacteria are primitive and have a simple genetic constitution.
(B) The altered bacteria are derived from a strain that is parasitic to plants and can cause damage to crops.
(C) Current genetic-engineering techniques permit the large-scale commercial production of such bacteria.
(D) Often genes whose presence is responsible for one harmful characteristic must be present in order to prevent other harmful characteristics.(D)
(E) The frost-damage experiments with Pseudomonas syringae bacteria indicate that the altered variety would only replace the normal strain if released in sufficient numbers.
In 1887 the Dawes Act legislated wide-scale private ownership of reservation lands in the United States for Native Americans. The act allotted plots of 80 acres to each Native American adult. However, the Native Americans were not granted outright title to their lands. The act defined each grant as a “trust patent,” meaning that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the governmental agency in charge of administering policy regarding Native Americans, would hold the allotted land in trust (in trust: adv.被托管) for 25 years, during which time the Native American owners could use, but not alienate (sell) the land. After the 25-year period, the Native American allottee would receive a “fee patent” awarding full legal ownership of the land.
Two main reasons were advanced for the restriction on the Native Americans’ ability to sell their lands. First, it was claimed that free alienability would lead to immediate transfer of large amounts of former reservation land to non-Native Americans, consequently threatening the traditional way of life on those reservations. A second objection to free alienation was that Native Americans were unaccustomed to, and did not desire, a system of private landownership. Their custom, it was said, favored communal use of land.
However, both of these arguments bear only on the transfer of Native American lands to non-Native Americans: neither offers a reason for prohibiting Native Americans from transferring land among themselves. Selling land to each other would not threaten the Native American culture. Additionally, if communal land use remained preferable to Native Americans after allotment, free alienability would have allowed allottees to sell their lands back to the tribe.
When stated rationales for government policies prove empty, using an interest-group model often provides an explanation. While neither Native Americans nor the potential non-Native American purchasers benefited from the restraint on alienation contained in the Dawes Act, one clearly defined group did benefit: the BIA bureaucrats. It has been convincingly demonstrated that bureaucrats seek to maximize the size of their staffs and their budgets in order to compensate for the lack of other sources of fulfillment, such as power and prestige. Additionally, politicians tend to favor the growth of governmental bureaucracy because such growth provides increased opportunity for the exercise of political patronage. The restraint on alienation vastly increased the amount of work, and hence the budgets, necessary to implement the statute. Until allotment was ended in 1934, granting fee patents and leasing Native American lands were among the principal activities of the United States government. One hypothesis, then, for the temporary restriction on alienation in the Dawes Act is that it reflected a compromise between non-Native Americans favoring immediate alienability so they could purchase land and the BIA bureaucrats who administered the privatization system.
21. Which one of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
(A) United States government policy toward Native Americans has tended to disregard their needs and consider instead the needs of non-Native American purchasers of land.
(B) In order to preserve the unique way of life on Native American reservations, use of Native American lands must be communal rather than individual.
(C) The Dawes Act’s restriction on the right of Native Americans to sell their land may have been implemented primarily to serve the interests of politicians and bureaucrats.
(D) The clause restricting free alienability in the Dawes Act greatly expanded United States governmental activity in the area of land administration.(C)
(E) Since passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, Native Americans have not been able to sell or transfer their former reservation land freely.
22. Which one of the following statements concerning the reason for the end of allotment, if true, would provide the most support for the author’s view of politicians?
(A) Politicians realized that allotment was damaging the Native American way of life.
(B) Politicians decided that allotment would be more congruent with the Native American custom of communal land use.
(C) Politicians believed that allotment’s continuation would not enhance their opportunities to exercise patronage.
(D) Politicians felt that the staff and budgets of the BIA had grown too large.(C)
(E) Politicians were concerned that too much Native American land was falling into the hands of non-Native Americans.
23. Which one of the following best describes the organization of the passage?
(A) The passage of a law is analyzed in detail, the benefits and drawbacks of one of its clauses are studied, and a final assessment of the law is offered.
(B) The history of a law is narrated, the effects of one of its clauses on various populations are studied, and repeal of the law is advocated
(C) A law is examined, the political and social backgrounds of one of its clauses are characterized, and the permanent effects of the law are studied.
(D) A law is described, the rationale put forward for one of its clauses is outlined and dismissed, and a different rationale for the clause is presented.(D)
(E) The legal status of an ethnic group is examined with respect to issues of landownership and commercial autonomy, and the benefits to rival groups due to that status are explained.
24. The author’s attitude toward the reasons advanced for the restriction on alienability in the Dawes Act at the time of its passage can best be described as
(A) completely credulous
(B) partially approving
(C) basically indecisive
(D) mildly questioning(E)
(E) highly skeptical
25. It can be inferred from the passage that which one of the following was true of Native American life immediately before passage of the Dawes Act?
(A) Most Native Americans supported themselves through farming.
(B) Not many Native Americans personally owned the land on which they lived.
(C) The land on which most Native Americans lived had been bought from their tribes.
(D) Few Native Americans had much contact with their non-Native American neighbors.(B)
(E) Few Native Americans were willing to sell their land to non-Native Americans.
26. According to the passage, the type of landownership initially obtainable by Native Americans under the Dawes Act differed from the type of ownership obtainable after a 25-year period in that only the latter allowed
(A) owners of land to farm it
(B) owners of land to sell it
(C) government some control over how owners disposed of land
(D) owners of land to build on it with relatively minor governmental restrictions(B)
(E) government to charge owners a fee for developing their land
27. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the author’s argument regarding the true motivation for the passage of the Dawes Act?
(A) The legislators who voted in favor of the Dawes Act owned land adjacent to Native American reservations.
(B) The majority of Native Americans who were granted fee patents did not sell their land back to their tribes.
(C) Native Americans managed to preserve their traditional culture even when they were geographically dispersed.
(D) The legislators who voted in favor of the Dawes Act were heavily influenced by BIA bureaucrats.(D)
(E) Non-Native Americans who purchased the majority of Native American lands consolidated them into larger farm holdings.
