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Passage One

    A riddle is making the rounds that goes like this: a man and his young son were in an automobile accident. The father was killed and the son, who was critically injured, was rushed to a hospital. As attendants wheeled the unconscious boy into the emergency room, the doctor on duty looked down at him and said, "My God, it's my son!" What was the relationship of the doctor to the injured boy?

    If the answer doesn't jump to your mind, another riddle that has been around a lot longer might help: The blind beggar had a brother. The blind beggar's brother died. The brother who died had no brother. What relation was the blind beggar to the blind beggar's brother?

    Except for words that refer to females by definition (mother, actress, congresswoman), and words for occupations traditionally held by females (nurse, secretary, prostitute), the English language defines everyone as male. The hypothetical person ("If a man can walk 10 miles in two hours ..."), the average person ("the man in the street") and the active person ("the man on the move") are male. The assumption is that unless otherwise identified, people in general—including doctors and beggars—are men. It is a semantic mechanism that operates to keep women invisible: man and mankind represent everyone; he in generalized use refers to either sex; the "land where our fathers died" is also the land of our mothers─although they go unsung. As the beetle-browed and mustachioed man in a Steig cartoon says to his two male drinking companions, "When I speak of mankind, one thing I don't mean is womankind."

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1. The author of the passage uses two riddles to show that ______.( D )

(a) sometimes it is hard to determine human relationships

(b) there are riddles which may not be solved immediately

(c) riddles are sometimes easy to solve if you see them

(d) people have a fixed way to look at things

2. The answers to the riddles are that ________ .( B )

(a) the doctor was the boy's mother and the beggar was her brother

(b) the doctor was the boy's mother and the beggar was her brother's sister

(c) the doctor was the boy's father and the beggar was her brother's sister

(d) the doctor was the boy's father and the beggar was her brother

3. According to the author, to say that a woman in medicine is an exception ________. ( D )

(a) simply means there are few women who work as doctors

(b) is wrong because there are many women doctors

(c) is a correct statement

(d) shows that the language is male oriented

4.According to the author, the male oriented language tries to keep women _________. ( C )

(a) identifiable

(b) indefinable

(c) hidden

(d) oppressed

5. It can be inferred that the author of the passage is primarily ______.( D )

(a) a linguist

(b) a sociologist

(c) a congresswoman

(d) a feminist 

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Passage Two

    A poll of nearly 800 working women released this month by the AFL-CIO indicates that women in two-income families face a growing need to work different hours than their husbands in this "24-7" economy. There is no such thing as an average workday in workplaces that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

    In the auto industry, for example, dealers have increasingly started to keep their service departments open from 8 a. m. to midnight to accommodate the changing needs of their customers.

    Washington, D.C., area supermarkets—where on any given day an estimated 45 percent of their customers don't know what they're having for dinner by 4 p.m.—have their busiest weekday hours between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday is now the biggest shopping day of the week.

    The AFL-CIO—which has more than 5 million female members, making it the largest working women's group in the country—found that 46 percent of women who are married or living with someone work a different schedule than their partner. Most do this by choice to accommodate the needs of work and family, but slightly more than one-third of the women surveyed said they had no say in their work schedules.

    "Many women have had to kiss 9-to-5 goodbye," says Karen Nussbaum, director of the AFL-CIO's working women's department.

    More than half of the married female members with young children─51 percent—work different hours than their husbands, according to the survey. Nussbaum says nearly half the women who worked different hours than their spouses worked a different shift rather than just a few hours' difference.

    The survey shows that one of four working women work at least part of their hours in the evening or on the weekend. This is especially true of women who work in low-wage jobs with annual incomes of less than $25 000. Twenty-six percent of women with children under age 18 also worked evening or weekend hours, according to the survey.

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6. The problem working women in two-income families face is that __________. ( C )

(a) they need to work more hours

(b) they have to work more hours than their husbands

(c) they need to work different hours than their husbands

(d) they work in places that operate all the time

7. The example of the auto industry shows that __________. ( D )

(a) some working places have to be operating all the time

(b) some companies have to meet the needs of the customers

(c) some working places have to work from 8 a.m. to midnight

(d) some working places have no average workday

8. According to the poll released, _______. ( D )

(a) the AFL-CIO has one of the largest working women's group in the country

(b) more than half of women who are married or living with someone work a different schedule than their partner

(c) all the women married or living with someone choose different working schedule of their own choice

(d) one third of the women surveyed could do nothing about their work schedules

9. How many of the married female members with young children work different hours than their husbands? ( B )

(a) 25%

(b) 50%

(c) 75%

(d) 100%      

10. In 1994, 40 % of the paper products and plastic soda bottles produced in America were recycled. But _________ of food packaging was recovered. ( B )

(a) Flexible Schedules for Working Women

(b) No Such Thing as an Average Workday

(c) Inequality Between Men and Women

(d) Working Women: Past and Present  

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Passage Three

    In addition to Women's Day, the UN has held four world conferences on women since 1975. These aimed to establish a framework for an international policy on the issues affecting women. The most recent conference was held in China's capital Beijing, a few years ago.

    But the Beijing conference exposed major disagreements between some of the participating countries. One of the most contentious was over a woman's right to control her sexuality and reproduction. Some Catholic and Islamic countries have strong reservations about sex outside marriage and contraception.

    The debate showed very clearly that many countries have different views on the rights of women. Yet, despite these differences, government delegates at the conference managed to agree on a number of major issues. These formed a "Platform for Action" for the advancement of women, which will take place over the next decade. It includes wide-ranging proposals to improve women's welfare in many areas of life, including education and employment.

    Women have made a great deal of progress in these areas over the last two decades. Many jobs that were previously seen as the preserve of men have slowly become more available to women. There has also been a dramatic increase in female literacy rates over the last 20 years.

    But in spite of these considerable advances, studies show that much of the work that women do is still undervalued and underpaid. Two thirds of the work done by women is unpaid. The problem is greatest in the home and in agriculture, where women receive virtually no income or acknowledgment for work done. When they are in paid employment, women's wages are typically a quarter less than those paid to men.

(278 words)

11. Since 1975, the UN has held _______ world conferences on women. ( C )

(a) two

(b) three

(c) four

(d) five

12. According to the passage, the Beijing conference was ______ .     ( C )

(a) opposed by some Catholic countries

(b) opposed by Islamic countries

(c) successful despite differences

(d) opposed to sex outside marriage and contraception

13. The "Platform for Action" formed at the Beijing conference meant to __________. ( A )

(a) guide the advancement of women over the next decade

(b) give full attention to different voices of women

(c) improve women's education and employment

(d) allow for wide-ranging proposals

14. Over the last two decades, _____.( C )

(a) there have been more women who cannot read or write

(b) all the jobs are available to women

(c) there has been a great increase in the number of literate women

(d) women find it very slow to get jobs which were usually regarded as men's

15. The final paragraph shows that ___________.( D )

(a) generally speaking, there is no big advance in women's welfare

(b) one third of the work done by women is unpaid

(c) women usually get half the wages paid to men

(d) much of the work done by women is still undervalued and underpaid   

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