Direction: In this part, there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the correct answer.
Passage 1
Since the Nobel Prizes for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, peace, and literature were first awarded in 1901, only 2 women have won the physics prize, compared with 157 men. Only 3 women have captured the chemistry prize, compared with 129 men. No woman has won the prize in physics since 1963, or in chemistry since 1964, ect.
“How can we look back a hundred years and say that only nine women have won the prize for literature?” says Ebba WittBrattstrom, professor of literature. She maintains that at least 40 percent of the prizes should have gone to women.
The discrepancy in the sciences has not gone unnoticed either. When WittBrattstrom attended a Noble dinner two years ago, a Japanese scientist inquired, “Could you tell me why there are no women here? We all know there are lots of them in science.”
Finding the answer is further complicated by the Nobel Foundations policy of keeping the nomination lists and selection process confidential for 50 years. Elisabeth Crawford, who has spent 20 year studying the Noble archives found that of the 5,000 nominations for the physics and chemistry prizes up until 1949, only 50 were for women. Nobel defenders say that many women may have been nominated since 1950, but few have made the final cut.
Noble purists say the prizes should not be influenced by gender balance. The history of the prizes however, is full of subtle kinds of influence. In a classic case of oldboynetworking, the wealthy industrialist Armand Hammer decided that he wanted a Nobel peace prize. He spent several years schmoozing influential people but died before he achieved his goal.
A 1998 New Yorker article detailed the literature committees infighting over whether making a point of giving the prize to new voices or minorities threatened its value. Conservative Swedish literary critic Mats Gellerfelt sarcastically noted in the article that the ideal candidate for a Nobel today would be a lesbian from Asia.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, defends its impartiality on the physics, chemistry, and economic sciences prize and wont discuss the question of women awardees. “There is an attitude that scientists are not influenced by discrimination against women,”says Elisabeth Crawford. What counts is expertise.
Yet Crawford points out that once the initial pool of candidates is drawn up for the three science prizes, the committee cuts loose on such factors as age, nationality, and connections. And gender? “It is not in their frame of mind to consider women as women to offset this imbalance,”Crawford says, noting that almost all of the women who won science prizes shared them with male colleagues. Most women, though, are ignored, as in the case of Lise Meitner, codiscoverer of nuclear fission 22, who was not included in the 1944 chemistry prize with Otto Hahn.
If the sciences arent welcoming to women, neither are the institutions that grant the prizes. No women sit on the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation, and though women are well represented in midlevel positions at the secretariat of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, not one sits on the governing council.
Robert Marc Friedman, professor of the history of science says, “I think there are some committee members who would be delighted to support women, and others who are on the side of the boys. In the future, the question is this: will they be open to change?”
1. According to the author, the cause of few womenNobel winners is that .
A. they are not as excellent as men
B. they are discriminated and provided with less nominations
C. they are lacking originality in thought
D. they scarcely make any achievement in science and other fields
2. Which of the following best defines the word “expertise” (the last word in paragraph 7)?
A. expert knowledgeB. enterprise C. enthusiasmD. responsibility
3. The author uses the example of Lise Meitner to argue that
A. women are considered to make up the balance.
B. women have the equal opportunity as men.
C. they can also do a quite well job.
D. women are treated pretty unfairly.
4. It can be inferred from the text that
A. No one concerns about the fact that there are much less women involved in Nobel Prizes compared with men.
B. The selection process of Nobel Prizes is quite open to all people.
C. Members of literature committee do not get along with each other very well.
D. Nobel Prize is the most genderfriendly prize.
5. From the text we can see that the author seems .
