Question

  Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.

     While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.

     Handsome male executives were considered as having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.

     Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.

     All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.

     Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine and an attractive man more manly than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally' female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the "manly" qualities required.

     This is true even in politics. "When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently," says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of

women, ir o_nler of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.

     The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.

51. The word "liability" most probably means        

    A. disadvantage     B. advantage         C. misfortune        D. trouble

52. In traditionally female jobs, attractiveness       

      A. makes women look more honest and capable

      B. strengthens the feminine qualifies required

      C. is of no importance to women

      D. often enables women to succeed quickly

53. Bowman's experiment shows that when it comes to polities, attractiveness        

      A. turns out to be a disadvantage to men

      B. is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women

      C. affects men and women alike

      D. has as little effect on men as on women

54. It can be inferred from the passage that people's views on beauty are often      

      A. practical     B. supportive      C. old-fashioned    D. one-sided

55. The author writes this passage to

      A. give advice to job-seekers who are attractive

      B. discuss the disadvantages of being attractive

      C. demand equal rights for women

      D. state the importance of appearance

Answer 1

51—55  ADBDB

解析:

本文主要討論了在某些領域比如行政機構，魅力對女人而言是不利條件及其原因。

51. A 詞義題。第一段的前半部分主要講述了有個人吸引力的好處，但一個“but”，筆鋒一轉，開始討論個人魅力的缺點，即在行政領域它是一個不利條件disadvantage。

52. D 推斷題。根據第六段的an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally' female jobs可知，在傳統的婦女工作中有吸引力是女人的一個優勢，即她們會因此更快地獲得成功。

53. B 推斷題。結合第七段和最后一段的結果可以推出，對男人而言個人魅力是其優勢而對女人而言則恰恰相反，即更多的是不利條件is more of a disadvantage。

54. D 推斷題。結合全篇可以看出，人們對魅力的態度是因領域和性別不同而保持固有觀點，都不全面即one-sided。

55. B 主旨題。文章著重論述了個人魅力在某些領域對于女人而言是不利因素，所以不難知道作者寫這篇文章的目的是為了discuss the disadvantages of being attractive。