egoism
Definition: (noun) excessive concern with oneself; conceit.
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Problem
A large soda and a small soda together cost $8.00. If the large soda costs $1.60 more than the small soda, what is the price of the small soda?
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GMAT: Reading Comprehension Question #2 |
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Feminist sociolinguists, over the course of the last few decades, have conducted studies that they believe support the conclusion that women are routinely discriminated against in English-speaking society. They point to the words used to describe women, as well as the words used to describe society as a whole, as indications that the English language, and therefore the English-speaking culture, is slanted towards the advantage of males.
The words used to describe women are used an instrument by feminist sociolinguists to denote an inherent sexism in the English language. Word pairs such as master and mistress and sir and madam, they claim, epitomize such sexism. All of the words in question once held positive connotations but, while the masculine forms have retained their respectable associations, the feminine forms have undergone pejoration and now imply sexual promiscuity and other negative characteristics. Feminist researchers posit that such pejorations indicate that the status of women in English-speaking society is relatively low.
These researchers also find fault with the use of masculine words to describe unisex entities. For example, they feel that there is nothing inherently manly about mankind, the best man for the job, or the common man. Similarly, the use of such constructions such as the average student is worried about his grades indicate to these researchers an inherent sexism in English that is reflective of the cultures in which they are produced.
Carolyn Jacobson, author of Non-Sexist Language, has proposed a solution to this conundrum. She advocates the elimination of all sexed words in favor of gender-neutral terms. No longer should we refer to actors and actresses, or waiters and waitresses, as such dichotomies allow for the possibility of negative connotations being associated with the feminine designation. Likewise, she believes that phrases such as mankind should give way to human kind, and that the use of the masculine pronoun as the default should be relinquished in favor of neutral constructions. Thus, when sexism is eliminated from the English language, the culture will be more amenable to the deliverance of women as well.
Question:
According to the passage, gender-neutral constructions should be advocated because
Choices:
This is a detail question. It says according to the passage, which means that you should be able to pluck the correct answer directly out of the passage. If you go back and do a little research, the very last sentence of the passage says that when sexism is eliminated from the English language, the culture will be more amenable to women's deliverance as well. The answer choice that best paraphrases this quote is (A).
As for the other choices, (B) says that neutral constructions are more grammatically sound than sexed structures. Grammaticality is a notion that is never even touched on in the passage.
(C) may be tempting if your mind is still on the pejoration mentioned in the second paragraph, but that is not correct in the context of the question.
(D), like (B), is also incorrect because it talks about something that is never mentioned in the passage. The author never talks about which structures are more awkward.
Finally, (E) says that the sex-specific terms always carry negative connotations. This is somewhat tempting, but it is too extreme (be on the lookout for extreme language in Reading Comp answer choices - they are almost always wrong.)
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