四六级考试

【单选题】For reasons that are deeply rooted in culture and tradition, men significantly outnumber women in mathematics-based careers.As students progress through the mathematics courses, girls and boys show little difference in ability, effort, or interest in mathematics until adolescent years when course and career choices begin influencing school effort. Then, as social pressure increases and career goals are formed, girls’ decisions to reduce effort in the study of mathematics progressively cut them off from many professional careers in the future.
Many girls drop mathematics in high school or in the transition to college. Others drop out later. Women perform virtually as well as men in college mathematics courses, but beyond the bachelor’s degree women drop out of mathematics at twice the rate of men. Women now enter college nearly as well prepared in mathematics as men, and 46 percent of mathematics baccalaureates (学士学位) go to women.Despite this record, only 35 percent of the master’s degrees and 17 percent of the Ph.D、degrees in the mathematical sciences are earned by women.
Overall, women receive approximately one third of university degrees in science and engineering. The highest percentages of women are found in those sciences with the least mathematical prerequisite: psychology, biology, and sociology. The lowest percentages of women enter fields requiring the most mathematics, namely, physics, engineering, economics, geo-science, and chemistry.Evidence from many sources suggest that it is differences in course patterns rather than lack of ability that matter most in limiting women’s access to careers in mathematically intensive sciences.
Widely reported studies concerning the high percentage of boys among mathematical prodigies (天才)—those who at age 12 perform at the level of average college students-often convey the impression that gender differences in mathematics are biologically determineD、But evidence from the vast majority of students shows almost no difference in performance among male and female students who have taken equal advantage of similar opportunities to study mathematics. Inferences (推论) from very exceptional students—child prodigies—mean little about the performance of the general population.
According to the author, the learning abilities of males and females in mathematics are similar until they ______.
A、enter high school
B．enter college
C．acquire their bachelor’s degree
D．acquire their master’s degree
网考网参考答案：A
网考网解析：
[解析] 根据题干信息the learning ability of males and females in mathematics可将答案定位到第一段第二句。 第一段提到：“一开始男生和女生在数学学习的能力、努力程度或者兴趣方面并没有表现出太大的差异，直到青少年时期，课程和职业选择开始影响到学习上的努力，他们之间的差距就拉开了。”文中的“青春期之前”几乎等同于上高中之前。而且第二段也提到：“有很多女生在高中或者在高中到大学的过渡期间放弃了学习数学。”这更加明确指示了本题的正确答案应该是A选项。 document.getElementById("warp").style.display="none"; document.getElementById("content").style.display="block"; 查看试题解析出处>>