单选题   There was a time, not that long ago, when women were considered smart if they played dumb to get a man, and women who went to college were more interested in getting a 'Mrs. degree' than a bachelor's. Even today, it's not unusual for a woman to get whispered and unrequested counsel from her grandmother that an advanced degree could hurt her in the marriage market.
    'There were so many misperceptions out there about education and marriage' that I decided to sort out the facts,' said economist Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. So along with Wharton colleague Adam Isen, Stevenson calculated national marriage data from 1950 to 2008 and found that the marriage penalty women once paid for being well educated has largely disappeared.
    'In other words, the difference in marriage rates between those with college degrees and those without is very small,' said Stephanie Coontz, a family historian at Evergreen State College. The new analysis also found that while high-school dropouts (辍学学生) had the highest marriage rates in the 1950s, today college-educated women are much more likely to marry than those who don't finish high school.
    Of course, expectations have changed dramatically in the last half century. 'In the 1950s, a lot of women thought they needed to marry right away,' Coontz said. 'Real wages were rising so quickly that men in their 20s could afford to marry early. But they didn't want a woman who was their equal. Men needed and wanted someone who knew less.' In fact, she said, research published in 1946 documented that 40 percent of college women admitted to playing dumb on dates. 'These days, few women feel the need to play down their intelligence or achievements,' Coontz said.
    The new research has more good news for college grads. Stevenson said' the data indicate that modern college-educated women are more likely to be married before age 40, are less likely to divorce, and are more likely to describe their marriages as 'happy'. The marriages of well-educated women tend to be more stable because the brides are usually older as well as wiser, Stevenson said.
单选题     Not long ago, it was believed that women went to college in order to ______.
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】第1段第1句。 原文该句表明以前女人上大学是为了获得Mrs. degree，其中的Mrs. 一词是关键，只有结了婚的女人才可以被称为Mrs.，由此可见，以前女人上大学是为了找到结婚的对象，因此，本题应选A。 本题具有干扰性的是C和D。本文该句讨论的要点是关于女人如何找一个丈夫，而不是如何成为一个好妻子，因此，虽然C中的wife和原文的Mrs.也可以扯上关系，但不是原文要点；D中的marry someone是对的，但从原文不能推断上大学的女人一定要找获得学士学位的男人结婚，someone后的定语无从证实。
单选题     According to the first paragraph, what grandmother whispers to her granddaughter is usually ______.
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】第1段第2句。 原文该句中的unrequested表明(外)祖母们的建议是在没有经过任何人的要求而主动提出的，因此，本题应选C。 本题解题的关键是理解unrequested的意思，其他选项均在第1段中找不到依据。
单选题     What did Betsey Stevenson fred about well-educated women in the past?
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据人名定位至第2段。 该段最后一句中的marriage penalty... has largely disappeared表明过去接受过良好教育的女性在婚姻方面会遭受“惩罚”，至于这种“惩罚”是指结婚率低还是离婚率高呢?这可从第3段第1句找到答案。该句的In other words表明其意思和第2段最后一句的相同，且提到了marriage rate(结婚率)，因此，第2段最后一句中的marriage penalty应该是指受过良好教育的女性的结婚率低，本题应选B。 本文前三段都在讲“结婚”这个话题，没有提到“离婚”。因此，与“离婚”有关的C和D应立刻排除。
单选题     Coontz pointed out that, in the last half century ______.
 
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】第4段第1句。 D是对原文该句的近义改写，其中expectations和outlook同义，dramatically和greatly同义。 本题最具干扰性的是C。该段第3句提到了Real wages were rising so quickly，但要注意的是，题干是有关发生在“上一个五十年”的事，而这是发生在上世纪50年代，与题干不符。
单选题     The effect of education on marriage has been found to be ______.
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】最后一段。 最后一段首先用good news概述高等教育对女性的积极影响，并提到受教育程度比较高的女性婚姻更稳定，更不容易离婚，由此可见，受教育程度高对婚姻有好的影响，因此，本题应选A。 其他选项均无原文依据。