单选题 For most of my working life I have been a practicing scientist. I have worked in industrial and academic laboratories—as a laboratory assistant—and as a consultant. I have also taught chemistry from "O" level to the supervision of PhD students. But it is only in recent years that I have begun to look seriously beyond my own personal experience to the role of women in science in a wider context.
To my dismay, it seemed that there had been little improvement since I had embarked on my own career. The dice are still so heavily loaded against girls and women choosing a scientific career that I was astonished that so many had succeeded, against all the odds, rather than that there were so few.
Many factors deter girls from choosing a scientific career and one of these is undoubtedly the attitudes adopted by parents, teachers, friends and society in general. It was this area which I decided to investigate and my studies so far have indicated that negative attitudes towards women scientists have always existed and still prevail. These attitudes need to be demonstrated and combated because they adversely affect women"s careers, role models for girls and boy"s expectations of women.
Science is dominated by men, most of its practitioners are men and it is said to have a masculine image. Society does not expect women to become scientists so those that do know that they are "stepping out of line. " This, in itself, makes them "special" in some way because the men, in a male dominated profession, are not, in any sense, rebels. In an attempt to discover whether women scientists have any other characteristics in common, I have been gathering information about their lives, the way they work, the nature of that work and what they say about themselves.
If one includes both past and present women scientists one finds, superficially at least, a great diversity, particularly in their backgrounds, which range from poor, working-class to rich aristocracy. Some are married, with children, while some are unmarried and childless. However, it is evident that most of them developed habits of independent thought at an early age. Often these seem to have been fostered by parents who, in some cases, were subsequently dismayed when their daughters insisted on following their own inclinations and rejected traditional roles. Perhaps the parents inadvertently sowed the seeds of rebellion. Not all of the women scientists had to struggle against adversity as we normally think of it. The privileged ones who could have led idle, comfortable lives, chose not to, but all were quietly confident that what they were doing was right for them.

单选题 The author discovers that today women ______

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 第二段的这两句话分别从正反两方面说明了女性想从事科学研究所面临的逆境。一是今天的女科学家仍然很少，二是她们要想成功地选择科学领域会面临很多阻碍。作者说，令她沮丧的是后一种情况。根据上下文，so many had succeeded不是指科学家在自己的领域中取得成功(因此选择项A表达的内容不正确)，而是应该承前被理解为so many had succeeded in choosing a scientific career。从下文来看这种理解也比较合理，因为下文主要探讨的是那些因素阻碍了女孩选择科学研究生涯。

单选题 One major factor that affects women"s careers is that ______

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 第三段提到，有很多因素阻碍了女孩选择科学生涯，其中之一是家长、老师、朋友和社会的态度，作者发现，这些方面对女科学家的negative attitudes一直存在，而且仍然很盛行。这种态度影响了女性的职业选择、女孩的角色模式、男孩对女孩的期望。这里，role model指在社会生活中供年青一代追求和模仿的社会角色模式，如社会把勇敢的人当做英雄，向他们学习，模仿他们的行为。

单选题 The author finds that most women scientists ______

单选题 All of the following factors are important for the growth of a woman scientist EXCEPT ______

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 有关选择项B和D表达的内容，请参阅上一小题题解。文章的最后一句提到，那些选择从事科学研究的女性都自信自己做出了正确的选择，由此可见她们对自己和自己从事的职业都很自信，选择项C表达的内容也与原文表达的内容相符。文章提到有些女科学家出身上层社会家庭或富裕家庭，但并没有说这是她们选择科学领域的主要影响因素。事实上，作者发现，女科学家来自各种家庭背景。因此选择项A与原文表达的内容不符。