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Ours is a society that tries to keep the world sharply divided into masculine and feminine, not because that is the way the world is, but because that is the way we believe it should be. It takes unwavering belief and considerable effort to keep this division. It also leads us to make some fairly foolish judgments, particularly about language.
Because we think that language also should be divided into masculine and. feminine we have become very skilled at ignoring anything that will not fit our preconceptions. We would rather change what we hear than change our ideas about the gender division of the world. We will call assertive girls unfeminine, and supportive boys effeminate, and try to ehan4ge them while still retaining our stereotypes of masculine and feminine talk.
This is why some research on sex differences and language has been so interesting. It is an illustration of how wrong we can be. Of the many investigators who set out to find the stereotyped sex differences in language, few have had any positive results. It seems that our images of serious taciturn (沉黙的) male speakers and gossipy garrulous (饶舌的)female speakers are just that: images.
Many myths associated with masculine and feminine talk have had to be discarded as more research has been undertaken. If females do use more trivial words than males, stop talking in mid-sentence, or talk about the same things over and over again, they do not do it when investigators are around.
None of these characteristics of female speech have been found. And even when sex differences have been found, the question arises as to whether the differences is in the eye or ear of the beholder, rather than in the language.
If males do not speak in high-pitched voices, it is not usually because they are unable to do so. The reason is more likely to be that there are penalties. Males with high-pitched voices are often the object of ridicule. But pitch is not an absolute, for what is considered the right pitch for males varies from country to country.

单选题 The passage implies that the author' s attitude towards the division of feminine talk and masculine talk is______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】作者态度题。题意为：“本文作者对男性话语和女性话语的分类的态度是怎样的?”从文中第一段末句出现的foolish judgments(愚蠢的判断)以及第三段第二句(这表明我们会犯多么大的错误，会向错误方向走多远)，可知作者对此持批评态度，即选项D为正确答案。选项A“肯定的”；选项D“势利的”；选项C“赞许的”。

单选题 What does the word "effeminate" (Sentence 3,Paragraph 2) mean?

单选题 The author uses pitch as an example in order to indicate______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】推断题。题意为：“作者以音高为例是为了表明______。”根据长五段末句(即使找到性别差异时，问题仍是这一差异是否是由听者、看者的观点造成的，而不是因为语言本身的差异)，可知选项C“语言的性别差异不好描述”为正确答案。选项A“音高不是解释语言中性别差异的一个恰当的例子”；选项B“男性应低声说话；女性应高声说话”；选项D“性别差异取决于听者或看者，而不是取决于语言”。

单选题 Which of the following does NOT belong to the stereotype of feminine talk?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】细节题。题意为：“下列哪句不属于女性话语的传统观点?”根据文章第四段末句(如果女性化男性用更多无关紧要的词，说话说一半，或反复说同一件事，那并不是因为调查者在场)，可知女性并不总是使用无关紧要的词，即选项A为正确答案。选项 B“同一件事儿重复一遍又一遍”；选项C“说到一半儿就停下来”；选项D“前三项都不是”。