单选题 It's possible to admire Oprah Winfrey and still wish Harvard hadn't awarded her an honorary doctor of law degree and the commencement (毕业典礼)speaker spot at yesterday's graduation. There's no question Oprah's achievements place her in the temple of American success stories. Talent, charm, and an exceptional work ethic have rarely hurled anyone as far as they have this former abused teenage mother from rural Mississippi who became one of the world's most successful entertainment icons and the first African-American female billionaire. Honorary degrees are often conferred on non-academic leaders in the arts, business, and politics. Harvard's list in recent years has included Kofi Annan, Bill Gates, Meryl Streep, and David Souter. But Oprah's particular brand of celebrity is not a good fit for the values of a university whose motto (座右铭), Veritas, means truth. Oprah's passionate advocacy extends, unfortunately, to a hearty embrace of fake science. Most notoriously, Oprah's validation of Jenny McCarthy's claim that vaccines cause autism (自闭症) has no doubt contributed to much harm through the foolish avoidance of vaccines. Famous people are entitled to a few failings like the rest of us, and the choice of commencement speakers often reflects a balance of institutional priorities and aspirations. Judging from our conversations with many students, Oprah was a widely popular choice. But this vote of confidence in Oprah sends a troubling message at precisely the time when American universities need to do more to advance the cause of reason. As former Dean of Harvard College, Harry Lewis, noted in a blog post about his objections, 'It seems very odd for Harvard to honor such a high profile popularizer of the irrational... at a time when political and religious nonsense so jeopardize the rule of reason in this allegedly enlightened democracy and around the world.' As America's oldest and most visible university, Harvard has a special opportunity to convey its respect for science not only through its research and teaching programs but also in its public affirmation of evidence-based inquiry. Unfortunately, many American universities seem awfully busy protecting their brand name and not nearly busy enough protecting the pursuit of knowledge. A recent article in The Harvard Crimson noted the shocking growth of Harvard's public relations arm in the last five years and it questioned whether a focus on risk management and avoiding controversy was really the best outward-looking face of this great institution. As American research universities begin to resemble profit centers and entertainment complexes, it's easy to lose sight of their primary mission: to produce and spread knowledge. This mission depends on traditions of rational discourse and vigorous defense of the scientific method. Oprah Winfrey's honorary doctorate was a step in the wrong direction.

单选题 What is the most striking image to emerge from this autumn's Occupy protests? Was it the campus police officer in Davis, California, casually pepper-spraying a line of seated protesters? Or the white-shirted cop in New York, doing the same to a pair of unarmed, penned-in women? Perhaps it was a street in Oakland, deserted except for protesters and a line of black-helmeted riot police, the silence broken when one of the cops fires a rubber bullet at a protester filming him. Protesters have complained, as ever, about police infiltration, but as these videos were made clear, protesters and other citizens are keeping their eyes on police, too. More than two-thirds of Americans own digital cameras. Around one-third of adults own a smart phone. Most of these devices can record and easily transmit audio and video. Recording police has never been easier, and thanks to social-media and activist networks such as Copwatch, which monitors police activity and posts videos to the web, neither has publicizing these recordings. That does not always go over well. People peaceably filming police have been handcuffed, beaten, had their cameras seized, and been arrested for obstructing governmental administration, obstructing an investigation, interference, disturbing the peace, or for illegal wiretapping. In taking such action the police are on shaky legal ground. The right to photograph people, including police officers, in public places, is relatively clear. Adding audio, however, raises a new set of legal issues. Most states have single-party consent laws concerning audio recording, meaning that as long as one party consents to being recorded, the taping is legal. In most of the 12 states in which all parties must consent to be recorded, a violation occurs only if the subjects being recorded have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Arguing that police officers carrying out their duties in public have such a right is a challenge. The attorney-general in Maryland, an all-party-consent state, wrote in 2010 that few interactions with police could be considered private. And challenges are mounting in two of the states—Illinois and Massachusetts—without expectation-of-privacy clauses. In Massachusetts last August, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that a citizen's right to film police in public is protected by the first and fourth amendments. During oral arguments, one of the judges hearing the challenges to the Illinois Eavesdropping Act worried that allowing recording might hinder the ability of the police to do their jobs. He gave the example of a policeman talking to a confidential informant. Police have also expressed concern about recording, and hence exposing, undercover officers. But of course police can still speak in private. Given the actions of some police officers when confronted with a camera, filming cops may not be prudent. But neither should it be illegal.

单选题 Vitamin Truth and Lies A. Once upon a time, you believed in the tooth fairy. You counted on the stability of housing prices and depended on bankers to be, well, dependable. And you figured that taking vitamins was good for you. Oh, it's painful when another myth gets shattered. Recent research suggests that a daily multi is a waste of money for most people—and there's growing evidence that some other old standbys (备用物品) may even hurt your health. Here's what you need to know. Myth: a multivitamin can make up for a bad diet B. An insurance policy in a pill? If only it were so. Last year, researchers published new findings from the Women's Health Initiative, a long-term study of more than 160000 midlife women. The data showed that multivitamin-takers are no healthier than those who don't pop the pills, at least when it comes to the big diseases—cancer, heart disease, stroke. 'Even women with poor diets weren't helped by taking a multivitamin,' says study author Marian Neuhouser, Ph. D., in the cancer prevention program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle. C. Vitamin supplements came into fashion in the early 1900s, when it was difficult or impossible for most people to get a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round. Back then, vitamin-deficiency diseases weren't unheard of: the bowed legs and deformed ribs of rickets (caused by a severe shortage of vitamin D) or the skin problems and mental confusion of pellagra (caused by a lack of the B vitamin niacin). But these days, you're extremely unlikely to be seriously deficient if you eat an average American diet, if only because many packaged foods are vitamin-enriched. Sure, most of us could do with a couple more daily servings of produce, but a multi doesn't do a good job at substituting for those. 'Multivitamins maybe have two dozen ingredients—but plants have hundreds of other useful compounds,' Neuhouser says. 'If you just take a multivitamin, you're missing lots of compounds that may be providing benefits.' D. That said, there is one group that probably ought to keep taking a multivitamin: women of reproductive age. The supplement is insurance in case of pregnancy. A woman who gets adequate amounts of the B vitamin foliate is much less likely to have a baby with a birth defect affecting the spinal cord (脊髓). Since the spinal cord starts to develop extremely early—before a woman may know she's pregnant—the safest course is for her to take 400 micrograms of folic acid (叶酸) (the synthetic form of foliate) daily. And a multi is an easy way to get it. Myth: vitamin C is a cold fighter E. In the 1970s, Nobel laureate Linus Pauling popularized the idea that vitamin C could prevent colds. Today, drugstores are full of vitamin C-based remedies. Studies say: Buyer, beware. In 2007, researchers analyzed a raft of studies going back several decades and involving more than 11000 subjects to arrive at a disappointing conclusion: Vitamin C didn't ward off colds, except among marathoners, skiers, and soldiers on subarctic exercises. F. Of course, prevention isn't the only game in town. Can the vitamin cut the length of colds? Yes and no. Taking the vitamin daily does seem to reduce the time you'll spend sniffling—but not enough to notice. Adults typically have cold symptoms for 12 days a year; a daily pill could cut that to 11 days. Kids might go from 28 days of runny noses to 24 per year. The researchers conclude that minor reductions like these don't justify the expense and bother of year-round pill-popping (taking C only after symptoms crop up doesn't help). Myth: vitamin pills can prevent heart disease G. Talk about exciting ideas—the notion that vitamin supplements might help lower the toll of some of our most damaging chronic diseases turned a sleepy area of research into a sizzling- hot one. These high hopes came in part from the observation that vitamin-takers were less likely to develop heart disease. Even at the time, researchers knew the finding might just reflect what's called the healthy user effect—means that vitamin devotees are more likely to exercise, eat right, and resist the temptations of tobacco and other bad habits. But it was also possible that antioxidant vitamins like C, E, and beta-carotene (β-胡萝卜素) could prevent heart disease by reducing the buildup of artery-clogging plaque (牙斑). B vitamins were promising, too, because foliate, B6, and B12 help break down the amino acid homocysteine (同型半胱氨酸)—and high levels of homocysteine have been linked to heart disease. Unfortunately, none of those hopes have panned out H. An analysis of seven vitamin E trials concluded that it didn't cut the risk of stroke or of death from heart disease. The study also scrutinized eight beta-carotene studies and determined that, rather than prevent heart disease, those supplements produced a slight increase in the risk of death. Other big studies have shown vitamin C failing to deliver. As for B vitamins, research shows that yes, these do cut homocysteine levels... but no, that doesn't make a dent in heart danger. I. Don't take these pills, the American Heart Association says. Instead, the AHA offers some familiar advice: Eat a varied diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Myth: taking vitamins can protect against cancer J. Researchers know that unstable molecules called free radicals (自由基) can damage your cells' DNA, upping the risk of cancer. They also know that antioxidants can stabilize free radicals, theoretically making them much less dangerous. So why not take some extra antioxidants to protect yourself against cancer? Because research so far has shown no good comes from popping such pills. K. A number of studies have tried and failed to find a benefit, like a recent one that randomly assigned 5 442 women to take either a placebo or a B-vitamin combo (混合物). Over the course of more than seven years, all the women experienced similar rates of cancers and cancer deaths. In Neuhouser's enormous multivitamin study, that pill didn't offer any protection against cancer either. Nor did C, E, or beta-carotene in research done at Harvard Medical School. Truth: a pill that's worth taking L. As studies have eroded the hopes placed in most vitamin supplements, one pill is looking better and better. Research suggests that vitamin D protects against a long list of ills. Men with adequate levels of D have about half the risk of heart attack as men who are deficient. And getting enough D appears to lower the risk of at least half a dozen cancers; indeed, epidemiologist Cedric Garland, MD, at the University of California, San Diego, believes that if Americans got sufficient amounts of vitamin D, 50000 cases of colorectal (结肠直肠的) cancer could be prevented each year. M. But many—perhaps most—Americans fall short, according to research by epidemiologist Adit Ginde, MD, at the University of Colorado, Denver. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. You make it when sunlight hits your skin. Yet thanks to sunscreen and workaholic (or TV-aholic) habits, most people don't make enough. N. How much do you need? The Institute of Medicine is reassessing that right now; most experts expect a big boost from the current levels (200 to 600 IU daily). It's safe to take 1000 IU per day, says Ginde. 'We think most people need at least that much.' O. So here's the truth about vitamins. Eat right, and supplement with vitamin D. That's a no-brainer coupled with a great bet—and that's no lie.

单选题 Questions13-16 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题Sending your children to piano or violin lessons in a bid to boost their academic achievement is a waste of money, according to scientists. Although research has shown that youngsters who take music lessons are more likely to be 25 of their class, psychologist Glenn Schellenberg claims this link is 26 . Instead, improved academic performance may be because brighter children from privileged 27 are more likely to learn an instrument, rather than music classes helping to boost their 28 . 'Music may 29 you a bit, but it's also the case that different children take music lessons,' said Professor Schellenberg of the University of Toronto, who added that parents' education was the most influential 30 on musicality. 'Children who take music lessons come from families with higher incomes, they come from families with more 31 parents, they also do more extracurricular (课外的) activities, they have higher IQs, and they do better at school.' In tests on 167 children who played the piano or other instruments, they found their answer to personality tests could 32 how likely it was for them to continue their music lessons. Those who were more outgoing and conscientious were more likely to continue to play. 'We were 33 by the fact that kids who take music lessons are particularly good students, in school they actually do better than you would predict from their IQ, so 34 something else is going On,' Professor Schellenberg told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Boston. 'So we thought that personality might be the personality.' A. backgrounds B. change C. decrease D. displayed E. educated F. emotional G. factor H. fortunately I. intelligence J. misleading K. motivated L. obviously M. predict N. status O. top

单选题America's most popular newspaper website today announced that the era of free online journalism is drawing to a close. The New York Times has become the biggest publisher yet to 28 plans for a paywall around its digital offering, 29 the accepted practice that internet users will not pay for news. Struggling with an evaporation of advertising and a downward drift in street corner sales, The New York Times 30 to introduce a 'metered' model at the beginning of 2011. Readers will be required to pay when they have 31 a set number of its online articles per month. The decision puts the 159-year-old newspaper 32 the charging side of an increasingly wide chasm (鸿沟) in the media industry. But others, including the Guardian, have said they will not charge internet readers, and certain papers, such as London's Evening Standard, have gone further in abandoning readership revenue by making their print editions free. The New York Times' publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, 33 that the move is a gamble: 'This is a bet, to a certain degree, in where we think the web is going.' Boasting a print 34 of 995,000 on weekdays and 1.4 million on Sundays, The New York Times is the third best-selling American newspaper, behind the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. While most US papers focus on a single city, The New York Times is among the few that can 35 national scope—as well as 16 bureaus in the New York area, it has 11 offices around the US and 36 26 bureaus elsewhere in the world. But like many in the publishing industry, the paper is in the grip of a serious financial crisis. Its parent company, the New York Times Company, has 15 papers, but 37 a loss of $70 million in the nine months to September and recently accepted a $250 million loan from a Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim, to strengthen its balance sheet. A. suffered B. targeted C. circulation D. set out E. acknowledged F. abandoning G. multiplied H. intend to I. maintains J. claim K. evaluation L. set in M. on N. exceeded O. abusing

单选题 Is 20th-century capitalism failing 21st-century society? Members of the global elite debated that unusual question at the annual World Economic Forum. It is encouraging that more than three years since the global financial crisis, a belated (迟到的)process of soul-searching has begun in search of the right lessons to learn from it. There is a great difference, however, between being willing to talk about an issue and being ready to act. It is a difference between those who still believe that all governments can do is get out of the way and those who believe there is a real role for governments in first reviving our economies, and then setting the right rules for future success. If we learned anything from the 1930s, it was that governments cannot shrug their shoulders and watch as their own people are being laid off. Nor should we forget the causes of the current growth and debt crisis as we seek to put our economies on a more sustainable footing. Both the United States and Britain suffered because their economies were overly reliant on the financial sector's artificial profits; living standards for the many worsened while the economic rewards went to the top 1 percent; a capitalist model encouraged short-term decision-making oriented toward quarterly profits rather than long-term health; and interest groups like giant banks were deemed too big to fail or too powerful to challenge. We need to recognize that the trickle-down promise (benefits given to the rich will eventually be passed on to the poor) of conservative theorists has turned into a gravity-defying reality in which wealth has flowed upward disproportionately and, too often, undeservedly. To address the problem requires fresh thinking from governments about how people train for their working lives and what a living wage should be. Governments can set better—not necessarily more—rules to encourage productive businesses that make and sell real products and services. We need rules that discourage the predatory (掠夺的) behavior of those seeking the fast buck through hostile takeovers and asset-stripping that do not have the interests of the shareholders, the employees or the economy at heart. And governments must remember they are elected to serve the people, not the powerful lobbies who can pay for access or influence. Too often the real enemies of market capitalism are some of the leading beneficiaries of the current model, which favors big monopolies and consumer exploitation. I believe that changing the rules of capitalism will require a change in what citizens expect and ask of politics. The question is not so much whether 20th-century capitalism is failing 21st-century society but whether politics can rise to the challenge of changing a flawed economic model.

单选题 How many really suffer as a result of labor market problems? This is one of the most critical yet contentious social policy questions. In many ways, our social statistics exaggerate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same dire consequences today as it did in the 1930s, when most of the unemployed were primary bread winners, when income and earnings were usually much closer to the margin of subsistence, and when there were no countervailing social programs for those failing in the labor market. Increasing affluence, the rise of families with more than one wage earner, the growing predominance of secondary earners among the unemployed, and improved social welfare protection have unquestionably mitigated the consequences of joblessness. Earnings and income data also overstate the dimensions of hardship. Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the over-whelming majority are from multiple-earner, relatively affluent families. Most of those counted by the poverty statistics are elderly or handicapped or have family responsibilities which keep them out of the labor force, so the poverty statistics are by no means an accurate indicator of labor market pathologies. Yet there are also many ways our social statistics underestimate the degree of labor-market-related hardship. The unemployment counts exclude the millions of fully employed workers whose wages are so low that their families remain in poverty. Low wages and repeated or prolonged unemployment frequently interact to undermine the capacity for self-support. Since the number experiencing joblessness at some time during the year is several times the number unemployed in any month, those who suffer as a result of forced idleness can equal or exceed average annual unemployment, even though only a minority of the jobless in any month really suffer. For every person counted in the monthly unemployment tallies, there is another working part-time because of the inability to find full-time work, or else outside the labor force but wanting a job. Finally, income transfers in our country have always focused on the elderly, disabled, and dependent, neglecting the needs of the working poor, so that the dramatic expansion of cash and inkind transfers does not necessarily mean that those failing in the labor market are adequately protected. As a result of such contradictory evidence, it is uncertain whether those suffering seriously as a result of thousands or the tens of millions, and, hence, whether high levels of joblessness can be tolerated or must be countered by job creation and economic stimulus. There is only one area of agreement in this debate—that the existing poverty, employment, and earnings statistics are inadequate for one their primary applications, measuring the consequences of labor market problems.

单选题 There was a time not long ago when new science Ph. D. s in the United States were expected to pursue a career path in academia (学术界). But today, most graduates end up working outside academia, not only in industry but also in careers such as science policy, communications, and patent law. Partly this is a result of how bleak the academic job market is, but there's also a rising awareness of career options that Ph. D. scientists haven't trained for directly—but for which they have useful knowledge, skills, and experience. Still, there's a huge disconnect between the way we currently train scientists and the actual employment opportunities available for them, and an urgent need for dramatic improvements in training programs to help close the gap. One critical step that could help to drive change would be to require Ph. D. students and postdoctoral scientists to follow an individual development plan (IDP). In 2002, the US Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology recommended that every postdoctoral researcher put together an IDP m consultation with an adviser. Since then, several academic institutions have begun to require IDPs for postdocs. And in June, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group recommended that the NIH require IDPs for the approximately 32 000 postdoctoral researchers they support. Other funding agencies, public and private, are moving in a similar direction. IDPs have long been used by government agencies and the private sector to achieve specific goals for the employee and the organization. The aim is to ensure that employees have an explicit tool to help them understand their own abilities and aspirations, determine career possibilities, and set (usually short-term)goals. In science, graduate students and new Ph. D. scientists can use an IDP to identify and navigate an effective career path. A free Web application for this purpose, called my IDF, has become available this week. It's designed to guide early-career scientists through a confidential, rigorous process of introspection (内省) to create a customized career plan. Guided by expert knowledge from a panel of science-focused career advisers, each trainee's self-assessment is used to rank a set of career trajectories (轨迹). After the user has identified a long-term career goal. My IDP walks her or him through the process of setting short-term goals directed toward accumulating new skills and experiences important for that career choice. Although surveys reveal the IDP process to be useful, trainees report a need for additional resources to help them identify a long-term career path and complete an IDP. Thus, myIDP will be most effective when it's embedded in larger career-development efforts. For example, universities could incorporate IDPs into their graduate curricula to help students discuss, plan, prepare for, and achieve their long-term career goals.

单选题 We are what we eat, and now researchers are saying that our diet affects how we sleep. A study, published in the journal Appetite, found differences in the diets of people who slept for seven to eight hours a night compared with those snoozing for five. Since less sleep is associated with high blood pressure, poorer blood-glucose control (increasing the risk of diabetes) and obesity (as is more sleep in some studies), shouldn't we eat the foods that are most likely to help us sleep a healthy amount? And does anyone know what foods these are? The study in Appetite used data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and found that those who slept the standard seven to eight hours ate the greatest variety of foods. Those who slept the least (less than five hours) drank less water, took in less vitamin C, had less selenium (硒) (found in nuts, meat and shellfish) but ate more green, leafy vegetables. Longer sleep was associated with more carbohydrates, alcohol and less choline (胆碱) (found in eggs and fatty meats) and less theorbomine (茶碱) (found in chocolate and tea). The researchers took into account other factors such as obesity, physical activity and income, and still found these differences in diet. They concluded that both long (nine hours-plus) and short sleep are associated with less varied diets but say they don't know if changing diet would affect how long we sleep for. The study shows only an association, although the link with short and long sleep both being 'unhealthy' holds true with a 2011 review of evidence about the length of sleep and risk of heart disease. The evidence on what diet would help us sleep best isn't clear. It is also not evident how much individual preferences for sleep—some like to sleep longer than others—affect these results. But there is more research on the relationship between sleep and weight, with studies showing the shorter the amount of sleep a person has, the hungrier they feel. A German study presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive (摄食的) Behaviour last year showed that after just one night of sleep disruption the volunteers in the study were less energetic (so used up fewer calories) but hungrier. The researchers said their volunteers also had raised blood levels of ghrelin (胃饥饿素), a hormone linked to the feeling of hunger. A commentary a few months later in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association backed this association, saying that while encouraging a weight-loss regime of eating less, moving more and sleeping more might be too simplistic, diets were helped by good amounts of high quality sleep. So while no one knows what foods will stop you waking up at 5 am, you won't go wrong with a more varied diet and a sensible bedtime.

单选题 Crash. Shatter. Boom. Crash. Shatter. Boom. Smattering of silly dialogue. Pretty girl screams: 'Dad!' Crash. Shatter. Boom. Silly dialogue. 'DAD!!!' Crash. Shatter. Boom. What? Oh, sorry. We were falling into a trance there. Which is, dear moviegoer, what may happen to you during Michael Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth Transformers film and lasts 165 minutes, which is precariously close to the three-hour mark that Bay undoubtedly will reach—by our sophisticated calculations, and at the current growth rate, with his sixth instalment. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Despite what you've just read, this film will likely be a massive hit because by now, if you're buying a Transformers ticket, you surely know what you're getting into, and you want more, more, more. And Bay is the Master of More. Or just take it from the 11-year-old sitting next to me, who reserved any audible judgment—he, too was in a trance, though maybe from sugar intake—until the moment he saw a Transformer become a dinosaur. Overwhelmed by the pairing, he proclaimed, 'That's the sickest thing I've ever seen in my life.' It was as if peanut butter and jelly had been tasted together for the first time. This time, there's a whole new human cast. Most important, Mark Wahlberg has replaced Shia LaBeouf as well, Main Human Guy. A significant part of the movie also takes place in China—clearly a nod to the franchise's huge market in the country. In any case, we begin in Paris, Texas, where Cade Yeager (Wahlberg), a struggling inventor, is desperately seeking a big discovery. He's also a widowed dad, and super-protective (as the movie incessantly reminds us) of his high-school daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz, blond and pretty and ineffective, though the one-note script does her no favours). One day, Cade buys a rusty old truck. Examining it back home, he soon discovers it's none other than Optimus Prime, the Autobot hero, seriously damaged. As Cade works on fixing him up, his assistant, wisecracking surfer-dude Lucas, has the dumb idea of calling the authorities. What he doesn't know is that the government is plotting to destroy all remaining Autobots in favour of a man-made army of Transformers. He's being helped in this endeavour by the shadowy KSI Corporation, run by the nasty-but-complicated Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci). So now, it's evil humans that pitted against the trustworthy Autobots. So much for gratitude. There's also a subplot involving Tessa and her secret boyfriend, Shane (Jack Reynor, underused), whose Irish accent leads Cade to dismissively call him 'Lucky Charms'—at least until the two bond in battle. The obvious question: Is it too much for its own good? Bay is very talented at all things visual, the 3-D works well and the robots look great. But the final confrontation alone lasts close to an hour. At some point, you may find yourself simply in a daze, unable to absorb any further action into your brain.

单选题 Lessons From a Feminist Paradise A. On the surface, Sweden appears to be a feminist paradise. Look at any global survey of gender equality and Sweden will be near the top. Family-friendly policies are its norm—with 16 months of paid parental leave, special protections for part-time workers, and state-subsidized preschools where, according to a government website, 'gender-awareness education is increasingly common.' Due to an unofficial quota system, women hold 45 percent of positions in the Swedish parliament. They have enjoyed the protection of government agencies with titles like the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality and the Secretariat of Gender Research. So why are American women so far ahead of their Swedish counterparts in breaking through the glass ceiling? B. In a 2012 report, the World Economic Forum found that when it comes to closing the gender gap in 'economic participation and opportunity, ' the United States is ahead of not only Sweden but also Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Sweden's rank in the report can largely be explained by its political quota system. Though the United States has fewer women in the workforce(68 percent compared to Sweden's 77 percent), American women who choose to be employed are far more likely to work full-time and to hold high-level jobs as managers or professionals. They also own more businesses, launch more start-ups (新创办的企业), and more often work in traditionally male fields. As for breaking through the glass ceiling in business, American women are well in the lead. C. What explains the American advantage? How can it be that societies like Sweden, where gender equality is vigorously pursued and enforced, have fewer female managers, executives, professionals, and business owners than the laissez-faire (自由放任的) United States? A new study by Cornell economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn gives an explanation. D. Generous parental leave policies and readily available part-time options have unintended consequences: instead of strengthening women's attachment to the workplace, they appear to weaken it. In addition to a 16-month leave, a Swedish parent has the right to work six hours a day (for a reduced salary) until his or her child is eight years old. Mothers are far more likely than fathers to take advantage of this law. But extended leaves and part-time employment are known to be harmful to careers—for both genders. And with women a second factor comes into play: most seem to enjoy the flexible-time arrangement (once known as the 'mommy track') and never find their way back to full-time or high-level employment. In sum: generous family-friendly policies do keep more women in the labor market, but they also tend to diminish their careers. E. According to Blau and Kahn, Swedish-style paternal (父亲的) leave policies and flexible-time arrangements pose a second threat to women's progress: they make employers cautious about hiring women for full-time positions at all. Offering a job to a man is the safer bet. He is far less likely to take a year of parental leave and then return on a reduced work schedule for the next eight years. F. I became aware of the trials of career-focused European women a few years ago when I met a post-doctoral student from Germany who was then a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins. She was astonished by the professional possibilities afforded to young American women. Her best hope in Germany was a government job—prospects for women in the private sector were dim. 'In Germany, ' she told me, 'we have all the benefits, but employers don't want to hire us.' G. Swedish economists Magnus Henrekson and Mikael Stenkula addressed the following question in their 2009 study: why are there so few female top executives in the European egalitarian (平等主义的)welfare states? Their answer: 'Broad-based welfare-state policies hinder women's representation in elite competitive positions.' H. It is tempting to declare the Swedish policies regressive (退步的) and hail the American system as superior. But that would be shortsighted. The Swedes can certainly take a lesson from the United States and look for ways to clear a path for their ambitious female careerists. But most women are not committed careerists. When the Pew Research Center recently asked American parents to identify their 'ideal' life arrangement, 47 percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 20 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. Some version of the Swedish system might work well for a majority of American parents, but the United States is unlikely to fully embrace the Swedish model. Still, we can learn from their experience. I. Despite its failure to shatter the glass ceiling, Sweden has one of the most powerful and innovative economies in the world. In its 2011-2012 survey, the World Economic Forum ranked Sweden as the world's third most competitive economy; the United States came in fifth. Sweden, dubbed the 'rockstar of the recovery' in the Washington Post, also leads the world in life satisfaction and happiness. It is a society well worth studying, and its efforts to conquer the gender gap impart a vital lesson—though not the lesson the Swedes had in mind. J. Sweden has gone farther than any other nation on earth to integrate the sexes and to offer women the same opportunities and freedoms as men. For decades, these descendants of the Vikings have been trying to show the world that the right mix of enlightened policy, consciousness raising, and non-sexist child rearing would close the gender divide once and for all. Yet the divide persists. K. A 2012 press release from Statistics Sweden bears the title 'Gender Equality in Sweden Treading (踩)Water' and notes: · The total income from employment for all ages is lower for women than for men. · One in three employed women and one in ten employed men work part-time. · Women's working time is influenced by the number and age of their children, but men's working time is not affected by these factors. · Of all employees, only 13 percent of the women and 12 percent of the men have occupations with an even distribution of the sexes. L. Confronted with such facts, some Swedish activists and legislators are demanding more extreme and far-reaching measures, such as replacing male and female pronouns with a neutral alternative and monitoring children more closely to correct them when they gravitate (被吸引) toward gendered play. When it came to light last year that mothers, far more than fathers, chose to stay home from work to care for their sick kids, Ulf Kristersson, minister of social security, quickly commissioned a study to determine the causes of and possible cures for this disturbing state of affairs. M. Swedish family policies, by accommodating women's preferences effectively, are reducing the number of women in elite competitive positions. The Swedes will find this paradoxical and try to find solutions. Let us hope these do not include banning gender pronouns, policing children's play, implementing more gender quotas, or treating women's special attachment to home and family as a social injustice. Most mothers do not aspire to (向往) elite, competitive full-time positions: the Swedish policies have given them the freedom and opportunity to live the lives they prefer. Americans should look past the gender rhetoric and consider what these Scandinavians have achieved. On their way to creating a feminist paradise, the Swedes have unintentionally created a haven (避风港) for normal mortals.