实在想不通OG-44这道阅读题！

Passage 44

In the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry, women were employed primarily in low-paying, low-skill jobs. To explain this segregation of labor by gender, economists have relied on the useful theory of human capital. According to this theory, investment in human capital-the acquisition of difficult job-related skills-generally benefits individuals by making them eligible to engage in well-paid occupations. Women’s role as child bearers, however, results in interruptions in their participation in the job market (as compared with men’s) and thus reduces their opportunities to acquire training for highly skilled work. In addition, the human capital theory explains why there was a high concentration of women workers in certain low-skill jobs, such as weaving, but not in others, such as combing or carding, by positing that because of their primary responsibility in child rearing women took occupations that could be carried out in the home.

There were, however, differences in pay scales that cannot be explained by the human capital theory. For example, male construction workers were paid significantly higher wage than female taffeta weavers. The wage difference between these two low-skill occupations stems from the segregation of labor by gender: because a limited number of occupations were open to women, there was a large supply of workers in their fields, and this “overcrowding” resulted in women receiving lower wages and men receiving higher wages.

266. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the explanation provided by the human capital theory for women’s concentration in certain occupations in seventeenth-century Florence?

答案给的是

(A) Women were unlikely to work outside the home even in occupations whose hourse were

flexible enough to allow women to accommodate domestic tasks as well as paid labor.

既然不可能outside home工作，就只能选择在家工作了，所以集中于weaving这种工作。

由此推理，A看起来是加强，怎么变成weaken的原因了？

266.

This question asks you to consider the effect that certain additional information would have on the strength of an explanation provided in the passage.
这基本是一道逻辑类型的题了。

The correct answer choice will be the one that would, if true, most weaken the explanation. Choice A is the best answer.
削弱。

The human capital theory explanation posits that women were more likely to take jobs that could be done at home because that allowed the women also to attend to domestic child-rearing duties.
这里指出human capital 理论的论点。即妇女找工作要兼顾家庭内照顾孩子的责任。

If women had been unlikely to work outside the home even in jobs with hours flexible enough to accommodate domestic work as well, then the need to attend to domestic tasks would not appear to be a sufficient explanation for the high concentrations of women who opted to work at home.
这确实能从根本上否定上述理论的论点。即，即便可以解决家庭内责任的问题，妇女仍不会在外工作。

Choice B is incorrect because a differential teaching of occupational skills by parents to their children according to gender does not weaken the human capital theory explanation.

Choice C is incorrect: since women who worked at home and women who worded outside the home were all part of the paid labor force, a growth in the female paid labor force would not necessarily weaken the human capital theory explanation.

Choice D is not correct because the explanation asserts that women tended to choose weaving as an occupation because it allowed  them to stay home and attend to child rearing.

If the vast majority of female weavers had children this would support the explanation, not weaken it. Choice E is incorrect.

If the Florentine silk industry was a high-skilled sector of the weaving industry, the human capital theory explanation would lead you to expect few women to be employed in that sector.

Thus choice E, rather than weakening the explanation, accords with it.

sorry I should not put it this way. I just don't like this...

however, it is decent to ask question rather than cry for 救命....

1、 谢谢 wangyu73cn。

2、Robzhu，请注意每个人有自己的性格，每句话有不同的表达形式（特别是在中文里）。比如说，本人不喜欢乱用中英文夹杂的句子，但完全可以容忍别人这样。

还有一点，也许你知道，现实生活中，嘴巴硬的人有可能外强中干，笑眯眯的人有可能心狠手辣。

3、尊敬的斑竹，我的标题既不涉及暴力色情、也不涉及政治，更不会伤害到别人，你滥用权力改变我的表达方式，非常不妥。

我很不喜欢把中国人的头发染成外国人的颜色，但在大街上看到这种人，也不会冲动到把他剪成光头-----即使我有这样的权力。