gwd4-8

pxx105

ffice:smarttags">ffice:smarttags">
    

Q8 to Q10:

    

      The idea that equipping homes

    

            with
electrical appliances and other

    

            “modern”
household technologies

    

Line     would
eliminate drudgery, save labor

    

  (5)      time, and increase leisure for women

    

who were full-time home workers

    

remained largely unchallenged until

    

the women’s movement of the 1970’s

    

spawned the groundbreaking and

    

 (10)     influential works of sociologist Joann

    

Vanek and historian Ruth Cowan.

    

Vanek analyzed 40 years of time-

    

use surveys conducted by home

    

economists to argue that electrical

    

 (15)     appliances and other modern house-

    

hold technologies reduced the
effort

    

required to perform specific tasks,

    

but ownership of these appliances
did

    

not correlate with less time spent
on

    

 (20)     housework by full-time home workers.

    

            In fact,
time spent by these workers

    

            remained
remarkably constant―at

    

about 52 to 54 hours per week―from

    

the 1920’s to the 1960’s, a period

    

 (25)     of significant change in household

    

technology.  In surveying two

    

centuries of household technology

    

in the United States, Cowan argued

    

that the “industrialization” of the
home

    

 (30)     often resulted in more work for full-time

    

home workers because the use of

    

such devices as coal stoves, water

    

            pumps, and
vacuum cleaners tended

    

to reduce the workload of married-

    

(35)
            women’s helpers (husbands, sons,

    

daughters, and
servants) while

    

promoting a
more rigorous standard

    

of housework.  The full-time home

    

worker’s duties also shifted to
include

    

(40)        
more household management, child

    

care, and the post-Second World War

    

phenomenon of being “Mom’s taxi.”

    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    

Q8:     

    

According to the passage, which of the following is true
about the idea mentioned in line 1?

    

                       

    

1. It has
        been undermined by data found in time-use surveys conducted by home
        economists.
2. It was
        based on a definition of housework that was explicitly rejected by Vanek
        and Cowan.
3. It is
        more valid for the time period studied by Cowan than for the time period
        studied by Vanek.
4. It is
        based on an underestimation of the time that married women spent on
        housework prior to the industrialization of the household.
5. It
        inaccurately suggested that new household technologies would reduce the
        effort required to perform housework.

    

Answer:

The official answer is A. I think it should be D. The reason why I think A is wrong is that neither  Vanek or Cowan is home economist. Instead, one is a sociologist, and the other is a historian.

dianecarton

楼主定位在10-11行，应该定位12-20行

pxx105

Right. Thanks a lot!