Reading passages

 
 
148 
 
Nowadays women are better trained than ever before. Half of all the pupils who leave 
school with a university entrance qualification are girls and around 40 percent of 
university students are women. A lack of qualifications is thus not the reason why 
women continue to be 'proportionally underrepresented", as the sociologists put it. 
The reasons for this have long been known. It is not only the "double burden" of 
having to cope with a family and a career or the widespread prejudices that still exist 
about women's abilities or management styles that prevent them from reaching the 
top and being more than "charming transitional solutions'. Psychologists have 
discovered that many women are their own worst enemies. Everything they do has to 
be done perfectly - they want to be perfect housewives and mother, perfect lover, 
perfect career women. In the real world, how-ever, maintaining such high standards 
is clearly impossible. This leads to feelings of guilt and a lack of self-confidence. 
Without self-confidence, however, you cannot reach the top.
139- We can infer from the passage that ...... .
A) women do better at school and university than men do 
B) women should get better education in order to reach the top 
C) psychologists have little sympathy with women who want careers 
D) it only prejudices that stop women from doing better in their careers 
E) the number of women with successful careers is not as high as with men 
140- We understand from the passage that women who do reach the top .................. .
A) then begin to feel guilty and lose their self- confidence 
B) do so because of their managerial style 
C) do everything perfectly 
D) are often seen as being there temporarily 
E) are unable to maintain their high standards