Day 26

英文重现

In contrast, Buel and Buel's biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women's status.

——GMAT OG 2015, Reading Comprehension, Passage 16

解析

1.这个句子的主干部分为“Buel and Buel's biography provide sample raw material but does not give the reader much guidance”，是由“but”连接的两个并列的句子，共用一个主语“Buel and Buel's biography”。

2.“myth”和“of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century”之间插入了一个过去分词结构的后置定语“fostered by some historians”，它与“of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century”一样，都是作定语，对“myth”进行修饰。

词义辨析

参考翻译

相反，Buel和她的传记提供了丰富的原材料，可以质疑很多历史学家所推崇的18世纪殖民时期的黄金时代，但是在分析有关女性地位的矛盾方面却没有给读者太多的指导。

实战演练

…Although both books offer the reader the opportunity to assess this controversy regarding women's status, only Lebsock's deals with it directly. She examines several different aspects of women's status, helping to refine and resolve the issues. She concludes that while women gained autonomy in some areas, especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly, she shows that the debate itself depends on frame of reference: in many respects, women lost power in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs (delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken over by men. Yet women also gained power in comparison with their previous status, owning a higher proportion of real estate, for example. In contrast, Buel and Buel's biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women's status.

The passage suggests that Buel and Buel's biography of Mary Fish provides evidence for which of the following views of women's history?

(A) Women have lost power in relation to men since the colonial era.

(B) Women of the colonial era were not as likely to be concerned with their status as were women in the nineteenth century.

(C) The colonial era was not as favorable for women as some historians have believed.

(D) Women had more economic autonomy in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.

(E) Women's occupations were generally more respected in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.

答案：C

答案解析

这篇文章讲的是Buel的传记和Lebsock的作品在书写美国妇女历史方面的不同方法。“In contrast, Buel and Buel's biography…”之前描述的是Lebsock的方法，所以重点看“In contrast”之后的内容。该句说“some historians foster the myth of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century”，但是Buel和她的传记提供了大量的原材料去“questioning the myth”，由此可以选出选项C“殖民时期并非像一些历史学家认为的那样对女性是有利的”（即“not a golden age”）。

其他选项的意思分别为：

A.自从殖民时期开始，女性相对于男性失去了权利。

B.殖民时期的女性不太可能像19世纪的女性那样关注她们的地位。

D.女性在殖民时期比在19世纪时拥有了更多的经济自主。

E.女性的职业在殖民地时期比在19世纪时更加受到尊重。