It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their position in society. In the nineteenth century, when women began to enter factories, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that by doing so, women would give up their femininity. Friedrich Engels, however, predicted that women would be liberated from the "social, legal, and economic subordination" of the family by technological developments that made possible the recruitment of "the whole female sex into public industry." Observers thus differed concerning the social desirability of mechanization's effects, but they agreed that it would transform women's lives.
Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women's economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women's work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics. It was not the change in office technology, but rather the separation of secretarial work, previously seen as an apprenticeship for beginning managers, from administrative work that in the 1880's created a new class of "dead-end" jobs, thenceforth considered "women's work." The increase in the numbers of married women employed outside the home in the twentieth century had less to do with the mechanization of housework and an increase in leisure time for these women than it did with their own economic necessity and with high marriage rates that shrank the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire.
Women's work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. Fundamentally, however, the conditions under which women work have changed little since before the Industrial Revolution: the segregation of occupations by gender, lower pay for women as a group, jobs that require relatively low levels of skill and offer women little opportunity for advancement all persist, while women's household labor remains demanding. Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society. Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.
1. Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
(A) The effects of the mechanization of women's work have not borne out the frequently held assumption that new technology is inherently revolutionary.
(B) Recent studies have shown that mechanization revolutionizes a society's traditional values and the customary roles of its members.
(C) Mechanization has caused the nature of women's work to change since the Industrial Revolution.
(D) The mechanization of work creates whole new classes of jobs that did not previously exist.
(E) The mechanization of women's work, while extremely revolutionary it its effects, has not, on the whole, had the deleterious effects that some critics had feared.
2. The author mentions all of the following inventions as examples of dramatic technological innovations EXCEPT the
(A) sewing machine
(B) vacuum cleaner
(C) typewriter
(D) telephone
(E) spinning jenny
3. It can be inferred from the passage that, before the Industrial Revolution, the majority of women's work was done in which of the following settings?
(A) Textile mills
(B) Private households
(C) Offices
(D) Factories
(E) Small shops
4. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would consider which of the following to be an indication of a fundamental alteration in the conditions of women's work?
(A) Statistics showing that the majority of women now occupy white-collar positions
(B) Interviews with married men indicating that they are now doing some household tasks
(C) Surveys of the labor market documenting the recent creation of a new class of jobs in electronics in which women workers outnumber men four to one
(D) Census results showing that working women's wages and salaries are, on the average, as high as those of working men
(E) Enrollment figures from universities demonstrating that increasing numbers of young women are choosing to continue their education beyond the undergraduate level
5. The passage states that, before the twentieth century, which of the following was true of many employers?
(A) They did not employ women in factories.
(B) They tended to employ single rather than married women.
(C) They employed women in only those jobs that were related to women's traditional house-hold work.
(D) They resisted technological innovations that would radically change women's roles in the family.
(E) They hired women only when qualified men were not available to fill the open positions.
6. It can be inferred from the passage that the author most probably believes which of the following to be true concerning those historians who study the history of women?
(A) Their work provides insights important to those examining social phenomena affecting the lives of both sexes.
(B) Their work can only be used cautiously by scholars in other disciplines.
(C) Because they concentrate only on the role of women in the workplace, they draw more reliable conclusions than do other historians.
(D) While highly interesting, their work has not had an impact on most historians' current assumptions concerning the revolutionary effect of technology in the workplace.
(E) They oppose the further mechanization of work, which, according to their findings, tends to perpetuate existing inequalities in society.
7. Which of the following best describes the function of the concluding sentence of the passage?
(A) It sums up the general points concerning the mechanization of work made in the passage as a whole.
(B) It draws a conclusion concerning the effects of the mechanization of work which goes beyond the evidence presented in the passage as a whole.
(C) It restates the point concerning technology made in the sentence immediately preceding it.
(D) It qualifies the author's agreement with scholars who argue for a major revision in the assessment of the impact of mechanization on society.
(E) It suggests a compromise between two seemingly contradictory views concerning the effects of mechanization on society.
(This passage is excerpted from an article that was pulished in 1982.)
Warm-blooded animals have elaborate physiological controls to maintain constant body temperature (in humans, 37°C). Why then during sickness should temperature rise, apparently increasing stress on the infected organism? It has long been known that the level of serum iron in animals fills during infection. Garibaldi first suggested a relationship between fever and iron. He found that microbial synthesis of siderophores — substances that bind iron — in bacteria of the genus Salmonella declined at environmental temperatures above 37°C and stopped at 40.3°C. Thus, fever would make it more difficult for an infecting bacterium to acquire iron and thus to multiply. Cold-blooded animals were used to test this hypothesis because their body temperature can be controlled in the laboratory. Kluger reported that of iguanas infected with the potentially lethal bacterium A. hydrophilia, more survived at temperatures of 42°C than at 37°C, even though healthy animals prefer the lower temperature. When animals at 42°C were injected with an iron solution, however, mortality rates increased significantly. Research to determine whether similar phenomena occur in warm-blooded animals is sorely needed.
8. The passage is primarily concerned with attempts to determine
(A) the role of siderophores in the synthesis of serum iron
(B) new treatments for infections that are caused by A. hydrophilia
(C) the function of fever in warm-blooded animals
(D) the mechanisms that ensure constant body temperature
(E) iron utilization in cold-blooded animals
9. According to the passage, Garibaldi determined which of the following?
(A) That serum iron is produced through microbial synthesis
(B) That microbial synthesis of siderophores in warm-blooded animals is more efficient at higher temperatures.
(C) That only iron bound to other substances can be used by bacteria.
(D) That there is a relationship between the synthesis of siderophores in bacteria of the genus Salmonella and environmental temperature.
(E) That bacteria of the genus Salmonella require iron as a nutrient.
10. Which of the following can be inferred about warm-blooded animals solely on the basis of information in the passage?
(A) The body temperatures of warm-blooded animals cannot be easily controlled in the laboratory.
(B) Warm-blooded animals require more iron in periods of stress than they do at other times.
(C) Warm-blooded animals are more comfortable at an environmental temperature of 37°C than they are at a temperature of 42°C.
(D) In warm-blooded animals, bacteria are responsible for the production of siderophores, which, in turn, make iron available to the animal.
(E) In warm-blooded animals, infections that lead to fever are usually traceable to bacteria.
11. If it were to be determined that "similar phenomena occur in warm-blooded animals" (lines 34 - 35), which of the following, assuming each is possible, is likely to be the most effective treatment for warm-blooded animals with bacterial infections?
(A) Administering a medication that lowers the animals' body temperature
(B) Injecting the animals with an iron solution
(C) Administering a medication that makes serum iron unavailable to bacteria
(D) Providing the animals with reduced-iron diets
(E) Keeping the animals in an environment with temperatures higher than 37°
