Table of Contents
BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 472
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 472 – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 472
READING PASSAGE – 2
GETTING GIRLS ON-LINE
When Nancy Leveson, now a computer science professor at the University of Washington, was teaching math at a California high school, her best student also happened to be one of the prettiest and most popular girls around. And when the girl got the highest score on a test, Leveson thought nothing of announcing the achievement while handing back the papers. As soon as the class ended, though, the distraught student approached. She begged her teacher never, ever to embarrass her like that again.
The incident happened nearly 20 years ago, but Leveson notes that little has changed. Now, as then, too many teenage girls feel uncomfortable and even unwelcome in the realms of math, science and computing. Research shows that girls who are gifted in these subjects in elementary school begin to shy away from them by the seventh grade. Eventually, they convince themselves that these are male domains. “By saying only men are good at these things, you make the women who are good at them seem like freaks,” says Leveson.
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Increasingly, however, educators are trying to reverse the process by retraining teachers and redirecting students. Funded with more than $1 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and seven corporations, Computer Equity Expert Project (CEEP) showed 200 math and computer-science teachers how to recognise and eliminate gender bias in their classrooms. CEEP urged teachers to bring more girls into the world of computers by setting up mentoring programs with older students and having girls-only days at the school computer labs.
Both public and private schools are trying to close the technology gap. Because girls tend to do better in the sciences without the distraction of boys, three California schools have started girls-only math classes over the last two years, with promising results. Other schools are hooking up with colleges for help and inspiration.
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But however wonderful the subject looks in high school, interest often diminishes in college, where women earned only 30% of the undergraduate degrees awarded in computer science in 1991, and 16% in engineering in 1993, as opposed to medical school, where women make up 36% of total enrolment. The proportion shrinks still more at the doctoral level, where women receive only 15% of computer science PhDs and under 10% of engineering PhDs.
Many college women are turned off by the macho swagger of technojocks at schools like MIT, where staying awake for three days to perfect a piece of software is seen as a test of virility. That kind of attitude “sets cultural parameters not just for MIT but for the intense nature of the computer culture everywhere,” says Steven Levy, author of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. As a result, it’s hard to find female role models in computer science.
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To keep women interested in the field, Nancy Leveson and a colleague from the University of British Columbia spearheaded a program that will match 20 female undergraduates with faculty mentors around the country this summer, thanks to a $240 000 grant from the NSF.
In Rochester, NY, the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Women in Science, Engineering and Math mentoring program aims to spark high school girls’ career interests by linking 140 girls and professional women in a computer network. Coordinators, who hope to extend the four-month program to three years, note the intense interest shown by girls and women. “I can’t keep the mentors away,” says Carol O’Leary, who helped set the program up. “I was looking for 40, and I have 67. Women are anxious to give of themselves.”
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Eventually, these computer educators would like to make gender-specific pro- grams obsolete, but that will happen only when computer-science education becomes more creative, according to Paula Rayman, director of Pathways for Women in the Sciences, a research program at Wellesley College. By way of example, Rayman points to her 9-year-old daughter, Lily, whose fourth-grade class at the Bowman Elementary School in Lexington, Mass., is learning several sciences under the guise of bicycle repair.
The kids aren’t just fixing bikes but ingesting knowledge about mechanics, scientific history and the physics of motion. They’re also using their computers to generate charts, graphs and databases. Children of both sexes are eager to work with computers because the machines are revealed as both entertaining and useful, not just as a source of boring drills or violent games, which girls usually find unappealing.
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“When it comes to girls and computers,” says Rayman, “we’ve found that there are three ingredients for user-friendliness: hands-on experience, teamwork and relevance.” These ingredients, of course, would increase anyone’s mastery of computers, as well as the usefulness of the machines. By trying to do a better job of teaching girls, computer scientists may learn quite a lot themselves.
Questions 15-18
Choose the appropriate letters A-D.
15. Nancy Leveson is
A. the girl who got the highest score on a test
B. a university professor
C. a high school teacher of math
D. one of the prettiest girls in school
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16. Females generally do best at math and science
A. up to seventh grade
B. when they feel comfortable and welcome in the course
C. when they are teenagers
D. when they can compete with males
17. CEEP is
A. providing funds for teacher training
B. redirecting students
C. banning boys from the computer labs
D. helping more girls study computers
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18. Which of the following is true about women studying in university?
A. 10% studying engineering got PhDs
B. 36% of total enrolments are in medical school
C. 16% of undergraduate engineering degrees were awarded to women
D. 30% studying computer science in 1991 got degrees
Questions 19-22
Four individuals are mentioned in Reading Passage 2. For whom are the following statements true?
Write the appropriate letters in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.
NL – Nancy Leveson
PR – Paula Rayman
SL – Steve Levy
CO – Carol O’Leary
19. has a daughter
20. helped organise the mentor program
21. wrote a book
22. is head of the mentor program
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Questions 23-28
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 23-28 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
23. The overwhelmingly male computer culture repels many women.
24. The Rochester Institute of Technology is organising a three-year mentoring program for girls.
25. Special computer programs are being written for women.
26. Women are often anxious about themselves.
27. Physics and history are two of the main subjects taught at Bowman.
28. Computer scientists are likely to learn a lot from teaching girls.
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ANSWERS
15. B
16. A
17. D
18. C
19. PR
20. CO
21. SL
22. NL
23. YES
24. NO
25. NOT GIVEN
26. NOT GIVEN
27. NO
28. YES
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