GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: NO9

(This passage is from an article published in 1973)

The recent change to all-volunteer armed forces in the United States will eventually produce a gradual increase in the proportion of women in the armed forces and in the variety of women's assignments, but probably not the dramatic gains for women that might have been expected. This is so even though the armed forces operate in an ethos of institutional change oriented toward occupational equality and under the federal sanction of equal pay for equal work. The difficulty is that women are unlikely to be trained for any direct combat operations. A significant portion of the larger society remains uncomfortable as yet with extending equality in this direction. Therefore, for women in the military, the search for equality will still be based on functional equivalence, not identity or even similarity of task. Opportunities seem certain to arise. The growing emphasis on deterrence is bound to offer increasing scope for women to become involved in novel types of noncombat military assignments.

Question List: 1 2 3 4

The "dramatic gains for women" (line 9) and the attitude, as described in lines 18-19, of a "significant portion of the larger society" are logically related to each other inasmuch as the author puts forward the latter as

  • A a public response to achievement of the former
  • B the major reason for absence of the former
  • C a precondition for any prospect of achieving the former
  • D a catalyst for a further extension of the former
  • E a reason for some of the former being lost again

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