Feelings of hopelessness among medieval workers trapped in the poverty cycle gradually lessened as it became possible for women’s labor to supplement a family’s money income by more than pennies. By 1300, women spinners could be found working on their own for wealthy sponsors, even after the introduction in Italy and France of prohibition against advancing money for supplies to women spinners. Historians have usually interpreted this prohibition simply as evidence of women’s economic subjection, since it obliged them to turn to usurers; however, it was also almost certainly a response to a trend toward differential reward for women’s higher skill. Yarn can be spun irregularly and lumpily, but perfectly smooth yarn is worth more. Working for merchant entrepreneurs on time rates, women had been paid hardly more than children; working as entrepreneurs themselves and producing good work by the piece, they could break into the rational system of differential rewards.
25. The passage implies which of the following about women spinners in medieval Europe?
(A) Most of them worked independently for wealthy sponsors.
(B) They were not typical of medieval women entrepreneurs.
(C) Some of them were paid for their work after it was done, according to its value.
(D) They would have been able to contribute substantial amounts to their families incomes were it not for the prohibition against advancing money to them.
(E) They were inevitably disadvantaged in the marketplace because they were obliged to obtain money for their supplies from usurers.
这题做错了,当时看文章的时候根据原文中"Historians have usually interpreted this prohibition simply as evidence of women’s economic subjection, since it obliged them to turn to usurers;" 选了E.但是正确答案是C.
反思为何做错时,这题题干的"implie"显示这题是inference类型的题目,所以答案不可能直接interpret 在选项里,需要自己去推理。我感觉我当时选错应该是这句后面的however,开始的这个分句没有看下去,只看了一部分。导致没有理解这两个分句合起来的意思。其实Historian usually的这种做法,作者持批评态度,相反,however后面的这个做法才是作者赞成的。所以由differential rewards for women's higher skill推出,选C.