Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the contribution of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the best contemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned important letters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.
Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts of female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, and they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.
During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional, and local women‟s organizations compiled accounts of their doings. Personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources form the core of the two greatest collections of women‟s history in the United States – one at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later generations of historians.
Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during the nineteenth century, most of the writing about women conformed to the “great women” theory of history, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on “great men”. To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in public life as reformers, activists working for women‟s right to vote, or authors, and were not representative at all of the great mass of ordinary women. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.
What does the passage mainly discuss ?
A. The keen sense of history shown by American women.
B. The “great women” approach to history used by American historians.
C. The role of literature in early American histories.
D. The place of American women in written histories.
Đáp án là D.
Bài đọc nói về The place of American women in written histories. (Vị trí của phụ nữ Mỹ trong lịch sử ) được thể hiện qua nội dung chính của mỗi đoạn: - During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the contribution of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. (Trong các thế kỷ XVII và XVIII, hầu như không có gì đã được viết về sự đóng góp của phụ nữ trong thời kỳ thuộc địa và lịch sử ban đầu của Hoa Kỳ khi mới được thành lập.) - Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts of female authors writing about women. (Trong suốt thế kỷ XIX, sự thiếu tầm nhìn tiếp tục, bất chấp những nỗ lực của tác giả nữ viết về phụ nữ.) - During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. (Tuy nhiên, trong suốt thế kỷ XIX, các nhà nữ quyền nhất định cho thấy một ý thức sâu sắc về lịch sử bằng cách giữ ghi chép về các hoạt
độngmà trong đó phụ nữ được tham gia.)