Verbal Ability ...

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

There is a fundamental reason why it’s dangerous to give markets a completely free rein... At the end of the Middle Ages, slavery was almost unknown in Christian Europe. During the early modern period, the rise of European capitalism went hand in hand with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Unrestrained market forces, rather than tyrannical kings or racist ideologues, were responsible for this calamity.

When the Europeans conquered America, they established sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations... In the Middle Ages, sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly. After large sugar plantations were established in America, ever-increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth... The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight kilograms in the early nineteenth century.

However, growing cane and extracting its sugar was a labour-intensive business. Few people wanted to work long hours in malaria-infested sugar fields under a tropical sun. Contract labourers would have produced a commodity too expensive for mass consumption. Sensitive to market forces, and greedy for profits and economic growth, European plantation owners switched to slaves. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, about 10 million African slaves were imported to America. About 70 per cent of them worked on the sugar plantations. Labour conditions were abominable. Most slaves lived a short and miserable life, and millions more died during wars waged to capture slaves or during the long voyage from inner Africa to the shores of America. All this so that Europeans could enjoy their sweet tea and candy – and sugar barons could enjoy huge profits.

The slave trade...was a purely economic enterprise, organised and financed by the free market according to the laws of supply and demand... This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to increase profits and production blinds people to anything that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some religions have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist hatred towards Africans. The individuals who bought the shares, the brokers who sold them, and the managers of the slave-trade companies rarely thought about the Africans. Nor did the owners of the sugar plantations. Many owners lived far from their plantations, and the only information they demanded were neat ledgers of profits and losses.

It is important to remember that the Atlantic slave trade was not a single aberration in an otherwise spotless record. The Great Bengal Famine was caused by a similar dynamic – the British East India Company cared more about its profits than about the lives of 10 million Bengalis. [Dutch] military campaigns in Indonesia were financed by upstanding Dutch burghers who loved their children, gave to charity, and enjoyed good music and fine art, but had no regard for the suffering of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra and Malacca. Countless other crimes and misdemeanours accompanied the growth of the modern economy in other parts of the planet.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

There is a fundamental reason why it’s dangerous to give markets a completely free rein... At the end of the Middle Ages, slavery was almost unknown in Christian Europe. During the early modern period, the rise of European capitalism went hand in hand with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Unrestrained market forces, rather than tyrannical kings or racist ideologues, were responsible for this calamity.

When the Europeans conquered America, they established sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations... In the Middle Ages, sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly. After large sugar plantations were established in America, ever-increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth... The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight kilograms in the early nineteenth century.

However, growing cane and extracting its sugar was a labour-intensive business. Few people wanted to work long hours in malaria-infested sugar fields under a tropical sun. Contract labourers would have produced a commodity too expensive for mass consumption. Sensitive to market forces, and greedy for profits and economic growth, European plantation owners switched to slaves. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, about 10 million African slaves were imported to America. About 70 per cent of them worked on the sugar plantations. Labour conditions were abominable. Most slaves lived a short and miserable life, and millions more died during wars waged to capture slaves or during the long voyage from inner Africa to the shores of America. All this so that Europeans could enjoy their sweet tea and candy – and sugar barons could enjoy huge profits.

The slave trade...was a purely economic enterprise, organised and financed by the free market according to the laws of supply and demand... This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to increase profits and production blinds people to anything that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some religions have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist hatred towards Africans. The individuals who bought the shares, the brokers who sold them, and the managers of the slave-trade companies rarely thought about the Africans. Nor did the owners of the sugar plantations. Many owners lived far from their plantations, and the only information they demanded were neat ledgers of profits and losses.

It is important to remember that the Atlantic slave trade was not a single aberration in an otherwise spotless record. The Great Bengal Famine was caused by a similar dynamic – the British East India Company cared more about its profits than about the lives of 10 million Bengalis. [Dutch] military campaigns in Indonesia were financed by upstanding Dutch burghers who loved their children, gave to charity, and enjoyed good music and fine art, but had no regard for the suffering of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra and Malacca. Countless other crimes and misdemeanours accompanied the growth of the modern economy in other parts of the planet.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

There is a fundamental reason why it’s dangerous to give markets a completely free rein... At the end of the Middle Ages, slavery was almost unknown in Christian Europe. During the early modern period, the rise of European capitalism went hand in hand with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Unrestrained market forces, rather than tyrannical kings or racist ideologues, were responsible for this calamity.

When the Europeans conquered America, they established sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations... In the Middle Ages, sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly. After large sugar plantations were established in America, ever-increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth... The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight kilograms in the early nineteenth century.

However, growing cane and extracting its sugar was a labour-intensive business. Few people wanted to work long hours in malaria-infested sugar fields under a tropical sun. Contract labourers would have produced a commodity too expensive for mass consumption. Sensitive to market forces, and greedy for profits and economic growth, European plantation owners switched to slaves. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, about 10 million African slaves were imported to America. About 70 per cent of them worked on the sugar plantations. Labour conditions were abominable. Most slaves lived a short and miserable life, and millions more died during wars waged to capture slaves or during the long voyage from inner Africa to the shores of America. All this so that Europeans could enjoy their sweet tea and candy – and sugar barons could enjoy huge profits.

The slave trade...was a purely economic enterprise, organised and financed by the free market according to the laws of supply and demand... This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to increase profits and production blinds people to anything that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some religions have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist hatred towards Africans. The individuals who bought the shares, the brokers who sold them, and the managers of the slave-trade companies rarely thought about the Africans. Nor did the owners of the sugar plantations. Many owners lived far from their plantations, and the only information they demanded were neat ledgers of profits and losses.

It is important to remember that the Atlantic slave trade was not a single aberration in an otherwise spotless record. The Great Bengal Famine was caused by a similar dynamic – the British East India Company cared more about its profits than about the lives of 10 million Bengalis. [Dutch] military campaigns in Indonesia were financed by upstanding Dutch burghers who loved their children, gave to charity, and enjoyed good music and fine art, but had no regard for the suffering of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra and Malacca. Countless other crimes and misdemeanours accompanied the growth of the modern economy in other parts of the planet.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

There is a fundamental reason why it’s dangerous to give markets a completely free rein... At the end of the Middle Ages, slavery was almost unknown in Christian Europe. During the early modern period, the rise of European capitalism went hand in hand with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Unrestrained market forces, rather than tyrannical kings or racist ideologues, were responsible for this calamity.

When the Europeans conquered America, they established sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations... In the Middle Ages, sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly. After large sugar plantations were established in America, ever-increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth... The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight kilograms in the early nineteenth century.

However, growing cane and extracting its sugar was a labour-intensive business. Few people wanted to work long hours in malaria-infested sugar fields under a tropical sun. Contract labourers would have produced a commodity too expensive for mass consumption. Sensitive to market forces, and greedy for profits and economic growth, European plantation owners switched to slaves. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, about 10 million African slaves were imported to America. About 70 per cent of them worked on the sugar plantations. Labour conditions were abominable. Most slaves lived a short and miserable life, and millions more died during wars waged to capture slaves or during the long voyage from inner Africa to the shores of America. All this so that Europeans could enjoy their sweet tea and candy – and sugar barons could enjoy huge profits.

The slave trade...was a purely economic enterprise, organised and financed by the free market according to the laws of supply and demand... This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to increase profits and production blinds people to anything that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some religions have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist hatred towards Africans. The individuals who bought the shares, the brokers who sold them, and the managers of the slave-trade companies rarely thought about the Africans. Nor did the owners of the sugar plantations. Many owners lived far from their plantations, and the only information they demanded were neat ledgers of profits and losses.

It is important to remember that the Atlantic slave trade was not a single aberration in an otherwise spotless record. The Great Bengal Famine was caused by a similar dynamic – the British East India Company cared more about its profits than about the lives of 10 million Bengalis. [Dutch] military campaigns in Indonesia were financed by upstanding Dutch burghers who loved their children, gave to charity, and enjoyed good music and fine art, but had no regard for the suffering of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra and Malacca. Countless other crimes and misdemeanours accompanied the growth of the modern economy in other parts of the planet.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Early in our history [humans] lived in small bands of 50 to 200 people. At some point tribes formed that were essentially coalitions of bands. Collections of tribes formed into chiefdoms in which a single ruler emerged for the first time in our history. Eventually several chiefdoms would come together in nascent city-states [around 10,000 years back]. City-states gave way to nations, and eventually to collections of states such as the United Kingdom or the United States, and even to collections of nations such as seen in the European Union. At each step formerly competing entities discovered that cooperation could return better outcomes than endless cycles of betrayal and revenge.

This is not to say that cooperation is easy, or never subject to reversals. Despite being suppressed for decades, almost overnight Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Dagestan reappeared [with the collapse of the USSR], all differentiated by culture, ethnicity, and language.

So how will these two competing tendencies that comprise our evolved tribal psychology – one an ancient disposition to produce lots of different cultures, the other an ability to extend honorary relative status to others even in large groupings – play out in our modern, interconnected and globalised world? There is in principle no reason to rule out a “one world” culture, and in some respects, as [globalisation] vividly illustrates, we are already well on the way.

Thus, it seems our tribal psychology can extend to groups of seemingly nearly any size. In large countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Brazil, India and China hundreds of millions and even over a billion people can all be united around a single tribal identity as British or Japanese, American, Indian or Chinese and they will have a tendency to direct their cultural nepotism towards these other members of their now highly extended tribe. If you take this behaviour for granted, just imagine 100,000 dogs or hyenas packed into a sporting arena – not a pretty sight.

But two factors looming on the horizon are likely to slow the rate at which cultural unification will happen. One is resources, the other is demography. Cooperation has worked throughout history because large collections of people have been able to use resources more effectively and provide greater prosperity and protection than smaller groups. But that could change as resources become scarce. If people begin to think they have reached what we might call ‘peak standard of living’ then they will naturally become more self-interested as the returns from cooperation begin to leak away... Related to this, the dominant demographic trend of the next century will be the movement of people from poorer to richer regions of the world. Diverse people will be brought together who have little common cultural identity of the sort that historically has prompted our cultural nepotism, and this will happen at rates that exceed those at which they can be culturally integrated. An example is the nations of the European Union squabbling over national versus EU rights and privileges.

Against this backdrop the seemingly unstoppable and ever accelerating cultural homogenization around the world brought about by travel, the internet and social networking, although often decried, is probably a good thing even if it means the loss of cultural diversity: it increases our sense of togetherness via the sense of a shared culture. In fact, breaking down of cultural barriers – unfashionable as this can sound – is probably one of the few things that societies can do to increase harmony among ever more heterogeneous peoples.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Early in our history [humans] lived in small bands of 50 to 200 people. At some point tribes formed that were essentially coalitions of bands. Collections of tribes formed into chiefdoms in which a single ruler emerged for the first time in our history. Eventually several chiefdoms would come together in nascent city-states [around 10,000 years back]. City-states gave way to nations, and eventually to collections of states such as the United Kingdom or the United States, and even to collections of nations such as seen in the European Union. At each step formerly competing entities discovered that cooperation could return better outcomes than endless cycles of betrayal and revenge.

This is not to say that cooperation is easy, or never subject to reversals. Despite being suppressed for decades, almost overnight Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Dagestan reappeared [with the collapse of the USSR], all differentiated by culture, ethnicity, and language.

So how will these two competing tendencies that comprise our evolved tribal psychology – one an ancient disposition to produce lots of different cultures, the other an ability to extend honorary relative status to others even in large groupings – play out in our modern, interconnected and globalised world? There is in principle no reason to rule out a “one world” culture, and in some respects, as [globalisation] vividly illustrates, we are already well on the way.

Thus, it seems our tribal psychology can extend to groups of seemingly nearly any size. In large countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Brazil, India and China hundreds of millions and even over a billion people can all be united around a single tribal identity as British or Japanese, American, Indian or Chinese and they will have a tendency to direct their cultural nepotism towards these other members of their now highly extended tribe. If you take this behaviour for granted, just imagine 100,000 dogs or hyenas packed into a sporting arena – not a pretty sight.

But two factors looming on the horizon are likely to slow the rate at which cultural unification will happen. One is resources, the other is demography. Cooperation has worked throughout history because large collections of people have been able to use resources more effectively and provide greater prosperity and protection than smaller groups. But that could change as resources become scarce. If people begin to think they have reached what we might call ‘peak standard of living’ then they will naturally become more self-interested as the returns from cooperation begin to leak away... Related to this, the dominant demographic trend of the next century will be the movement of people from poorer to richer regions of the world. Diverse people will be brought together who have little common cultural identity of the sort that historically has prompted our cultural nepotism, and this will happen at rates that exceed those at which they can be culturally integrated. An example is the nations of the European Union squabbling over national versus EU rights and privileges.

Against this backdrop the seemingly unstoppable and ever accelerating cultural homogenization around the world brought about by travel, the internet and social networking, although often decried, is probably a good thing even if it means the loss of cultural diversity: it increases our sense of togetherness via the sense of a shared culture. In fact, breaking down of cultural barriers – unfashionable as this can sound – is probably one of the few things that societies can do to increase harmony among ever more heterogeneous peoples.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Early in our history [humans] lived in small bands of 50 to 200 people. At some point tribes formed that were essentially coalitions of bands. Collections of tribes formed into chiefdoms in which a single ruler emerged for the first time in our history. Eventually several chiefdoms would come together in nascent city-states [around 10,000 years back]. City-states gave way to nations, and eventually to collections of states such as the United Kingdom or the United States, and even to collections of nations such as seen in the European Union. At each step formerly competing entities discovered that cooperation could return better outcomes than endless cycles of betrayal and revenge.

This is not to say that cooperation is easy, or never subject to reversals. Despite being suppressed for decades, almost overnight Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Dagestan reappeared [with the collapse of the USSR], all differentiated by culture, ethnicity, and language.

So how will these two competing tendencies that comprise our evolved tribal psychology – one an ancient disposition to produce lots of different cultures, the other an ability to extend honorary relative status to others even in large groupings – play out in our modern, interconnected and globalised world? There is in principle no reason to rule out a “one world” culture, and in some respects, as [globalisation] vividly illustrates, we are already well on the way.

Thus, it seems our tribal psychology can extend to groups of seemingly nearly any size. In large countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Brazil, India and China hundreds of millions and even over a billion people can all be united around a single tribal identity as British or Japanese, American, Indian or Chinese and they will have a tendency to direct their cultural nepotism towards these other members of their now highly extended tribe. If you take this behaviour for granted, just imagine 100,000 dogs or hyenas packed into a sporting arena – not a pretty sight.

But two factors looming on the horizon are likely to slow the rate at which cultural unification will happen. One is resources, the other is demography. Cooperation has worked throughout history because large collections of people have been able to use resources more effectively and provide greater prosperity and protection than smaller groups. But that could change as resources become scarce. If people begin to think they have reached what we might call ‘peak standard of living’ then they will naturally become more self-interested as the returns from cooperation begin to leak away... Related to this, the dominant demographic trend of the next century will be the movement of people from poorer to richer regions of the world. Diverse people will be brought together who have little common cultural identity of the sort that historically has prompted our cultural nepotism, and this will happen at rates that exceed those at which they can be culturally integrated. An example is the nations of the European Union squabbling over national versus EU rights and privileges.

Against this backdrop the seemingly unstoppable and ever accelerating cultural homogenization around the world brought about by travel, the internet and social networking, although often decried, is probably a good thing even if it means the loss of cultural diversity: it increases our sense of togetherness via the sense of a shared culture. In fact, breaking down of cultural barriers – unfashionable as this can sound – is probably one of the few things that societies can do to increase harmony among ever more heterogeneous peoples.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Early in our history [humans] lived in small bands of 50 to 200 people. At some point tribes formed that were essentially coalitions of bands. Collections of tribes formed into chiefdoms in which a single ruler emerged for the first time in our history. Eventually several chiefdoms would come together in nascent city-states [around 10,000 years back]. City-states gave way to nations, and eventually to collections of states such as the United Kingdom or the United States, and even to collections of nations such as seen in the European Union. At each step formerly competing entities discovered that cooperation could return better outcomes than endless cycles of betrayal and revenge.

This is not to say that cooperation is easy, or never subject to reversals. Despite being suppressed for decades, almost overnight Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Dagestan reappeared [with the collapse of the USSR], all differentiated by culture, ethnicity, and language.

So how will these two competing tendencies that comprise our evolved tribal psychology – one an ancient disposition to produce lots of different cultures, the other an ability to extend honorary relative status to others even in large groupings – play out in our modern, interconnected and globalised world? There is in principle no reason to rule out a “one world” culture, and in some respects, as [globalisation] vividly illustrates, we are already well on the way.

Thus, it seems our tribal psychology can extend to groups of seemingly nearly any size. In large countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Brazil, India and China hundreds of millions and even over a billion people can all be united around a single tribal identity as British or Japanese, American, Indian or Chinese and they will have a tendency to direct their cultural nepotism towards these other members of their now highly extended tribe. If you take this behaviour for granted, just imagine 100,000 dogs or hyenas packed into a sporting arena – not a pretty sight.

But two factors looming on the horizon are likely to slow the rate at which cultural unification will happen. One is resources, the other is demography. Cooperation has worked throughout history because large collections of people have been able to use resources more effectively and provide greater prosperity and protection than smaller groups. But that could change as resources become scarce. If people begin to think they have reached what we might call ‘peak standard of living’ then they will naturally become more self-interested as the returns from cooperation begin to leak away... Related to this, the dominant demographic trend of the next century will be the movement of people from poorer to richer regions of the world. Diverse people will be brought together who have little common cultural identity of the sort that historically has prompted our cultural nepotism, and this will happen at rates that exceed those at which they can be culturally integrated. An example is the nations of the European Union squabbling over national versus EU rights and privileges.

Against this backdrop the seemingly unstoppable and ever accelerating cultural homogenization around the world brought about by travel, the internet and social networking, although often decried, is probably a good thing even if it means the loss of cultural diversity: it increases our sense of togetherness via the sense of a shared culture. In fact, breaking down of cultural barriers – unfashionable as this can sound – is probably one of the few things that societies can do to increase harmony among ever more heterogeneous peoples.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Most human societies have been patriarchal societies that valued men more highly than women... Fewer resources are invested in the health and education of women; they have fewer economic opportunities, less political power, and less freedom of movement. Gender is a race in which some of the runners compete only for the bronze medal...

It is likely [that] there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood... There are plenty of theories, none of them convincing. The most common theory is that men are stronger than women, and that they have used their greater physical power to force women into submission...

There are two problems with this emphasis on muscle power. First, the statement that men are stronger than women’ is true only with regard to certain types of strength. Women are generally more resistant to hunger, disease and fatigue than men. Furthermore, and most problematically for this theory, women have, throughout history, been excluded mainly from jobs that require little physical effort (such as the priesthood, law and politics), while engaging in hard manual labour in the fields and in the household. In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relation between physical prowess and social power. In most societies, it’s the lower classes who do the manual labour.

[Our mental and social skills placed us at the top of the food chain.] It is only natural that the chain of power within the species will also be determined by mental and social abilities more than by brute force... A cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to manipulate and how to see things from different perspectives [is] the stuff empire-builders are made of... Women are [considered] better manipulators and appeasers, and are famed for their superior ability to see things from the perspective of others. [Then, they] should have made excellent politicians and empire-builders, leaving the dirty work on the battlefields to testosterone-charged but simple- minded machos...

[Another theory suggests that a woman has to nurture children] for years. During that time she had fewer opportunities to obtain food, and needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the woman had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. As time went by, the feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations.

But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women’s dependence on external help made them dependent on men, rather than on other women, and that male competitiveness made men socially dominant. There are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal society. Females develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all-female social networks that help each member raise her children. Males, meanwhile, spend their time fighting and competing. Their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped... Though bonobo females are weaker on average than the males, the females often gang up to beat males who overstep their limits...

Humans are relatively weak animals, whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women, even if they are dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to cooperate to outmanoeuvre and manipulate aggressive autonomous and self-centred men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative? At present, we have no good answer.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Most human societies have been patriarchal societies that valued men more highly than women... Fewer resources are invested in the health and education of women; they have fewer economic opportunities, less political power, and less freedom of movement. Gender is a race in which some of the runners compete only for the bronze medal...

It is likely [that] there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood... There are plenty of theories, none of them convincing. The most common theory is that men are stronger than women, and that they have used their greater physical power to force women into submission...

There are two problems with this emphasis on muscle power. First, the statement that men are stronger than women’ is true only with regard to certain types of strength. Women are generally more resistant to hunger, disease and fatigue than men. Furthermore, and most problematically for this theory, women have, throughout history, been excluded mainly from jobs that require little physical effort (such as the priesthood, law and politics), while engaging in hard manual labour in the fields and in the household. In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relation between physical prowess and social power. In most societies, it’s the lower classes who do the manual labour.

[Our mental and social skills placed us at the top of the food chain.] It is only natural that the chain of power within the species will also be determined by mental and social abilities more than by brute force... A cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to manipulate and how to see things from different perspectives [is] the stuff empire-builders are made of... Women are [considered] better manipulators and appeasers, and are famed for their superior ability to see things from the perspective of others. [Then, they] should have made excellent politicians and empire-builders, leaving the dirty work on the battlefields to testosterone-charged but simple- minded machos...

[Another theory suggests that a woman has to nurture children] for years. During that time she had fewer opportunities to obtain food, and needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the woman had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. As time went by, the feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations.

But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women’s dependence on external help made them dependent on men, rather than on other women, and that male competitiveness made men socially dominant. There are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal society. Females develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all-female social networks that help each member raise her children. Males, meanwhile, spend their time fighting and competing. Their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped... Though bonobo females are weaker on average than the males, the females often gang up to beat males who overstep their limits...

Humans are relatively weak animals, whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women, even if they are dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to cooperate to outmanoeuvre and manipulate aggressive autonomous and self-centred men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative? At present, we have no good answer.