Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive circle, beauty can bee a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were considered as having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine and an attractive man more manly than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally' female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the manly qualities required.
This is true even in politics. When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently, says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of
women, ir o_nler of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males pletely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.
51. The word liability most probably means
A. disadvantage B. advantage C. misfortune D. trouble
52. In traditionally female jobs, attractiveness
A. makes women look more honest and capable
B. strengthens the feminine qualifies required
C. is of no importance to women
D. often enables women to succeed quickly
53. Bowman's experiment shows that when it es to polities, attractiveness
A. turns out to be a disadvantage to men
B. is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women
C. affects men and women alike
D. has as little effect on men as on women
54. It can be inferred from the passage that people's views on beauty are often
A. practical B. supportive C. old-fashioned D. one-sided
55. The author writes this passage to
A. give advice to job-seekers who are attractive
B. discuss the disadvantages of being attractive
C. demand equal rights for women
D. state the importance of appearance51—55 ADBDB
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(答案→)51—55 ADBDB
解析：本文主要讨论了在某些领域比如行政机构，魅力对女人而言是不利条件及其原因。
51. A 词义题。第一段的前半部分主要讲述了有个人吸引力的好处，但一个“but”，笔锋一转，开始讨论个人魅力的缺点，即在行政领域它是一个不利条件disadvantage。
52. D 推断题。根据第六段的an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally' female jobs可知，在传统的妇女工作中有吸引力是女人的一个优势，即她们会因此更快地获得成功。
53. B 推断题。结合第七段和最后一段的结果可以推出，对男人而言个人魅力是其优势而对女人而言则恰恰相反，即更多的是不利条件is more of a disadvantage。
54. D 推断题。结合全篇可以看出，人们对魅力的态度是因领域和性别不同而保持固有观点，都不全面即one-sided。
55. B 主旨题。文章着重论述了个人魅力在某些领域对于女人而言是不利因素，所以不难知道作者写这篇文章的目的是为了discuss the disadvantages of being attractive。