On 8^th March this year, events marking International Women’s Day (IWD) were held in many countries around the world. In most countries the events have a political tone: they tend to celebrate the advances women have made towards economic, social and political equality with men, and to press for change in those areas of life where there is still progress to be made.

In other countries, meanwhile, 8^th March is traditionally more about expressing an appreciation of women: it is a day on which men give presents to their wives, girlfriends and mothers, and it therefore has some similarities with St Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Back in 1911, the first IWD events in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland were certainly political. They were protests by women against forms of gender discrimination that would now be unthinkable in most parts of the world: almost nowhere were women allowed to vote, and Finland was the only country with any female members of a national parliament. The general expectation worldwide, across different continents and cultures, was that women would spend their lives largely in the home, devoting themselves to looking after their husbands and children. The proportion of women who had paid employment was far lower than today, and when women did go out to work they typically earned very little, meaning they were economically dependent on men.

A century later, gender inequality in employment – particularly pay inequality – is still one of the issues IWD tries to draw attention to: it remains common, of course, for women to earn less than men for doing exactly the same job.

Limited educational opportunities (there are many countries in which girls generally stay fewer years in school than boys) and domestic violence towards women have also been highlighted by events surrounding IWD in recent years.

And yet, as the IWD website notes, ____________________. As just one example, to return to the issue of women elected to office, the change over the last hundred years has been significant. Since 1911, when the small group of women in the Finnish parliament (nineteen of them, to be precise) were the only females in public office worldwide, the governments of more than fifty different countries have been led by women. In 2011, at least one country in every continent has a female leader, including high-profile examples such as Brazil (Dilma Rousseff), Germany (Angela Merkel) and Australia (Julia Gillard).

72.　 The underlined word in paragraph 3 “discrimination” probably means _____.

A. equality　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B. unfairness

C. difference　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D. imbalance

73.　 100 years ago, it was widely considered that women’s main task was to _____.

A. fight for economical independence　　　　 B. get the right to vote

C. fulfill their domestic responsibilities　　　　 D. gain educational opportunities

74.　 Which of the following is the missing sentence in the first line of the last paragraph?

A. distinctive differences do exist between men and women

B. women expect too much of their political power

C. it’s impossible to realize the true equality between the two genders

D. alongside the ‘negatives’ there are plenty of ‘positives’

75.　 We can conclude from the passage that _____.

A. Much has been achieved in gender equality, but still there is space for improvement

B. The concept of equal pay for equal work is completely accepted in practice.

C. One or two female leaders can’t stand for women’s social status on the whole.

D. The progress in gaining equality in the last century seems to be too slow.