Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section．Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements．For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D．You should decide on the best choice.
In the old days, when a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something far too shocking to distract the serious work of an off ice, secretaries were men.
Then came the First World War and the male secretaries were replaced by women．A man's secretary became his personal servant, charged with remembering his wife's birthday and buying her presents, taking his suits to the dry-cleaners, telling lies on the telephone to keep people he did not wish to speak to at bay, and, of course, typing and filing and taking shorthand.
Now all this may be changing again．The microchip and high technology is sweeping the British off ice, taking with it much of the routine clerical work that secretaries did.
'Once office technology takes over generally, the status of the job will rise again because it will involve only the high-powered work—and then men will want to do it again.'
That was said by one of the executives (male) of one of the biggest secretarial agencies in this country．What he has predicted is already under way in the US.
Once high technology has made the job of secretary less routine, will there be a male takeover? Men should beware of (谨防) thinking that they can walk right into the better jobs．There are a lot of women secretaries who will do the job as well as them—not just because they can buy negligees (轻而薄的女晨衣) for the beas's wife, but because they are as efficient and well-trained to cope with word processors and computers, and men.
Before 1914 female secretaries were rare because they ______.