11. Read the following extract from an article about women drivers and answer the questions which follow:

Why is it that women are such bad drivers? They often hesitate for so long at a busy road junction that there will be a whole queue of cars sounding their horns. If you see a car travelling at 20 miles an hour along a main road, keeping so far away from the kerb that no one can overtake, you can be sure the driver is a woman!

Perhaps women drivers. suffer from a built-in inferiority complex, because we men just won't believe that a woman can drive well. And yet there are far more men involved in motor accidents than women -

and women seldom drink alcohol - unlike some men. Of course, women tend to be inexperienced drivers (whereas their husbands probably drive to work every day) and this makes them more nervous.

But at least a nervous women driver will go carefully. She doesn't try to show off, or, like a man, assert her masculinity (if that isn't a contradiction in terms).

I'm surprised that the motor insurance market does not offer favourable rates to women drivers. If the actuaries got to work they would doubtless find that motor claims from women drivers are far fewer than those for men but that the number of women drivers is NOT lower pro rata.

(a) What, briefly, do you think are the reader's expectations after he or she has read the first few lines of this extract? To what extent are those expectations borne out by the rest of the extract?

(b) List as many good points about women drivers as you can, using the material in the extract.

(c) What do you understand by 'a built-in inferiority complex'? If you like, give an example to help to explain.

(d) Explain briefly in your own words the meaning of two of the following: assert masculinity;a contradiction in terms; actuaries; pro rata.

(e) Would you agree or not that the article is an example of antifeminism?

Give your reasons in a few lines.

(20 marks)

(LCC Private Secretary's Certificate)