PSAT Reading Practice Test 18

Questions 1-9 refer to the following information.

Hillary Rodham Clinton Speech

This passage is adapted from Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech titled "Women's Rights Are Human Rights," addressed to the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.

If there is one message that echoes forth from
this conference, it is that human rights are women's
rights…. And women's rights are human rights.
Let us not forget that among those rights are the
05right to speak freely and the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in
the social and political lives of their countries if we
want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.
It is indefensible that many women in nongov-
10ernmental organizations who wished to participate
in this conference have not been able to attend—or
have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of
people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It
15means respecting the views of those who may disagree
with the views of their governments. It means not
taking citizens away from their loved ones and jail-
ing them, mistreating them, or denying them their
freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expres-
20sion of their ideas and opinions.
In my country, we recently celebrated the
seventy-fifth anniversary of women's suffrage. It
took one hundred and fifty years after the signing
of our Declaration of Independence for women to
25win the right to vote. It took seventy-two years of
organized struggle on the part of many courageous
women and men.
It was one of America's most divisive philosophi-
cal wars. But it was also a bloodless war. Suffrage was
30achieved without a shot fired.
We have also been reminded, in V-J Day obser-
vances last weekend, of the good that comes when
men and women join together to combat the forces
of tyranny and build a better world.
35We have seen peace prevail in most places for a
half century. We have avoided another world war.
But we have not solved older, deeply-rooted prob-
lems that continue to diminish the potential of half
the world's population.
40Now it is time to act on behalf of women everywhere.
If we take bold steps to better the lives of women,
we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of
children and families too. Families rely on mothers
and wives for emotional support and care; families
45rely on women for labor in the home; and increas-
ingly, families rely on women for income needed to
raise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain
so commonplace around the world—as long as
50girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last,
overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected
to violence in and out of their homes—the potential
of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous
world will not be realized.
55Let this conference be our—and the world's—call
to action.
And let us heed the call so that we can create a
world in which every woman is treated with respect
and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for
60equally, and every family has the hope of a strong
and stable future.