Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the following…

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.

We hear it all the time: People who are over 50 take longer to find jobs than younger people. Connie Wanberg, a professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, had long heard gloom-and-doom stories to that effect, but she wondered how strong the data was to support them.

Very, as it turned out. According to a study by Professor Wanberg and others, job seekers over 50 were unemployed 5.8 weeks longer than those from the ages of 30 to 49. That number rose to 10.6 weeks when the comparison group was from 20 to 29. Professor Wanberg and three other researchers - Darla J. Hamann, Ruth Kanfer and Zhen Zhang - arrived at those numbers by analyzing and synthesizing hundreds of studies by economists, sociologists and psychologists.

But it is important not to jump to conclusions about the cause, Professor Wanberg said. "It's not very unusual for everybody to think that the reason for the difficulty in finding jobs at 50s is discrimination," she said. That can sometimes be the case, but the reality is that the behavior required to find work does not play to many 15 older people's strengths. Once they become aware of this, they can act to compensate. In their study, the researchers found that older people on average had smaller social networks than younger people, Professor Wanberg said. This is not necessarily bad as we age, many of us find that the quality of our relationships is more important than the quantity. But in the job search process, the number of connections we maintain in our professional and personal networks is often critical. As people age, they also tend to stay in the same job longer, consistent with a pattern of wanting to put down roots. During that time, the skills people have learned and the job search strategies they once used may become outdated especially as technology evolves ever more quickly.

The cure for these drawbacks is fairly straightforward. Once you hit your early 40s, even if you are not looking for a job, work to learn new skills and stretch yourself, Professor Wanberg said. Also, keep your networks strong by staying in touch with former colleagues and classmates, along with current co-workers and clients whom you don't see regularly, she said.

Finding a job after 50 doesn't have to be as discouraging as it is often portrayed to be, Professor Wanberg

said. Just recognize that some of the obstacles you face are inherent to the aging process, she said. She stressed that her findings reflected only averages and that individual behavior varies greatly. Certainly, many older people maintain wide social circles and often learn skills. But in general, older job seekers must take more steps to find employment than younger ones, she said. Once older workers do find a new employer, they can use their knowledge, wisdom and emotional intelligence - qualities that older people often possess in abundance -to thrive in their new positions.

In the third paragraph, what best paraphrases the sentence "It's not very unusual for everybody to think that the reason for the difficulty in finding jobs at 50s is discrimination"?