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Politicians should never lose（）of the needs of the people they represent.

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David likes country life and has decided（） farming.　　

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People have speculated for centuries about a future without work. Today is no different, with academics, writers, and activists once again（1）that technology is replacing human workers. Some imagine that the coming work-free world will be defined by （2） . A few wealthy people will own all the capital, and the masses will struggle in an impoverished wasteland.A different and not mutually exclusive （3） holds that the future will be a wasteland of a different sort, one （4） by purposelessness: Without jobs to give their lives （5） , people will simply become lazy and depressed. （6） today’s unemployed don’t seem to be having a great time. One Gallup poll found that 20 percent of Americans who have been unemployed for at least a year report having depression, double the rate for （7） Americans. Also, some research suggests that the （8） for rising rates of mortality, mental-health problems, and addicting （9）poorly-educated middle-aged people is shortage of well-paid jobs. Perhaps this is why many （10） the agonizing dullness of a jobless future.But it doesn’t （11） follow from findings like these that a world without work would be filled with unease. Such visions are based on the （12） of being unemployed in a society built on the concept of employment. In the （13） of work, a society designed with other ends in mind could （14） strikingly different circumstances for the future of labor and leisure. Today, the （15） of work may be a bit overblown. “Many jobs are boring, degrading, unhealthy, and a waste of human potential,” says John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland in Galway.These days, because leisure time is relatively （16） for most workers, people use their free time to counterbalance the intellectual and emotional （17） of their jobs. “When I come home from a hard day’s work, I often feel （18） ,” Danaher says, adding, “In a world in which I don’t have to work, I might feel rather different”—perhaps different enough to throw himself （19） a hobby or a passion project with the intensity usually reserved for （20） matters.

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Happy people work differently. They’re more productive, more creative, and willing to take greater risks. And new research suggests that happiness might influence（1）firms work, too.Companies located in places with happier people invest more, according to a recent research paper. （2） , firms in happy places spend more on R&D (research and development). That’s because happiness is linked to the kind of longer-term thinking （3） for making investments for the future.The researchers wanted to know if the （4） and inclination for risk-taking that come with happiness would （5） the way companies invested. So they compared U.S. cities’ average happiness （6） by Gallup polling with the investment activity of publicly traded firms in those areas.（7） enough, firms’ investment and R&D intensity were correlated with the happiness of the area in which they were （8） .But is it really happiness that’s linked to investment, or could something else about happier cities （9） why firms there spend more on R&D? To find out, the researchers controlled for various （10） that might make firms more likely to invest – like size, industry, and sales – and for indicators that a place was （11） to live in, like growth in wages or population. The link between happiness and investment generally （12） even after accounting for these things.The correlation between happiness and investment was particularly strong for younger firms, which the authors （13） to “less codified decision making process” and the possible presence of “younger and less （14） managers who are more likely to be influenced by sentiment.” The relationship was （15） stronger in places where happiness was spread more （16） .Firms seem to invest more in places where most people are relatively happy, rather than in places with happiness inequality.（17） this doesn’t prove that happiness causes firms to invest more or to take a longer-term view, the authors believe it at least （18）at that possibility. It’s not hard to imagine that local culture and sentiment would help （19） how executives think about the future. “It surely seems plausible that happy people would be more forward-thinking and creative and （20） R&D more than the average,” said one researcher.

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To my surprise, at yesterday’s meeting he again（）the plan that had been disapproved a week before.

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Successful learning is not a(n)（）activity but consists of four distinct stages in a specific order

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The interactions between China and the US will surely have a significant （）on peace and stability in the Asia—Pacific region and the world as a whole.

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We aim to ensure that all candidates are treated fairly and that they have equal （）to employment opportunities.

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“Reskilling” is something that sounds like a buzzword but is actually a requirement if we plan to have a future where a lot of would-be workers do not get left behind. We know we are moving into a period where the jobs in demand will change rapidly, as will the requirements of the jobs that remain. Research by the World Economic Forum finds that on average 42 per cent of the “core skills” within job roles will change by 2022. That is a very short timeline.The question of who should pay for reskilling is a thorny one. For individual companies, the temptation is always to let go of workers whose skills are no longer in demand and replace them with those whose skills are. That does not always happen. AT&T is often given as the gold standard of a company that decided to do a massive reskilling program rather than go with a fire-and-hire strategy. Other companies had also pledged to create their own plans. When the skills mismatch is in the broader economy, though, the focus usually turns to government to handle. Efforts in Canada and elsewhere have been arguably languid at best, and have given us a situation where we frequently hear of employers begging for workers, even at times and in regions where unemployment is high.With the pandemic, unemployment is very high indeed. In February, at 3.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively, unemployment rates in Canada and United States were at generational lows and worker shortages were everywhere. As of May, those rates had spiked up to 13.3 per cent and 13.7 per cent, and although many worker shortages had disappeared, not all had done so. In the medical field, to take an obvious example, the pandemic meant that there were still clear shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.Of course, it is not like you can take an unemployed waiter and train him to be a doctor in a few weeks. But even if you cannot close that gap, maybe you can close others, and doing so would be to the benefit of all concerned. That seems to be the case in Sweden: When forced to furlough 90 per cent of their cabin staff, Scandinavian Airlines decided to start up a short retraining program that reskilled the laid-off workers to support hospital staff. The effort was a collective one and involved other companies as well as a Swedish university.1.Research by the World Economic Forum suggests（）.2.AT&T is cited to show（）.3.Efforts to resolve the skills mismatch in Canada（）.4.We can learn from Paragraph 3 that there was（）.5.Scandinavian Airlines decided to（）.

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“Reskilling” is something that sounds like a buzzword but is actually a requirement if we plan to have a future where a lot of would-be workers do not get left behind. We know we are moving into a period where the jobs in demand will change rapidly, as will the requirements of the jobs that remain. Research by the World Economic Forum finds that on average 42 per cent of the “core skills” within job roles will change by 2022. That is a very short timeline.The question of who should pay for reskilling is a thorny one. For individual companies, the temptation is always to let go of workers whose skills are no longer in demand and replace them with those whose skills are. That does not always happen. AT&T is often given as the gold standard of a company that decided to do a massive reskilling program rather than go with a fire-and-hire strategy. Other companies had also pledged to create their own plans. When the skills mismatch is in the broader economy, though, the focus usually turns to government to handle. Efforts in Canada and elsewhere have been arguably languid at best, and have given us a situation where we frequently hear of employers begging for workers, even at times and in regions where unemployment is high.With the pandemic, unemployment is very high indeed. In February, at 3.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively, unemployment rates in Canada and United States were at generational lows and worker shortages were everywhere. As of May, those rates had spiked up to 13.3 per cent and 13.7 per cent, and although many worker shortages had disappeared, not all had done so. In the medical field, to take an obvious example, the pandemic meant that there were still clear shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.Of course, it is not like you can take an unemployed waiter and train him to be a doctor in a few weeks. But even if you cannot close that gap, maybe you can close others, and doing so would be to the benefit of all concerned. That seems to be the case in Sweden: When forced to furlough 90 per cent of their cabin staff, Scandinavian Airlines decided to start up a short retraining program that reskilled the laid-off workers to support hospital staff. The effort was a collective one and involved other companies as well as a Swedish university.1. Research by the World Economic Forum suggests ___.2. AT&T is cited to show _.3. Efforts to resolve the skills mismatch in Canada _.4. We can learn from Paragraph 3 that there was _.5. Scandinavian Airlines decided to ___.

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Directions: Read the following text and answer the questions by choosing the most suitable subheading from the list A-G for each numbered paragraphs (1-5). There are two extra subheadings which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.A. Stay calmB. Stay humbleC. Don’t make judgmentsD. Be realistic about the risksE. Decide whether to waitF. Ask permission to disagreeG. Identify a shared goalHow to Disagree with Someone More Powerful than YouYour boss proposes a new initiative you think won’t work. Your senior colleague outlines a project timeline you think is unrealistic. What do you say when you disagree with someone who has more power than you do? How do you decide whether it’s worth speaking up? And if you do, what exactly should you say? Here’s how to disagree with someone more powerful than you.1. ___You may decide it’s best to hold off on voicing your opinion. Maybe you haven’t finished thinking the problem through, the whole discussion was a surprise to you, or you want to get a clearer sense of what the group thinks. If you think other people are going to disagree too, you might want to gather your army first. People can contribute experience or information to your thinking—all the things that would make the disagreement stronger or more valid. It’s also a good idea to delay the conversation if you’re in a meeting or other public space. Discussing the issue in private will make the powerful person feel less threatened.2. _Before you share your thoughts, think about what the powerful person cares about—it may be “the credibility” of their team or getting a project done on time. You’re more likely to be heard if you can connect your disagreement to a higher purpose. When you do speak up, don’t assume the link will be clear. You’ll want to state it overtly, contextualizing your statements so that you’re seen not as a disagreeable underling but as a colleague who’s trying to advance a shared goal. The discussion will then become more like a chess game than a boxing match.3. _This step may sound overly deferential, but it’s a smart way to give the powerful person psychological safety and control. You can say something like, “I know we seem to be moving toward a first-quarter commitment here. I have reasons to think that won’t work. I’d like to lay out my reasoning. Would that be OK?” This gives the person a choice, allowing them to verbally opt in. And, assuming they say yes, it will make you feel more confident about voicing your disagreement.4. _You might feel your heart racing or your face turning red, but do whatever you can to remain neutral in both your words and actions. When your body language communicates reluctance or anxiety, it undercuts the message. It sends a mixed message, and your counterpart gets to choose what to read. Deep breaths can help, as can speaking more slowly and deliberately. When we feel panicky we tend to talk louder and faster. Simply slowing the pace and talking in an even tone helps calm the other person down and does the same for you. It also makes you seem confident, even if you aren’t.5. ___Emphasize that you re offering your opinion, not gospel truth. It may be a well-informed, well-researched opinion, but it’s still an opinion, so talk tentatively and slightly understate your confidence. Instead of saying something like, “If we set an end-of-quarter deadline, we’ll never make it,” say, “This is just my opinion, but don’t see how we will make that deadline.” Having asserted your position (as a position, not as a fact) demonstrates equal curiosity about other views. Remind the person that this is your point of view, and then invite critique. Be open to hearing other opinions.

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In 1999, the price of oil hovered around $16 a barrel. By 2008, it had（ 1 ）the $100 a barrel mark. The reasons for the surge（2） from the dramatic growth of the economies of China and India to widespread（3 ）in oil-producing regions, including Iraq and Nigeria’s delta region. Triple-digit oil prices have（4）the economic and political map of the world, （5）some old notions of power. Oil-rich nations are enjoying historic gains and opportunities, （6）major importers—including China and India, home to a third of the world’s population—（7）rising economic and social costs. Managing this new order is fast becoming a central （8）of global politics. Countries that need oil are clawing at each other to（9） scarce supplies, and are willing to deal with any government, （10）how unpleasant, to do it.In many poor nations with oil, the profits are being lost to corruption, （11）these countries of their best hope for development. And oil is fueling enormous investment funds run by foreign governments,（12）some in the West see as a new threat.Countries like Russia, Venezuela and Iran are well supplied with rising oil（13）, a change reflected in newly aggressive foreign policies. But some unexpected countries are reaping benefits, （14）costs, from higher prices. Consider Germany. （15）it imports virtually all its oil, it has prospered from extensive trade with a booming Russia and the Middle East. German exports to Russia（16）128 percent from 2001 to 2006.In the United States, as already high gas prices rose（17）higher in the spring of 2008, the issue cropped up in the presidential campaign, with Senators McCain and Obama（18）for a federal gas tax holiday during the peak summer driving months. And driving habits began to（19）, as sales of small cars jumped and mass transport systems（20）the country reported a sharp increase in riders.

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I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room—a women’s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don’t talk to them. This man quickly nodded in agreement. He gestured toward his wife and said, “She’s the talker in our family.” The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. “ It’s true," he explained. “When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn’t keep the conversation going, we’d spend the whole evening in silence.This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situa-tions ,they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late 1970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book Divorce Talk that most of the women she interviewed——but only a few of the men—gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year—a virtual epidemic of failed conversation.In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning, cooking and social arrangements. Instead, they focused on communication: "He doesn’t listen to me.” “He doesn’t talk to me.” I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share this expectation of their wives.In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk. (374 words)1.What is most wives’ main expectation of their husbands?2.Judging from the context, the phrase “wreaking havoc”(Para. 2) most probably means（）.3.All of the following are true EXCEPT （）. 4.Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of this text?5.In the following part immediately after this text，the author will most probably focus on（）.

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Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than repre¬sentative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconsti¬tutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors. (405 words)1.From the principles of the U. S. jury system, we learn that （）.2.The practice of selecting so-called elite jurors prior to 1968 showed （）. 3.Even in the 1960s，women were seldom on the jury list in some states because （）. 4.After the Jury Selection and Service Act was passed，（）. 5.In discussing the U. S. jury system, the text centers on（）.

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Once you have started a job, you should do it（）.

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For years, studies have found that first-generation college students—those who do not have a parent with a college degree-lag other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them. This has created “a paradox” in that recruiting first-generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has “continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close” an achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students (who completed the project) at an unnamed private university. First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree. Most of the first-generation students (59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial need, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the students with at least one parent with a four-year degree.Their thesis—that a relatively modest intervention could have a big impact—was based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most college students. They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.Many first-generation students “struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education, learn the ‘rules of the game,’ and take advantage of college resources,” they write. And this becomes more of a problem when collages don’t talk about the class advantage and disadvantages of different groups of students. Because US colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students’ educational experience, many first-generation students lack sight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students like them can improve.1.Recruiting more first-generation students has （）.2.The authors of the research article are optimistic because （）. 3.The study suggests that most first-generation students （）. 4.The author of the paper believe that first-generation students （）. 5.We may infer from the last paragraph that（）.

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We've bought some（）chairs for the garden so that they are easy to store away

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It’s not difficult to set targets for staff. It is much harder, _1_, to understand their negative consequences. Most work-related behaviors have multiple components. _2_ one and the others become distorted.Travel on a London bus and you’ll _3_ see how this works with drivers. Watch people get on and show their tickets. Are they carefully inspected? Never. Do people get on without paying? Of course! Are there inspectors to _4_ that people have paid? Possibly, but very few. And people who run for the bus? They are _5_. How about jumping lights? Buses do so almost as frequently as cyclists.Why? Because the target is _6_. People complained that buses were late and infrequent. _7_, the number of buses and bus lanes were increased, and drivers were _8_ or punished according to the time they took. And drivers hit these targets. But they _9_ hit cyclists. If the target was changed to _10_, you would have more inspectors and more sensitive pricing. If the criterion changed to safety, you would get more _11_ drivers who obeyed traffic laws. But both these criteria would be at the expense of time.There is another _12_: people became immensely inventive in hitting targets. Have you _13_ that you can leave on a flight an hour late but still arrive on time? Tailwinds? Of course not! Airlines have simply changed the time a _14_ is meant to take. A one-hour flight is now ballad as a two-hour flight.The _15_ of the story is simple. Most jobs are multidimensional, with multiple criteria. Choose one criterion and you may well _16_ others. Everything can be done faster and made cheaper, but there is a _17_. Setting targets can and does have unforeseen negative consequences.This is not an argument against target-setting. But it is an argument for exploring consequences first. All good targets should have multiple criteria _18_ critical factors such as time, money, quality and customer feedback. The trick is not only to _19_ just one or even two dimensions of the objective, but also to understand how to help people better _20_ the objective.

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A century ago, the immigrants from across the Atlantic included settlers and sojourners. Along with the many folks looking to make a permanent home in the United States came those who had no intention to stay, and who would make some money and them go home. Between 1908 and 1915, about 7 million people arrived while about 2 million departed. About a quarter of all Italian immigrants, for example, eventually returned to Italy for good. They even had an affectionate nickname, “uccelli di passaggio”, birds of passage.Today, we are much more rigid about immigrants. We divide newcomers into two categories: legal or illegal, good or bad. We hail them as Americans in the making, or brand them as aliens to be kicked out. That framework has contributed mightily to our broken immigration system and the long political paralysis over how to fix it. We don’t need more categories, but we need to change the way we think about categories. We need to look beyond strict definitions of legal and illegal. To start, we can recognize the new birds of passage, those living and thriving in the gray areas. We might then begin to solve our immigration challenges.Crop pickers, violinists, construction workers, entrepreneurs, engineers, home health-care aides and physicists are among today’s birds of passage. They are energetic participants in a global economy driven by the flow of work, money and ideas. They prefer to come and go as opportunity calls them. They can manage to have a job in one place and a family in another.With or without permission, they straddle laws, jurisdictions and identities with ease. We need them to imagine the United States as a place where they can be productive for a while without committing themselves to staying forever. We need them to feel that home can be both here and there and that they can belong to two nations honorably.Accommodating this new world of people in motion will require new attitudes on both sides of the immigration battle. Looking beyond the culture war logic of right or wrong means opening up the middle ground and understanding that managing immigration today requires multiple paths and multiple outcomes, including some that are not easy to accomplish legally in the existing system.1.“Birds of passage” refers to those who （）.2.It is implied in Paragraph 2 that the current immigration system in the U. S. （）. 3.According to the author, today’s birds of passage want （）. 4.The author suggests that the birds of passage today should be treated （）. 5.The most appropriate title for this text would be（）.

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Europe is not a gender-equality heaven. In particular, the corporate workplace will never be completely family-friendly until women are part of senior management decisions, and Europe’s top corporate-governance positions remain overwhelmingly male. Indeed, women hold only 14 percent of positions on Europe corporate boards.The Europe Union is now considering legislation to compel corporate boards to maintain a certain proportion of women一up to 60 percent. This proposed mandate was born of frustration. Last year, Europe an Commission Vice President Viviane Reding issued a call to voluntary action. Reding invited corporations to sign up for gender balance goals of 40 percent female board membership. But her appeal was considered a failure: only 24 companies took it up.Do we need quotas to ensure that women can continue to climb the corporate ladder fairly as they balance work and family?“Personally, I don’t like quotas,” Reding said recently. “But I like what the quotas do.” Quotas get action: they “open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling,” according to Reding, a result seen in France and other countries with legally binding provisions on placing women in top business positions.I understand Reding’s reluctance—and her frustration. I don’t like quotas either; they run counter to my belief in meritocracy, government by the capable. But, when one considers the obstacles to achieving the meritocratic ideal, it does look as if a fairer world must be temporarily ordered.After all, four decades of evidence has now shown that corporations in Europe as well as the US are evading the meritocratic hiring and promotion of women to top position一no matter how much “soft pressure” is put upon them. When women do break through to the summit of corporate power—as, for example, Sheryl Sandberg recently did at Facebook—they attract massive attention precisely because they remain the exception to the rule.If appropriate pubic policies were in place to help all women—whether CEOs or their children’s caregivers一 and all families, Sandberg would be no more newsworthy than any other highly capable person living in a more just society.1.In the European corporate workplace, generally （）.2.The European Union’s intended legislation is （）. 3.According to Reding, quotas may help women （）. 4.The author’s attitude toward Reding’s appeal is one of （）. 5.Women entering top management become headlines due to the lack of（）.

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