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Passage
One
Innovative does not necessarily mean radical
or expensive, nor do the best ideas come from the top. A
woman on the shopfloor at Ford suggested putting symbols
of different engine parts so that drivers would not need
a manual to do something simple, such as check the oil.
It proved so popular it is now common practice.
Ford's open policy towards
employees' ideas
generates "tens of thousands of e-mails a month", according
to Ed Sketch, the director of training and development in
America and Europe. The company has even employed people
to sift through them. Money-saving brainwaves are rewarded
with big bonuses or a new car.
Companies might want to recruit innovative
thinkers, but do they really want nonconformists on board?
Peer Granger, the head of Insight Training, which runs innovation
workshops for companies, believes that the risk of not having
them on board is greater. "It's not like the old days, where
companies could churn out the same old product year after
year and customers would buy them. If companies don't innovate,
they die. Just look at the high street. And almost by definition,
you have to be difficult in order to innovate because it
is about challenging the status quo.
The problem is that innovators are usually
seen as trouble-makers and are often the first people to
go if a company is downsizing. There's such a blame culture
that people are scared to step outside the norms. In our
workshops we show people the value of breaking rules."
However, Granger thinks that difficult,
innovative people would crumble without their conformist
colleagues. "Crikey, you need the other people to say, ‘Hang
on, maybe this isn't a good idea', which can save you a
lot of hassle later. And turning an idea into reality may
involve office politics, which difficult people may not
be good at."
(306 words)
1.
The example of the woman who made a suggestion shows that
_______. ( D
)
(a) innovative means radical
(b) innovative is expensive
(c) the best ideas come from the low
(d) a person not from the top can also be innovative
2.
Ford's company even employs people to _______. (
B
)
(a) offer new ideas
(b) look for genuine ideas from numerous suggestions
(c) find innovative people
(d) distribute rewards or new cars
3.
According to Peter Granger, ________. (
D
)
(a) having innovative people on board is safe
(b) having conformists on board is safe
(c) both conformists and innovative people are difficult
(d) one has to be difficult if one wants to make some change
4.
In a blame culture, people _______. (
C
)
(a) are encouraged to make new things
(b) are praised for their breaking rules
(c) are conventional
(d) are often blamed
5.
The final paragraph discusses _______. (
C
)
(a) the cause for the failure of the innovative people
(b) the lack of skills in office politics on the part of
the innovative people
(c) the need for conformists to support the innovative
people
(d) the ultimate failure of the innovatives
TOP
Passage
Two
Before we can say anything meaningful about
the changing nature of careers, it is necessary to consider
what the concept of "career" means. It is a troublesome
term, for several reasons.
In the sense in which young people are often
encouraged to think about it, by educators, fiction, the
media, careers advisers and others, a career is something
which is chosen or aspired towards—a lifetime course of
cumulative occupational experience. This view, though faithful
to the term's etymological origins (from the old French
for a "carriageway"), has unfortunate consequences. It identifies
large segments of the population as ineligible to have careers—the unemployed, students, domestic laborers or child carers,
people with interrupted or radically changing occupational
status, unskilled and casualised labour, migrants, and others
who, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, fail to conform
to the idealized image of occupational and professional
development. In this sense careers have always been largely
a white male middle-class prerogative. When the media proclaim
"the death of careers", it is this group that has been bereaved.
However, there are powerful reasons for
using the term "career" more widely. First, there are practical
considerations. Whatever soothsayers about the future of
careers may assert, individual men and women remain passionately
interested in their careers—that is, in their personal
development through work experience over the course of their
lifetime. People are more concerned about their skills,
competencies, future roles, and opportunities for self-determination
than they are about most other areas of their work experience.
At the same time, employing organizations are aware of this
fact, and profoundly perplexed by the issue it raises—how to provide developmental incentives to people when familiar
structures of hierarchical advancement are rapidly transforming
and, in some cases, dissolving. In short, the importance
of having a sense of meaningful career development is becoming
more rather than less important.
Secondly, the definitional problem has been
recognised and addressed by scholarship in the area. The
traditional concepts of career choice and invariant career
developmental stages, which had focused research on steady
state phenomena, have been replaced by new paradigms which
recognise that careers cross organizational, temporal and
functional boundaries. For example, "boundaryless careers"
include liaison roles, contracted-out relationships, portfolio
competencies and the like. Indeed, it has long been clear
that popular connotations of the meaning of "career" are
inadequate and restrict the study of what actually happens
in people's working lives. More inclusive definitions have
therefore been proposed, such as "the evolving sequence
of a person's work experience over time."
(416 words)
6.
The term career is understood by educators and careers advisers
as ________. (
D
)
(a) a job chosen
(b) a choice made
(c) an aspiration in life
(d)a lifetime occupational experience
7.
According to the author of the passage, the term career
as understood by educators is _____. (
C
)
(a) inclusive
(b) faithful
(c) idealistic
(d) prerogative
8.
One of the reasons to use the term career more widely is
that ________. (
C
)
(a) people care more about their hierarchical advancement
(b) employing organisations don't know how to give developmental
incentives
(c) people are more interested in practical considerations
such as skills,
competencies, opportunities
(d) people are paying attention to more aspects of their
work
9.
It is recognized that careers are _________. (
D
)
(a) organizational
(b) temporal
(c) functional
(d) without boundaries
10.
The passage discusses _______. (
B
)
(a) the etymology of the word career
(b) the defining of the word career
(c) the reasons for using the term career
(d) the problem with the word career TOP
Passage
Three
One method of determining your strong points
is to appraise past performance honestly and to draw a balance
sheet of your assets and liabilities. An appraisal of this
sort might profitably be discussed with a friend to obtain
a fresh, objective viewpoint on what one should try to do.
Second, in job hunting it is important to
advertise yourself. One young man—fortunately, a wealthy
one—has turned his worries over to the bank where he keeps
his money. He has told the bank that sooner or later something
will turn up which he would be glad to have called to his
attention. To be sure, this man is an exception. Many others,
however, are content to call on their friends or business
acquaintances, mention that they are "looking" not leaving
a clear impression for what, and expect to get results.
Job hunting is the hardest of all types
of work, and it can be the most interesting. An orderly,
planned approach is essential. Let us assume you have decided
what you want to do, believe and can prove you can do it
well, know where you are willing to live, and have an idea
of your worth. In short, you have prepared yourself to look
for a job.
No matter how flexible you are, there are
certain companies to which you might be useful and many
others to which you will not. Type of industry and size
of company are two limiting factors to begin with, aside
from your own personal preferences as to location, travel,
salary, etc.
(255 words)
11.
If you want to have a self-appraisal, you should ____.(
B
)
(a) be aware of your strong points
(b) be honest with yourself
(c) have enough assets
(d) have a balanced mind
12.
The
author suggests that one need discuss with a friend about
jobs _______. ( D
)
(a) because friends might know more job opportunities
(b) because friends know you better than you do
(c) because friends are more honest than you are
(d) because friends can be more objective
13.
The example of the young man is used to show that ______.
(
D
)
(a) even rich people need to look for a job
(b) one should look for the right person in job hunting
(c) the young man is rich and fortunate
(d) self-advertising is important in job hunting
14.
When you prepare yourself to look for a job, you should
do all the following EXCEPT
______. (
C
)
(a) knowing what you want to do
(b) deciding what you can do
(c) being flexible for everything
(d) knowing your own worth
15.
The passage discusses ________. (
A
)
(a) the job seeker
(b) the job market
(c) the ideal jobs
(d) limiting factors in job hunting TOP
测验结果：15 题中 共答对题，
答错题， 还有题未答。
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