Now most of the workers work from 9 am to 5 pm. However, according to the global Internet survey done by the UK Sleep Council, the siesta （午睡）was the right idea all along. The UK Sleep Council called on the country's bosses to end nine-to-five working in favor of more flexible hours. They believe what would really increase the workers' productivity is a nice afternoon nap, rather than those bonuses.
Forty-one percent of the 12,000 people who responded to the council's survey said they were most productive in the morning, while 38 percent said they hit their stride in the evening. "This means most of them cannot fully pay attention to what they do in the middle of the day," said sleep expert Dr. Chris Idzikowskii. "We must conclude from this survey that the traditional nine-to-five working day does not suit most workers." He suggested that allowing workers to follow their natural sleeping habits would actually benefit employers by allowing them to expand their working hours and be more productive.
Fortunately, being a college lecturer, I don't have to go to work everyday. I only work three days a week, but during the three days I work really long hours and have no time for a little siesta. I'm usually so tired and sleepy in the afternoon, which really affects the vitality （活力）of my classes.
I think Dr. Chris Idzikowskii's idea is worthwhile. When people have flexible working hours they could reach their highest productivity. On top of that, flexible working hours mean that people don't have to work all at the same time. That way we could avoid traffic jams. Therefore, it's really killing two birds with one stone!
1. What can improve the workers' productivity, according to the UK Sleep Council?| A．More bonuses. | B．The flexible working time. |
| C．Working for long hours. | D．Working in a relaxing way. |
| A．Were most sleepy. | B．Were most flexible. |
| C．Worked at their own pace. | D．Worked at their best. |
| A．Few people are suitable to work at noon. |
| B．People are more productive in the morning. |
| C．Some people like to expand their working hours. |
| D．More and more people prefer to work in the evening. |
| A．It could solve most of the traffic problems. |
| B．He finds Dr. Chris Idzikowskii respectable. |
| C．He thinks the idea can benefit the society. |
| D．It allows him to work for fewer hours. |
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The Yangtse Evening Post conducted the survey among 50 job seekers who were attending Sunday’s job fair in Jiangsu for graduate students．The survey showed graduates are becoming more realistic in their job search despite the job market becoming better．
The fair attracted more than 10，000 graduate students with 7，382 positions．
“The pressure of buying a house in Beijing is unbelievable，”said Wang Jian from Nanjiing Normal University，who acknowledged he had thought about finding a job in Beijing，Shanghai or Guangzhou，but in the face of huge pressures，he has no choice but to be “realistic”．
People can have a very comfortable life in Nanjing with a monthly salary of between 3，000 yuan($450)and 4，000 yuan，but in Shanghai，5，000 yuan a month can only help you survive and buying a house will remain a dream．
A student from Nanjing University of Science and Technology said he just turned down an offer from a Shanghai company of 7,000 yuan a month because“living costs in Shanghai are too high．”
An unnamed male student from Nanjing University said he will try first-tier cities only if he can get a high salary．“I would go to Beijing only if I can earn 200，000 yuan a year，”he said．
“Beijing，Shanghai and Guangzhou once had the advantages that other cities don’t have，but the high housing prices and living costs make young people barely able to breathe，”said Ren Leiming from the job service center of Jiangsu’s colleges and universities．
“First-tier cities have plenty of talents that make it hard for people to be outstanding，and if you go work in smaller cities you can become a dominant player at your position much more easily，”said Ren．
1. The majority of graduate students will give up trying to find jobs in the first-tier cities because .
| A．it is not easy to find jobs there． |
| B．home prices and living costs there are very high． |
| C．they can’t make full use of their knowledge and skills there． |
| D．monthly salaries there are low compared with those in other cities． |
| A．There are more job opportunities offered now． |
| B．The job markets are becoming more and more competitive． |
| C．Many graduate students aren’t satisfied with the working conditions． |
| D．Companies and enterprises have stricter rules to take in graduate students． |
| A．in Shanghai，5，000 yuan a month can only help you buy a luxury house |
| B．the fair attracted more than 10，000 graduate students and laid-off workers with 7，382 positions |
| C．The Yangtse Evening Post conducted the survey among 50 personnel managers who were attending Sunday’s joh fair in Jiangsu for graduate students |
| D．a student from Nanjing University of Science and Technology turned down an offer from a Shanghai company of 7，000 yuan a month |
| A．people can’t achieve more in first-tier cities |
| B．people can easily be outstanding in smaller cities |
| C．he would rather go to first-tier cities than smaller cities |
| D．talents are more welcome in first-tier cities than smaller ones |
【推荐2】How to Get Others to Help You at Work
Unavoidably, at work you will need the help of others. Getting this help may have less to do with your formal position and authority and more to do with your strategy and approach.
Define what needs to be done.
Ask an individual for help. When you make a general request for volunteers during a meeting, colleagues often understand it as “whoever doesn’t have much of anything to do can work on this.”
Thank others for their assistance. Always thank and acknowledge others for their help.
| A．Share the honor |
| B．Unclear goals lead to unclear results |
| C．Leave a good impression on your bosses |
| D．So you should take trouble to ask who are free |
| E．The person will feel that his or her time and energy were worthwhile |
| F．Your opportunities of getting someone to volunteer thus tend to be slim |
| G．They can range from a simple favor to convincing others to accept yours as their own |
【推荐3】The three phases of life are increasingly a thing of the past. Where once working lives fitted neatly into the model of education, employment and then retirement, the simplicity of that division is being challenged by changing standards of the workforce.
Increasing numbers of workers, nearing their long-imagined transition into retirement, seem to be actively postponing the moment at which they down tools. Newly released figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown that there are over a million more over 50s in part-time work than a decade ago. And with nine out of 10 employers reporting difficulties hiring workers, there’s likely to be a growing market for their talents as bosses extend their searches to older people, including those who are willing to take on part-time responsibilities.
The ending of the three phases of working life isn’t simply down to people living longer or financial necessity － though those are certainly important factors － but also to an increasing desire to maintain a purposeful life. One survey of British retirees over 50 found that 85 per cent of them felt they’d retired too young – stopping working had left a void that they subsequently regretted.
The 2015 film The Intern conveyed this human need to have value. In it, Robert De Niro plays a 70-year-old widower who finds himself a fish out of water when he joins a trendy internet start-up. In the end, not only does he find the sense of belonging that he craves but his colleagues come to rely on his experience and different perspective. It’s a plot we can increasingly expect to play out in real-life offices over the decades to come as people live ever longer.
Already, we are seeing people in their 50s and 60s looking ahead to a retirement lasting 30 years, choosing instead to build second careers that they can maintain into their 70s or beyond. Freed from the financial burden of young children, they can prioritise flexibility, shorter working hours or more rewarding jobs in areas such as charity work or teaching. Many do it for no money at all, volunteering behind the till in charity shops or showing people round National Trust properties.
However, it’s the next generation where the effect of living longer will really be felt, and the financial necessity will start to bite. In the West, more than half of the children born in 2016 have a life expectancy of more than 100 years. In their book, The 100-Year Life, London Business School professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott suggest that acquiring sufficient funds to see oneself through a 40- or 50-year retirement will likely be beyond all but the highest earners.
Then there’s the often repeated claim that young people today are the first generation to be poorer than their parents. Certainly property prices are changing the way they plan for the future. In the mid-Nineties, the average home cost less than three times the average wage; last year, ONS stats placed that ratio at eight times wages.
The overall effect of these trends is that young people recognize that they will likely have to postpone dreams of retirement and instead strap on(绑住) more debt spread over longer spans. It’s why 44 per cent of under 30s say they expect to be working well into their 70s and why data this year from the Bank of England show that 16 per cent of UK mortgages(按揭贷款) now have terms of 35 years or more – a figure that has tripled in the past decade.
All of these factors look set to contribute to a workforce that has a significantly wider range of ages in the future. In an era of work when we’ve all learned to be more inclusive, only eight per cent of firms with a diversity programme have adapted it to go beyond gender, race and sexuality and into age. Incorporating older employees into the workforce is set to be the next big thing at the office.
If Robert De Niro has anything to teach us, it’s that this can be an enormous force for good for both employees and businesses.
1. What do the underlined words “down tools” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．stop working | B．undertake part-time jobs |
| C．learn a new skill | D．imagine the future life |
| A．a longer life | B．financial needs |
| C．a meaningful life | D．delayed retirement policy |
| A．tell us Robert De Niro is a helpful retiree |
| B．indicate that retirees can also benefit society |
| C．illustrate that retirees desire to live meaningfully |
| D．share Robert De Niro’s second career with us |
| A．Their life expectancy will be longer. |
| B．They will be richer than their parents. |
| C．They can live within their means. |
| D．They will fail to pay off their mortgage. |
| A．longing for a more purposeful life |
| B．inability to make their ends meet |
| C．a shorter term of mortgages |
| D．eagerness for experience from old employees |
| A．Different attitudes to retirement between the young and old. |
| B．Financial issues facing both old people and young people. |
| C．Age being no bar in the modern world of work. |
| D．The new standards of the workplace. |
【推荐1】Adulting is hard. While high school students are at the forefront of technological and learning skills, it’s often not until they leave home that they learn everyday life skills. Some believe that high schools should offer a commonsense course in which students are taught how to pay bills, change a tire or cook. Now, one Kentucky school is offering an “adulting day” to teach such skills to students in their senior year.
The class of 2019 at Bullitt Central High School in Shepherdsville, Ky., traded in their algebra and literature classes for a day to learn some positive life skills, according to Wave 3 News.
“I think that the idea occurred to me, originally, when I saw a Facebook post that parents passed around saying they needed a class in high school on taxes and cooking, ” Christy Hardin, director of the BCHS Family Resource & Youth Services Center, told Wave 3. “Our kids can get that, but they have to choose it. And “Wednesday” was a day they could pick and choose pieces they didn’t feel like they had gotten so far.”
Members of the community helped provide the lessons for the students one on one, including local police who taught them how to interact with officers during traffic stops, a speaker who explained how to decipher the difference between homesickness and depression, and others who discussed how to use credit cards, how to cook in a dorm room and how to change a tire.
While many people on Facebook applauded the idea, with some arguing, “This should be taught in every high school, ” others wondered what became of home economics.
Now known as Family and Consumer Sciences, these courses teach students how to cook, sew and budget, along with other skills. In many districts, however, the classes are electives and students do not always choose to take them.
“About time this came back, it was called Home Economics,” one woman wrote. “In today’s diverse make up of families it would be a welcome addition.”
Another shared, “We had home economics that taught us to cook and learned how to sew. We also had business math that taught us banking and finances. Why in the world is that not taught today? I mean, a special day called adulting to teach kids this stuff should be a required class credit.”
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．High school students are too busy to learn everyday life skills. |
| B．The schools in other districts have never taught everyday life skills to students. |
| C．High school students are advanced in technological and learning skills. |
| D．High school students are lacking in everyday life skills. |
| A．It did everything it could to cater to the parents. |
| B．It taught life skills at the cost of academic courses. |
| C．It offered parents opportunities to instruct classes. |
| D．It allow students to decide on their own subjects. |
| A．determine | B．demonstrate | C．discriminate | D．distribute |
a. use credit cards b. learn algebra and literature c. change a tire d. how to cook
| A．abc | B．bcd | C．acd | D．abd |
| A．Supportive | B．Opposed | C．Skeptical | D．Indifferent |
【推荐2】Boxwars is a fast-growing entertainment phenomenon that takes the childhood pastime of playing with cardboard boxes to a whole new level. Participants use cardboard to create weapons, trucks, tanks, huge animals and so on. Then they put on monumental battle shows during which every creation is completely destroyed!
Boxwars is the brainchild of Australian friends Hoss Siegel and Ross Koger, who came up with it nearly a decade ago over drinks. They did it at a party and had a great time, and then they decided to do it again.
With each new boxwar party, the suits and structures became more and more carefully prepared until they couldn't fit in their back gardens any more. So they moved the party to a local park on Boxing Day 2002, and people who were having barbecues at the park rushed over to watch them. And that's when they realized that their silly games actually had huge entertainment value.
That was the beginning of Boxwars. They go to the same spot every year on Boxing day.
Today, Boxwars builds complex structures for each themed battle. The sport has expanded beyond Boxing Day — it is now a part of nearly every major festival or event in Australia and around the world.
Boxwars is now run by the Boxwars Council, and has lots of fans across the globe. “One of our main aims is to bring cardboard back to the consumers who deserted it in the first place without realising its true potential,” the official website states. “Cardboard, or the street name ‘box’, we quickly discovered had brilliant properties for engineering. The limits of scale and awesomeness were continuously pushed to greater commanding heights with the development of our skills with this great thing.”
1. What can we infer about Boxwars?| A．America is its birthplace. |
| B．It is considered to be a waste of money. |
| C．Its first appearance was on Boxing Day 2002. |
| D．All the weapons made for it will be destroyed. |
| A．To prepare people for possible war. |
| B．To exercise children’s ability of using hands. |
| C．To make people realize the use of deserted box. |
| D．To provide a chance to satisfy people's curiosity. |
| A．Significant and popular. | B．Fun but foolish. |
| C．Interesting but expensive. | D．Challenging but beneficial. |
| A．Boxwars — a creative design | B．Boxwars — a popular game |
| C．Boxwars — a new kind of box | D．Boxwars — a fierce competition |
【推荐3】Windows are a key component in a building's design, but they are also the least energy- efficient part. According to a 2009 report by the United Nations, buildings account for 40 percent of global energy usage, and windows are responsible for half of that energy consumption. If conventional windows are used to better block sunlight passing into a building, they need expensive coatings. Even so, they can not adjust the indoor temperature effectively.
Scientists at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) have developed a smart liquid window panel that can help. By creating a mixture of micro-hydrogel (水凝胶), water, and a stabilizer, they found that it can effectively reduce energy consumption in a variety of climates. Thanks to the hydrogel, the mixture becomes hard-to-see- through when exposed to heat, thus blocking sunlight, and, when cool, it returns to its original clear state. The high heat capacity of water allows a large amount of heat energy to be stored instead of getting transferred through the glass and into the building during the hot daytime when office buildings mainly operate. The heat will then be gradually cooled and released at night when the staff are off duty.
As a proof of concept, the scientists conducted outdoor tests in hot (Singapore, Guangzhou) and cold (Beijing) environments. The Singapore test revealed that the smart liquid window had a lower temperature (50°C) during the hottest time of the day (noon) compared to a normal glass window (84°C), The Beijing tests showed that the room using the smart liquid window consumed 11 percent less energy to maintain the same temperature compared to the room with a normal glass window. They also measured when the highest value of stored heat energy of the day occurred. This "temperature peak" in the normal glass window was 2 pm, and in the smart liquid window was shifted to 3 pm. If this temperature peak shift leads to a shift in the time when a building needs to draw on electrical power to cool or warm the building, it should result in lower energy charges for users. The research team is seeking ways to cut down the cost of producing the smart window and so far, they have found several industry partners to commercialize it.
1. What is the disadvantage of conventional windows?| A．They are expensive. |
| B．They are not heatproof. |
| C．They contribute less to energy saving. |
| D．They can't block light into the building. |
| A．By taking in much of heat energy. |
| B．By returning to its original clear state. |
| C．By getting most of sunlight transferred. |
| D．By spreading sunlight in different directions. |
| A．It will make the windows long-lasting. |
| B．It could help the building users reduce costs. |
| C．It makes the buildings rely on no electrical power. |
| D．It helps the windows maintain a constant temperature. |
| A．It will be unaffordable. |
| B．It needs to be further improved. |
| C．It will be widely used in the city. |
| D．It will come onto the market soon. |
