1 . Beijing-born Chloe Zhao made a historic win, becoming the first Asian woman director to take home the Golden Globe Award for Best Director on Sunday night in Los Angeles, causing a stir among domestic netizens.
Nomadland, Zhao's third film, grabbed two top awards, including Best Picture, at the 2021 Annual Golden Globe Awards, making her the second filmmaker of Chinese descent after Ang Lee to get the top directorial prize of the 78 year old event, widely considered as an indicator of the Oscars.
Adapted from American journalist Jessica Bruder's 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, the film stars the actress Frances McDormand as a 62-year old woman who travels in the vast lands of America in order to explore life as a modern-day nomad (流浪者).
With a short yet glittering resume (简历), Zhao, who was born in 1982 and sent to study overseas in 1998, has gained attention from the first film directed by her Songs My Brothers Taught Me in 2015 before accumulating more popularity for the award-winning The Rider in 2017. The latter helped her to seize the attention of McDormand, who then chose the rights of the Nomadland book.
After being released in international film events since autumn last year. Nomadland has been a favorite of many major festivals, including its victorious win of the Golden Lion Award as the best film at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival.
So far, the film has received more than 90 awards, making it a sought-after competitor in the upcoming Oscars.
Song Dandan, a famous actress and the stepmother of Zhao, sent her greetings on SinaWeibo saying every award won by Zhao has surpassed (超过) the family’s expectations, bringing them huge joy. She added that she hopes Zhao’s success will encourage more Chinese youth to pursue their dreams.
1. What can we learn about Nomadland, the film directed by Chloe Zhao?| A．The film has won no more than two awards |
| B．The film will surely win the Oscar award for Best Picture |
| C．The film is about an old woman exploring life in America as a nomad |
| D．The film was inspired by American journalist Jessica Bruder's fiction book |
| A．her road to success is smooth |
| B．Chloe Zhao is a successful woman |
| C．all her three films are well-received |
| D．the two films contribute to her historic success |
| A．Chloe Zhao makes history at Golden Globes |
| B．Nomadland directed by Chloe Zhao wins awards |
| C．Chloe Zhao wins glory for her family and netizens |
| D．Chloe Zhao’s success will inspire Chinese teenagers |
2 . JeffBezos has a rule at Amazon, or perhaps more appropriate a philosophy. If a team cannot be fed by two pizzas then that team is too large. The reasoning is quite straightforward and basic. More people means more communication, more bureaucracy, more chaos, and more of pretty much everything that slows things down, hence why large organizations are oftentimes considered as being so inefficient.
In 2013 Gallup released a report called “The State of The American Workplace", in which they found that smaller companies had more engaged employees. In fact,42% of employees working at companies of 10 or fewer were engaged at work versus only 30% of employees at large companies.
Most people are not familiar with the Ringelmann Effect which is the tendency for individual members to become less productive as the size of a group increases. This concept was named after Maximilien Ringelmann, a French professor of agricultural engineering who passed away in 1931.In one of his experiments he asked volunteers to perform a very simple task, to pull on a rope. He found that when only one person is pulling on the rope they give 100% of their effort; however, as more people are added the individual effort goes down.
This experiment was recreated in the 1970's by Alan Ingham who came up with the concept of “social loafing” which helps us understand why the individual effort decreases as the team size increases. So why does this happen? Because it becomes harder to extract the individual contributions and performance of each person.
Organizations should really think about what their team structures look like and create and follow similar “two pizza rules”. It's no coincidence that smaller organizations are oftentimes more nimble while large organizations look like they are stuck in the mud.
1. What is the author's purpose of mentioning “two pizza rules” in paragraph 1?| A．To make a comment. |
| B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To provide an example. |
| D．To analyze a phenomenon. |
| A．It repeated the Ringelmann Effect experiment. |
| B．It was based on a simple task of pulling a rope. |
| C．It aimed to explore the reason behind the phenomenon. |
| D．It revealed the link between team size and individual effort. |
| A．Balanced. |
| B．Complicated. |
| C．Simple. |
| D．Flexible. |
| A．What Makes a Team More Productive? |
| B．Why Are Smaller Teams Better Than Larger Ones? |
| C．How Can Two Pizzas Be Shared by One Team? |
| D．Which Is More Important: Individual Effort r Team Size? |
