2 . Google made waves recently by introducing its new program, “Google Career Certificates,” a collection of courses designed to help people get qualifications in high-paying, high-growth job fields without attending university. The courses should take about six months to complete and will cost a fraction (小部分) of a traditional college education.

Many people, especially students, were happy to see an alternative (可能的选择) to what many consider a broken education system—one that leaves many burdened with student debt for years while leaving them unprepared for the real world.

The truth is, traditional higher education may be necessary for some careers, but for others it is neither necessary nor practical. Google’s alternative not only costs a fraction of a traditional college education, but it can also be completed in far less time and can better prepare graduates for the real world.

Of course, what Google is offering isn’t exactly new. In some ways, the new program is similar to other types of training that have existed for years, like vocational education. The difference is, since Google is a household name, its certificate can be easily recognized and accepted across companies and industries — much like a degree from a major university.

Not everyone was in praise of Google’s alternative. Some people expressed concern that not enough employers would value Google’s certificate program. One even argued that graduates would likely not get a job and would then feel the need to go to college after all. Another criticism people leveled was that there are certain lessons taught in higher education that you merely can’t get in other places. “Students need more than a checklist of skills in order to compete in the real world,” those people said. “They need critical thinking abilities.”

I don’t think Google’s program will completely replace college education. But I do think it’s a step in the right direction — a separate path for students who are looking for something different from traditional higher education.

1. What is the purpose of Google’s certificate program?

A．To prepare people for future jobs.

B．To allow people to get work experience.

C．To teach people how to get a high-paying job.

D．To offer people the chance to go to university.

2. What is one reason why many people favored Google’s certificate program?

A．Its courses are mostly easy.

B．It ensures people a promising career.

C．Its training is new and of high quality.

D．It costs less than traditional higher education.

3. What is one limitation of Google’s certificate program according to critics?

A．It isn’t practical.

B．It doesn’t offer valuable skills.

C．It isn’t acceptable to the public.

D．It doesn’t develop critical thinking abilities.

4. What does the author expect of Google’s certificate program?

A．It should move in the right direction.

B．It will take the place of college education.

C．It can serve as an alternative for some people.

D．It needs to make changes to meet students’ needs.

3 . We have often heard that “work smart and not hard”．Does only smart work bring you success? And if so, then why are so many of us still busy putting our blood and sweat into working hard? Here, we’ll discuss hard work and smart work.

Hard work is all about consistently working towards a particular goal irrespective (不考虑的) of its worth, not being worried about the result and not using any means to reduce your effort. Hard work requires a lot of commitment (投入) and sincerity from the person. Although being boring and tiresome, it can give you the best results if it is done with heart and soul.

One of the preconditions of smart work is having in­depth knowledge or experience of the work in hand, because that allows you to look for efficient ways to do the work in a planned time. Being a smart worker saves a lot of time as you can find means to reduce your work by using logical and innovative ways to achieve your goals. Besides, it also gives you enough time to learn a new task while completing the present one.

Although it seems that smart work is a better option, what we forget is that smart work is the fruit of hard work. Only when you work hard can you gather the expertise (专门技能) and the knowledge to understand the work in hand and efficiently improve on it and work smartly.

You will attain great heights and lead a better and comfortable life if you combine both smart and hard work together. If you are not smart, your hard work will never pay. A donkey only does hard work, while a horse does hard work and uses its smartness whenever and wherever it needs. In a similar way, smart work is the result of hard work. To master the quality of smart work, you really need to work hard. Through hard work, we gain experience which helps us discover new things that may make us work smartly. The effort is important，but where to make that effort makes a difference.

1. What can we learn about hard workers from Paragraph 2?

A．They lack proper work skills.

B．They always have great patience.

C．They tend to ignore the goal of work.

D．They can obtain excellent results from their work if they work with heart and soul.

2. How can smart workers save a lot of time?

A．By making a sensible plan.

B．By making use of innovative ways.

C．By learning experience from others.

D．By getting inspiration from a new task.

3. What does the author think of hard work?

A．It is inspiring.	B．It is ineffective.
C．It is challenging.	D．It is fundamental.

4. What does the example of donkey in Paragraph 5 intend to show?

A．It is useless to work hard.

B．It is necessary to work smartly.

C．The efforts you make matter most.

D．The horse is cleverer than the donkey.

4 . “When I grow up, I want to be...”

Almost all of us have thought about, or been asked to think about, our future careers. Our answers may differ greatly. Even now your aspirations(志向，抱负) may have changed from when you were in primary school.

However, it seems career options aren’t only based on personal taste. In a survey carried out by Teens, doctors, lawyers, and bankers were some of most popular careers that people said they hoped to follow. This is in line with a similar survey carried out in the UK in May 2011 by a job website, in which medicine was the top choice among UK teenagers aged between 13 and 17.

Medicine and law are two of the oldest and best known professions. Their prestige (威望) may come from the fact that doctors and lawyers are much-respected members of society, and they make good money. What’s more, these professions are often seen as a sign of upper social class.

It is equally unsurprising that banking is now one of the most common career choices. Youngsters worldwide think of banking to see the money rolling in. Wealth is increasingly becoming one of the most important indicators(标志) of a successful career. .

However, not every child has the makings of a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker. They are those who see achievements and happiness in other areas. As the Teens’ survey discovered, a variety of unconventional jobs--a coffee shop owner, a gourmet(美食家), a waiter at a fast food restaurant--are among teenagers’ career choices. They can be equally interesting and rewarding jobs.

With every choice come responsibility and challenge, and all career paths require specific education and training, so you have to learn to balance optimism(乐观主义)and confidence with being realistic about your particular talents and skills.

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The fact that the teenagers in the UK like doctors.

B．The importance of choosing a good job.

C．Careers in teenagers’ mind.

D．The fact that the choice of career needs challenge.

2. What is the top career choice among UK teenagers aged between 13 and 17 according to the article?

A．Medicine

B．Law

C．Bank

D．Education

3. According to the article, all of the following are the benefits of being a doctor or a lawyer except _______.

A．respect from others	B．high pay
C．status of upper social class	D．the oldest profession

4. According to the last two paragraphs, which of the following is TRUE?

A．Careers such as gourmets and waiters are not as rewarding as doctors and lawyers.

B．Specific education and training can help get a good job.

C．Responsibility is the most important when you choose a good job.

D．Optimism and confidence is more important than being realistic when choosing careers.

5 . Quiet Quitting

While not a new concept, the term “quiet quitting” has recently gained popularity on social media.

What is quiet quitting?

Quiet quitting doesn’t mean an employee has left their job, but rather has limited their tasks to avoid working longer hours.     1     They stick to what is in their job description and when they go home, they leave work behind them and focus on non-work duties and activities.

    2     It may also mean they are ready to change positions or may be currently looking for another job.

    3    

Quiet quitting may be a popular term, but this practice isn’t new. Workers have quietly quit their jobs for years to look for something new, whether it was because of poor pay, unmanageable workload, burnout or lack of growth opportunities.

Working from home has also changed the dynamics of the workplace because employees and managers are communicating in different ways through online meetings. These interactions may feel more formal than the chat sessions that happen in an office. Limited meetings can cause a disconnect between employees and management.     4    

How can businesses help employees?

The biggest way to prevent disengagement is to improve the employees’ experience. Talk to employees, gather their feedback and discuss what can be done to make them feel appreciated. Make sure workloads are realistic and that there are appropriate boundaries to maintain a work-life balance.

Further, managers should clearly outline paths of career progression to each employee.    5     A recent report revealed that more than half of employees surveyed would accept 10% less pay in exchange for a “more interesting career path or more opportunities to learn new skills”.

A．Why are employees quietly quitting?

B．Why is quiet quitting beneficial to mental health?

C．They set clear boundaries to improve work-life balance.

D．Employees are more likely to be engaged when they have specific targets.

E．However, quiet quitting could be a sign that an employee is not happy in their position.

F．Regular support and praise that make employees feel valued and connected can get lost.

G．Managers must learn how to have conversations to help employees reduce disengagement and burnout.

7 . You will be leaving this school soon and the unavoidable question many people will ask you is, “    1    ” Some of you may have already decided on a career path, but many of you still don’t have a clue. Here are some things you might want to consider.

    2     Will it be in demand in 20 years? Rapid technological change is taking place and we need to be forward-looking at our future prospects. While many occupations are being taken over by new technology, jobs requiring high-level of critical thinking, emotional intelligence and human interaction remain in high demand. These jobs are not easily replaced by machines or technology. So think carefully about this before you choose your professional path.

Choose a career that interests you. Some people might think this is unimportant, but if you are truly passionate about your job then going to work every day won’t seem unpleasant.     3    Based on your own values, sills and personality type, you should ask yourself what you rally enjoy doing. This can help you decide if a career path is a good fit for you.

Of course you will want to consider your chosen profession’s earning power. Although high pay plays a part, you should know that a Job with a big salary will likely require more effort and   a higher level of stress.     4     If you have interests outside of work, or are struggling with other demands in your life, you might want to choose a less taxing line of work.

    5    Therefore, when you’re not sure which direction to take, you should keep an old saying in mind, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

A．What occupation do you want to choose?

B．Prepare yoursef for a career with creating power.

C．Does the career you consider have staying power?

D．It’s also likely that you will stay and grow in this career.

E．Only the truly motivated are likely to meet these challenges.

F．Thinking about a life-long career at this stage is surely challenging.

G．Choosing the right career won’t stress you with enough preparations.

9 . The other night I had dinner with my friend Kim, who in midlife is trying to change her career. She has spent decades as a successful photographer, but she knows it’s time to do something different. What, however, is she qualified to do, besides photography? “I’m good at parties,” she told me with a shrug. “And parallel parking.” We refilled our wineglasses and laughed really hard as we dreamed up the various careers in which that particular combination might be useful.

Here’s a humbling exercise: Ask yourself what you’re good at, aside from the skills you use at work. After my conversation with Kim, I put this question to a handful of friends and got responses ranging from “finding restaurants for people” to “spotting terrific old chairs.” The more I think about my own answer to this question, the more confused I seem to get.

A year ago this month I left a job, and a career, that brought me great satisfaction for more than two decades. Can serendipity(意外惊喜)be a strategy? It certainly worked for me. I happened to find a field in which my skills and the requirements of the job were a Venn diagram (韦恩图) with near total overlap. Like most of my friends, I spent my 20s and 30s marching determinedly along my given path, working hard, with purpose, and by the time I reached my 40s, I was able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Isn’t that the way the American Dream goes?

Here’s what you learn when you wake up from that dream: hubris (自负) is the unpleasant by-product of success. If you are really good at your job for a long enough time, you begin to believe that you can be good at any job and therefore can easily jump from one thing to another, switching horses in midstream. Examples of this mistaken thinking are everywhere, from the harmlessly frivolous (Dancing With the Stars) to the dangerously serious (the current presidency). As it turns out, humility is its own kind of skill; developing it hurts, but falling on your face hurts more.

Over the years a number of 20-somethings have come to me for advice, which I have dutifully given: Work hard, meet lots of people, say yes to many things. Don’t complain, put a smile on your face, and remind yourself that studying Foucault for four years in college might not prove to be particularly relevant in the working world. Swallow your pride and ask a lot of questions.

What I should be telling the young and ambitious is this: being really good at one thing is fantastic until it isn’t. The day may come, in my experience, will come, when you know you want to do, want to be, something else. For example, 20-somethings, one day you might want to appear on Dancing With the Stars. I’m not sure if Sean Spicer is a fool or a genius for turning down this opportunity for his first post-Administration performance. Maybe he’s not aware that Apolo Ohno was placed first on the show.

Or maybe you’ll want to run for President. Never mind that it was a President–Abraham Lincoln–who popularized the warning about switching horses in midstream. If you are a real estate tycoon and loud-mouthed TV star who made a name for yourself with a combination of instinct, bravado(虚张声势)and riding the wave of chaos you create everywhere you go, then who cares what Abe Lincoln said? The White House is the logical next career step.

Or, 20-somethings, maybe you’ll do both! At the same time! After all, doesn’t today’s White House sort of resemble Dancing With the Stars, if you squint(眯眼)hard and use your imagination? With experts and amateurs working together, trying to make it all look graceful while the audience alternatively laughs and cries?

So, folks, an assignment: Ask yourself what you’re good at. As for me, aside from what I most recently did for a living–writing, editing, managing people and showing up to meetings on time–my greatest strengths seem to be making vacation packing lists and remembering which houses in my town are on the market. So I have entered this next phase of my life with gratitude (for what I’ve accomplished), humility (about all that I don’t know) and fear (see random greatest strengths). I used to be filled with optimism: if Donald Trump could become President, anything seemed possible. But with each passing month, and each new failure, my optimism dims. If he wanted to try something new, wouldn’t Dancing With the Stars have been a wiser choice?

1. Which of the following statements can be inferred from the passage?

A．Only failure contributes to the development of one’s humility.

B．Donald Trump is the very person for the US presidency.

C．Career success encourages overestimate of oneself.

D．College education is a must for a successful career.

2. What is the writer’s attitude towards job hopping?

A．Check whether one’s skill meets the requirements of the potential new job.

B．Seize each and every random opportunity that comes along.

C．Be optimistic about the potential new job and anything is possible.

D．Job hopping is such a severe danger as to be avoided.

3. The writer’s implicit comment on the White House could be ________.

A．It functions ideally as the political center of the United States.

B．It is the logical next career step for a wealthy and famous person.

C．It is as attractive and interesting as Dancing with the Stars.

D．It is a stage where officials don’t know how to run the country.

4. What could be implied by the underlined “it isn’t”?

A．What one is really good at disappears.

B．One feels no more fantastic about the job.

C．One’s ambition weakens as he or she ages.

D．One tries to change to a new job.