1 . Recently I attended several meetings where we talked about ways to attract students and keep younger faculty members from going elsewhere. It seems higher education has become an industry of meeting-holders whose task is to “solve” problems — real or imagined. And in my position as a professor at three different colleges, the actual problems in educating our young people and older students have deepened, while the number of people hired — not to teach but to hold meetings — has increased significantly. Every new problem creates a new job for an administrative fixer. Take our Center for Teaching Excellence. Contrary to its title, the center is a clearing house (信息交流中心) for using technology in classrooms and in online courses. It's an administrative sham (欺诈) of the kind that has multiplied over the last 30 years.

I offer a simple proposal in response: Many of our problems — class attendance, educational success, student happiness and well-being — might be improved by cutting down the bureaucratic (官僚的) mechanisms and meetings and hiring an army of good teachers instead.

If we replaced half of our administrative staff with classroom teachers, we might actually get a majority of our classes back to 20 or fewer students per teacher. This would be an environment in which teachers and students actually knew each other. The teachers must be free to teach in their own way — the curriculum should be flexible enough so that they can use their individual talents to achieve the goals of the course.

Additionally, they should be allowed to teach, and be rewarded for doing it well. Teachers are not people who are great at and consumed by research and happen to appear in a classroom. Good teaching and research are not exclusive, but they are also not automatic companions. Teaching is an art and a craft, talent and practice; it is not something that just anyone can be good at. It is utterly confusing to me that people do not recognize this, despite the fact that pretty much anyone who has been a student can tell the difference between their best and worst teachers.

1. What does the author say about present-day universities?

A．They are effectively addressing real or imagined problems.

B．They often fail to combine teaching with research.

C．They are over-burdened with administrative staff

D．They lack talent to fix their deepening problems.

2. According to the author, what kind of people do universities lack most?

A．Good classroom teachers.

B．Efficient administrators.

C．Talented researchers.

D．Motivated students.

3. What does the author imply about the classes at present?

A．They facilitate students' independent learning.

B．They help students form closer relationships.

C．They have more older students than before.

D．They are much bigger than is desirable.

4. What is the author’s suggestion for improving university teaching?

A．Creating an environment for teachers to share their teaching experiences.

B．Hiring more classroom teachers and allowing them to teach in their own way.

C．Using high technology in classrooms and promoting exchange of in formation.

D．Cutting down meetings and encouraging administrative staff to go to classrooms.

3 . A Bold New Era at Work

Adrienne Barnard has worked in human resources since 2004, and has been all manner of concerns and requests from workers. But Barnard, now senior vice president of people operations at Boston tech startup Mainstay, recently found herself shocked at how emboldened some employees had become.

“There’s a sense of _________ that’s buildings,” says Barnard, who’s had to deal with issues like remote workers expressing _________ with the system the company used to deliver them free lunches. “These employees are recognizing, ‘You need me, and if I leave, it’s going to be hard to replace me.’”

Employees in many industries are in a position of power that they haven’t experienced in years, as the economy swiftly _________ from the pandemic and businesses struggle to recruit retain enough workers to keep up with the growth. The rate of monthly _________ hit a record low in May, as job openings notched a record high. Meanwhile, more employees _________ quit their jobs in April than ever previously recorded-a clear sign that they’re confident they can find better options.

On top of the tight labor market, the pandemic has led many people to reconsider the centrality of work in their lives and has _________ some ties to their employers. Surveys suggest roughly 40% of U. S. workers are open to switching jobs in the coming months.

To a significant extent, this is a really good development. Workers had lost leverage with employers over the past four decades, amid a sharp _________ in union membership and an intense focus on shareholders at the expense of employees. The recent rise in wages. and worker’s increasing _________ in workplace practices, in many ways helps reset the balance.

Now, in order to attract and retain the workers they need, leaders are having to _________ their organizations’ practices. A large portion of office-based companies are rolling out flexible schedules, which allow employees to work when they want, and hybrid arrangements, where they __________ their time between office and remote work.

Barnard predicts the four-day workweek may even __________. Already, Kickstarter and other U. S. companies have committed to experimenting with the approach. And in a high-profile test in Iceland, workers were just as __________ and had improved well-being when they worked a shorter weekly schedule.

Another tactic is to conduct “stay interviews.” Employers traditionally hold “__________ interviews” when people leave companies, to better understand what went wrong. __________, managers would be better off if they proactively met with staff individually to better understand any problems they’re having before they get to the point of quitting. Good questions to ask include What do you wish you could spend less time on?

The increasing empowerment of workers is __________ and bewildering for many managers. But in the end, most of them are managed by someone else themselves. And if managers think deeply about what would attract them to an employer or make them stick around, it might help them succeed in this moment. As Bock says, “People forget that the thing that would help their teams the most is to give them what they themselves want.”

1.

A．resentment

B．entitlement

C．discrimination

D．illusion

2.

A．concern

B．gratitude

C．dissatisfaction

D．agreement

3.

A．rebounds

B．reunites

C．recedes

D．reacts

4.

A．complaints

B．layoffs

C．resignations

D．demonstrations

5.

A．unwillingly

B．admittedly

C．passively

D．voluntarily

6.

A．reinforced

B．loosened

C．tightened

D．narrowed

7.

A．decline

B．surge

C．reversal

D．blow

8.

A．protest

B．word

C．say

D．interference

9.

A．reassure

B．reassess

C．repeat

D．recall

10.

A．combine

B．distinguish

C．waste

D．split

11.

A．take off

B．get away

C．die out

D．catch on

12.

A．sluggish

B．productive

C．worn-out

D．confirmed

13.

A．entrance

B．dismissal

C．exit

D．quiz

14.

A．Meanwhile

B．Therefore

C．Additionally

D．However

15.

A．frustrating

B．inspiring

C．frightening

D．unforgivable

5 . Trying to make a big decision while you’re also preparing for a scary presentation? You might want to ______ doing that. Most people prefer to have sufficient time to analyze a situation and consider the ______. Feeling stressed changes how people ______ risk and reward. A new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science reviews how, under stress, people pay more attention to the ______ of a possible outcome. Pressure can result in ______ attention and the use of unconscious reasoning. It can force a decision-maker to sort the relevant factors from the irrelevant, and can ______ clear thinking with specific priorities. 

It’s a bit ______ that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right, says Mara Mather of the University of Southern California. “This is sort of not what people would think,” Mather says, “Stress is usually associated with disagreeable experiences, so you’d think that maybe I’m going to be more focused on the ______ outcomes.” But researchers have found that when people are under stress — by being told to hold their hand in ice water for a few minutes, for example, or give a speech — they start paying more attention to positive information and ______ negative information. “Stress seems to worsen their learning from negative feedback,” Mather says. This means when people under stress are making a difficult decision, they may pay more attention to the upsides of the alternatives they’re considering and less to the downsides. So someone who’s deciding whether to take a new job and is feeling stressed by the ______ might weigh the increase in salary more heavily than the worse commute (通勤)。

The increased focus on the positive also helps explain why stress plays a role in ______, and people under stress have a harder time controlling their urges. “The compulsion to get the reward comes stronger and they’re less able to ______ it,” Mather says. So a person who’s under stress might think only about the good feelings they’ll get from negative things like a drug, while the ______ shrink to the distance.

Stress also ______ the differences in how men and women think about risk. When men are under stress, they become even more ______ to take risks; when women are stressed, they get more conservative. Mather links this to another research that finds, at difficult times, men tend to face the situation, while women are likely to be more conservative.

1.

A．try

B．delay

C．deny

D．forbid

2.

A．requirements

B．reasons

C．chances

D．alternatives

3.

A．weigh

B．overlook

C．confuse

D．classify

4.

A．imperfection

B．risk

C．advantage

D．uncertainty

5.

A．conflicted

B．focused

C．unexpected

D．separated

6.

A．break off

B．hold up

C．account for

D．bring out

7.

A．surprising

B．fortunate

C．reasonable

D．pleasant

8.

A．conscious

B．immediate

C．negative

D．favorable

9.

A．neglecting

B．enhancing

C．analyzing

D．evaluating

10.

A．position

B．decision

C．qualification

D．schedule

11.

A．judgement

B．progress

C．relationship

D．addiction

12.

A．value

B．adopt

C．resist

D．maintain

13.

A．downsides

B．desires

C．defeats

D．benefits

14.

A．declines

B．increases

C．eliminates

D．worsens

15.

A．reliable

B．reluctant

C．qualified

D．willing

6 . In Dad’s Army, a British sitcom (情景喜剧) about a home-defense Force, Sergeant (中士) Wilson would often cast doubt on his commander’s various orders with the phrase “Do you think that’s wise, sir?” His doubt, although often ignored, was usually ________.

Many employees must be tempted to imitate Sgt. Wilson when they see their bosses head down the wrong track. But caution often leads workers to keep silent for fear of appearing foolish and offensive and ________ being at high risk of losing their jobs.

A culture of silence can be dangerous, argues a new book The Fearless Organization, by Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School. Some of her cases are from the ________ industry, where staff felt too powerless to make any changes due to their ranks. One was its deadliest accident: a crash between two Boeing-747s in the Canary Islands occurred in 1977 when a co-pilot felt unable to ________ his captain into changing the decision to take off. Another case was that of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003; an engineer who may have diagnosed damage to the shuttle’s wing before the flight felt unable to speak as he was “too ________” at NASA.

In a corporate culture based on ________ and obedience, it may appear that targets are being achieved. But in the long run the effect is likely to be counterproductive (适得其反的). Studies show that fear ________ learning. And when faced with a problem, scared workers find ways of ________ it or getting around it with inefficient practices.

The solution is to create an atmosphere of “psychological safety” whereby workers can speak their minds. It does not mean that workers, or their ideas, are ________ criticism, or that they should complain continuously. In a sense, this method is the ________ of Toyota’s “lean manufacturing” process, which allows any worker who spots a problem to stop the production line.

Pixar, the production firm, created what it called a “Braintrust” to give ________ to film directors. The rules were that advice should be constructive and about the idea, not the person, and that filmmakers should not be ________ in response.

And psychological safety is not about whistleblowing (检举). Indeed, if an employee feels the need to act as a whistleblower by speaking to external ________, it suggests employers have not created an environment within the firm where criticism can be ________. Nor is such a culture only about safety or avoiding mistakes. As mundane (单调的) tasks are automated, and workers rely on computers for data analysis, the added value of humans will stem from their ________. But as Ms. Edmondson’s book demonstrates, it is hard to be either constructive or creative if you are not confident about speaking out.

1.

A．justifiable

B．pointless

C．subjective

D．ridiculous

2.

A．on the whole

B．in conclusion

C．as a result

D．on the contrary

3.

A．airline

B．manufacturing

C．service

D．advertising

4.

A．tempt

B．reason

C．trick

D．guide

5.

A．offensive

B．ambitious

C．aggressive

D．humble

6.

A．imitation

B．fear

C．efficiency

D．competition

7.

A．motivates

B．facilitates

C．maintains

D．prevents

8.

A．spoiling

B．polishing

C．masking

D．exploiting

9.

A．related to

B．safe from

C．concerned with

D．dependent on

10.

A．equivalent

B．object

C．argument

D．criticism

11.

A．priority

B．motivation

C．access

D．feedback

12.

A．optimistic

B．objective

C．defensive

D．passive

13.

A．authorities

B．elements

C．divisions

D．whistleblowers

14.

A．rejected

B．eliminated

C．voiced

D．questioned

15.

A．competitiveness

B．inventiveness

C．carefulness

D．selflessness

7 . Chimpanzee culture refers to groups' differing behavioral traditions, which are passed on by learning and imitation rather than genes. For example, some chimps in Uganda have learned to use some plants to soak up water, which they can then drink. Those elsewhere don’t do this.

In 2002, Carel van Schaik at the University of Zurich in Switzerland suggested that human interference could destroy this cultural diversity. Now, a decade-long study has found strong evidence that van Schaik was right. A team co-led by Hjalmar Kühl at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig, Germany tracked 31 cultural behaviors, such as using tree branches to catch termites, a species of ant, in 144 chimpanzee communities across Africa.

The researchers used camera traps to record behaviors, looked for the remains of tools and studied faeces (排泄物) to see if the chimps had eaten things like termites that can be obtained only by using tools.

The team then placed the different communities on a map and overlaid a measure of human disturbance, which combined factors like the density of human population and the amount of infrastructure (基础建设).

In areas with a greater human footprint, the chimps were found to have fewer cultural behaviors. Each behaviour was 88 per cent less likely to occur in these human-dominated landscapes.

“In those places, we find the chimpanzees have suffered a loss in behavioral or cultural diversity,” says study co-leader Ammie Kalan at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

It is thought that the loss of culture comes from older chimps being killed and there being less interaction between groups, so that if one group dies out, their ideas die with them.

“It is a discouraging finding,” says Jill Pruetz ar Texas State University. “Losing some of the behaviors poses a real risk to the chimps because if they stop fishing for termites or cracking nuts, they can no longer access those foods.”

1. According to the passage, which of the following is a feature of chimpanzee culture?

A．More than one group shares certain kinds of behaviour.

B．The behaviors spread through cross-group imitation.

C．Young chimpanzees learn the behaviors from older ones.

D．The behavioral traditions disappear with certain genes.

2. The word “interference” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ________.

A．interaction

B．interval

C．invasion

D．investment

3. What did the study by Hjalmar Kühl and Leipzig confirm?

A．Chimpanzee communities are decreasing in number.

B．Humans are to blame for the loss of chimpanzee culture.

C．Human-dominated landscapes have been increasing in size.

D．Chimpanzee are good at hunting for food with certain tools.

4. According to Jill Pruetz why does losing some behaviors put chimpanzee at risk?

A．They may have fewer things to feed on.

B．The older ones are more likely to be killed.

C．There will be less interaction between them.

D．They can no longer live in traditional ways.

9 . Companies like Arjuna are beginning to take action to deal with pay inequality, but it doesn't tell the full story of women's experience.

Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella, earned bad fame for his ________ that women should not bother to ask for raises. ________ , he suggested in October 2014, they should have faith that the system will reward them appropriately. Stopping from asking for a raise, he added, is actually good.

When his remarks were greeted with anger, Nadella back-pedalled (出尔反尔) at the speed of light. Less than a year later, Microsoft was ________ by a former employee, Katie Moussouris , now chief policy officer at Hacker One, claiming gender prejudice.

Moussouris ________ that she was only one of a number of women at Microsoft who ________ less that their male colleagues. Moussouris also mentioned that can received preferential treatment in ________ and systematically received more favorable job reviews.

There is no way to know whether Moussouris's claims are ________ , because Microsoft does not disclose any data about the ________ to which men and women are paid differently for doing similar jobs. That may soon change, if Arjuna Capital succeeds in placing a(n) ________ before Microsoft's shareholders and convincing enough of them to vote in favor of it, thus requiring the company to ________ disclose that information for the first time and helping women make up their minds to require the ________ of the gender pay inequality.

Arjuna, the activist arm of Baldwin Brothers, an investment advisory firm, is ________ top technology firms, in search of precisely this information. Shareholders of eBays, Expedia,

Facebook and Google will vote on proposals that would ________ the creation of reports detailing the percentage of pay ________ between male and female employees, spelling out both firms' policies, in an attempt to address how the companies would set about closing or ________ that gap, and specific targets.

1.

A．dishonesty

B．advice

C．declaration

D．edition

2.

A．Initially

B．Therefore

C．Nevertheless

D．Instead

3.

A．accused

B．praised

C．cheated

D．threatened

4.

A．claimed

B．lied

C．required

D．guaranteed

5.

A．spent

B．earned

C．saved

D．wasted

6.

A．movements

B．expenses

C．promotions

D．resources

7.

A．secure

B．valuable

C．extensive

D．accurate

8.

A．content

B．extent

C．discussion

D．feedback

9.

A．resolution

B．emphasis

C．challenge

D．transform

10.

A．socially

B．quietly

C．personally

D．publicly

11.

A．improvement

B．enjoyment

C．reduction

D．emission

12.

A．referring

B．pointing

C．targeting

D．proving

13.

A．put out

B．result in

C．set up

D．rely on

14.

A．equality

B．dissatisfaction

C．protest

D．gap

15.

A．widening

B．narrowing

C．communicating

D．showing