1 . Team-building exercises have become popular for managers trying to increase organizational and team harmony and productivity. Unfortunately, many employees are angry about compulsory bonding and often regard these exercises as a nuisance (烦事).
A paper published this week by University of Sydney researchers in Social Networks has reported participants' feelings about team-building intervention (干预), revealing ethical implications in forcing employees to take part.
“Many people see team building activities as a waste of time, so we decided to look in more depth at what's behind this,” said the paper's lead researcher, Dr Peter Matous.
“Teams are formed, combined and restructured. Staff are relocated and office spaces redesigned. All this is done with the aim of improving workplace efficiency, collaboration and cohesion. But does any of this work?” said Dr Matous.
The study found that team-building exercises which focused on the sharing of and intervening into personal attitudes and relationships between team members were considered too rude and nosy (爱打听), although the researchers say some degree of openness and vulnerability (脆弱) is often necessary to make deep, effective connections with colleagues.
"Some participants were against team-building exercises because they were indirectly compulsory. They didn't welcome management's interest in their lives beyond their direct work performance," said Matous. "Many people don't want to be forced into having fun or making friends, especially not on top of their busy jobs. They feel management is being too nosy or trying to control their lives too much."
In this study the researchers recommended a self-disclosure (表露) approach where participants were guided through a series of questions that allowed them to increasingly disclose personal information and values. The method is well-tested and has been shown to increase interpersonal closeness. However, to be successful it must be voluntary.
The researchers said there are numerous schools of thought that propose differing psychological methods for strengthening relationships. “With caution, many relational methods to improve teams and organizations can be borrowed from other fields. The question is how to apply them effectively to strengthen an entire collective, which is more than just the sum of individual relationships,” said Dr Matous.
1. Why are many employees opposed to team-building exercises?| A．They consider such exercises annoying. |
| B．They deem these exercises counter-productive. |
| C．They see such exercises as harmful to harmony. |
| D．They find these exercises too demanding. |
| A．They relocated team leaders and their offices. |
| B．They rearranged the staff and office spaces. |
| C．They redesigned the staffs work schedules. |
| D．They reintroduced some cohesive activities. |
| A．They were intended to share personal attitudes and relationships. |
| B．They indirectly added to the vulnerability of team members. |
| C．They always strengthened connections among colleagues. |
| D．They were regarded as a violation of employees' privacy. |
| A．By allowing participants freedom to express themselves. |
| B．By applying it to employees who volunteer to participate. |
| C．By arranging in proper order the questions participants face. |
| D．By guiding employees through a series of steps in team building. |
| A．They must be used in combination for an entire collective. |
| B．They prioritize some psychological aspects over others. |
| C．They place too much stress on individual relationships. |
| D．They have to be applied cautiously to be effective. |
| A．preserves | B．prevents | C．acquires | D．declares |
—________. I believe you will be getting promotion.
| A．Never mind | B．Help yourself |
| C．Forget it | D．Keep it up |
4 . Having a rival (对手) can keep you committed to achieving your goals and enhance your overall performance. But before you go out and find an entrepreneur (创业者) to outcompete(胜出), it’s important to understand and avoid the traps that often come with rivalry. After all, competitive rivalry can also make it difficult for you to make a decision and increase your willingness to take risks, behaviors that can ultimately hurt your venture’s (风险项目) success.
Finding someone you’re committed to outcompeting can be a great way to stay focused on your goals and push your venture to the next level. But when you’re intently focused on outperforming your rivals, you may begin to develop a “win-at-all-costs” mentality (心态) that causes you to ignore how you achieve success. One group of researchers, for example, examined the link between rivalry and unethical(不道德的) behavior. They found that when people compete against their rivals, they are more willing to behave unethically to win. But such behavior may damage your reputation and strain(使……紧张) relationships important to your success. One way to avoid this trap is to stop and reflect on what’s important. While outperforming your rivals may provide short-term benefits, the loss of your integrity(正直) will have long-term consequences.
One reason having a rival can enhance your venture’s performance is that it creates a level of excitement that drives you to work harder. But this eagerness to win may also hurt your venture’s success, particularly when it causes you to make impulsive, insensible decisions. But it’s possible to avoid such costly mistakes by making a habit of engaging in critical thinking, such as considering opposing viewpoints and conducting cost-benefit analyses, especially for those decisions that are complex and can determine the future of your venture.
The sense of eagerness that comes with having a rival can not only cause you to make poorer decisions, but it can also lead you to take greater risks that put your venture in great dangers. One way you can overcome the risk-inducing (诱发) effects of rivalry that stand to endanger your venture’s success is to remain attentive to your emotional state and actively monitor how such feelings are affecting your decision-making.
1. How can competitive rivalry benefit entrepreneurs according to the passage?| A．By enabling them to outcompete other entrepreneurs. |
| B．By enabling them to make their venture a success. |
| C．By helping them to reach long-term goals. |
| D．By helping them to stay goal-oriented. |
| A．They may adopt strategies that are bound to ruin their venture. |
| B．They may depend on unethical means to outperform their rivals. |
| C．They may be too eager to succeed while ignoring the huge labor cost. |
| D．They may be intently focused on winning at the current market level. |
| A．Think very carefully about what really matters. |
| B．Prioritize obtaining immediate benefits. |
| C．Estimate the long-term consequences. |
| D．Reflect on what successes are achievable. |
| A．By engaging themselves in critical reasoning. |
| B．By developing a habit of keeping their integrity. |
| C．By criticizing themselves for previous poor performances. |
| D．By stopping themselves from being too excited about their successes. |
| A．By paying close attention to their current performance. |
| B．By taking steps that stand to endanger their rivals’ success. |
| C．By monitoring how their decision-making impacts their mentality. |
| D．By keeping their emotions in check to avoid making poor decisions. |
| A．Being celebrated | B．Celebrating |
| C．Celebrated | D．Having celebrated |
（1）邀请他的原因以及访谈的时间和地点；
（2）该期访谈节目的介绍（访谈话题、访谈目的等）；
（3）希望他对同学们如何学好英语提出一些建议。
注意：（1）词数不少于100；
（2）可适当加入细节，使内容充实、行文连贯。
参考词汇：微信视频号：WeChat Video Channel
Dear Chris,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Jin
| A．have been missing | B．had been missing |
| C．were missing | D．will be missing |
1.海洋的重要性；
2.保护海洋的具体措施(不少于两条);
3.保护海洋的倡议。
注意：词数不少于100词；
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Max,
It must seem a little odd to get a letter from your own mother whom you see every day, but I hope you will read this and take what I have to say seriously.
I bought you a phone for your 12th birthday because you wanted one so much, and all your friends have one. I know you love your phone, but I wonder whether you are aware of just how much you use it.
From my perspective, it seems that you are constantly checking your phone for notifications (通知) or messages. You even do this when we’re having a family meal in a restaurant or when I’m talking to you. You may not realise this, but whenever you feel even slightly bored, you check your phone. You never seem to relax. You’re constantly on alert, and I don’t think this is very good for you. We all need to switch it off every now and then. And if I ask you to leave your phone at home when we go out, you sulk (生气) and get twitchy, almost as if you’re suffering withdrawal symptoms (戒断症状). It’s like your phone is a drug.
I have tried to talk to you about this, but whenever I ask you to put down your phone and look at me, you say “in a minute”. Unfortunately, “in a minute” never comes, and we never talk. I can’t actually remember the last time we had a proper face-to-face conversation. I even have to message you to let you know dinner is on the table! That’s why I decided to put my concerns in a letter to you.
Please don’t think I am writing this letter to punish you or to nag (唠叨) you. I know you are a good boy. I don’t think you want to hurt me or be rude intentionally. However, I recently heard about something called “nomophobia”—the fear of being without a phone. It’s a real illness and I’m worried whether you have it. I really think it would be a good idea if we all went to see an addiction expert together so we can all have a discussion about this serious problem. I know you won’t want to, but I’m very concerned about you. Please take some time to think about what I have written. Then let’s talk.
Mum,
1. What’s Max’s mum worried about?（no more than 10 words）2. Why did Max’s mum have to message him that dinner was ready?（no more than 6 words）
3. What does the underlined word mean in Paragraph 5?（no more than 2 word）
4. What is mum’s suggestion to solve this problem?（no more than 15 words）
5. What do you think of Max’s problem? Please explain.（no more than 20 words）
10 . Last weekend I made my first visit to a remote village, home to one of our students, Tombe. Another teacher and I walked for two and a half hours to get there—first, up a mountain from where we had fantastic views, and then down a shaded path to the valley below. When we arrived at the village, Tombe’s mother, Kiak, saw us coming and started crying “ieee ieee”. We shook hands with all the villagers. Everyone seemed to be related to Tombe.
Tombe’s father, Mukap, a man with a strong jaw and a wrinkled forehead, led us to his house, a low, round bamboo hut with no windows, with a door just big enough to get through, and with grass sticking out of the roof—this shows it is a man’s house. Such housing is dark inside so it took time for our eyes to adjust. Fresh grass had been laid on the floor and there was a platform for Jenny and me to sleep on. There was a fireplace in the centre of the hut. The only possessions I could see were one broom, a few saucers, a kettle, cups, pans, and a couple of jars.
Mukap built a fire outside and laid stones on it to heat. He then placed the hot stones in an empty oil drum with kau kau(sweet potato), ripe corn, and greens. He then covered the vegetables with banana leaves and left them to steam. It smelled delicious. We ate inside the hut sitting round the fire. I loved listening to the family talking softly to each other in their language, even though I could not participate much in the conversation. Luckily, Tombe interpreted for us.
Later, I noticed a can standing upside down on the grill (烤架) over the fire. After a while. Tombe threw it out of the doorway. Tombe told me that the can was heated to dry out the leftover food. His family believes that leftovers attract bad spirits in the night, so any leftover food is dried up in a can and the can is then thrown out of the hut.
We left the village the next morning after many goodbyes and firm handshakes. My muscles were aching and my knees shaking as we dragged ourselves down the mountain towards home. That evening I fell happily into bed. It was such a privilege to have spent a day with Tombe’s family.
1. Why did Tombe’s mother start crying “ieee ieee”?| A．Because she was excited to see her son home | B．Because she saw someone who scared he |
| C．Because she was welcoming the teachers. | D．Because that was her daily routine. |
| A．He’s not a considerate one. | B．He has a luxury house. |
| C．He had a good talk with the author. | D．He is good at cooking |
| A．amazed | B．puzzled | C．frightened | D．happy |
| A．drive bad spirits | B．protect the hut | C．hold the leftovers | D．be thrown out of the hut |
| A．She hated the long and tiring visit |
| B．She was pleased to visit the Tombe family. |
| C．She thought Tombe’s family was too poor. |
| D．She thought some of the Tombe family’s actions were stupid. |
