Imagine that work had taken over the world.It would be the centre around which the rest of life turned.Then all else would come to be subservient(服从于）to work.Then slowly,almost unconsciously,anything else-the games once played,the songs sung now,the loves fulfilled,the festivals celebrated-would come to resemble and finally become work.
And how,in this world of total work,would people think and sound and act?Everywhere they looked,they would see the pre- employed,employed,post-employed,underemployed and unemployed,and there would be no one uncounted in this census(人口普查）。Everywhere they would praise and love work wishing each other the very best for a productive day,opening their eyes to tasks and closing them only to sleep.Everywhere virtue of hard work would be championed as the means by which success is to be achieved,laziness being considered as the gravest sin(罪孽）。 Everywhere among content-providers,knowledge-brokers,collaboration architects and heads of new divisions would be heard endless chatter about workflows,about plans and benchmarks(基准）。
In this world,eating,resting,exercising,meditating and commuting(act of travelling back and forth between home and work)would all be beneficial to good health,which would,in turn,be put in the service of being more and more productive.No one would drink too much,and some would just take a little of psychedelics(迷幻剂）to enhance their work performance.
What is so disturbing about total work is not just that it causes needless human suffering but also that it removes the forms of playful contemplation(沉思）concerned with our asking,thinking and answering the most basic questions of existence.There is,to begin with,constant tension,an dominant sense of pressure associated with the thought that there's something that needs to be done, always something I'm supposed to be doing right now.Secondly,one feels guilt whenever he is not as productive as possible
The burden character of total work,then,is defined by ceaseless,restless,upsetting activity, anxiety about the future,a sense of life being overwhelming,thoughts_about missed opportunities, and guilt connected to the possibility of laziness.In short,total work necessarily causes dukkha,a Buddhist term referring to the unsatisfactory nature of a life filled with suffering.
In addition to causing dukkha,total work blocks access to higher levels of reality.For what is lost in the world of total work is art's disclosure of the beautiful,religion's glimpse of eternity(永恒）， love's pure joy,and philosophy's sense of wonderment(a feeling of pleasant surprise or admiration). All of these require silence,stillness,a wholehearted willingness to simply understand.
Passage outline | Supporting details |
Imagination | If work occupied the world,human life would else and there would also be an |
Possible occurrences | ◇Human life would be a work-sleep pattern. ◇Efforts to make you ◇People of different |
Consequences | ◇Total work not only brings about suffering but also ◇Total work tends to put people under pressure,making them feel tense and ◇Total work causes people to always feel ◇Total work leaves people little |
2 . Is your promotion really necessary? Many workers focus their hopes on climbing the scale of their organizations. The prospect of higher pay helps explain their ambition,but so does the greater status that comes with each successive(连续的) title.
This climb can often end in disappointment. The Peter Principle, developed by Laurence Peter for a book published in 1969, states that workers get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. It makes perfect sense. If you are good at your job, you rise up the career ladder. Eventually, there will be a job you are not good at and at that point your career will stop.
There is another problem with chasing the promotion fantasy. Many companies have a strong tendency to promote the best sales people. Convincing others to buy goods and services is a useful skill, requiring charm and persistence. But, as the authors point out, these are not the same capabilities as the strategic planning and administrative competence needed to lead a sales team.
The research then looked at what happened after these super-salespeople were promoted Their previous sales performance was actually a negative indicator of managerial success.The sales growth of workers assigned to the star sellers was 7.5 percentage points lower than for those whose managers were previously weaker performers.
The trick to avoiding this curse is to stick to what you like doing. If you enjoy teaching, don't be a headmaster or college principal. If you like writing articles and columns, editing other people’s work may not give the same degree of satisfaction.
Another problem with pursuing frequent promotions is that it turns you into a supplicant, endlessly in search of favourable feedback from the higher-ups. This can lead you to lose control of your work-life balance. In Charles Handy's new book, 21 Letters On Life And Its Challenges, the experienced management theorist recalls an insight when working for Royal Dutch Shell,an oil giant. "In exchange for the promise of financial security and guaranteed work, I had sold my time to complete strangers with my permission for them to use that time for their own purpose,” he writes.
The higher up the ladder you go, the greater the demands are likely to be on your time.The chief executive will expect you to be available at weekends: after all, that is why you get paid the big bucks.
So that shiny promotion may not be for everyone. Beware the curse of overwork an/dissatisfaction. Some people like to devote their whole lives to their job and be at the centre of events. It is best to let them get on with it.
1. What can we learn about"The Peter Principle"?| A．People’s careers are easily spoiled by unrealistic expectations. |
| B．There are to some degree certain ceilings in people's career paths |
| C．Incompetent employees tend to have more chances to gain promotions |
| D．People don't necessarily get promoted by virtue of their competence |
| A．To put forward useful suggestions on how to get promoted |
| B．To show how many challenges we face without getting promoted |
| C．To illustrate the serious consequences of the pursuit of promotion |
| D．To prove the economic security brought along by the promotion. |
| A．The Promotion Satisfaction | B．The Promotion Curse |
| C．The Promotion Strategies | D．The Promotion Prospect |
3 . Few 17-year-old girls know how to weld (焊接)two metal pipes together. I have learned this skill in the past five years as a(n)
Every morning, I have to put on a pair of men's jeans Most of my peers are
When my peers were part-time babysitters or lifeguards, I was helping my father in the dirty bathroom or the
Honestly speaking, I felt
My dad and I not only create chaos, we also create
| A．companion | B．fellow | C．assistant | D．engineer |
| A．misfortune | B．pleasure | C．discomfort | D．injury |
| A．requires | B．reflects | C．reviews | D．recovers |
| A．promised | B．waited | C．resisted | D．insisted |
| A．eager | B．able | C．unwilling | D．impatient |
| A．carefully | B．normally | C．eventually | D．hurriedly |
| A．looked | B．moved | C．climbed | D．turned |
| A．big | B．damp | C．cool | D．warm |
| A．covered | B．separated | C．infected | D．protected |
| A．dangerous | B．interesting | C．crucial | D．ugly |
| A．fearless | B．powerless | C．effortless | D．endless |
| A．respect | B．wipe | C．tolerate | D．replace |
| A．renewable | B．responsible | C．regular | D．realistic |
| A．However | B．Therefore | C．Otherwise | D．Instead |
| A．disturbing | B．surprising | C．touching | D．warning |
| A．smooth | B．smart | C．dirty | D．violent |
| A．controlling | B．accepting | C．finishing | D．handling |
| A．excuse | B．puzzle | C．description | D．exception |
| A．memory | B．luck | C．order | D．wealth |
| A．grateful | B．ready | C．thirsty | D．sorry |
1. What will the speakers have to do?
| A．Send figures to Mr. Jones. | B．Draw up the budget for next year. |
| C．Organize an advertising campaign on Thursday. | |
| A．Wait for her in his office. | B．Go to Mr. Jones’ workplace. |
| C．Make a phone call to Mr. Jones. | |
| A．Dan. | B．Gary. | C．Mary. |
6 . Doctor are known to be terrible pilots. They don’t listen because they already know it all. I was lucky: I became a pilot in 1970, almost ten years before I graduated from medical school. I didn’t realize then, but becoming a pilot makes me a better surgeon. I loved flying. As I flew bigger, faster planes, and in worse weather. I learned about crew resource management (机组资源管理), or CRM, a new idea to make flying safer. It means that crew members should listen and speak up for a good result, regardless of positions.
I first read about CRM in 1980. Not long after that, an attending doctor and I were flying in bad weather.
The controller had us turn too late to get our landing ready. The attending doctor was flying; I was safety pilot He was so busy because of the bad turn, he had forgotten to put the landing gear (起落架) down. He was a better pilot --- and my boss --- so it felt unusual to speak up. But I had to: Our lives were in danger. I put aside my uneasiness and said, “We need to put the landing gear down now!” That was my first real lesson in the power of CRM, and I’ve used it in the operating room ever since.
CRM requires that the pilot/surgeon encourage others to speak up. It further requires that when opinions are from the opposite, the doctor doesn’t overreact, which might prevent fellow doctors from voicing opinions again. So when I’m in the operating room, I ask for ideas and help from others. Sometimes they’re not willing to speak up. But I hope that if I continue to encourage them, someday someone will keep me from “landing gear up”.
1. What does the author say about doctors in general?| A．They like flying by themselves. |
| B．They are unwilling to take advice. |
| C．They pretend to be good pilots. |
| D．They are quick learners of CRM. |
| A．he saved the plane by speaking up |
| B．he was in charge of a flying task |
| C．his boss landed the plane too late |
| D．his boss operated on a patient |
| A．following flying requirements |
| B．overreacting to different opinions |
| C．listening to what fellow doctors say |
| D．making a mistake that may cost lives |
7 . For most of us, work is the central, dominating fact of life. We spend more than half our conscious hours at work, preparing for work, traveling to and from work. What we do there largely determines our standard of living and our status to a considerable extent. It is sometimes said that because leisure has become more important, the injustices of work can be pushed into a comer, and that because most work is pretty intolerable, the people who do it should compensate for its boredom, frustrations and humiliations by concentrating their hopes on the other parts of their lives. For the foreseeable future, however, the material and psychological rewards which work can provide will continue to play a vital part in determining the satisfaction that life can offer.
Yet only a small minority can control the pace at which they work or the conditions where their work is done; only for a small minority does work offer scope for creativity, imagination or initiative.
Inequality at work is still one of the most glaring（明显的）forms of inequality in our society. We cannot hope to solve the more obvious problems of industrial life, many of which arise from the frustrations created by inequality at work, unless we handle it determinedly.
The most glaring inequality is that between managers and the rest. For most managers, work is an opportunity and a challenge. Their jobs engage their interest and allow them to develop their abilities. They are constantly learning. They are able to exercise responsibility. They have a considerable degree of control over their own and others' working lives. Most important of all, they have opportunities to initiate. By contrast, for most manual workers, work is a boring, dull, even painful experience. They spend all their working lives in intolerable conditions. The majority have little control over their work. It provides them with no opportunity for personal development. Many jobs are so routine that workers feel themselves to be mere cogs （齿轮）in the bureaucratic machine. As a direct consequence of their work experience, many workers feel alienated （疏远）from their work and their firm.
1. In the writer's opinion, people judge others mainly by_________.| A．the amount of money they earn | B．the type of work they do |
| C．the time they spend at work | D．the place where they work |
| A．have to get rid of the unequal aspects in work |
| B．should create more working opportunities for the poor |
| C．had better cancel all managing positions in a company |
| D．should encourage the manual workers to promote efficiency |
| A．They have complete control over themselves. | B．They can work at what interests them. |
| C．They get time off to learn constantly. | D．They won't be out of work. |
8 . The goings-on in the consulting room have become more transparent (透明的) recently. Thank goodness. We know more than the lines supplied by the movies in which the therapist knows all and gives wisdom to those who, sitting on a couch, consult with them. Therapists are interested in how the individual, the couple or the family experiences and understands their difficulties. That has to be a starting place. We can be of value if our first port of call is to listen, to gradually feel ourselves into the shoes of the other, to absorb the feelings that are being conveyed and to think and then to say some words.
The thinking and talking that I do inside the consulting room is at odds with many features of ordinary conversation. Not that it is mysterious, but it isn’t concerned with traditional ways of sharing or identifying. The therapist makes patterns and theorizes, but they are also reflecting on the words that are spoken, how they are delivered and how the words, once spoken, affect the speaker and the therapist themselves.
Words can give voice to previously unknown feelings and thoughts. That’s why it’s called the talking cure. But just as words reveal so, too, can they obscure, and this gets us to the listening and feeling part of the therapy. Whatever and however the words are delivered, they will have an impact on me as a therapist. I might feel hopeless, I might feel energized, I might feel pushed away, I might feel demanded of, I might feel pulled to find solutions.
The influence of the other is what makes any relationship possible or impossible. A therapist is trained to reflect on how those who consult with them affect them. As I try to step into the shoes of the other and then out again, my effort is to hold both those experiences, plus an awareness of my ease or discomfort with what I encounter in the relationship.
Feelings are the bread and butter of our work in the consulting room. They inform or modify our ideas and they enable us to find an emotional bridge to what can so hurt for the people we are working with. Along with the more commonly thought-about theories and ideas we have about the psyche, they are an essential part of the therapist’s toolkit, certainly for me. The talking cure means talking, yes. It also means the therapist is listening, thinking and feeling.
1. The word “obscure” (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to ________.| A．cancel | B．clarify |
| C．confirm | D．hide |
| A．Patients’influence has been neglected by therapists for too long a time. |
| B．Therapists need to think from their own perspectives as well as patients’. |
| C．It is no easy job for therapists to realize how uncomfortable their patients are. |
| D．Therapists had better push away those negative emotions acquired from patients. |
| A．Awareness of feelings |
| B．It’s good to talk and listen |
| C．Theories that help therapists |
| D．What is the point of being a therapist |
1. What are the speakers mainly talking about?
| A．A shopping trip. |
| B．A family argument. |
| C．A working environment. |
| A．Do some cleaning. |
| B．Be careful in his job. |
| C．Take out the trash in turn. |
| A．Mother and son. |
| B．Brother and sister. |
| C．Manager and new worker. |
1. What does the woman want to be?
| A．A doctor. |
| B．A teacher. |
| C．An engineer. |
| A．His brother. |
| B．His father. |
| C．His grandfather. |
| A．Asia. |
| B．Europe. |
| C．North America. |
| A．Find a job. |
| B．Go on a trip. |
| C．Take extra classes. |
