1 . Direction: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. addressing       B. adoption       C. attend       D. budgeting       E. cautions F. correspond       G. extended       H. hesitancy       I. packages       J. regardless K. rigid

Top work-life balance benefits for 2023

“Flexibility is the gold standard of work-life balance benefits,” says Jonathan Pas, health care leader at consulting firm Mercer.

It’s no surprise then that two years after the pandemic forced most office workers to perform their jobs remotely. 78% of employers say they’ll allow employees to continue doing so regularly in 2023, according to a Mercer survey. But there’s still some     1    : only 9% say they will allow employees to work remotely daily.

    2    , flexibility around when employees work is just as important as where. In the survey, 66% of employers said they would offer flexible work schedules over the course of a typical work day, such as specific times during the week to     3     to personal matters and four-day work weeks. Employees no longer want to organize their personal life around a(n)     4     work schedule but instead want the two interwoven, so they can decide what to prioritize and when.

Pas     5     against making hollow promises about a company’s commitment to work-life balance. “If employees feel a disconnection between programs that are rolled out and what senior leaders really expect, credibility is questioned, and the goodwill created through the program is denied.” He cites paid time off to volunteer, which almost half (45%) of companies say they will add to their benefits     6     next year.

Other benefits requiring a broader organizational buy-in are sabbaticals(公休假) and unlimited vacation days. Both benefits encourage employees to pursue interests outside of work with     7     periods off. Still, if they feel a dishonour associated with taking advantage of them, they’ll be hesitant to do so. The relatively low     8     rates for 2023, though—only 12% for sabbaticals and 15% for unlimited vacation—indicate that employers are still against paying employees not to work.

Instead, they prefer to find new ways to give employees more money, with the rise of employer-funded lifestyle accounts, which are often reserved for big-ticket items that might otherwise require some     9    . Nevertheless, only 12% of employers said they would add lifestyle accounts in 2023, and 70% said they are considering them, which could indicate a trend on the horizon.

But perhaps the most telling statistic about the importance of     10     work-life balance is the number of companies that said they don’t plan to offer any additional benefits to support work-life balance: a mere 5%.

2 . Is loyalty in the workplace dead?

Just recently, Lynda Gratton, a workplace expert, proclaimed that it was. In The Financial Times, she said that it had been “killed off through _________ contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers.”

It’s sad if this good virtue is now out of place in the business world. But the situation may be more _________. Depending on how you _________ it, loyalty may not be dead, but is just playing out differently.

Fifty years ago, an employee could stay at the same company for decades, said Tammy Erickson, an author and work-force consultant. Many were _________ longtime employment along with health care and a pension.

Now many companies cannot or will not hold up their end of the bargain, so why should the employees hold up theirs? Given the opportunity, they’ll take their skills and their portable retirement accounts elsewhere. These days, Ms. Gratton writes, _________ is more important than loyalty: “Loyalty is about the future - trust is about the present.”

Ms. Erickson says that the quid pro quo (交换物，报酬) of modern employment is more likely to be: As long as I work for you, I promise to have the relevant skills and _________ fully in my work; in return you’ll pay me _________, but I don’t expect you to care for me when I’m 110.

For some baby boomers, this _________ has been hard to accept. Many started their careers _________ that they would be rewarded based on tenure (任职).

A longtime employee who is also productive and motivated is of enormous value, said Cathy Benko, chief talent officer at Deloitte. On the other hand, she said, “You can be with a company a long time and not be highly committed.”

Ms. Benko has seen her company shift its ____________ to employees’ level of engagement - or “the level at which people are motivated to deliver their best work” - rather than length of tenure.

Then there are the effects of the recent recession. Many people - if they haven’t been ____________- have stayed in jobs because they feel they have no choice. Employers may need to prepare for disruptions and turnover when the job market improves.

If the pendulum(摇摆不定的事态或局面) shifts, how will businesses persuade their best employees to stay? ____________ may do the trick, but not always. Especially with younger people, “you’re not going to buy extra loyalty with extra money,” Ms. Erickson said. ____________, employers need to make jobs more challenging and give workers more creative space, she said.

Loyalty may not be what it once was, but most companies will still be better off with at least a core of people who stay with them across decades.

If loyalty is seen as a ____________ to keep workers of all ages fulfilled, productive and involved, it can continue to be cultivated in the workplace - to the ____________ of both employer and employee.

1.

A．tightening

B．lengthening

C．shortening

D．loosening

2.

A．complicated

B．confused

C．difficult

D．conservative

3.

A．confine

B．convince

C．identify

D．define

4.

A．guaranteed

B．provided

C．supplemented

D．rewarded

5.

A．belief

B．trust

C．confidence

D．tolerance

6.

A．occupy

B．engage

C．sacrifice

D．involve

7.

A．rightly

B．immediately

C．exactly

D．fairly

8.

A．difference

B．exchange

C．shift

D．modification

9.

A．assuming

B．ensuring

C．assuring

D．approving

10.

A．focus

B．mind

C．faith

D．importance

11.

A．laid off

B．employed

C．valued

D．supported

12.

A．Salary

B．Money

C．Loyalty

D．Credit

13.

A．However

B．Rather

C．Therefore

D．Otherwise

14.

A．promise

B．compliment

C．commitment

D．command

15.

A．interest

B．sake

C．disadvantage

D．benefit

3 . Why working from anywhere isn’t realistic

For most white-collar workers, it used to be very simple. Home was the place you left to go to work. The office was almost certainly where you were_________. Co-working spaces were for entrepreneurial people in T-shirts who wanted to hang out with other entrepreneurial people in T-shirts. You could stay at a hotel on a work trip, but it was not a place to get actual work done, which is why a hotel’s “business centre”_________all of business as using a printer.

The pandemic has thrown these neat_________up into the air. Most obviously, home is now also a place of work. According to a recent Gallup survey, three-quarters of American workers whose jobs can be performed_________expect to spend time doing just that in the future. And offices are increasingly where you go to put the company into company – through collaborative work and social activities.

_________, the boldest version of remote working extends well beyond these two locations. “Working from anywhere” imagines a completely_________existence, in which people can do their jobs in Alaska or Zanzibar. The idea sounds wonderful. Nevertheless, plenty of_________remain. Some are practical. The payroll and tax of working from different locations in a year are an administrative headache._________, working from anywhere is only feasible if your equipment functions reliably. If you spill suntan lotion on your laptop, the people on the hotel’s reception desk are more likely to offer you_________than a replacement computer.

Another set of obstacles is more__________. The carefree promise of working from anywhere is far easier to__________if you don’t have actual cares. Children of a certain age need to go to school; partners may not be able to work remotely and have careers of their own to manage.

The option to work from anywhere will be most attractive to people who have well-paid jobs and fewer__________: childless tech workers, say. For many other people, the “anywhere” in working from anywhere is a simple choice between their home and their office. That might be a recipe for__________within teams. Imagine dialing into a Zoom call covered in baby drool (口水), and hearing your colleague Greg saying how amazing Chamonix (法国城市夏蒙尼) is at this time of year.

Adding it to the menu of working options for sought-after employees__________. The working-from-anywhere policy will probably help employers attract better people. But for the foreseeable future, working from anywhere will be a bonus for a lucky few rather than a(n)__________for things to come.

1.

A．heading

B．resisting

C．worrying

D．navigating

2.

A．demanded

B．modified

C．defined

D．served

3.

A．programs

B．means

C．cases

D．categories

4.

A．solely

B．properly

C．responsibly

D．remotely

5.

A．However

B．Therefore

C．Instead

D．Besides

6.

A．isolated

B．unrestricted

C．sophisticated

D．distinguished

7.

A．principles

B．insights

C．barriers

D．arguments

8.

A．In other words

B．On the contrary

C．What’s more

D．After all

9.

A．compensation

B．enforcement

C．pressure

D．sympathy

10.

A．distinct

B．complicated

C．personal

D．unnoticeable

11.

A．realize

B．evade

C．vanish

D．make

12.

A．visions

B．descendants

C．perspectives

D．obligations

13.

A．jealousy

B．cooperation

C．fraud

D．interaction

14.

A．takes time

B．steals thunder

C．makes sense

D．works wonders

15.

A．review

B．blueprint

C．source

D．sacrifice

4 . As is the fate of anyone running a hotel in Kerala these days, Bijoy George is a man with too much to do. Before pandemic-caused lockdowns began in 2020, he managed 40 employees at the Eighth Bastion Hotel in the charming historic quarter of Kochi, a bustling coastal city. Now that business is back to pre-covid levels he needs the same number of staff again. But he has only 20 workers. His plight is shared with every other hotel, café and bar. It is a result of the state’s hospitality (招待) employees moving all together in large numbers to Qatar, not to watch football but to take up employment tied to the World Cup.

As the start of the competition approaches on November 20th, workers are quitting at a rate Mr. George says he has never seen in his 22 years in the business. Qatar, a country with a population of under 3m, will have welcomed more than 1.5m visitors before the matches conclude on December 18th. That means finding staff to run all the new hotels that have been built along with other venues that have been pressed into service to profit from the sports fans.

Kerala has long been a significant source of hospitality workers for Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries. Its state government provides good schools with English-language instruction but few jobs. More than 2m people, 17% of its working population, already work overseas, largely in the Gulf.

The appeal of Qatar is straightforward. Starting salaries approach $1,000 a month, more than six times the level for similar jobs in Kerala. To replace those who have left, Kerala’s employers have been casting their nets wider. Recruiters have been extending their searches to many other Indian cities. But that means the most common word on name-tags pinned to the breast pockets of workers is “trainee”.

Among the many skills that need to be taught, says Mr. George, is smiling at customers — the failure to do so a result of shyness among those new to the workforce. The danger is that after a week or so when confidence grows, even these employees may slip away to the Gulf.

Most contracts run for three months, concluding at the end of December, not long after the World Cup final. Returning workers will be welcomed back with open arms. Filling the gaps is even more important as Indian tourism and weddings have restarted. The reunions, though, may be short-lived. The game these workers will have learned from the World Cup is how to be paid better. That means leaving India.

1. The underlined sentence in paragraph one implies that __________.

A．other hotels, cafes and bars will share Bijoy’s 20 employees

B．other hotels, cafes and bars will have to lay off some workers

C．other hotels, cafes and bars also send the workers to Qatar

D．other hotels, cafes and bars also find it hard to employ enough workers

2. Which of the following DOESN’T contribute to hospitality workers in Kerala taking up jobs in Qatar?

A．Millions of tourists have to be served during the World Cup.

B．Hospitality workers are in high demand with new hotels and venues open for business in Qatar.

C．Qatar provides good education and English training for potential workers in Kerala.

D．The salaries of similar jobs in Kerala are much lower than those in Qatar.

3. Which of the following difficulties do Kerala’s employers face due to lack of workers?

A．Kerala’s employers have to take on new employees in Asian cities.

B．Many of the new employees will pin their name tags to their breast pockets.

C．The new employees will not greet the customers as a result of shyness.

D．The new employees may soon follow the trend of going to the Gulf.

4. What makes the reunions between Indian workers and employers probably a short-lived one?

A．Jobs outside India can provide Indian workers with a more decent life.

B．It will soon be the off season for Indian tourism and weddings.

C．Another grand occasion will soon begin in the Gulf.

D．The workers only sign short-term contracts with the employers in India.

5 . The number of the best

How big should a business team be? It is an enormously important issue for companies. Teams that are too small may _________ the skills required to get the job done; teams that are too big may be impossible to co-ordinate.

Similar trade-offs may apply when it comes to firms as a whole. Start-ups are often short of staff. The founders must play a host of different _________, from obtaining finance to product development and marketing, for which they may not be equally suited. But the _________ is that they can have highly collaborative working environments.

People who have worked for start-ups say the culture changes when the company reaches a certain _________. Patty McCord, formerly of Netflix, referred to the “stand-on-a-chair number”—the biggest group that can easily hear the boss _________ them.

Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist (人类学家) at Oxford University, has done a lot of work on primate groups. His argument is that the size of the group is linked to the size of the brain. With their large brains, humans can cope with larger bands. A larger social group has many advantages, _________ greater protection and specialisation.

Whereas 150 is sometimes referred to as the “Dunbar number”, the academic himself in fact refers to a range of _________. He observes that humans tend to have five intimate friends, 15 or so good friends, around 50 social friends and 150-odd acquaintances.

Running a larger network can be difficult. So much time is needed to maintain relationships that their quality inevitably _________. The armed forces have spent millennia experimenting with unit size. A Roman centurion (百人队长) oversaw 100. The modern American army company has 180 members. Britain’s equivalent numbers 120.

These are rough estimates, rather than rigid figures. But it is striking that many group activities seem to be _________ a Dunbar number. The Special Air Service, Britain’s elite fighting unit, has four-man patrols; when your life depends on it, you need to have absolute ____________ in your colleagues. As a result, such groups are limited in size.

Sports-team sizes ____________ the playing area. There are five players in a basketball side and six in ice hockey; outdoors there are 11 players in football and cricket teams, and 7-15 in the various forms of rugby. Perhaps this is the optimal size for coaching purposes, or perhaps crowds would ____________ to distinguish individual players if teams were larger.

Small work teams may also tend towards these two size ranges. “If you want a committee to ____________ something, limit it to four to five people,” says Mr Dunbar. “But to brainstorm in a meeting, you need 12-15.” Many companies use “agile” teams which draw employees from across the company; they tend to have between five and nine members.

The modern company may settle on a ____________ with a small group of “core” workers and a larger group of contract workers. The result may be more ____________ within the core staff but the non-core staff may be less well treated. The small core teams may work effectively. The big question will be the effect on morale of those outside those teams.

1.

A．demand

B．lack

C．cultivate

D．sharpen

2.

A．roles

B．games

C．cards

D．missions

3.

A．truth

B．point

C．upside

D．goal

4.

A．height

B．level

C．size

D．degree

5.

A．phone

B．contact

C．criticize

D．address

6.

A．calling for

B．allowing for

C．hoping for

D．paying for

7.

A．records

B．networks

C．circles

D．figures

8.

A．suffers

B．thrives

C．denied

D．functions

9.

A．similar with

B．close to

C．interested in

D．equal to

10.

A．trust

B．will

C．right

D．advance

11.

A．result in

B．relate to

C．arise from

D．contribute to

12.

A．rush

B．compete

C．struggle

D．refuse

13.

A．discuss

B．decide

C．judge

D．facilitate

14.

A．shape

B．scale

C．level

D．construction

15.

A．agreement

B．innovation

C．influence

D．cohesion

7 . I imagine a young man, a senior in high school. His academic performance is good enough. However, just as his parents are about to send the ______ check to a college where he has been accepted, the young man admits that he doesn’t want to go to college. He wants to work, to earn a living, to be out on his own.

Children have to build their own lives. But parents don’t want them to commit errors that will make it harder to build those lives. How should children and their parents think about this ______?

College is often discussed as a(n) ______ in the future: You pay up front so you can benefit abundantly for the rest of your life. The financial benefits of a college education over the past decades indeed look great. However, past performance won’t necessarily ensure future returns. To make the plots more ______, from 1989 to 2016, college tuition went up by 98 percent. This has led to a lot of student-loan debt.

It may be worth the cost for some kids who want to go into a field that requires a college degree, but others don’t know what they want to do after college, so for them college is like buying an expensive ______ for future employment. Still, it’s worth noting that in 2019, just 66 percent of college graduates were in jobs requiring a college degree. What’s more, as of 2010, only 27 percent were in jobs related to their college major.

Perhaps you don’t primarily use ______ analysis to make decision about your life or your child’s. But everyone wants to be happy, and wants their child to be happy as well. So let’s look at the ______ effects of college.

Some scholars have found that, when controlling for other factors in life such as income and religious faith, education by itself has no independent explanatory ______ over happiness. Some actually believe that education is negatively linked to happiness, and hypothesize that some college attendees exchange life satisfaction for their academic ______. And there’s all that student debt to consider. According to a Gallup study, student debt is negatively correlated with financial and physical health and sense of purpose, and is ______ low well-being on these dimensions for as long as 25 years after graduation.

______, the only thing we can say with assurance is, “It depends.” On what? On the unique ______ of each person. A child’s gifts, circumstances, and career ambitions all affect whether college is the right choice. Most of all, it depends on what they want to do. As a longtime academic, I can assure you that the No. 1 ______ of a failure to thrive in college is not wanting to be there in the first place.

That may be obvious to would-be students, but to many of their parents it isn’t. The college decision is often as much about the parents as it is about their kids. It’s easy to ______ our own desires onto our kids -- to try to see our own potential come alive through them.

But it’s a mistake. No one is a start-up enterprise, and there is not just one path to success. The college-for-all fever that has overtaken much of our culture ______ gifts that our kids have to develop and share. In fact, building their life with integrity and grit is what all parents could ever ask.

1.

A．security

B．deposit

C．information

D．routine

2.

A．dilemma

B．landscape

C．consequence

D．disappointment

3.

A．shelter

B．investment

C．prospect

D．victory

4.

A．evident

B．compelling

C．complicated

D．realistic

5.

A．insurance

B．scam

C．maintenance

D．lesson

6.

A．trial-error

B．question-answer

C．cost-benefit

D．pros-cons

7.

A．health

B．society

C．happiness

D．education

8.

A．concern

B．power

C．favor

D．advantage

9.

A．prejudice

B．panic

C．ambition

D．unemployment

10.

A．applied to

B．blamed on

C．informed of

D．associated with

11.

A．However

B．Therefore

C．Otherwise

D．Furthermore

12.

A．fates

B．decisions

C．attributes

D．inputs

13.

A．qualification

B．coverage

C．witness

D．predictor

14.

A．project

B．owe

C．adjust

D．prefer

15.

A．highlights

B．justifies

C．ignores

D．visualizes