2 .

More On: Go to greg Is omitting jobs from a resume lying? ----------------------- How to handle stress at work ------------------------ How can men and women work better together? ------------------------ How will cancer treatment affect my son’s resume? ------------------------ What to do if you drank too much at the company holiday party

Letter 1 January 28, 2018 | 3:31pm I work for an e-commerce Website. If one of our merchandisers has a question or wants to make a correction, they e-mail the entire department. In my opinion, this is rude and unnecessary. It seems to me that mass e-mail is appropriate for good or neutral news, rather than making a correction. Do you agree? Moreover, if you were the recipient of the correction, how would you respond? The only people who should be included in an e-mail are those who need to know or respond. Including everyone is rude and unprofessional as well as annoying to recipients. It’s not like we don’t have enough in our inbox already. I don’t agree that e-mail is only for good or neutral news, however. Sometimes you need to alert people or create a record of bad news. But no one should use e-mail to blame other people. If you’ve got a problem with someone, pick up the phone or take it outside (for a coffee, not a fist fight…geez). As for how to respond, e-mail is usually ineffective for resolving conflict. Have a conversation with the sender and explain why his or her approach isn’t the best and what you recommend.

Letter 2 January 14, 2018 | 9:24 pm It’s the start of a new year and I believe it’s time for a change. What’s the best way to explain to a prospective employer that you are in need of something new without seeming flighty and without complaining about your current employer? The new year is as good a time as any to take stock, but not the only reason for making a change. At least, that’s not what you communicate to a prospective employer. Your reason for looking for a new job is less important to your new employer than why you want to work there. Needing a change might be the catalyst(催化剂), but the job search is like dating, and you wouldn’t ask someone out and explain you’re just bored in your current relationship, right? At least I hope not, otherwise you’re likely to be as lonely as Barry Manilow sounds when he sings “It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve”.

1. What is discussed in the first letter?

A．How to ask questions in a polite way.	B．How to respond to a false charge.
C．How to make a correction at work.	D．How to handle rude mass emails at work.

2. According to Greg, expressing your dissatisfaction with your present job in an interview would be the same as __________.

A．talking about your family issues in public

B．complaining about your prior partner on a first date

C．demonstrating your qualifications to your new boss

D．bragging about your experience to your partner

3. It can be inferred that “go to greg” mainly offers advice on people’s __________.

A．career choices	B．social relationships
C．working problems	D．health problems

4 . Occupational Licenses with the Biggest Bang for Buck

Some 1.8 million American were laid off or discharged from their jobs each month on average in 2019, according to data from the U. S. Bureau of Labor statistics. People who lose their jobs often confront a difficult choice: should they take a new job that pays less, or should they make a costly investment in gaining new skills so that they can compete for another similar job or an even better one?

If they do decide on retraining ,which programs and occupational licenses are worth their while? In general, the highest-paying jobs tend to have the most difficult education/ training and experience requirements. But that is not always the case. The following are five occupational licenses with the biggest bang for your buck.

Drone Pilots: If you want to become a drone pilot, all you need to do is be above 16 years old, pass the Federal Aviation Administration's Remote Pilot Certificate exam (which requires about 15 to 20 hours of studying), and pay a $ 150 licensing fee. Pay for drone pilots averages $ 56,426 per year, and jobs are growing rapidly across a range of industries. For example, companies like UPS are making substantial investments in drone delivery and will need to hire thousands of drone pilots in the coming years.

Home Inspectors: If you need a job that makes about $ 60K per year, you might want to consider becoming a Home Inspector. Both Home Inspectors and HVAC Contractors earn about $ 61K per year, on average, but getting a state HVAC Contractor license typically requires about 4,000 hours of training and experience (those systems are becoming even more complex), whereas a Home Inspector license only requires 360 hours of training and experience, and much of the training can be gained free of charge on the job.

Massage Therapists: On average, Manicurists/Pedicurists are required to complete more hours of training than Massage Therapists (700 hours versus 500 hours), but Massage Therapists earn almost twice as much, on average ($54,639 versus $ 32,509).

Radiologic Technologists: Licensing requirements for cosmetologists（美容师）have become so onerous that candidates now need 2,700 hours of training and experience on average. That's not much less than the requirement for becoming a Radiologic or MRI Technologist (3,300 hours), a job which is growing considerably faster than average, is more recession - proof, and pays twice as much ($ 56,162 versus $ 28,608).

Dental Hygienists: Among jobs that require a two-year associate's degree granted by a college or university, some pay substantially more than others. The average state licensing fee for becoming a Dental Hygienist is a hefty $ 1,600, but the pay bump you'll receive will likely make up for it ten times over in the first year.

1. The underlined expression "the biggest bang for your buck" in Paragraph 2 probably means ________.

A．the job loss for your hesitation to invest

B．a good income resulting from your skills

C．a good return for the money you have spent

D．the great efforts you'd make to change your life.

2. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．Among the drone operators, those who work for delivery services can earn the most.

B．Compared to a home inspector, being an HVAC Contractor is more cost-effective.

C．As an MRI technologist, you'd be less likely to be jobless during an economic crisis.

D．Higher education isn't a compulsory requirement if you want to be a dental hygienist.

3. Which of the following matching for the chart is correct according to the passage?

A．① Radiologic Technologist; ② Cosmetologist; ③General Contractor

B．① Drone Pilot; ② General Contractor; ③ Dental Hygienists

C．① Message Therapist; ② Radiologic Technologist; ③ Cosmetologist

D．① Drone Piolt; ② Cosmetologist; ③ Radiologic Technologist

5 . Virtual (虚拟) Teams

Virtual teams are a great way to enable teamwork in situations where people are not sitting in the same office at the same time. Such teams are now widely used by companies and organizations to cut business costs. This is particularly so for businesses that use virtual teams to build global presence, or need less common skills or knowledge from people who are unwilling to travel.

Virtual teams are governed by the same basic principles as traditional teams.    1    . It is the way the team members communicate. They rely on special communication channels enabled by modern technologies, such as emails, faxes, and teleconferences, and alike. Due to more limited communication channels, the success of virtual teams is much more sensitive to the type of project the group works on, what people are selected, and how the team is managed.

    2     One challenging case is the projects that rely heavily on integrated work. That is to say, when each person’s work depends significantly on what someone else is doing at the same moment, like in a sports team, there is an ongoing heavy exchange of information in real time, and the tasks have to go through a strict order within a short time.

Not everyone can perform well in a virtual team environment.     3     Another important quality is communication skills. The team members must be able to communicate clearly and positively.

Managers of virtual teams need to pay much more attention to having clear goals, performance standards, and communication rules. People have various assumptions on what to expect from each other.     4    .

One of the biggest challenges of virtual teams is building trust between the team members. Trust is important for unblocking communication between members and increasing motivation of each person in the team. The issue of trust needs special attention at any stage of team existence.

A．Yet, there is one significant difference.

B．Not every type of project is suitable for a virtual team.

C．A virtual team can choose whatever project they like to work on.

D．The members must be self-motivated and able to work independently.

E．Members of virtual teams communicate quite well although they never meet face-to-face.

F．To avoid misunderstanding, clear rules that everyone understands and agrees on are necessary.

6 . To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.

Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those whoare toiledto death, those who are worried to death and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual labourer, tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend. As for the unfortunate people who can command everything they want, who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on almost every object of desire — for them a new pleasure, a new excitement is only an additional satiation. In vain they rush frantically round from place to place, trying to escape from the avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion. For them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.

It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune’s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vacation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their mind.

1. What does “are toiled” in the 2^ndparagraph mean?

A．have hobbies	B．feel pleased
C．work very hard	D．are busy

2. Which is NOT true based on the first two paragraphs?

A．Being late in life to attempt to cultivate hobbies adds to mental stress.

B．Great knowledge irrelevant to the daily work can’t guarantee benefit.

C．Those tired out for a week’s labour are reluctant to play football on weekends.

D．Unfortunate people need discipline to help them build up hope.

3. For those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure, they ______.

A．are very willing to work long hours in the office or the factory

B．earn a large amount of money due to their hard work for a long time

C．are keen to enjoy the pleasure when they are off duty

D．usually enjoy themselves in the simplest and most modest forms

4. Which statement will the author agree with according to the 3^rdparagraph?

A．The first class are lazy and the second class are bound to succeed.

B．The second class never need holidays because their life is harmonious.

C．The minority are more favoured by fortune because they never stop working.

D．One really needs alternation for a change in order to work better.

8 . Have you ever heard of Big Data or are you familiar with Data Scientists and Data Engineers? They are probably new job titles, but the core job roles have been around for a while. Traditionally, anyone who analyzed data would be called a “data analyst” and anyone who created backend platforms to support data analysis would be a “Business intelligence (BI) Developer”.     1    

Here’s an overview of the roles of the Data Analyst, BI Developer, Data Scientist and Data Engineer.

Data Analysts are experienced data professionals in their organization who can question and process data, provide reports, summarize and visualize data. They have a strong understanding of how to influence existing tools and methods to solve a problem.     2    . However, they are not expected to deal with analyzing big data, nor are they typically expected to have the mathematical or research background to develop new algorithms for specific problems.

Skills: Data Analysts need to have a baseline understanding of some core skills: statistics, data munging, data visualization, exploratory data analysis, Tools: Microsoft Excel, SPSS, SPSS Modeler, SAS, SAS Miner, SQL, Microsoft Access, Tableau, SSAS.

    3    . And then they collect requirements, design, and build BI and reporting solutions for the company. They have to design, develop and support new and existing data warehouses, ETL packages, dashboards and analytical reports.

Additionally, they work with databases, both relational and multidimensional, and should have great SQL development skills to integrate data from different resources. They use all of these skills to meet the enterprise-wide self-service needs. BI Developers are typically not expected to perform data analyses.

Data Engineers are the data professionals who prepare the “big data” infrastructure to be analyzed by Data Scientists.     4    . Then, they write complex queries on that, make sure it is easily accessible, works smoothly, and their goal is optimizing（优化）the performance of their company’s big data ecosystem.

They might also run some ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) on top of big datasets and create big data warehouses that can be used for reporting or analysis by data scientists.

A．In this case, the curious Data Scientist is expected to explore the data, come up with the right questions, and provide interesting findings!

B．Business intelligence Developers are data experts that interact more closely with internal stakeholders to understand the reporting needs.

C．With the emergence of big data, new roles began popping up in corporations and research centers -- namely, Data Scientists and Data Engineers.

D．This is why it is essential to know computer science fundamentals and programming, including experience with languages and database (big/small) technologies.

E．And they also help people from across the company understand specific questions with ad-hocreports and charts.

F．They are software engineers who design, build, integrate data from various resources, and manage big data.

10 . Should you listen to music when you work?

Do you like to listen to music when you work?

Ask this question at a party, and you’ll probably get _________ responses. Some will say they love it, claiming that it improves their performance; others will say they find it distracting (分散注意力的) and cannot work _________ with music playing in the background.

Interestingly enough, our research has found that both of these viewpoints can be true. It just _________ on what sort of work you’re doing.

In a recent study, we brought participants into our lab to perform a variety of tasks. They included a(n) _________ task-searching through word lists and crossing out words containing the letter “a” and a more difficult task—memorizing word pairs and _________ word to its partner. Some participants completed all of the tasks in silence, _________ others completed the tasks with instrumental music that was cither loud or soft, and either simple or complex, the latter meaning music with more instruments being played. Several key findings _________ from our study.

We found that participants who listened to simple music or no music performed about the same on the easy task. However, participants who listened to _________ music performed best on the easy task.

On the contrary, participants performed worse on the more difficult task when they listened to any music, regardless of complexity or volume, compared to those who didn’t listen to any music.

How should we _________ these findings?

We suggest that people have limited mental resources from which both __________ and tasks can draw. We can become __________ and our minds may wander when these resources are not fully used. But we also can become over-excited and __________ when these resources are used up.

Not surprisingly, we typically need to use fewer of our mental resources when we perform easy tasks, whereas demanding tasks require more brainpower. However, because we might be less __________ during easier tasks, there’s a greater risk of drifting off. Music might give us the extra __________ we need to overcome the monotony (单调). However, difficult tasks already demand lot of our resources. Listening to music can become too much.

So best __________ should appear when we strike “sweet spot,” which may depend on the type of music and the type of task.

1.

A．fixed

B．similar

C．various

D．positive

2.

A．effectively

B．immediately

C．exactly

D．happily

3.

A．depends

B．focuses

C．carries

D．takes

4.

A．unpleasant

B．familiar

C．impossible

D．easy

5.

A．matching

B．realizing

C．suggesting

D．creating

6.

A．until

B．while

C．since

D．when

7.

A．faded

B．appeared

C．survived

D．responded

8.

A．dull

B．reliable

C．necessary

D．complex

9.

A．make up for

B．make out

C．make use of

D．make up

10.

A．music

B．work

C．study

D．culture

11.

A．surprised

B．bored

C．afraid

D．proud

12.

A．interested

B．distracted

C．attracted

D．worried

13.

A．disgusted

B．embarrassed

C．frightened

D．engaged

14.

A．obstacle

B．push

C．opportunity

D．rule

15.

A．action

B．program

C．performance

D．problem