1 . Power often boosts an employee’s creativity because being powerful liberates the individual from restrictions. However, new research shows that employees who are not in positions of power can become more creative when given time to “warm up” to a task by engaging in the creative task more than once.
“This is important because when people with more power are able to express their creative ideas more than those with less power, which leads to a rich-get-richer dynamic that strengthens these power imbalances.” said Brian Lucas, assistant professor in the Cornell University. “Understanding ways to boost the creativity of lower power workers can help them find the right way to deal with this low-power disadvantage,” Lucas said.
Lucas and his colleagues conducted two studies to reach their conclusion. In the first study, they divided the creative idea generation session into two rounds consisting of a one-minute “warm up” followed by a second round in which the participants could take as long as they wanted. Participants were randomly assigned to a high-power condition or a low-power condition, and feelings of power were generated with a role manipulation (操纵) where participants were given a leadership role and control over resources (high power) or an employee role with no control over resources (low power). The study found that high-power individuals were more creative than low-power individuals in the warm-up round. There was no difference, though, in creativity in the second round.
In the second study, the researchers gave them a different creative task and increased the number of rounds from two sessions to five, taking as long as they like to complete the task. Similar to the first study, the study found that high-power individuals were more creative than low-power individuals in the first round. But the creativity of low-power individuals caught up to the creativity of the high-power individuals after the first round.
“The low-power warm-up effect suggests a simple intervention that empowers all employees to tap their creative potential and overcomes power imbalances in the workplace: when pursuing creative work. let employees warm up first,” Lucas said.
1. Why is it important to boost lower-power workers’ creativity according to Lucas?| A．It stimulates power balances. |
| B．It motivates their ambition to catch up. |
| C．It encourages a harmonious workplace. |
| D．It creates a competitive work environment. |
| A．By competing with leaders. |
| B．By receiving different positions. |
| C．By working in different working conditions. |
| D．By finishing a creative task with time limits. |
| A．It had more rounds. |
| B．More participants were involved. |
| C．Participants had a more complicated task. |
| D．Participants’ creativity gap became wider. |
| A．Power tends to encourage creative ideas. |
| B．Changing tasks boosts all the employees’ creativity. |
| C．Warm-up time corrects creativity power imbalances. |
| D．Low-power individuals outperform the high-power ones. |
2 . Many often find themselves considering jobs below their skill level in worsening employment markets. But it turns out that working in a job below your skill level harms your later chances of getting hired for a better-paying job more appropriate to your qualifications.
Sociologist David Pedulla at the University of Texas conducted a study to examine how jobs below a person’s skill level affect future employability. He tailored 2,420 applications and submitted them to 1,210 job listings posted in five major cities across the U.S. He varied the applications by gender, and also by employment status for the previous year. Then he used computer models to analyze and compare the results. The results show that applicants who were positioned as working below their skill level, regardless of gender had the lowest chances of getting called for a job interview.
These results should serve as a warning to anyone considering taking a job below their skill level. While it might pay the bills in the short term, it can significantly hammer one’s ability to return to the relevant skill level and pay grade at a later date.
Why might this be the case? Pedulla conducted a follow-up study with 903 employers. He asked them about their ideas of applicants with each kind of employment history, and how likely they would be to recommend each kind of candidate to an interview. The results show that employers believe that men who are employed in positions below their skill level are less committed and less competent than men in other employment situations. Those surveyed also believed that women working below their skill level were less competent than others, but did not believe them to be less committed.
The results of studies suggest that work below skill level signals to employers men’s incompetence and a lack of commitment. This is a disturbing reminder that the sword of gender bias (偏见) does in fact cut both ways.
1. Why do many people choose jobs below their skill level?| A．They fear bearing duties. | B．They lack-self-confidence. |
| C．They face a tough economy. | D．They pursue better-paying jobs. |
| A．By conducting interviews. | B．By researching examples. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By doing surveys. |
| A．Ensure. | B．Weaken. | C．Test. | D．Exercise. |
| A．Men are more likely to get promoted. |
| B．Women are more devoted and capable. |
| C．Women behave better in jobs below skill level. |
| D．Men show talents in work of the relevant level. |
3 . A few days before New Year 1944, Patricia Krueger received a telegram from the U. S. Army. She hoped it would contain a belated birthday greeting from her husband, an army flight engineer, Charles Krueger, whom she had not heard from for 2 weeks. Instead, the message said he wasn’t coming home: His B-29 had been lost and he was later declared MIA (missing in action). Their son, John Krueger from Middleton, Wisconsin, is still in tears when he recounts this story.
Decades later, the military continues to work to bring back the remains of soldiers like Charles Krueger. The job of finding them falls to DPAA (Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency), created in 2015 after critics charged that the previous MIA search process was slow, and behind on innovations in science and technology. Between 1973 and 2014, the remains of only 1,849 missing service member s were returned to their families; in 2021, the agency accounted for the remains of 141 MIAs; according to DPAA figures.
To accelerate the work, Congress gave DPAA the authority to develop public-private partnerships with scientists and groups outside the government. “Teaming up with academic scientists introduces new ways of thinking,” says military historian Michael Dolski. “Working with partners allows us to tap into their technologies and capabilities in ways that we just can’t maintain.”
For scientists, the work is more than technically satisfying. “It’s the most rewarding aspect of my career,” says Mires, a scientist working with the agency. “In other archaeology sites I’ve worked on, the history is remote,” he says. “Here, you’re doing something not for a thing, but for a person, and all the people they touched.”
1. What was the telegram about in paragraph 1?| A．A New Year dinner. | B．Krueger’s disappearance. |
| C．A birthday greeting. | D．John Krueger’s memory. |
| A．Because DPAA wants to continue the search. |
| B．Because it took long and lacked creativeness. |
| C．Because the work was stopped by the military. |
| D．Because 141 MIAs’ remains were found in 2021. |
| A．Patient. | B．Critical. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
| A．A long search for MIAs. | B．Achievements of DPAA. |
| C．Assistance from science. | D．Consequences of wars. |
4 . I was 6 years old when my father told me we were leaving the Big Apple Circus (马戏团). Until that point, I had spent most of my life on the circus lot, playing with the other circus kids. The circus, by its nature, is one that has a loose structure. So the early years after my leaving the circus to sit in a classroom all day felt more like a prison.
But years later, I found areas that interested me. I took the skills I had learned from being onstage and applied them to broadcasting. And so when Boston’s news station WBUR offered me a job out of college, I jumped at the chance. Along the way, I found I really enjoyed the work. I became WBUR’s news reporter. The flexibility and adaptability I’d learned in the circus as a child helped me do my job naturally and easily in a stressful situation — whether it was a destructive tornado outside Boston, or the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013.
But then a serious infectious disease appeared. Suddenly, for the first time in my adult life, I went for a year without doing any shows. But it became clear to me that performing was what I truly wanted. For me, the circus symbolizes who I am. And stages have always been where I’ve felt the most free. Some people get nervous before they go onstage, but by assuming (扮演) the character of Jacques ze Whipper and drawing a stupid moustache on my face, all my social anxiety disappears.
Circus performances go beyond age, socioeconomic status (地位), and even language. It’s the type of performance where you can go anywhere in the world to entertain anyone — help anyone forget their troubles for 5, 10, and even 30 minutes. And most importantly, for me, it means coming home.
1. How did the author feel in the early years of school?| A．Curious. | B．Unfree. | C．Loose. | D．Impatient. |
| A．He did it for his father. | B．He did it against his will. |
| C．He risked his neck doing it. | D．He took to it like a duck to water. |
| A．A means of living. | B．A chance to go anywhere. |
| C．A part of his identity. | D．A way to forget his troubles. |
| A．To express his love for circus performances. |
| B．To stress the value of performing. |
| C．To share his personal experiences in a circus. |
| D．To discuss the problem of choosing a job. |
5 . I was driving when my phone alerted me to a new email. Filled with eager anticipation, I pulled over, turned on my hazard lights, and opened it. My emotions quickly changed as I learned, for the sixth and final time, that I had been denied a promotion to full professor. My institution didn’t seem to value what I brought to the table. But when I told my family that night, my children offered a surprisingly positive response. They were excited to see what I was going to do next, they said. They apparently knew long before I did that losing my bid for a promotion would turn out to be the best thing that could have happened for me.
This had been the final step in a long process spanning 15 months and involving so much effort. I had started by studying successful promotion bids and asking senior scholars for frank discussions about my readiness. I had carefully prepared my application packet, summarizing everything I had achieved in my career. For more than a year, I had spent hours every day trying to prove my worth to my university.
To my surprise, having a final answer brought a welcome sense of closure. As a first step toward healing, I decided to prioritize my own values and follow my own internal compass. I disconnected from people in my life who violated my values, cultivated my relationships with those who share my priorities and bring out the best in me, and spent more time with my family. I founded a nonprofit that helps first-generation and low-income students and young professionals advance in the workforce while serving their community. The initiative had long been a dream of mine, but I never pursued it because typical academic hiring and promotion don’t reward such efforts. Now, such considerations were no longer my North Star.
Five months after that email from top leadership, I found myself in the car again, experiencing another career-defining moment. I may have lost my bid for a big promotion, but in the end, it brought me to the right place.
1. What did the author feel after he read the email?| A．Anxious and annoyed. | B．Embarrassed and ashamed. |
| C．Relieved and peaceful. | D．Disappointed and sorrowful. |
| A．What contributions the writer had made. | B．What preparations the writer had made. |
| C．How successful the career had been. | D．How tiring the process had been. |
| A．Success is more than a title or a rank. |
| B．One’s internal compass is to be developed. |
| C．Serving the community may heal a broken heart. |
| D．One’s real value first lies in his family interaction. |
| A．Emails: my North Star |
| B．Full professor: a double-edged sword |
| C．A career setback becomes a great opportunity |
| D．An academic career witnesses a failed promotion |
6 . The workplace can be a perfect breeding-ground for “Misergonia”,also called desk rage (愤怒). It's a condition in which a series of noises and disorders cause people distress.
Sounds are often the trigger for Misergonia. The routine fire-alarm test is a case in point.“Attention please, attention please,” shouts a voice that is impossible to ignore.
Small IT failures are a fact of office life, but they can still be soul-destroying. The printer just doesn’t work.
Individual workers have their own triggers. There is no cure for Misergonia. The workplace is a collection of people keeping in touch in different ways. Their habits and noises turn into something familiar for some colleagues but annoying for others.
| A．You'd better ask them for help. |
| B．And then there is the reply-all email. |
| C．Other noises are not so loud but just as annoying. |
| D．Or the mouse that gives up at just the wrong moment. |
| E．Nowadays, the computer has become an essential tool. |
| F．The only release is to try to be understanding and get used to it. |
| G．Verbal phrases(口头禅)are another headache for Misergonia sufferers. |
7 . Jenn Larson was just 14 years old when she took over the bookkeeping for her family’s dairy farm near Firth, Idaho. She soon saw firsthand how challenging it was for her parents, who lacked any college education, to properly manage the unpredictable earnings of farming. This started a lifelong passion for finance, and it led her down an unexpected path to becoming a role model she never had.
Yet, such ambitions ran in obvious contrast to everything familiar to her. “I didn’t have any advisors,” Larson says. “I didn’t have anyone to look up to for a professional example. All the women I associated with were stay-at-home moms.” Despite having parents who couldn’t fully understand her ambitions, Larson went to the BYU Marriott School, where she earned a business degree and focused much of her coursework on international finance.
Larson worked for seven years as a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual, advising clients on important financial decisions. Larson returned to BYU Marriott in 2008 to earn an MBA, and accepted a position in the school as an assistant professor following her graduation. For more than a decade, Larson has taught finance classes to undergraduate and MBA students. While she teaches finance, Larson tries to help her students see how mastering finance principles can also impact their personal lives.
Constantly balancing motherhood and work, Larson makes adjustments to the way she teaches. She gave birth to her first three children in three years while teaching at BYU Marriott, wondering at times if labor might start while in front of a class full of students. During the pandemic, Larson taught online classes from her dining room table while taking care of a newborn and other young children at home.
As a female instructor in the often male-dominated finance industry, Larson works to inspire other women who seek a similar path to hers. Larson became the role model that she never had — the example that a 14-year-old girl staring at a farming expense sheet couldn’t find. Now, Labor on’s children and students will always have that example.
1. What motivated Larson to major in finance?| A．Her experience of managing accounts. |
| B．Her strong desire for college education. |
| C．The high expectations from her parents. |
| D．The challenging labor on her dairy farm. |
| A．She had no one to ask for advice. |
| B．She was unsure about the coursework. |
| C．She was misunderstood by her neighbours. |
| D．She was unfamiliar with everything at school. |
| A．The work of looking after a baby. |
| B．The process of dealing with students. |
| C．The process of giving birth to a baby. |
| D．The work of adjusting teaching methods. |
| A．Following Your Interest |
| B．Balancing Work and Family |
| C．Becoming Your Own Role Model |
| D．Seeking a Way to Become a Role Model |
8 . The temperatures are rising throughout the country, indicating that summer is just around the corner. If you’re a teen looking for a summer job, here are some opportunities.
Tutor
Tutoring jobs could be the perfect summer job to turn your knowledge into cash. Although teaching children is easier said than done, it’s manageable for most one-on-one instructors. The more experience you have in one area, the more you can charge.
Average Pay: $22 per hour
Movie Theater Employee
Many theaters will hire teens to make sure they are adequately staffed for summer blockbuster releases. Typically, a movie theater attendant scans tickets and sells snacks. The most difficult part of the job is likely cleaning up after a showing. But it could all be worth it when you get to watch free movies after work.
Average Pay: $15 per hour
Summer Intern
A summer internship can help you open the door to future career opportunities. Pay can vary substantially based on your field and level of education. Some internships are even unpaid. That said, the greatest compensation can be gaining experience in the industry you hope to work in after college. Plus, being a summer intern provides many networking opportunities.
Average Pay: $15 per hour AGU
Camp Counselor
Summertime means that numerous camps open up for young children. Although this can be a demanding option, it can also be very rewarding. You’ll have the chance to impact every child that passes through your camp group. Many camps even offer accommodations and food to counselors hired to work during a summer program.
Average Pay: $10 per hour
1. What is the advantage to be a tutor compared to the other three jobs?| A．Getting a higher pay. |
| B．Seeing movies for free. |
| C．Gaining job experience. |
| D．Having free accommodations. |
| A．Tutor. |
| B．Camp Counselor. |
| C．Summer Intern. |
| D．Movie Theater Employee. |
| A．Working with kids. |
| B．Offering one-on-one instruction. |
| C．Getting paid by experience. |
| D．Having networking opportunities. |
9 . In the face of an ever-changing world, how can young people get out of their own way and care for society and others? Committed to boosting the global youth, Global Youth Philanthropy (慈善事业) has launched the Youth Journalist club — Youth Voices, which will provide continuous training for young journalists and both online and offline interviews for our young journalists.
Review of the Youth Journalists Project
Last year, Global Youth Philanthropy launched the Youth Journalists Program. Under the guidance, these young journalists learned about news reporting, communication and developed writing skills. The young journalists conducted one-on-one interviews and group visits, during which they absorbed the nature of these wonderful life stories and experiences.
Overview of the Club
The club is open to middle and high school students as well as college students who are interested in interviewing and writing. The program introduces professional news communication and related theoretical learning through customized (定制的) project practice and field interview opportunities. Focusing on public welfare, the club provides members with in-depth interview opportunities for philanthropy projects.
Characteristics of the Club
· Move away from passive learning to project-based learning
· Accompanied and empowered by club advisers throughout the process
· Professional guidance and conversation coaching from industry experts
· Learn and share with members from different countries and regions, and cultivate an international perspective
· Guide competent young journalists to lead the establishment of local offline young reporters’ stations and provide offline activity reporting opportunities
The new “Youth Voices” Journalist club will be launched this year. We welcome young people from all over the world to participate in this project.
1. How does the Youth Journalist club help the young people?| A．By absorbing the nature of the wonderful world. |
| B．By receiving one-on-one interviews and group visits. |
| C．By providing continuous training both online and offline. |
| D．By improving their reporting, communication and writing skills. |
| A．Diverse cultures can be learned and shared. |
| B．College students alone are accessible to the club. |
| C．Passive learning is adopted during the training. |
| D．The professional advisers are coaching the youth. |
| A．To innovate Global Youth Philanthropy. |
| B．To attract new members for Youth Voices. |
| C．To encourage caring for society and others. |
| D．To inspire the global young people to learn more. |
10 . According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s digital economy has increased by 15.9 percent annually since 2012, reaching 45.5 trillion yuan ($6.32 trillion) last year. Facing the growing digital economy and new vacancies developed in the sector such as deliverymen and livestreaming anchors(主播), young people, especially those born after 2000, are expressing a stronger willingness for flexible work relations with companies, and also wish to become “digital workers” with flexible work locations and schedules.
“The Internet helps me a lot. I check emails from my clients and submit my proposals through WeChat, and then we discuss plans via teleconference. I love working from home actually,” said Mi Lu, a 28-year-old new media operator in Beijing. “We work everywhere, perhaps in a cafe, or on a bullet train or even on the table of a restaurant.”
To cater to young people’s work preferences, more companies have begun to include “flexible working mode” in their recruitment advertisements. Zhaopin, a website, said vacancies with flexible work available make up 15 to 20 percent of total vacancies on its platform, especially for industries in the growing gig economy such as transportation and logistics(物流). According to Zhaopin, the proportion of flexible vacancies in these industries has increased to 25 percent this year, up from 10 percent in 2018.
However, the flexibility may bring risks to workers’ rights protection, according to Zhaopin. It said that though roughly 60 percent of companies posting vacancies on its platform offer insurance, the proportion is decreasing.
Li Qiang, vice-president of Zhaopin, said that the greatest risk to those seeking flexible work is whether the company pays the salary fully and on time. “It’s necessary for job seekers to set up a long-term development plan, rather than be shortsighted.” He added that companies may bear risks that flexible employees can’t deliver high-quality work in a limited time period, which requires the companies to establish a sound work delivery standard to help evaluate employee performance.
1. What factor contributes to flexible work?| A．The booming digital economy. | B．The desire for more free time. |
| C．The disappearance of some positions. | D．The improvement of working conditions. |
| A．They ignore the youth’s requests. | B．They follow the old working mode. |
| C．They provide positions accordingly. | D．They reduce working opportunities. |
| A．The companies pay higher salary. | B．The job seekers make a detailed plan. |
| C．The companies make reasonable rules. | D．The job seekers apply for positions on time. |
| A．A new internet-related working model | B．Job seekers more keen on flexible work |
| C．The rapidly developing digital economy | D．Companies well prepared for new risks |
