1 . Jobs Week: Find Your Next Job Here
▲ A Registered Nurse
Average salary: $65,470 per year
Top cities for hiring: San Antonio, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas
In the United States, registered nurses (RNs) are clinicians who have completed at least an associate degree in nursing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has identified it as one of the top ten occupations for career growth. RNs can either practice independently or as part of a healthcare team.
▲ A Retail Associate
Average salary: $21,410 per year
Top cities for hiring: Atlanta, Georgia; Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois
Retail workers sell products and help customers find the products they want. According to the BLS, nearly 14.8 million people were employed as retail workers in 2017. Top places to find retail positions include Walmart, Target and Macy’s.
▲ A Truck Driver
Average salary: $46,000 per year
Top cities for hiring: Atlanta, Georgia; Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana
Truck driving doesn’t require a college degree and can pay well even at the entry-level stage. It takes a certain kind of person to work the long weeks away from home—but with a high level of demand, it can be a great career choice for someone who wants job security without the cubicle （格子间）.
▲ A Web Developer
Average salary: $62,500 per year
Top cities for hiring: Chicago, Illinois; New York; Atlanta, Georgia
Tech jobs like Web Developer frequently top lists of the best jobs for pay, work-life balance, and career welfare. The wide use of the Internet means that web developers are in continuous demand, and there are no education barriers preventing job seekers from learning programming languages like Java or Python.
1. Who may get the highest salary every year according to the text?| A．A truck driver. | B．A web developer. |
| C．A registered nurse. | D．A retail associate. |
| A．They design products and help produce them. |
| B．They help customers get their desired products. |
| C．They must have an associate degree in business. |
| D．They should learn programming languages like Java or Python. |
| A．They can find a job more easily. |
| B．They can work as part of a healthcare team. |
| C．Designing a web doesn’t require much mental work. |
| D．The job is fit for someone who doesn’t need a cubicle. |
2 . At first the question was how quickly people would get back to the office. Then it was whether they would ever return. The last three years has introduced in a major change in white-collar working patterns. The office is not dead but many professionals have settled into a hybrid (混合的) arrangement of some office days and some remote days.
Hybrid working has much to recommend: flexibility for employees, periods of concentration at home, bursts of cooperation in the office. A new paper from Harvard Business School describes an experiment in which workers at BRAC, a non-profit organisation in Britain, were randomly assigned to three groups, each spending different amounts of time working from home. The intermediate (中等的) group, who spent between 23% and 40% of their time in the office, performed best on various performance measures.
But a shift on this large scale is bound to raise tricky issues. In workplaces that have moved to hybrid work, there are still plenty of open questions. One is how to handle the impact of less time in the office for new joiners and younger workers. Research by Emma Harrington of the University of Iowa shows that software engineers receive more feedback on their code when the team sits next to each other in the office, especially new engineers. According to Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, making new employees spend more time in the office can be a good way of integrating them into company culture and improving their competence. And these younger employees were most likely to quit when everyone was forced to go remote.
A second question concerns how strictly to enforce attendance on days when teams are meant to be in the office. An agreement holds that there should be agreed “anchor days” on which all the people come to work in the office; since the idea is to spend time together, as many people as possible should be there. But one person on the team might have moved somewhere else; someone else might have asked to stay home to let the repairer in. In practice, therefore, hybrid working still often means a mixture of people on screen and people in the office.
Other questions exist. How to define performance measures so managers do not spend time worrying about lazy workers at home? Do you require company-wide anchor days or team-level ones? The era of hybrid working is only just beginning, so it will take time for answers to emerge. But if there is a message from this first full year of hybrid working, it is that flexibility does not mean a free-for-all.
1. How can in-office work help new employees?| A．Giving them more feedback from senior employees. |
| B．Getting them to catch up with the work schedule. |
| C．Saving them the cost of staying at home. |
| D．Helping them feel part of the company. |
| A．Young workers prefer working on screen. |
| B．Engineers object to the idea of anchor days. |
| C．Office workers can’t take a day off as expected. |
| D．Employees have various private matters to address. |
| A．It is necessary to grant employees full autonomous rights. |
| B．Employers should go with the flow because new questions will emerge. |
| C．Allowing flexibility in work arrangements does not mean having no rules. |
| D．It is no easy job to arrange either company-wide or team-level anchor days. |
| A．Hybrid working is outdated after workers’ return. |
| B．There are some open questions of hybrid working. |
| C．A shift of working patterns calls for hybrid working. |
| D．Fixed restrictions should be applied to hybrid working. |
In-betweeners don’t get the glory, but without them cartoons would hop from one emotional peak to another, missing connective grace. Burny Mattinson (1935-2023) started his career at the Walt Disney Company in the mail room, and, even though he had no formal training in animation, he was given a swing at in-betweening just six months later.
His first big assignment was to in-between the wagging of a dog’s tail. Disney animation was famous for its silky elegance, owing in no small part to the skill of its in-betweeners, and, thanks to Mattinson, the tail practically glided from side to side.
Mattinson had wanted to be an animator ever since his mother had taken him to see” Pinocchio” at a theatre when he was six. In a bold move, Mattinson showed up at the Disney Studios gate with his portfolio (作品) as soon as he finished high school. The magical part of this story is that, instead of shooing him away, the security guard liked his drawings and called the head of personnel to take a look.
Thus, Mattinson became a messenger at Disney, beginning a career that would eventually make him the employee with the longest service at the company. He had joined the company at a golden moment. Listing the films that he worked on is a little like listing the entire output of the Walt Disney Company over the past six decades: Sleeping Beauty, “The Lion King,” and on and on.
Mattinson was, perhaps, one of the last of an almost extinct genotype - the happy company man, the lifer. He never had an employer besides Disney. When asked what Mattinson enjoyed doing outside of his life at Disney, his son said, “He just loved his work.”
1. What role do in-betweeners play in animation production?
| A．Design the storyline. | B．Draw the background. |
| C．Invent extreme actions. | D．Generate smooth motion. |
| A．Unconventional. | B．Typical. | C．Illegal. | D．Accidental. |
| A．His lifelong dedication to Disney. | B．His detailed work as an in-betweener. |
| C．His passion for animation beyond work. | D．His pioneering role in Disney animation. |
| A．A lifer in the Disney | B．In-betweeners’ role in animation |
| C．A bold move to Disney | D．A glorious career |
4 . Rick Guidotti put aside his career as a fashion photographer to turn his lens (镜头) to people living with genetic, physical and behavioural differences.
He says what changed his perception (看法) of beauty was a chance encounter with an albino (患白化病的) girl. “I was just tired of people telling me who was beautiful. Every season that face would change but I was always told who was beautiful. As an artist, I don’t see beauty just on covers of magazines. I see it everywhere. So that was my original intention — that opened my eyes a little wider and wider.”
Guidotti has created Positive Exposure, a not-for-profit organization that uses photography and video to transform public perceptions and promote a world where differences are celebrated. Guidotti and Positive Exposure are featured in a new documentary called On Beauty.
One of the women featured in the film is Jayne Waithera. “I never thought I was beautiful because nobody said that to me, but meeting him was my profound moment. I remember that particular day. He took my picture and I felt so good like I felt there’s somebody who, like, really loves me and sees me for who I am and who sees me more than my condition.”
Guidotti is travelling from city to city to promote On Beauty. He says his tour is not about money; it’s about the message. “As I travel from community to community, I’m taking photographs and I’m empowering (给某人……的权力) individuals with a positive sense of who they are. They’re seeing beauty in their reflection but I’m also empowering their families and they in turn are empowering their communities as well. All is based on the philosophy of change — how you see, how you change.”
1. Why did Guidotti change his career?| A．The beauty on covers of magazines is not beautiful. |
| B．He wanted to create his own company. |
| C．His comprehension of beauty changed owing to an albino girl. |
| D．He couldn’t earn enough money from his former career. |
| A．It welcomes differences in the world. | B．It brings a lot of money for Guidotti. |
| C．It makes photography more popular. | D．It makes the public more beautiful. |
| A．Jayne’s picture was more beautiful than herself. |
| B．Jayne was beautiful indeed. |
| C．Photographs gave Jayne a positive sense of who she was. |
| D．It was unfair that nobody discovered Jayne’s beauty. |
| A．Communities have a great influence on everyone. |
| B．We should travel frequently. |
| C．Your attitude to seeing the world decides your behaviour. |
| D．We should make contributions to our community. |
5 . Do you love fossils and dinosaurs? I’m lucky enough to be a fossil preparator (化石制备师), which means I work with fossils, like removing rocks from fossils and gluing fossils together to make sure they’re not broken. Sometimes, we have dinosaur bones that need to be arranged and put back into place.
I like the job from the bottom of my heart. When we make “jackets” — these are things that store the fossils — we have to accurately and scientifically figure out how to make them for specific bones or fossils, which can be different shapes and artistic expression.
Since I was a kid, it’s been my dream to be a paleontologist (古生物学者). When I was 12, I went to this kind of event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science called Dinosaur Day. I got a chance to meet paleontologists. At the end, I asked, “Hey, can I volunteer?” And somehow, they let me, as long as a parent came with me. At 12 years old, I got to go to a fossil excavation (挖掘), and I got to work with dinosaur bones and fossils in the lab for the first time.
Fossils are very old. We don’t always get all the pieces. We’re working with something that’s incomplete, sometimes. We do our best to fit the pieces we know back together. And as for the pieces we don’t know, we don’t try to make anything up. But sometimes, we have a gap in a specimen (标本) and it needs support. We’ll put some material in there that’s clearly not fossil, so when people go to study it, they know not to study that part.
People would wonder how I find other kids, especially girls, who shared my interests when I was growing up. As a matter of fact, in my friend group, I was the only dinosaur girl. My friends were interested in other things, but they were all super supportive of my love for fossils.
1. Why does the author like her job?| A．It is not a demanding job. | B．It combines both art and science. |
| C．It is more artistic than scientific. | D．It is about collecting dinosaur bones. |
| A．To show her path to follow her dream. | B．To prove her parents supporting her job. |
| C．To present the barrier of achieving her dream. | D．To tell her easy access to achieving her dream. |
| A．By burying them back in the ground. | B．By breaking and reconstructing them. |
| C．By making them up with similar materials. | D．By filling their gaps with distinct materials. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Understanding. | C．Independent. | D．Entertaining. |
6 . Scientists agree that predicting (预测) when and where an earthquake will occur and how big it will be is not yet possible. Therefore, much research has focused on coming up with ways to reduce the damage from earthquakes, rather than trying to predict when they will occur. Specifically, finding more information about the place under the surface helps developers and others make safer choices when constructing a building. This is where Navakanesh M Batmanathan is putting his efforts.
Batmanathan is an earthquake geologist at the National University of Malaysia. He is actively engaged in mapping the areas surrounding earthquakes in Borneo. Faults (断层) are places in the Earth’s crust (地壳) that are weak to sudden movement between masses of rock, resulting in occasional earthquakes. Batmanathan is working to map the faults, as well as the infrastructure (基础设施) in the area of the faults, to hopefully reduce the potential damage that can be caused by an earthquake. Developers and engineers can use this knowledge to plan where it is safest to build and where earthquake-resistant structures are needed.
Batmanathan is using a variety of tools to map faults. Working on the ground to map the area is just one of the methods he employs. He also uses images from satellites and ground-penetrating radar (GPR). GPR is a technology that creates an underground image without digging. It has many applications, from finding the water level to understand soil and rock types for construction projects. Batmanathan and others are using this technology to map faults, and the areas around faults, to gain a clearer picture of potential earthquake damage.
It might not ever be possible to know exactly when or where an earthquake will happen, but Batmanathan hopes that his work will help educate people and better prepare them for earthquakes.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．Providing evidence. | B．Giving suggestions. |
| C．Introducing the topic. | D．Drawing a conclusion. |
| A．Studying volcanoes. | B．Recording rivers. |
| C．Predicting earthquakes. | D．Studying faults. |
| A．It can predict where an earthquake will happen. |
| B．It can be applied in mapping faults. |
| C．It can predict the time of earthquakes. |
| D．It can test the quality of the soil. |
| A．Mapping Faults for Safer Construction |
| B．Challenges in Predicting Earthquakes |
| C．The Future of Earthquake Prediction |
| D．Technology for Reducing Earthquakes |
7 . Get up at 6 a.m., arrive at the hospital one hour earlier to help patients check in, and accompany patients during consultations... In recent years, the patient escort has emerged as a new occupation, and those who have taken on this career are known as “people who sell time”. 26-year-old Zhang Tian is one of them.
September 4, 2022 was a lucky day for Zhang Tian. On this day, Zhang Tian saw a video about patient escorts on a short video platform. The daily routine of patient escorts shown in the video fascinated her and inspired her to take this on as a business. She browsed through many platforms and searched for information and found there indeed exists a certain demand for patient escorts, especially for the elderly, children and pregnant women. Since she had never engaged in this kind of work before, she spent two days in major hospitals in Wuhan, in order to familiarize herself with all the departments on different floors, as well as the processes of medical consultations and preparations for surgery.
After the preparations, Zhang Tian posted a video of self-introduction on major social media sites, talking about the help and services a patient escort provides, as well as some tips for a quick and convenient medical consultation. At first, she was a little worried that her video would go unnoticed. However, after she uploaded the video, it got over 100 likes and she received her first offer as a patient escort.
The memory of her first task is still vivid in her mind. She received a phone call on September 9 from a man whose father was seriously ill and might need surgery. He wanted Zhang Tian to accompany his father through his consultation and treatment. Zhang Tian made all the preparations before meeting her first client and did a very good job despite her nervousness.
“Later, the family expressed their gratitude to me over and over again, which warmed my heart and gave me a sense of achievement,” Zhang Tian said.
1. What do patient escorts do?| A．They assist doctors in hospitals. | B．They arrive at hospitals early to check in. |
| C．They post videos for money. | D．They help patients get treatment in hospitals. |
| A．She enjoyed seeing an interesting video. | B．She got inspiration for her own career. |
| C．She found a demand for medical workers. | D．She was popular on social media. |
| A．She got familiar with the routine work in hospitals. |
| B．She spent two days in major hospitals meeting patients. |
| C．She post a video in search of clients on social media. |
| D．She happened to know an old man in need of surgery. |
| A．Considerate and responsible. | B．Humorous and careful. |
| C．Ambitious and imaginative. | D．Talkative and positive. |
8 . From self-driving cars to carebots for elderly people, rapid advances in technology have long represented a potential threat to many jobs normally performed by people.
But experts now believe that almost 50 per cent of occupations existing today will be completely unnecessary by 2025 as artificial intelligence continues to transform businesses. This could put some people’s livelihoods at risk.
“Experts predict that 50 per cent of occupations today will no longer exist by 2025 as people will take up more creative professions,” said Martin Chen, Chief Operating Officer of Genesis. “This means that jobs will develop and so will real estate development.”
Workspaces with rows of desks will become completely extra, not because they are not fit for purpose, but simply because that purpose no longer exists, according to the report. “The next fifteen years will see a revolution in how we work, and a corresponding revolution will necessarily take place on how we plan and think about workplaces,” said Peter Andrew, Director of Workplace Strategy for CBRE Asia Pacific.
A growing proportion of jobs in the future will require creativity intelligence, social skills and the ability to apply artificial intelligence. “And for most people that will be a route to happiness and fulfillment,” the report states.
Data in the US suggests that technology already destroys more jobs than it creates, as GDP has been able to grow faster than employment since 2000. A 2014 report by Pew Research found 52 per cent of experts in artificial and robotics were optimistic about the future and believed there would still be enough jobs in the next few decades.
The optimists imagined “a future in which robots and digital agents do not replace more jobs than they create,” Microsoft’s Jonathan Grudin told researchers that: “Technology will continue to break up jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change.”
1. What will put some people’s livelihood at risk in fifteen years of time?| A．Self-driving cars and carebots. |
| B．Artificial intelligence. |
| C．Business. |
| D．Real estate. |
| A．There will be no purpose of using the desks. |
| B．The desks will no longer be fit for the purpose. |
| C．The office revolution will make people rethink about their work. |
| D．The development of technology removes the need for desks. |
| A．Most jobs in the future use high technology. |
| B．More and more jobs focus of happiness and fulfillment. |
| C．More and more jobs are focusing on artificial intelligence. |
| D．Most jobs will require social ability to communicate with others. |
| A．There will be billions of people in fifteen years of time. |
| B．Enough jobs will be created for everyone to choose from. |
| C．People needn’t worry about their jobs in the future. |
| D．Robots and digital agents create more jobs than they destroy. |
| A．2025, A Jobless World. |
| B．2025, Robots Leave Humans Unemployed. |
| C．There Will Be No Desks in Future. |
| D．Half of Our Jobs Will Be Unnecessary by 2025. |
9 . I really love my job because I enjoy working with small children and like the challenges and awards from the job. I also think my work is important. There was a time when I thought I would never have that sort of career．
I wasn’t an excellent student because I didn’t do much schoolwork. In my final term I started thinking what I might do and found I didn’t have much to offer. I just accepted that I wasn’t the type to have a career．
I then found myself a job — looking after two little girls. It wasn’t too bad at first. But the problems began when I agreed to live in so that I would be there if my boss had to go out for business in the evening. We agreed that if I had to work extra hours one week, she’d give me time off the next. But unfortunately, it didn’t often work out. I was getting extremely tired and fed up, because I had too many late nights and early mornings with the children.
One Sunday, I was in the park with the children, and met Megan who used to go to school with me. I told her about my situation. She suggested that I should do a course and get a qualification (资格证书) if I wanted to work with children. I didn’t think I would be accepted because I didn’t take many exams in school. She persuaded me to phone the local college and they were really helpful. My experience meant a lot and I got on a part-time course. I had to leave my job with the family, and got work helping out at a kindergarten whenever available.
Now I’ve got a full-time job there. I shall always be thankful to Megan. I wish I had known earlier that you could have a career, even if you aren’t top of the class at school.
1. What is the author’s present job?| A．Working part-time in a college. |
| B．Taking care of children for a family. |
| C．Attending children at a kindergarten. |
| D．Helping children with their schoolwork. |
| A．frequently worked extra hours |
| B．was paid for long-time work |
| C．got much help from her boss |
| D．took a day off every other week |
| A．She found a full-time job. |
| B．She was fed up with children. |
| C．She needed a rest after overworking. |
| D．She decided to take a part-time course. |
| A．Qualifications are necessary for a career. |
| B．Average students can still have a career. |
| C．Hard work makes an excellent student. |
| D．One must choose the job one likes. |
10 . My aunt Nancy is a truck driver. When she left school, she didn't know what she wanted to do, so she went to work in a supermarket. One day, she was talking to one of the truck drivers at the supermarket, and she got the idea to drive a truck herself. She went home and told her parents (my grandparents！), and they thought it was a good idea.
Nancy’s journeys are different every day, and she goes to every part of the country. She enjoys the driving, but she says that one day, she would like to get a job with a different company(公司) so that she can drive to more places.
Nancy says she likes being out on the road, seeing new towns all the time, but the best thing about driving trucks for her is talking to everyone she sees during her working day. She also says the trucks are comfortable, so she doesn't mind sleeping in them. For her, they are her home on wheels!
I asked my grandparents what they thought about Nancy’s job. They are happy that Nancy is happy, so they don't want her to change jobs. But they worry about her because it’s sometimes a dangerous job and she spends a lot of time away from home.
1. Where did Nancy get the idea to be a truck driver?| A．At school. | B．At the supermarket. | C．In her truck. | D．On the road. |
| A．She drives all around the world. | B．She often drives to the same places. |
| C．She would like to be a taxi driver. | D．She hopes to work for a different company in the future. |
| A．Talking with different people. | B．Travelling to different places. |
| C．Sleeping in the trucks. | D．Tasting delicious food. |
| A．They don't like her job at all. | B．They are glad that it's a perfect job. |
| C．They believe the job has some problems. | D．They would like Nancy to do a different job. |
