2 . According to the majority of Americans, women are every bit as capable of being good political leaders as men. The same can be said of their ability to dominate the corporate boardroom. And according to a new Pew Research Center survey on women and leadership, most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as intelligence and capacity for innovation, with many saying they're stronger than men in terms of being passionate and organized leaders.

So why, then, are women in short supply at the top of government and business in the United States? According to the public, at least, it’s not that they lack toughness, management talent or proper skill sets.

It’s also not all about work-life balance. Although economic research and previous survey findings have shown that career interruptions related to motherhood may make it harder for women to advance in their careers and compete for top executive jobs, relatively few adults in the recent survey point to this as a key barrier for women seeking leadership roles. Only about one-in-five say women's family responsibilities are a major reason why there aren't more females in top leadership positions in business and politics.

Instead, topping the list of reasons, about four-in-ten Americans point to a double standard for women seeking to climb to die highest levels of either politics or business, where they have to do more than their male counterparts to prove themselves. Similar shares say the electorate (选民) and American companies are just not ready to put more women in top leadership positions.

As a result, the public is divided about whether the imbalance in American companies will change in the foreseeable future, even though women have made major advances in the workplace. While 53% believe men will continue to hold more top executive positions in business in the future, 44% say it’s only a matter of time before as many women are in top executive positions as men. Americans are less doubtful when it comes to politics: 73% expect to see a female president in their lifetime.

1. What do most Americans think of women leaders according to a new Pew Research Center survey?

A．They have to do more to distinguish themselves.

B．They have to strive harder to win their positions.

C．They are stronger than men in terms of willpower.

D．They are just as intelligent and innovative as men.

2. What do we learn from previous survey findings about women seeking leadership roles?

A．They have unconquerable difficulties on their way to success.

B．They are lacking in confidence when competing with men.

C．Their failures may have something to do with family duties.

D．Relatively few are hindered in their career advancement.

3. What does the passage say about American companies in the near future?

A．More and more women v/ill sit in the boardroom.

B．Gender imbalance in leadership is likely to change.

C．The public is undecided about whether women will make good leaders.

D．People have opposing opinions as to whether they will have more women leaders.

4. What do most Americans expect to see soon on America's political stage?

A．A woman in the highest position of government.

B．More and more women actively engaged in politics.

C．A majority of women voting for a female president.

D．As many women in top government positions as men.

4 . High school freshmen always have a lot of questions on their minds. "What can I do when I grow up?" is one of them. It's definitely not too early to start thinking about his tough question. The following tips may help equip you for your future career.

Think beyond grades

Getting good grades in high school is important, but focusing only on straight A's could go wrong. Spending too much time on your schoolwork will leave you little time to explore opportunities outside of the classroom. Extracurricular activities are necessary because they serve as a form of career exploration. They can help you figure out your work preferences, like whether you are a "people person" or prefer to work alone. Nowadays, most well-known colleges care about candidates' experiences as much as their grades.

Seek advice from grown-ups

Talk to your parents, teachers and school counselors about how they started their careers. Even though you're interested in the careers they are in, it would be useful to learn about the process which got them where they are now. If you find your friend's mother doing a worthwhile job by chance, ask her if job shadowing is possible in her company during vacation. After all, seeing a typical day in the position you have an interest in can be an invaluable experience.

Start your search online

If you really have no idea what you can do when you grow up, take online career quizzes to get ideas about what professions naturally match your skills, interests and personality traits. For the time being, you just need to focus on finding a field or two that interests you, rather than a specific career. Chances are you'll change your mind several times before finding a career that you want to stick to. Starting to explore career options now can at least help you decide what your potential major might be.

1. Spending some time taking part in after-school activities can help high school students ________.

A．get A's in all subjects	B．explore their work preferences
C．have access to prestigious universities	D．get along with their classmates

2. Grown-ups may help high school students by _________.

A．starting a business with them	B．teaching them occupational skills
C．sharing their career paths with them	D．providing an opportunity for job shadowing

3. It is suggested that high school students find out their _______ from online career quizzes.

A．possible professions	B．main disadvantages
C．specific occupations	D．ideal majors

4. This article was probably written by a __________.

A．college professor	B．school counselor
C．advertising manager	D．computer programmer

5 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the sentences given below. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Although many companies offer tuition reimbursement (偿付), most companies reimburse employees only for classes that are relevant to their positions.     1    . A company that reimburses employees for all college credit course-whether job related or not-offers a service not only to the employees but to the entire company.

One good reason for giving employees unconditional tuition reimbursement is that it shows the company's dedication to its employees. In today's economy, where job security is a thing of the past and employees feel more and more expendable, it is important for a company to demonstrate to its employees that it cares. The best way to do this is to make investments in them.

    2     A company that puts out funds to pay for the education of its employees will get its money back by having employees stay with the company longer. It will reduce employ turnover (流动), because even employees who don't take advantage of tuition reimbursement program will be more loyal to their company, just knowing that their company cares enough to pay their education.

Although companies do indeed run the risk of losing money on employees who go on to another job in a different company as soon as they get their degree, more often than not, the employees will stay with the company.     3     Thus, even if the employee leaves upon graduating, throughout those years, the employer will have a more sophisticated, more intelligent, and therefore more valuable and productive employee. And, if the employee stays, that education will doubly benefit the company. Not only is the employee more educated, but now that employee can be promoted so the company doesn't have to fill a high-level vacancy from the outside.     4    .

Though unconditional tuition reimbursement requires a significant investment on the employer's part, it is perhaps one of the wisest investments a company can make.

A．In thin way, companies will have more productive employees.

B．In today's economy, job security is a thing of the past and employees feel more and more expendable.

C．In return, this dedication to the betterment of employees will create greater loyalty.

D．This is indeed a very limiting policy.

E．Even if employees do leave, it generally takes several years to complete any degree program.

F．Open positions can be assigned to who already knew he company well

6 . Directions: Choose from the sentences A-F to complete the passage. There are two extra sentences which you do not need to use.

There is no better feeling than walking away from your desk in the evening with a sense of deep satisfaction for a job well done.    1     Here are five ways to help you do just that:

Empty your inbox．

    2     You will find that an empty inbox late in the day will give you a strong sense of accomplishment and order in your life. If you want an empty inbox, it means everything is in a particular spot: either in the trash, or sent to someone else.

    3    

If you leave a tiring and undesirable task until the next day, you will walk away from your desk with a dark cloud hanging over you and a sense of fear. On the other hand, try to complete the task before you leave the office, and you will walk away with a feeling of freedom and victory.

Do something nice for someone else.

The key here is intentionality. Plan to end your day by doing something specific and beneficial for someone in your life—a partner, friend, family member, customer, etc. You will feel better when doing a good deed to others. It is impossible to do something nice for someone without feeling better yourself.

Say thank you.

Take a moment before you shut things down for the day to be thankful for your life.    4     When you feel grateful to people around you, you will get a new idea on the difficulties of any given day.

A．Determine what will make tomorrow special.

B．Regardless of what else has happened in a day, ending it with thanks is a rewarding approach.

C．Finish the task as far as possible before you leave.

D．Keeping your inbox empty makes you more effective.

E．In fact, a whole unproductive day can end with just 15 hyper-productive minutes.

F．Nothing else throughout your day could possibly be so bad.

7 . If you are a recent social science graduate who has had to listen to jokes about unemployment from your computer major classmates, you may have had the last laugh. There are many advantages for the social science major because this high-tech “Information Age” demands people who are flexible and who have good communication skills.

There are many social science majors in large companies who fill important positions. For example, a number of research studies found that social science majors had achieved greater managerial success than those who had technical training or pre-professional courses. Studies show that social science majors are most suited for change, which is the leading feature of the kind of high speed, high-pressure, high-tech world we now live in.

Social science majors are not only experiencing success in their long-term company jobs, but they are also finding jobs more easily. A study showed that many companies had filled a large percentage of their entry-level positions with social science graduates. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as “very important” by 92 percent of the companies. Social science majors have these skills, often without knowing how important they are. It is probably due to these skills that they have been offered a wide variety of positions.

Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to land the first job, recent graduates report that they don’t regret their choice of study.

1. Compared with graduates of other subjects, social science graduates _____.

A．are ready to change when situations change

B．are better able to deal with difficulties

C．are equally good at computer skills

D．are likely to give others pressure

2. According to the text, what has made it easy for social science graduates to find jobs?

A．Willingness to take low-paid jobs.	B．Readiness to gain high-tech knowledge.
C．Skills in expressing themselves.	D．Part-time work experience.

3. The underlined word “land” in the last paragraph probably means _______.

A．keep for some time	B．successfully get
C．immediately start	D．lose regretfully

8 . Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-education well off and the unskilled poor. Rapid technological advance has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. The consequences, for individual and society, are profound.

The world is facing as astonishing rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600 million to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater longevity translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will create government budget problems.

But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers (二战后生育高峰期出生的美国人) are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.

Policy is partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Rising life expectancy, combined with the replacement of generous defined-benefit pension plans with less generous defined-contribution ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to get rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than the previous generation. Technological change may well strengthen that shift: the skills that make up for computers, from management knowhow to creativity, do not necessarily decline with age.

1. What has helped deepen the divide between the well-off and the poor?

A．Longer life expectancies.

B．A rapid technological advance.

C．Profound changes in the workforce.

D．A growing number of the well-educated.

2. What do many observers predict in view of the experience of the 20th century?

A．Economic growth will slow down.

B．Government budgets will increase

C．More people will try to pursue higher education.

D．There will be more competition in the job market.

3. What is the result of policy changes in European countries?

A．Unskilled workers m ay choose to retire early.

B．More people have to receive in-service training.

C．Even wealthy people must work longer to live comfortably in retirement.

D．People may be able to enjoy generous defined-benefits from pension plans.

4. What is characteristic of work in the 21^st century?

A．Computers will do more complicated work.

B．More will be taken by the educated young.

C．Most jobs to be done will be creative ones

D．Skills are highly valued regardless of age

9 . 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 . When Liam McGee departed as president of Bank of America in August, his explanation was surprisingly straight up. Rather than cloaking his exit in the usual vague excuse, he came right out and said he was leaving “to pursue my goal of running a company.” Broadcasting his ambition was “very much my decision,” McGee says. Within two weeks, he was talking for the first time with the board of Hartford Financial Services Group, which named him CEO and chairman on September 29.

McGee says leaving without a position lined up gave him time to reflect on what kinds of company he wanted to run. It also sent a clear message to the outside world about his aspirations. And McGee isn’t alone. In recent weeks the No. 2 executives at Avon and American Express quit with the explanation that they were looking for a CEO post. As boards scrutinize succession plans in response to shareholder pressure, executives who don’t get the nod also may wish to move on. A turbulent business environment also has senior managers cautious of letting vague pronouncements cloud their reputations.

As the first signs of recovery begin to take hold, deputy chiefs may be more willing to make the jump without a net. In the third quarter, CEO turnover was down 23% from a year ago as nervous boards stuck with the leaders they had, according to Liberum Research. As the economy picks up, opportunities will abound for aspiring leaders.

The decision to quit a senior position to look for a better one is unconventional. For years executives and headhunters have adhered to the rule that the most attractive CEO candidates are the ones who must be poached. Says Korn Ferry, senior partner Dennis Carey: “I can’t think of a single search I’ve done where a board has not instructed me to look at sitting CEOs first.”

Those who jumped without a job haven’t always landed in top positions quickly. Ellen Marram quit as chief of Tropicana when the business became part of PepsiCo (PEP) a decade ago, saying she wanted to be a CEO. It was a year before she became head of a tiny internet-based commodities exchange. Robert Willemstad left Citigroup in 2005 with ambitions to be a CEO. He finally took that post at a major financial institution three years later.

Many recruiters say the old disgrace is fading for top performers. The financial crisis has made it more acceptable to be between jobs or to leave a bad one. “The traditional rule was it’s safer to stay where you are, but that’s been fundamentally inverted,” says one headhunter. “The people who’ve been hurt the worst are those who’ve stayed too long.”

1. When McGee announced his departure, his manner can best be described as being _______.

A．arrogant.

B．frank.

C．self-centered.

D．impulsive.

2. According to Paragraph 2, senior executives’ quitting may be encouraged by _______.

A．their expectation of better financial status	B．their need to reflect on their private life
C．their strained relations with the boards	D．their pursuit of new career goals

3. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that _______.

A．top performers used to cling to their posts

B．loyalty of top performers is getting out-dated

C．top performers care more about reputations

D．it’s safer to stick to the traditional rules

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．CEOs; Where to Go?	B．CEOs: All the Way Up?
C．Top Managers Jump without a Net	D．The Only Way Out for Top Performers