1 . I started participating in student journalism when I was in high school. And when I started, I really just saw my articles as more fun versions of the academic essays I was writing every day in class. It wasn’t really until an article I wrote in March 2020, that I really understood the power of expressing my voice through journalism, and the unique appeal and responsibility of being both a student and a journalist.
Most of the things reported on in student publications directly or indirectly affect the journalists writing about them. This differs from mainstream publications (刊物), who often have the privilege (特权) to objectively cover things that they have no connection with. Student journalists, on the other hand, often find themselves trying to put on a different “hat” when it comes to reporting, but in my eyes part of the magic of being a student journalist is that despite putting on a different “hat”, it’s still the same you.
We know what is important to report on because we are constantly surrounded by the student voice. An Irish Times or Independent reporter would never know about the burden of high rents, or why so many campus spaces are not accessible, or feel the fears of examination changes in light of artificial intelligence. Students know what students care about, and what issues aren’t getting the attention they deserve.
I’ve always been drawn to comment articles, particularly because it’s a place I feel my voice holds a special significance, and one where my words and my articles come together to represent me. Opinion pieces are unique, in that they are the only article format that doesn’t have to be entirely objective. I, and many other comment writers I chat to, find this freeing. It’s a relaxing experience to work out an important issue from your own viewpoint and even with your own frustration (挫败、失意) or praise, and it feels especially personal.
We need to protect student journalists, but we also need to expand the field we can cover in student journalism. The student voice is powerful because it is diverse, and it’s critical to reflect their voice. The press also has an important role in defending itself. Freedom of information is one of the most sacred (神圣的) things we have, and one that we as students need to protect.
1. How are student journalists different from the mainstream publications?| A．They can hardly identify issues relevant to peers. |
| B．They have an objective viewpoint on the issues. |
| C．They report on issues directly affecting them. |
| D．They prioritize objectivity over other things |
| A．student voice may always lead us to making unfair judgments |
| B．student reporters can keep their individuality when playing various roles |
| C．student articles offer an entertaining twist on traditional academic essays |
| D．student journalists should focus on the topics within their professional fields |
| A．inform readers of the high rents |
| B．attach importance to student voice |
| C．praise mainstream media for their efforts |
| D．bring up the topic of artificial intelligence |
| A．Freedom of speech and the press |
| B．The importance of student journalism |
| C．The responsibility of mainstream media |
| D．Embracing the diversity of student voice |
The Waterslide Tester
When the pool where he worked as a lifeguard was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Guillaume Pop took jobs at various other pools that were virtually deserted. In one video on the social platform, he pretended to be a “professional waterslide tester”. Unexpectedly, Pop became a social media sensation. He was then hired to “test” slides and other facilities at water parks and swimming pools all over France. “It’s the best job in the world,” declares Pop, whose videos have received 80 million views. “I’m not behind a desk. I’m active and outside in the sun. In fact, all the children tell me they want to be a waterslide tester!”
The Reindeer HerderFinnish Lapland is home to around 200,000 wild reindeer. Anne Ollila, one of the 4,000 owners of these animals, works in this harsh but beautiful region with her big family. She gave up her job as a sociology researcher in 2010 to devote herself to reindeer herding full time. In summer, Ollila sleeps during the day and walks up to 12 miles a night through marsh and forest, enduring all kinds of insects. In deepest winter there is little daylight. Grasslands are frozen and the reindeer move into the forest for protection. “Life here isn’t easy but it’s how nature works,” says Ollila, “I love the environment, the animals and the freedom. Also, I have a sense of belonging to something bigger than me, to the chain of life through the generations.”
The Zombie TrainerStevie Douglas, a 52-year-old Scot, has taught people how to behave like all varieties of the undead. A big fan of horror movies, Douglas noticed the zombies he saw in films were often unconvincing. “Their movement was poor and I thought I could do better.” So, in 2012, he formed ScareScotland to provide zombies for films and events such as horror conventions. A year later they started a zombie training program, which took off when they received a request for 300 zombies for a three-week-long interactive production. “What we do is very specific.” says Douglas. Many people enjoy being frightened, and he’s happy to oblige them.
1. What do the three people introduced in the passage above have in common?| A．Their jobs are dangerous, unstable and low-paid. |
| B．Their jobs are well received throughout the world. |
| C．They have great passion and pride in what they do. |
| D．They need professional qualifications to do their job. |
| A．It has a sense of freedom. | B．It is full of vigor and energy. |
| C．It is what he has been doing for decades. | D．It satisfies people’s wishes to be frightened. |
| A．Employees who are considering switching jobs. |
| B．Students who are applying for ideal universities. |
| C．Children who are interested in unusual activities. |
| D．Graduates who are deciding on their essay topics. |
3 . 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. |
4 . 
Take Off with Historic Hiring Growth
A message from Kate Gebo
Welcome aboard!
We are so happy to have you fly with us. I’m sure you’ve thought about United as a way to travel, and with over 95,000 employees and growing, our company is also the center for rewarding careers.
I could not be prouder to lead Human Resources at United during this exciting time for our company, while we’re building the biggest and best airline in the history of aviation. Earlier this year, we announced that we are on track to hire at least 15,000 new employees by the end of this year.
When people think of career opportunities at United, they often think of being a pilot or flight attendant. In reality, our organization has a wide variety of roles in addition to our fantastic pilots and flight attendants, with jobs and functions to keep our airports running and our planes flying.
Whether it’s for operational roles, such as ramp service employees, customer service representatives, and aircraft technicians, or for corporate roles in human resources, digital technology, and social media, we’re hiring across every function of the airline, seeking strong talent that will take us to new heights.
A role at United is not just a job; it’s a career. Many of our employees have taken on new roles in different departments throughout their tenure (聘用期), which we support to develop and invest in our workforce. In the past seven years, more than 1,500 frontline employees were promoted to management roles, and 78 % of our senior leaders were promoted internally.
Beyond the traditional career paths, we’re proud to create new paths to help our talent pipelines fulfill some of the industry’s most critical job functions. Aviate, our pilot career development program, offers aspiring and established pilots a path to the United flight deck. Calibrate is our full-time, paid apprenticeship program for those wanting to go into aircraft maintenance and other technical operational roles. Our newly launched Innovate program helps provide the skills and experiences needed to succeed in a technology career at United.
We’re hiring from coast to coast, at our seven major hubs and across a broad range of positions. If you’re ready to join me and 95,000 of the industry’s best and brightest at United, I encourage you to visit careers.united.com today to see what opportunities await you. Your career is cleared for takeoff.
United with you,
Kate Gebo
Executive Vice President,
Human Resources and Labor Relations
1. What is the main purpose of this passage?| A．Guarantee to provide first-class customer service. |
| B．Promote frontline employees to management roles. |
| C．Introduce jobs available in some departments of United. |
| D．Advertise for United to enroll pilots and flight attendants. |
| A．Visit careers.united.com, and you can see positions available. |
| B．Employees at United can change their jobs with interest. |
| C．Employees have to keep their positions throughout their tenure. |
| D．The United is making efforts to be the biggest and best airline. |
| A．The full-time, paid apprenticeship program. | B．The traditional United career path. |
| C．The newly launched Innovate program. | D．The new paths for talent pipelines. |
5 . Today’s workplace is unique in history. Never before have we seen people working together who represent such different backgrounds and experiences. This difference of age, race, gender, and work style makes it very difficult to organize and run a company.
This has been an important realization. The management difficulties and challenges have led some experts to study intergenerational differences for an understanding of problems in the workplace. What they have discovered is interesting and may provide ways of improving working conditions in companies that employ individuals from different generations.
The first thing to realize, they say, is that differences of opinion about the importance of work and how to get work done are not a coincidence.
Resentment between members of different generations, if not attended to, can lead to extreme anger and unhappiness and even lasting enmity if people are not careful.
If you were raised in a time of plenty, when products were readily available and relatively inexpensive, you would believe that prosperity is natural and expectable. If, on the other hand, you were raised in a time of scarcity, you would always be careful not to waste things for fear you would not have enough. You would make angry people who seem to believe that problems will always solve themselves.
| A．That is, it is not an accident that young employees will be different from older employees. |
| B．The weaknesses of human nature cause the disharmony among employees. |
| C．As a result, companies are looking for individuals who can manage a wide range of employees effectively. |
| D．Such optimism in the face of difficulties would be a source of unhappiness between you and them. |
| E．Therefore, employers should pay attention to the different ways of expressing anger in the company. |
| F．That individuals from different generations should come to view each other as if they were from different sides of warring countries should not be surprising. |
| To: ackard@mkk.com From: sandyp@mkk.com Subject: Confidential: Managerial Advice Date: Feb. 16, 2022 |
| Hi Dan, I’m writing to ask if you could give me advice. Please note that this must all be kept secret. I am emailing you because I know that you are a trusted friend, and you have had experience in this area. I’ve been obliged to reduce my department’s budget within the month, too. I’m not looking forward to this and am not sure where to begin since I hope that I won’t have to create any layoffs. Long story short, I would really appreciate meeting with you at some point to see if you can offer up any advice or suggestions. Thanks in advance. Regards, Sandy |
| To: sandyp@mkk.com From: ackard@mkk.com Subject: Re: Confidential: Managerial Advice Date: Feb. 17, 2022 |
| Hi Sandy, I’m glad that you thought of me as someone to go to. I definitely don’t mind being your sounding board, and I can meet with you anytime starting next Monday. I realize that you may want to start thinking of some ideas sooner than later. My biggest piece of advice to you is to make sure you feel your way among your staff to get an impression of how people are currently coping with our company’s economic situation. Talk to them and find out what’s important to them. Of course, do it casually so that no one’s guard is up. Email or call me to let me know when you want to meet. Dan |
| A．Firing bad employees |
| B．Cutting costs and expenses |
| C．Figuring out the new computer program |
| D．Combining the two divisions of the company |
| A．Start questioning all workers under her. |
| B．Act carefully and find out employees’ thoughts. |
| C．Give out a questionnaire (问卷) for everyone to fill out. |
| D．Require extra overtime from staff members. |
| A．listener | B．examiner | C．designer | D．informer |
Small businesses hold the key to employed happiness. As the calendar flips to another year, many employees will consider starting the new year on the hunt for a new job.
In today’s changing workforce, it is more important than ever for companies to realize that a salary alone is no longer enough to attract or retain strong employees.
According to a survey by Aflac, small business deserve a round of applause for their ability to keep employees happy. The report found that 85 percent of small-business employees are happy in their current job, and more than half（51 percent）agree that most of or all of their happiness in their current job is a result of working for a small business.
Nearly a quarter of participants（23 percent）stated that the feeling of importance was the best part of working for a small business. Small businesses have the unique ability to make employees feel appreciated, respected and valued on a personal and professional level.
In a small-business environment, there are typically fewer layers between newcomers and leadership. This tight-knit structure can create a family-like atmosphere that allows employees to feel that their opinions matter and that they play a significant role in the business’s mission.
Flexibility is also vital in creating employee happiness. According to the report, 30 percent of respondents noted that flexible scheduling was the best part of working for a small business. A workplace that promotes healthy work-life balance can create happier, less stressed employees and can also increase productivity.
Although small business excel at keeping employees happy, there is always room for improvement. In a small-business community, money does not seem to be the only motivator. In fact, 65 percent of small-business employees indicate that an improvement in their benefits offerings would make them happier.
By offering a great benefits plan that includes voluntary benefits, small business can ensure that their employees are able to find the right benefits to meet their individual needs.
