A different sort of generation gap is developing in the workplace. Someone --- specifically the father-daughter team of Larry and Meagan Johnson --- has figured out that on some American job sites, five generations are working side by side.
In their new book about generations in the workplace the pair argue that while such an age difference adds a lot of texture and a variety of life experiences, it can also bring tensions and conflicts.
The Johnsons are human-resource trainers and public speakers. Dad Larry is a former health-care executive; daughter Meagan is a onetime high-level sales manager.
Here are the oldest and youngest of the five generations they identify:
They call the oldest group Traditionals, born before 1945. They were heavily influenced by the lessons of the Great Depression and World War Two. They respect authority, set a high standard of workmanship, and communicate easily and confidently. But they’re also stubbornly independent. They want their opinions heard.
At the other extreme are what the Johnsons call Linksters, born after 1995 into today’s more complicated, multi-media world. They live and breathe technology and are often social activists.
You won’t find many 15-year olds in the offices of large companies, except as volunteers, of course, but quite old and quite young workers do come together in sales environments like bike shops and ice-cream stores.
The Johnsons, Larry and Meagan, represent a generation gap themselves in their work with jobsite issues. The Johnsons’ point is that as the average lifespan continues to rise and retirement dates get delayed because of the tight economy, people of different generations are working side by side, more often bringing with them very different ideas about company loyalty and work values.
The five generations are heavily influenced by quite different events, social trends, and the cultural phenomena of their times. Their experiences shape their behavior and make it difficult, sometimes, for managers to achieve a strong and efficient workplace.
Larry and Meagan Johnson discuss all this in greater detail in a new book, “Generations, Inc.: From Boomers to Linksters --- Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work,” published by Amacom Press, which is available in all good bookstore from this Friday.The type of generation gap in paragraph 1 refers to the difference in beliefs ________.
| A．between managers and workers |
| B．among family members |
| C．among employees |
| D．between older and newer companies |
Which of the following statements is NOT true about Traditionals?
| A．They’ve learned much from war and economic disaster. |
| B．They’re difficult to work with as they are stubborn. |
| C．They respect their boss and hope to be respected. |
| D．They’re independent workers with great confidence. |
According to the passage, the Linksters are usually ________.
| A．found working in the offices of large companies |
| B．influenced by media and technology |
| C．enthusiastic multi-media activists |
| D．ice-cream sellers |
According to the passage, modern workforces are more diverse because ________.
| A．people want to increase their average lifespan |
| B．many young people are entering the workforce |
| C．employees with different values can benefit their companies |
| D．retirement dates are being delayed for economic reasons |
What’s the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To promote a new book by Larry and Meagan Johnson. |
| B．To describe the five different workplace generations. |
| C．To introduce the Johnsons’ research about diverse workforces. |
| D．To identify a major problem in modern workforces. |
Two men, Alan and Henry, both seriously ill, shared a hospital room. Alan was allowed to sit up in his bed and his bed was next to the room’s only window. Henry had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours, of their wives, families, their homes and their jobs. And every afternoon when Alan, in the bed next to the window, could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm among flowers. Trees and skyline could be seen in the distance. As he described all this, Henry, on the other side of the room, would close his eyes and imagine the scene.
One warm afternoon Alan described a parade (游行) passing by. Although Henry could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind. Unexpectedly, an alien though: entered his head: why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never got to see anything? It doesn’t seem fair. Henry felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sight, his envy grew and soon let him down. He began to find himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window ---- and that thought now controlled his life.
Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling. Alan began to cough. He was choking. Henry watched in the dim room as the struggling man tried hard to reach for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence ---- deathly silence.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, Henry asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he struggled to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He looked out, but faced a black wall.Judging from the passenger, the meaning of the underlined word “alien” in Paragraph 3 is ______.
| A．disappointing | B．sudden | C．new | D．strange |
What finally happened to Alan?
| A．He was moved to another room. | B．He died. |
| C．He switched his bed with Henry. | D．He was very sick. |
Henry, who had his bed switched, had expected _____.
| A．to see the blank wall |
| B．to feel the joy of seeing the outside world |
| C．to feel the joy of breathing fresh air |
| D．to see more than Alan |
Which of following words could be used to describe Alan?
| A．Kind-hearted and imaginative | B．Well-informed and humorous |
| C．Talkative and funny | D．Cold-hearted and indifferent |
It has been argued that an infant under three who is cared for outside the home may suffer because of the separation from his parents．The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby believes that separation from the parents during the sensitive "attachment" period from birth to three may scar （留下疤痕） a child's personality and incline to emotional problems in later life．Some people have drawn the conclusion from Bowlby's work that children should not be sent to day care before the age of three, and many people do believe this．But there are also arguments against such a strong conclusion．
Firstly, anthropologists （人类学家） point out that the hidden love between children and parents found in modem societies does not usually exist in traditional societies．For example, we saw earlier that among the Ngonis the father and mother of a child did not raise their infant alone．But traditional societies are so different from modern societies that comparisons based on just one factor are hard to understand．
Secondly, common sense tells us that day care would not be so widespread today if parents and caretakers found that children had problems with it．But Bowlby's analysis raises the possibility that early day care has delayed effects．The possibility that such care might lead to more mental illness or crime 15 or 20 years later can only be noticed by the use of statistics．Statistical studies of this kind have not yet been carried out, and even if they were, the results would be certain to be complicated and controversial．
Thirdly, in the last decade, there have been a number of careful American studies of children in day care, and they have reported that day care had a neutral of slightly positive effect on children's development．But tests that have had to be used to measure this development are not widely enough accepted to settle the issue．This passage is mainly talking about________．
| A．children's personality |
| B．advantages of infants' early care |
| C．infants' education |
| D．negative effect of infant school |
The phrase "day care in the first paragraph probably means_____.
| A．nursing school | B．baby-sitter |
| C．boarding school | D．primary school |
According to Bowlby, children under the age of three______．
| A．should not be sent to school |
| B．should be cared for outside the home |
| C．will not suffer fro m parental separation |
| D．don't mind who will look after them |
The argument against Bowlby's conclusion shows that___．
| A．children have problems with day care |
| B．there is no negative effect on infants who go to school before three |
| C．there is a long-term effect on infants who go to school before three |
| D．children who are sent to school before three are sent to mental illness |
Botany （植物学） , the study of plants, occupies a particular position in the history of human knowledge．For many thousands of years it was the one field of awareness about which humans had anything more than the vaguest （模糊的）） of insights．It is impossible to know today just what our Stone Age ancestors knew about plants, but from what we can observe of pre-industrial societies that still exist, a detailed learning of plants and their properties must be extremely ancient．This is logical．Plants are the basis of the food pyramid for all living things even for other plants．They have always been enormously important to the welfare of people not only for food but also for clothing, tools, medicines, shelter, and a great many other purposes．Tribes living today in the jungle of the Amazon recognize hundreds of plants and know many properties of each．To them, botany has no name and is probably not even recognized as a special branch of "knowledge" at all．
Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become, the farther away we move from direct contact with plants, and the less distinct our knowledge grows．Yet everyone comes unconsciously on an amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to recognize a rose or an apple．When nor Neolithic ancestors, living in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, discovered that certain grasses could be harvested and their seeds planted for richer fields the next season—the first, great step in a new association of plants and humans was taken．Grains were discovered and from them flowed the wonder of agriculture: cultivated crops．From then on, humans would increasingly take their living from the controlled production of a few plants, rather than getting a little here and a little there from many varieties that grew wild, and the accumulated knowledge of tens of thousands of years of experience with plants in the wild would begin to fade away．What does the writer mean when he says "This is logical" in the first paragraph?
| A．Human knowledge of plants is well organized and very detailed． |
| B．It is not surprising that early humans had a detailed knowledge of plants． |
| C．There is no clear way to determine the extent of our ancestor's knowledge of plant． |
| D．It is reasonable to assume our ancestors behave much like people in pre-industrial societies． |
According to the passage, general knowledge of botany begun to fade away because ____．
| A．people no longer value plants as a useful resource |
| B．direct contact with a variety of plants has decreased |
| C．botany is not recognized as a special branch of science |
| D．research is unable to keep up with the increasing number of plants |
We learn that the first great step toward the practice of agriculture is____．
| A．the changing diets of early humans |
| B．the development of a system of names for plants |
| C．the invention of agricultural implements （工具） and machinery |
| D．the discovery of certain grasses that could be harvested and replanted |
Human would depend on the controlled production of a few plants for living with
| A．the knowledge of plants |
| B．the discovery of certain grasses |
| C．the development of machinery |
| D．the appearance of agriculture |
In an age dominated （控制的） by new media and the Internet, there are so many alternative ways of learning．Gone are the days when, if we couldn't make it into a classroom, the only real option was to pick up a book, or when audio materials consisted of bad quality cassettes or sporadic（时有时无的） radio and TV programmes．With the appearance of broadband access to the web, we have a whole new learning domain （统领） at our fingertips．Sophisticated learning materials in the form of text or high-quality audio are now available at the touch of a button, and tests and assignments can be submitted （进行） and marked online．Questions and learning, studying away from the classroom has never seemed easier．Yet many teachers would argue that face-to-face contact between teachers and students is an essential part of the language learning experience．Enter the concept of blended （融合的） learning, an approach to education which seeks to combine the best of new technology and actual human contact．
Advocates of blended learning argue that an approach to study which combines the benefits of new technology with the best aspects of face-to-face （often abbreviated to F2F） teaching, will achieve better results．For example, there are some aspects of study, like practical sessions, dealing with more subjective questions, or meeting the needs of an individual student, which require face-to-face human interaction, whereas the more mechanical aspects of learning, such as answers to clear-cut questions, can be managed simply and effectively in a remote environment using new technology．
Blended learning approaches have proven especially appropriate in language learning．For example, in an ELT （English Language Teaching ） environment, a simple scenario （剧情概要） might be a classroom session where a teacher asks a group of students to use a wiki to create a text． Students then go away and compose and edit the text remotely．During the next F2F session, the teacher express his opinion about their work．What is the main idea of this passage?
| A．Blended learning is an effective learning approach． |
| B．More and more people will use Internet-based learning materials, |
| C．There are so many different ways of learning for people to choose in today's world． |
| D．Blended learning methods have proven to be effective except in language learning． |
Which of the following aspects of study doesn't require face-to-face interaction between teachers and students?
| A．Practical sessions． |
| B．Tackling the needs of an individual student． |
| C．Dealing with more subjective questions． |
| D．Providing answers to clear-cut questions． |
It can be inferred from the passage that ______．
| A．the radio and TV in the past were of poor quality |
| B．people do not get audio materials through cassettes nowadays |
| C．it was not convenient for people to leam outside a classroom in the past |
| D．it was difficult to find a classroom with good learning conditions in the old days |
Which of the following can be best describe the writer's attitude towards blended learning?
| A．Critical． | B．Objective （客观的） ． |
| C．Supportive． | D．Neutral （中立的） ． |
Where can we most probably read this text?
| A．In a newspaper． | B．In a magazine． |
| C．In traveling guide． | D．In a history textbook． |
The business hours of Cook's Cottage on Saturday in the summer are _____?
| A．11:00 am—2:00 pm | B．5:00 pm—10:30 pm |
| C．9:00 am—5:30 pm | D．9:00 am—5:00 pm． |
The Anchorage Restaurant is ____．
| A．in Williamstown | B．in the center of the city |
| C．in Anchorage | D．in Port Philip Bay |
Where can you spend the night in a tour?
| A．Cook's Cottage． | B．Sovereign Hill． |
| C．Sydney Tower． | D．Westfield Counterpoint． |