试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

华北电力大学

They are young, smart and brash. They may wear flip-flops to the office or listen to iPods at their desks. This is generation Y, a force of as many as 70 million, and the first wave is taking their place in an increasingly multigenerational workplace.Get ready, because this generation whose members have not just yet hit 30 is different from any that have come before. This age group is moving into the labor force during a time of major demographic change, as companies around the USA face an aging workforce. Sixty-year-olds are working besides 20-year-olds. Freshly minted college graduates are overseeing employees old enough to be their parents. And new job entrants are changing careers faster than college students change their majors, creating frustration for employers struggling to retain and recruit talented high performers.Unlike boomers who tend to put a high priority on career, today’s youngest workers are more interested in making their jobs accommodate their family and personal lives. They want their jobs with flexibility, telecommunicating options and the ability to go part time or leave the workforce temporarily when children are in the picture. “There’s a higher value on self-fulfillment,” says Diana Diego, 24, who works on college campuses helping prepare students for the working world. “After 9/11, there is a realization that life is short. You value it more.”Generation Yers do not expect to stay in a job, or even a careen for too long. They have seen the scandals that imploded Enron and Arthur Andersen, and they are skeptical when it comes to such concepts as employee loyalty. They also believe in their own self-worth and value that they are not shy about trying to change the companies they work for.“They’re like Generation X on steroids,” Jordan Kaplan say, “They walk in with high expectations for themselves, their employer, their boss. If you thought you saw a clash when generation X comes into the workplace, that was the fake punch. The haymaker is coming now.”A recent example is a young woman who just started a job at a cereal company. She showed up the first day with a recipe for a new cereal shed invented.In the workplace, conflicts can arise over a host of issues, even seemingly innocuous subjects such as appearance, as a generation used to casual fare such as flip-flops and capri pants finds more traditional attire is required at the office.And then there is Gen Y’s total comfort with technology. While boomers may expect an in-person meeting on important topics, younger workers may prefer virtual problem solving.Employers are examining new ways to recruit and retain and trying to sell younger workers on their workplace flexibility and other qualities generally attractive to Gen Y.Aflac, an insurer based in Columbus, Ga., is highlighting such perks as time off given as awards, and recognition.Xerox is using the slogan “Express Yourself” as a way to describe its culture to recruits in the hope of appealing to Gen Y’s desire to develop solutions and change.1. What does Gen Y refer to?2. What makes today’s US employers frustrated according to the passage?3. What does the example about the young woman who showed up the first day in the company with n recipe for a new cereal she’d invented shows us?4. Which of the following is not mentioned as the characteristic of Gen Yers?5. What is the author’s purpose of employing examples of Aflac and Xerox?

In recent years, human development professionals have debated amidst considerable controversy, both in the field and in the public sphere the appropriate role of competition in the lives of youth.Competition is clearly a part of human nature. While some cultures are more competitive than others, universal elements of competition cut across many cultures. For example, competition for resources in the forms of food, jobs, living quarters, and general status in society is prevalent, to some degree, in most cultures. So, competition clearly exists. Exactly how competition motivates young people, however, is much less clear. According to some studies, competition among preteens enables them to compare their skills against the skills of their peers. Competition as a means of social comparison appears to help young people to find their niches. As soon as this is established, they can refine and specialize their skills.However, the bulk of research points to the improved social conditions associated with cooperation as opposed to competition. Competition often generates internal social conflict, while cooperation often generates group harmony and enhanced productivity.Promoting structured competition among young children may be particularly harmful. In fact, children younger than nine years of age do not handling winning and losing well, and repeatedly exposing them to highly competitive situations may negatively affect the development of their self-worth and identity.In addition, competition may lead to an over-reliance on external rewards. While scientific studies have connected intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation with competition, all you need to do is observe what motivates those around you. Financial reward is clearly associated with the level of effort dedicated to the task. When external rewards become the primary motivator for children, adults quickly offer assistance and unfortunately, the ugly side of competition once again rears its ugly head.We observe daily how competition brings out ugly behavior in us. The tennis phenom who throws a racquet curses an adult official, and refuses to acknowledge fan support demonstrate ugly behavior.Out-of-control competition is simply ugly. Parents, adults, and young people may lose their perspectives when the stakes are high. The mildest-mannered father or mother may scream like a maniac at the finals of the local soccer tournament. Or, children may be allowed to exhibit displays of disrespect toward adult officials that would never be tolerated at home or at school. The context of the competition seems to excuse or suspend normal expectations of civility.Competition is never all good, all bad, or all ugly; its value is contextually determined. Every effort must be made to evaluate competitive systems and specific competitive situations to determine their impact on the holistic development of children.1. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?2. Which of the following statements is not the adverse effect of competition?3. What is the author’s attitude toward competition?4. What can we do to determine whether competition is good or ugly?5. How do you understand “the ugly side of competition once again rears its ugly head.” in paragraph 5?

I spent some of the most exciting days of my life working on the eastern shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, searching for the fossilized remains of our early ancestors. We did not always find what we wanted, but every day there was much more to discover than the traces of our own predecessors. The environment was not too different from the wetter grasslands of Africa today, but it was full of amazing animals that are now long extinct. There were probably more than twice as many species a million years ago as there are today.That was true not just for Africa. It is estimated that more than 95% of the species that have existed over the past 600 million years are gone. So, should we be concerned about the current spasm of extinction, which has been accelerated by the inexorable expansion of agriculture and industry? I believe it is. But dealing with the extinction crisis is no simple matter, since much of the world’s biodiversity resides in its poorest nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Can such countries justify setting aside national parks and nature reserves where human encroachment and even access is forbidden?Such questions make me uneasy about promoting wildlife conservation in impoverished nations. Nevertheless, I believe that we can and should do a great deal. People in poor countries should not be asked to choose between their own short-term survival and long-term environmental needs. It their government are willing to protect the environment, the money needed should come from international sources. To me, the choice is clear, either the more affluent world helps now or the world as a whole will lose out.Of course, we must be careful not to allow the establishment of slush funds or rely on short-term, haphazard handouts that would probably do to waste. We need a permanent global endowment devoted to wildlife protection, funded primarily by the governments of the industrial nations and international aid agencies. The principal could remain invested in the donor nations as the interest flowed steadily into conservation efforts.A major challenge for the 21st century is to preserve as much of our natural estate as possible. Let us call upon the world’s richest nations to provide the money to make that possible. That would not be a contribution to charity; it would be an investment in the future of humanity and all life on Earth.1. What was the purpose of the author’s research work on the eastern shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana?2. What makes it difficult for us to deal with the extinction crisis?3. What way is suggested by the author for poor countries to protect the environment?4. Which of the following statements is not true according to the passage?5. How does the author sound toward the issue in writing this passage?

The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called “the heroic age of Antarctic exploration”. By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, and future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the mapping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5000 miles journey.The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a “dead continent” now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor.1. When did men begin to explore the Antarctic?2. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the Antarctic continent is true?3. The most healthy climate in the world is ______.4. What kind of metals and minerals can we find in the Antarctic?5. What is planned for the continent?

Directions: You are required to write a composition on the title: “Self-discipline” (自强不息) with no less than 150 English words.

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