Part A
Directions:
Read the following two texts. Answer the questions on each textby choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
Text 1
Isabel has turned down two job offers in the past year. In 2006,she started her own consulting practice, but by 2008, most of her largerclients had to drop her because of the economy. In 2011, she wasundertaking irregular assignments and knew she needed a steady job. Thefirst job she considered was Director of HR for a company in Utah. Afterthe initial interviews, she felt the job fit her except for the location.Still, she flew west to meet the hiring manager. The hiring managerexplained that Isabel was the top candidate for the job but that, beforeshe continued with the process, she should better understand the firm'sculture. She dir
ected Isabel to several videos of the company's CEO, whoregularly appeared in front of the company in costume as part of moralebuilding exercises and expected his senior leaders to do the same. "Eventhough I was desperate for a job, I knew I couldn't do that," Isabelsays. She called the recruiter to turn down the job and explained thatshe didn't feel there was a cultural fit.
A few months later, she interviewed for another job: a directorof employee relations at a local university. After several interviews,the hiring manager told her the job was hers if she wanted it. The jobhad many positives : it was a low-stress environment, it offered greatbenefits, and the university was an employee-friendly place. But the jobwas relatively junior despite the title and Isabel worried it wouldn'tbe challenging enough. Finally, she turned it down. "It would be greatto have a paycheck and great benefits but I would definitely havetrouble sleeping at night," she says.
In both cases, she was frank with the hiring managers about whyshe wasn't taking the jobs."In the past, it felt like dating, I wasworried about hurting people's feelings," she says.
However, theyappreciated her frankness and thanked her for her honesty. She says itwas hard to turn down the jobs and it was a risk for her financially butshe felt she had to.
26. In 2011, Isabel_______
A. did consulting now and then
B. found a job close to her home
C. refused several job interviews
三级 英语D. ran a successful consulting firm
27. Isabel turned down the first job offer mainly because ofits_______
A. CEO
B. culture
C. location
D. recruiter
28. Isabel was dissatisfied with the second job due toits_______
A. junior rifle
B. low benefits
C. Environment
D. lack of challenge
29. Isabel believed that her rejection of the jobs was______
A. harmful
B. surprising
C. justifiable
D. troublesome
30. According to Isabel, it is important to______
A. look for jobs with little stress
B. look for jobs with great benefits
C. be truthful in declining job offers
D. be cautious in declining job offers
Text 2
You do not usually get something for nothing. Now, a new studyreveals that the evolution of an improved learning ability could come ata particularly high price: an earlier death.
Past experiments have demonstrated that it is relativelyeasy .through selective breeding to make rats, honey bees and-that greatfavourite of researchers-fruit flies a lot better at learning. Animalsthat are better learners should be competitive and, thus, over time,come to dominate a population by natural selection. But improvedlearning ability does not get sel
ected amongst these animals in the wild.No one really understands why.
Tadeusz Kawecki and his colleagues at the University of Fribourgin Switzerland have measured the effects of improved learning on thelives of fruit flies. The flies were given two different fruits as egg-laying sites. One of these was laced with a bitter additive that couldbe detected only on contact. The flies were then given the same fruitbut without an additive. Flies that avoided the fruit which had beenbitter were deemed to have learned from their experience. Their childrenwere reared and the experiment was run again.
After repeating the experiment for 30 generations, the childrenof the learned flies were com- pared with normal flies. The researchersreport in a forthcoming edition of Evolution that although learningability could be bred into a population of fruit flies, it shortenedtheir lives by 15%. When the researchers compared their learned flies tocolonies selectively bred to live long lives, they found even greaterdifferences. Whereas learned flies had reduced their life spans, thelong-lived flies learned less well than even average flies.
The authors suggest that evolving an improved learning abilitymay require a greater invest
ment in the nervous system which takesresources away from processes that delay ageing. However, Dr. Kaweckithinks the effect could also be a by-product of greater brain activityincreasing the production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), which canincrease oxidation in the body and damage health.
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