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Questions from 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
A . Questions from 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
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Questions from 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
A . Questions from 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
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What are the four questions raised in the text History’s Nature?
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Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard
A、He is a tour guide
B、He is a famous architect
C、He is a local enterpreneur
D、He is the owner of the Hill House
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Passage Two Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard. Passage 2-12
A．Last week．
B．Three’weeks ago．
C．Two months ago．
D．Three years ago．
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Section B Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished sentences. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice.
Passage One
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
According to a report, around 30,000 pupils started secondary school last year with the math skills of a seven-year-old. MPs (国会议员) warned that many young people would need “expensive” remedial lessons in later life to get a job — posing major problems for the economy. The findings came just months after Ofsted（教育标准办公室）claimed almost half of math lessons in English schools were not good enough. It said many teachers relied on textbooks and mundane exercises to make sure pupils passed exams at the expense of a proper understanding of the subject. MPs backed the conclusions, saying too many pupils found lessons “boring”. They insisted improvements had been made under Labor but achievement had “leveled off” in recent years.
In 2008, 79 percent of pupils met the Government’s expected standard at the end of primary school, well short of the 85 percent target set for 2006. Around five percent moved to secondary school with the math skills of a seven- year-old, said the committee. In 2006, ￡2.3 billion was spent teaching the subject. It equates to around a quarter of the ￡10 billion total budget for primary teaching and support staff.
The report said the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) needed to “radically rethink its strategy for improving pupil attainment; otherwise we seriously doubt that the department will meet its 2011 target”. The target demands that 84.5 percent of pupils will make the necessary progress between 7 and 11.
Last year, the DCSF published a major review of math education in England to boost standards. It called for a math specialist in every primary school within 10 years and more emphasis on mathematical “play” in nursery schools. Mr. Leigh said, “The department’s 10-year program to train 13,000 specialist math teachers will not benefit some primary schools for another decade. That’s far too long; the department needs to look for ways to accelerate the program.” Sarah McCarthy Fry, the Schools Minister, said, “We have already accepted the main recommendation from a recent independent review of primary math that every school should have a specialist math teacher and have pledged ￡24 million over the next three years for a training program for teachers.”
Nick Gibb, the Tory shadow schools secretary, said, “The Government is not getting value for the money they have piled into education and the country is falling behind in international league tables as a result. The Government has failed to replace methods of teaching which have failed with tried and tested methods used in countries that have much higher levels of math achievement.”
第58题：What do we learn from the first paragraph？
A) 30,000 pupils started secondary school with poor math skills.
B) MPs insist more improvements should be made under Labor.
C) Young people need medical lessons to get a job.
D) Half of English schools were not good enough.
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Questions 18 to 20 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the passage. 18. The best statement of the main i
A．human brains differ considerably
B．the brain a person is born with is important in determining his intelligence
C．environment is crucial in determining a person’s intelligence
D．persons having identical brains will have roughly the same intelligence
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Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage
There are two types of people in the world.Although they have equal degree of health and wealth and other comforts of life, one becomes happy, while the other becomes unhappy.This arises from the different ways in which they consider things, persons, events and the resulting effects upon their minds.
People who are to be happy fix their attention on the convenience of things: the pleasant parts of conversation, the well prepared dishes, the goodness of the wine and the fine weather.They enjoy all the cheerful things.Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the opposite things.Therefore, they are continually dissatisfied.By their remarks, they sour the pleasure of society, offend(hurt) many people, and make themselves disagreeable everywhere.If this turn of mind was founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied.The intention of ccriticizing and being disliked is perhaps taken up by imitation.It grows into a habit, unknown to its possessors.The habit may be strong, but it may be cured when those who have it realize its bad effects on their interests and tastes.I hope this little warning may be of service to them, and help them change this habit.
Though in fact it is chiefly an act of the imagination, it has serious results in life since it brings on deep sorrow and bad luck.Those people offend many others; nobody loves them, and no one treats them with more than the most common politeness and respect.This frequently puts them in bad temper and draws them into arguments.If they aim at getting some advantages in social position or fortune, nobody wishes them success.Nor will anyone start a step or speak a word to favor their hopes.If they bring on themselves public objections, no one will defend or excuse them, and many will join to criticize their wrong doings.These should change this bad habit and be pleased with what is pleasing, without worrying needlessly about themselves and others.If they do not, it will be good for others to avoid any contact with them.Otherwise, it can be disagreeable and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one becomes mixed up in their quarrels.
21.According to the passage，those who are unhappy _______.
A.always consider things differently from others
B.are usually influenced by the result of certain things
C.can discover the unpleasant part of certain things
D.usually have the habit of finding faults with others
22. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage？
A.All the unhappy people should be pitied even more.
B.The unhappy people are critical about everything.
C.Most unhappy people want to get rid of their habit.
D.The unhappy people are not content with themselves.
23. The phrase "sour the pleasures of society" (Para. 2) most probably means "__________".
A.enjoy the displeasure of society B.feel happy with the pleasures of society
C.make the company of others less enjoyable D.become discontent with their nation
24. The unhappy people&39;s habit can cause serious consequences. Which of the following is NOT one of the consequences according to the passage？
A.When the unhappy people want to succeed, no one wishes them to.
B.The unhappy people can offend many other people without knowing.
C.It brings on deep sorrow to the unhappy people themselves as well as others.
D.Many people may join to criticize the unhappy people&39;s misconduct.
25. According to the author, if such unhappy people will not change their bad behavior, the solution to the problem is that __________.
A.people should understand and forgive them
B.people should avoid contact with them
C.people should help them get rid of the bad habit
D.people should show more respect to them
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What kind of questions can you ask according to the passage？
A．If the recruiter will put in a good word for you with the hiring manager.
B．If the recruiter can give you some instructions on the job.
C．The information of other applicants.
D．Questions about the company or industry in general.
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Passage Three Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Age has its privileges in America. And one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age—in some cases as low as 55—is automatically entitled to a dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one’s need but by the date on one’s birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses—as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them；yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent (有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor, But most of them aren’t.
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involves a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point, Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job-thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.
Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don’t need them.
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can’t take care of themselves and need special treatment； and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against-discrimination by age.
31. We learn from the first paragraph that ________.
A) offering senior citizens discounts has become routine commercial practice
B) senior citizen discounts have enabled many old people to live a decent life
C) giving senior citizens discounts has boosted the market for the elderly
D) senior citizens have to show their birth certificates to get a discount
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Questions下列各 are based on the following passage.
A newstudy shows a large gender gap on economic policy among the nations professional economists,a divide similar to the gender divide found in the general public.
"Asa group, we are pro-market," says Ann Marl May, co-author of the study anda University of Nebraska economist. "But women are more likely to acceptgovernment regulation and involvement in economic activity than our malecolleagues. "
"Itsvery puzzling," says free market economist Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. "Not a .day goes by that Idont ask myself why there are so few women economists on the free market side."
A nativeof France, de Rugy supported government intervention (干预) early in her life butchanged her mind after studying economics. "We want many of the samethings as liberals--less poverty, more health care--but have radicallydifferent ideas on how to achieve it. "
IAberaleconomist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic Policy andResearch, says male economists have been on the inside of the profession,confirming each others antiregulation views. Women, as outsiders, "aremore likely to think independently or at least see people outside of theeconomics profession as forming their peer group," he says.
Thegender balance in economics is changing. One-third of economics doctorates (博士学位) now go to women."More diversity is needed at the table when pubflc policy isdiscussed," May says.
Economistsdo agree on some things. Female economists agree with men that Europe has toomuch regulation and that Wal-mart is good for society. Male economists agreewith their, female colleagues that military spending is too high.
Thegenders are most divorced from each other on the question of equality forwomen. Male economists overwhelmingly think the wage gap between men and womenis largely the result of indi~fluals skills, experience and voluntary choices.Female economists overwhelmingly disagree by a margin of 4-to-1.
Thebiggest disagreement: 76% of women say faculty opportunities in economics favormen. Male economists point the opposite way: 80% say women are favored or theprocess is neutral.
What is the finding of the new study？
A.The gender divide is a big concern of the general public.
B.Men and women understand economics quite differently.
C.The gap between male and female economists needs to be closed.
D.Male and female economists disagree widely on economic policy,
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The next two questions refer to the following passage:
A pharmaceutical company tested a new painkiller on 1,000 lab rats that were fed large doses of the painkiller for a two-month period. By the end of the experiment, 39 of tile rats had died. The company concluded that the painkiller was sufficiently safe to test on humans.
Which of the following, if true, provides the most support for the pharmaceutical company's conclusion？
A．The amount of painkiller fed to the rats was substantially greater, in relation to body mass, than the dosage any human would take under normal circumstances.
B．Because of the different body chemistry of humans and rats, some compounds can be dangerous for rats but safe for humans, and vice versa.
C．Tests of this same painkiller on dogs showed that 3 out of 50 dogs developed lesions on their livers during the course of the experiment.
D．The researchers found that during the experiment, the rats showed a significantly lower sensitivity to pain than rats do under normal circumstances.
E．In an experiment of this length with this number of rats, it is not unusual for up to 50 rats to die during the experiment for reasons unrelated to the experiment itself.
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Passage Four：Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.The decline in moral standards—which has long concerned social analysts—has at last captured the attention of average Americans. And Jean Bethke Elshtain, for one, is glad.
The fact the ordinary citizens are now starting to think seriously about the nation’s moral climate, says this ethics (伦理学) professor at the University of Chicago, is reason to hope that new ideas will come forward to improve it.
But the challenge is not to be underestimated. Materialism and individualism in American society are the biggest obstacles. “The thought that ‘I’m in it for me’ has become deeply rooted in the national consciousness,” Ms. Elshtain says.
Some of this can be attributed to the disintegration of traditional communities, in which neighbors looked out for one another, she says. With today’s greater mobility and with so many couples working, those bonds have been weakened, replaced by a greater emphasis on self.
In a 1996 poll of Americans, loss of morality topped the list of the biggest problems facing the U.S. and Elshtain says the public is correct to sense that: Data show that Americans are struggling with problems unheard of in the 1950s, such as classroom violence and a high rate of births to unmarried mothers.
The desire for a higher moral standard is not a lament (挽歌) for some nonexistent “golden age,” Elshtain says, nor is it a wishful (一厢情愿的) longing for a time that denied opportunities to women and minorities. Most people, in fact, favor the lessening of prejudice.
Moral decline will not be reversed until people find ways to counter the materialism in society, she says. “Slowly, you recognize that the things that matter are those that cant’ be bought.”
第36题：Professor Elshtain is pleased to see that Americans ________.
A) have adapted to a new set of moral standards
B) are longing for the return of the good old days
C) have realized the importance of material things
D) are awakening to the lowering of their moral standards
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passage four：questions 26～30 are based on the following passage. It came as something of a surprise when Diana, Princess of Wales, made a trip to Angola in 1997, to support the Red Cross’s campaign for a total ban on all anti-personnel landmines. Within hours of arriving in Angola, television screens around the World were filled with images of her comforting victims injured in explosions caused by landmines. “I knew the statistics,” she said. “But putting a face to those figures brought the reality home to me; like When I met Sandra, a 13-year-old girl who had lost her leg, and people like her.”
The Princess concluded, with a simple message: “We must stop landmines”. And she used every opportunity during her visit to repeat this message.
But, back in London, her views were not shared by some members of the British government, which refused to support a ban on these weapons. Angry politicians launched an, attack on the Princess in the press. They described her as “very ill-informed” and a “loose cannon （乱放炮的人）.”
The Princess responded by brushing aside the criticisms: “This is a distraction （干扰） we do not need. All I’m trying to do is help.”
Opposition parties, the media and the Public immediately voiced their support for the Princess. To make matters worse for the government, it soon emerged that the Princess’s trip had been approved by the Foreign Office, and that she was in fact very well-informed about both the situation in Angola and the British government’s policy regarding landmines. The result was a severe embarrassment for the government.
To try and limit the damage, the Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, claimed that the Princess’s views on landmines were not very different from government policy, and that it was “working towards” a worldwide ban. The Defense Secretary, Michael Portillo, claimed the matter was “a misinterpretation or misunderstanding.”
For the Princess, the trip to this war-torn country was an excellent opportunity to use her popularity to show the world how much destruction and suffering landmines can cause. She said that the experience had also given her the Chance to get closer to people and their problems.
第26题：Princess Diana paid a visit to Angola in 1997 ________.
A．to voice her support for a total ban of landmines
B．to clarify the British government’s stand on landmines
C．to investigate the sufferings of landmine victims there
D．to establish her image as a friend of landmine victims
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Passage Four:Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away-straight up. A decade ago, adapting the infrared (红外线) scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂) spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don’t have pest (害虫) problems.
Even better, Paley’s Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running “fevers”. Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.
The bad news is that Paley’s company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. “This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States,” says George Oerther of Texas A&M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.
第26题：Plants will emit an increased amount of heat when they are ________.
A) sprayed with pesticides
B) facing an infrared scanner
C) in poor physical condition
D) exposed to excessive sun rays
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Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A．,B．,C．andD．. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Helicopter Moms vs. Free-Range KidsWould you let your fourth-grader ride public transportation without an adult？ Probably not. Still, when Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun, wrote about letting her son take the subway alone to get back to "Long story short:my son got home from a department store on the Upper East Side, she didn’t expect to get hit with a wave of criticism from readers.
“Long story short: My son got home, overjoyed with independence,” Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York Sun. “Long story longer: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn on in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and cell phone and careful watch is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating (使虚弱)—for us and for them.”
Online message boards were soon full of people both applauding and condemning Skenazy’s decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on CNN (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the buffington post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined “More From America’s Worst Mom.”
The episode has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposing camps. Are Modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated and dangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to wander about unsupervised？
From the “she’s an irresponsible mother” camp came: “Shame on you for being so careless about his safety,” in Comments on the buffongton post. And there was this from a mother of four: “How would you have felt if he didn’t come home？” But Skenazy got a lot of support, too, with women and men writing in with stories about how they were allowed to take trips all by them selves at seven or eight. She also got heaps of praise for bucking the “helicopter parent” trend: “Good for this Mom,” one commenter wrote on the buffongton post. “This is a much-needed reality check.”
Last week, encouraged by all the attention, Skenazy started her own blog—Free Range, kids—promoting the idea that modern children need some of the same independence that her generation had. In the good old days nine-year-old baby boomers rode their bikes to school, walked to the store, took buses—and even subways—all by themselves. Her blog, she says, is dedicated to sensible parenting. “At Free Range Kids, we believe in safe kids. We believe in car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security guard.”
So why are some parents so nervous about letting their children out of their sight？ Are cities and towns less safe and kids more vulnerable to crimes like child kidnap and sexual abuse than they were in previous generations？
Not exactly. New York City, for instance, is safer than it’s ever been; it’s ranked 36th in crime among all American cities. Nationwide, stringer kidnaps are extremely rare; there’s a one-in-a-million chance a child will be taken by a stranger, according to the Justice Department. And 90 percent of sexual abuse cases are committed by someone the child knows. Mortality rates from all causes, including disease and accidents, for American children are lower now than they were 25 years’ ago. According to Child Trends, a nonprofit research group, between 1980 and 2003 death rates dropped by 44 percent for children aged 5 to 14 and 32 percent for teens aged 15 to 19.
Then there’s the whole question of whether modern parents are more watchful and nervous about safety than previous generations. Yes, some are. Part of the problem is that with wall to wall Internet and cable news, every missing child case gets so much airtime that it’s not surprising even normal parental anxiety can be amplified. And many middle-class parents have gotten used to managing their children’s time and shuttling them to various enriching activities, so the idea of letting them out on their own can seem like a risk. Back in 1972, when many of today’s parents were kids, 87 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked or biked every day. But today, the Centers for Disease Control report that only 13 percent of children bike, walk or otherwise t themselves to school.
The extra supervision is both a city and a suburb phenomenon. Parents are worried about crime, and they are worried about kids getting caught in traffic in a city that’s not used to pedestrians. On the other hand, there are still plenty of kids whose parents give them a lot of independence, by choice or by necessity. The After School Alliance finds that more than 14 million kids aged 5 to 17 are responsible for taking care of themselves after school. Only 6.5 million kids participate in organized programs. “Many children who have working parents have to take the subway or bus to get to school. Many do this by themselves because they have no other way to get to the schools,” says Dr. Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University Child Study Center.
For those parents who wonder how and when they should start allowing their kids more freedom, there’s no clear-cut answer. Child experts discourage a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. What’s right for Skenazy’s nine-year-old could be inappropriate for another one. It all depends on developmental issue, maturity, and the psychological and emotional makeup of that child. Several factors must be taken into account, says Gallagher. “The ability to follow parent guidelines, the child’s level of comfort in handling such situations, and a child’s general judgment should be weighed.”
Gallagher agrees with Skenazy that many nine-year-olds are ready for independence like taking public transportation alone. “At certain times of the day, on certain routes, the subways are generally safe for these children, especially if they have grown up in the city and have been taught how to be safe, how to obtain help if they are concerned for their safety, and how to avoid unsafe situations by being watchful and on their toes.”
But even with more traffic and fewer sidewalks, modern parents do have one advantage their parents didn’t: the cell phone. Being able to check in with a child anytime goes a long way toward relieving parental anxiety and may help parents loosen their control a little sooner. Skenazy got a lot of criticism because she didn’t give her kid her cell phone because she thought he’d lose it and wanted him to learn to go it alone without depending on mom—a major principle of free-range parenting. But most parents are more than happy to use cell phones to keep track of their kids.
And for those who like the idea of free-range kids but still struggle with their inner helicopter parent, there may be a middle way. A new generation of GPS cell phones with tracking software make it easier than ever to follow a child’s every movement via the Internet—without seeming to interfere or hover. Of course, when they go to college, they might start objecting to being monitored as they’re on parole (假释).
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
1. When Lenore Skenazy’s son was allowed to take the subway alone, he ________.
A．was afraid that he might get lost
B．enjoyed having the independence
C．was only too pleased to take the risk
D．thought he was an exceptional child
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Normal 0 7.8 磅 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Bosses Say “Yes” to Home Work
Rising costs of office space, time lost to stressful commuting, and a slow recognition that workers have lives beyond the office—all are strong arguments for letting staff work from home.
For the small business, there are additional benefits too—staff are more productive, and happier, enabling firms to keep their headcounts (员工数) and their recruitment costs to a minimum. It can also provide competitive advantage, especially when small businesses want to attract new staff but don’t have the budget to offer huge salaries.
While company managers have known about the benefits for a long time, many have done little about it, sceptical of whether they could trust their employees to work to full capacity without supervision, or concerned about the additional expenses teleworking policies might incur as staff start charging their home phone bills to the business.
Yet this is now changing. When communications provider Inter-Tel researched the use of remote working solutions among small-and-medium-sized UK businesses in April this year, it found that 28% more companies claimed to have introduced flexible working practices than a year ago.
The UK network of Business Links confirms that it too has seen a growing interest in remote working solutions from small businesses seeking its advice, and claims that as many as 60-70% of the businesses that come through its doors now offer some form. of remote working support to their workforces.
Technology advances, including the widespread availability of broadband, are making the introduction of remote working a piece of cake.
“If systems are set up properly, staff can have access to all the resources they have in the office wherever they have an internet connection,” says Andy Poulton, e-business advisor at Business Link for Berkshire and Wiltshire. “There are some very exciting developments which have enabled this.”
One is the availability of broadband everywhere, which now covers almost all of the country (BT claims that, by July, 99.8% of its exchanges will be broadband enabled, with alternative plans in place for even the most remote exchanges). “This is the enabler,” Poulton says.
Yet while broadband has come down in price too, those service providers targeting the business market warn against consumer services masquerading (伪装) as business-friendly broadband.
“Broadband is available for as little as ￡15 a month, but many businesses fail to appreciate the hidden costs of such a service,” says Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx Internet, an internet service provider based in the north-east of England. “Providers offering broadband for rock-bottom prices are notorious for poor service, with regular breakdowns and heavily congested (拥堵的) networks. It is always advisable for businesses to look beyond the price tag and look for a business-only provider that can offer more reliability, with good support.” Such services don’t cost too much—quality services can be found for upwards of ￡30 a month.
The benefits of broadband to the occasional home worker are that they can access email in real time, and take full advantage of services such as internet-based backup or even internet-based phone services.
Internet-based telecoms, or VoIP (Voice over IP) to give it its technical title, is an interesting tool to any business supporting remote working. Not necessarily because of the promise of free or reduced price phone calls (which experts point out is misleading for the average business), but because of the sophisticated voice services that can be exploited by the remote worker—facilities such as voicemail and call forwarding, which provide a continuity of the company image for customers and business partners.
By law, companies must “consider seriously” requests to work flexibly made by a parent with a child under the age of six, or a disabled child under 18. It was the need to accommodate employees with young children that motivated accountancy firm Wright Vigar to begin promoting teleworking recently. The company, which needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure (基础设施) to provide connectivity with a new, second office, decided to introduce support for remote working at the same time.
Marketing director Jack O’Hern explains that the company has a relatively young workforce, many of whom are parents: “One of the triggers was when one of our tax managers returned from maternity leave. She was intending to work part time, but could only manage one day a week in the office due to childcare. By offering her the ability to work from home, we have doubled her capacity—now she works a day a week from home, and a day in the office. This is great for her, and for us as we retain someone highly qualified.”
For Wright Vigar, which has now equipped all of its fee-earners to be able to work at maximum productivity when away from the offices (whether that’s from home, or while on the road), this strategy is not just about saving on commute time or cutting them loose from the office, but enabling them to work more flexible hours that fit around their home life.
O’Hern says: “Although most of our work is client-based and must fit around this, we can’t see any reason why a parent can’t be on hand to deal with something important at home, if they have the ability to complete a project later in the day.”
Supporting this new way of working came with a price, though. Although the firm was updating its systems anyway, the company spent 10-15% more per user to equip them with a laptop rather than a PC, and about the same to upgrade to a server that would enable remote staff to connect to the company networks and access all their usual resources.
Although Wright Vigar hasn’t yet quantified the business benefits, it claims that, in addition to being able to retain key staff with young families, it is able to save fee-earners a substantial amount of “dead” time in their working days.
That staff can do this without needing a fixed telephone line provides even more efficiency savings. “With Wi-Fi (fast, wireless internet connections) popping up all over the place, even on trains, our fee-earners can be productive as they travel, and between meetings, instead of having to kill time at the shops,” he adds.
The company will also be able to avoid the expense of having to relocate staff to temporary offices for several weeks when it begins disruptive office renovations soon.
Financial recruitment specialist Lynne Hargreaves knows exactly how much her firm has saved by adopting a teleworking strategy, which has involved handing her company’s data management over to a remote hosting company, Datanet, so it can be accessible by all the company’s consultants over broadband internet connections.
It has enabled the company to dispense with its business premises altogether, following the realisation that it just didn’t need them any more. “The main motivation behind adopting home working was to increase my own productivity, as a single mum to an 11-year-old,” says Hargreaves. “But I soon realised that, as most of our business is done on the phone, email and at off-site meetings, we didn’t need our offices at all. We’re now saving ￡16,000 a year on rent, plus the cost of utilities, not to mention what would have been spent on commuting.”
1. What is the main topic of this passage？
A) How business managers view hi-tech.
B) Relations between employers and employees.
C) How to cut down the costs of small businesses.
D) Benefits of the practice of teleworking.
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Questions 14-16 are based on the following passage about the drought. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions14-16.
14. According to 'the passage, which results in less rain and lower overall humidity？
[A] cools
[B] air rises
[C] deserts
[D] warm
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（Para. 7, Passage Four）
That’s because it’s impossible to pre-program a robot for everything it will encounter in the ever-changing real world
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（Para. 5, Passage Four）
Although reefs face other threats from pollution, industrial activities, and overfishing, it is global climate change that most concerns scientists
