1、1TEM-8 (2014) PART II READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)TEXT AMy class at Harvard Business School helps students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. In each session, we look at one company through the lenses of different theories, using them to explain how the company got into
2、 its situation and to examine what action will yield the needed results. On the last day of class, I asked my class to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves to find answers to two questions: First, How can I be sure Ill be happy in my career? Second, How can I be sure my relationships with my
3、spouse and my family will become an enduring source of happiness? Here are some management tools that can be used to help you lead a purposeful life. 1. Use Your Resources Wisely. Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent shape your lifes strategy. I have a bunch of “bus
4、inesses” that compete for these resources: Im trying to have a rewarding relationship with my wife, raise great kids, contribute to my community, succeed in my career, and contribute to my church. And I have exactly the same problem that a corporation does. I have a limited amount of time, energy an
5、d talent. How much do I devote to each of these pursuits? Allocation choices can make your life turn out to very different from what you intended. Sometimes thats good: opportunities that you have never planned for emerge. But if you dont invest your resources wisely, the outcome can be bad. As I th
6、ink about my former classmates who inadvertently invested in lives of hollow unhappiness, I cant help believing that their troubles related right back to a short-term perspective. When people with a high need for achievement have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, theyll unconsc
7、iously allocate it to activities that yield the most 2tangible accomplishments. Our careers provide the most concrete evidence that were moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, inv
8、esting time and energy in your relationships with your spouse and children typically doesnt offer the same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. Its really not until 20 years down the road that you can say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationsh
9、ip with your spouse and on a daily basis it doesnt seem as if thing are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to under invest in their families and overinvest in their careers, even though intimate and loving family relationships are the most powerful and end
10、uring source of happiness. If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over youll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, youll see that same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer
11、 and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most. 2. Create A Family Culture. Its one thing to see into the foggy future with a acuity and chart the course corrections a company must make. But its quite another to persuade employees to line up and work cooperatively to take
12、 the company in that new direction. When there is little agreement, you have to use “power tools” coercion, threats, punishments and so on, to secure cooperation. But if employees ways of working together succeed over and over, consensus begins to form. Ultimately, people dont even think about wheth
13、er their way yields success. They embrace priorities and follow procedures by instinct and assumption rather than by explicit decision, which means that theyve created a culture. Culture, in compelling but unspoken ways, dictates the proven, acceptable methods by 3which member s of a group address r
14、ecurrent problems. And culture defines the priority given to different types of problems. It can be a powerful management tool. I use this model to address the question, How can I be my family becomes an enduring source of happiness? My students quickly see that the simplest way parents can elicit c
15、ooperation from children is to wield power tools. But there comes a point during the teen years when power tools no longer work. At that point, parents start wishing they had begun working with their children at a very young age to build a culture in which children instinctively behave respectfully
16、toward one another, obey their parents, and choose the right thing to do. Families have cultures, just a companies do. Those cultures can be built consciously. If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and the confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities wont magically materi
17、alize in high school. You have to design them into familys culture and you have think about this very early on. Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works. 11. According to the author, the key to successful allocation of resources in your life de
18、pends on whether youA. can manage your time well B. have long-term planningC. are lucky enough to have new opportunities D. can solve both company and family problems12. What is the role of the statement “Our careers provide the most concrete evidence that were moving forward” with reference to the
19、previous statement in the paragraph?A. To offer further explanation B. To provide a definitionC. To present a contrast D. To illustrate career development413. According to the author, a common cause of failure in business and family relationships isA. lack of planning B. short-sightedness C. shortag
20、e of resources D. decision by instinct14. According to the author, when does culture begin to emergeA. When people decide what and how to do by instinctB. When people realize the importance of consensusC. When people as a group decide how to succeedD. When people use “power tools” to reach agreement
21、15. One of the similarities between company culture and family culture is thatA. problem-solving ability is essential B. cooperation is the foundationC. respect and obedience are key elements D. culture needs to be nurturedText BIt was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next morning land would be i
22、n sight. Dr. Macphail lit his pipe and, leaning over the rail, searched the heavens for the Southern Cross. After two years at the front and a wound that had taken longer to heal than it should, he was glad to settle down quietly at Apia (阿皮亚，西萨摩亚首都 ) for twelve months at least, and he felt already
23、better for the journey. Since some of the passengers were leaving the ship next day at Pago-Pago they had had a little dance that evening and in his ears hammered still the harsh notes of the mechanical piano. But the deck was quiet at last. A little way off he saw his wife in a long chair talking w
24、ith the Davidsons, and he strolled over to her. When he sat down under the light and took off his hat you saw that he had very red hair, with a bald patch on the crown, and the red, freckled skin which accompanies red 5hair; he was a man of forty, thin, with a pinched face, precise and rather pedant
25、ic; and he spoke with a Scots accent in a very low, quiet voice.Between the Macphails and the Davidsons, who were missionaries, there had arisen the intimacy of shipboard, which is due to propinquity rather than to any community of taste. Their chief tie was the disapproval they shared of the men wh
26、o spent their days and nights in the smoking-room playing poker or bridge and drinking. Mrs. Macphail was not a little flattered to think that she and her husband were the only people on board with whom the Davidsons were willing to associate, and even the doctor, shy but no fool, half unconsciously
27、 acknowledged the compliment. It was only because he was of an argumentative mind that in their cabin at night he permitted himself to carp (唠叨).Mrs. Davidson was saying she didnt know how theyd have got through the journey if it hadnt been for us, said Mrs. Macphail, as she neatly brushed out her t
28、ransformation (假发 ). She said we were really the only people on the ship they cared to know.I shouldnt have thought a missionary was such a big bug (要人、名士) that he could afford to put on frills (摆架子 ).Its not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldnt have been very nice for the Davidsons
29、 to have to mix with all that rough lot in the smoking-room.The founder of their religion wasnt so exclusive, said Dr. Macphail with a chuckle.Ive asked you over and over again not to joke about religion, answered his wife. I shouldnt like to have a nature like yours, Alec. You never look for the be
30、st in people.He gave her a sidelong glance with his pale, blue eyes, but did not reply. After many years of married life he had learned that it was more conducive to peace to leave his wife with the last word. He was undressed before she was, and climbing into the upper bunk he settled down to read
31、himself to sleep.6When he came on deck next morning they were close to land. He looked at it with greedy eyes. There was a thin strip of silver beach rising quickly to hills covered to the top with luxuriant vegetation. The coconut trees, thick and green, came nearly to the waters edge, and among th
32、em you saw the grass houses of the Samoaris (萨摩亚人); and here and there, gleaming white, a little church. Mrs. Davidson came and stood beside him. She was dressed in black, and wore round her neck a gold chain, from which dangled a small cross. She was a little woman, with brown, dull hair very elabo
33、rately arranged, and she had prominent blue eyes behind invisible pince-nez (夹鼻眼镜). Her face was long, like a sheeps, but she gave no impression of foolishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable thing about her was her voice, high, metallic, and
34、without inflection; it fell on the ear with a hard monotony, irritating to the nerves like the pitiless clamour of the pneumatic drill.This must seem like home to you, said Dr. Macphail, with his thin, difficult smile.Ours are low islands, you know, not like these. Coral. These are volcanic. Weve go
35、t another ten days journey to reach them.In these parts thats almost like being in the next street at home, said Dr. Macphail facetiously.Well, thats rather an exaggerated way of putting it, but one does look at distances differently in the J South Seas. So far youre right.Dr. Macphail sighed faintl
36、y.16. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that Dr. MacphailA. preferred quietness to noise B. enjoyed the sound of the mechanical piano C. was going back to his hometown D. wanted to befriend the Davidsons717. The Macphails and the Davidsons were in each othere company because theyA. had sim
37、ilar experience B. liked each otherC. shared dislike for some passengers D. had similar religious belief18. Which of the following statements best DESCRIBES Mrs. Macphail?A. She was good at making friends B. She was prone to quarrelling with her husbandC. She was skillful in dealing with strangers D
38、. She was easy to get along with.19. All the following adjectives can be used to depict Mrs. Davidson EXCEPTA. arrogant B. unapproachable C. unpleasant D. irritable20. Which of the following statements about Dr. Macphail is INCORRECT?A. He was sociable. B. He was intelligent.C. He was afraid of his
39、wife. D. He was fun of the Davidsons.Text CToday we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. Were told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extrovertswhich means that weve lost sight of who we really are. One-third to on
40、e-half of Americans are introvertsin the other words, one out of every two or three people you know. If youre not an introvert yourself, you are surely raising, managing, married to, or coupled with one.If these statistics surprise you, thats probably because so many people pretend to be extroverts.
41、 Closet introverts pass undetected on playgrounds, in high school locker rooms, and in the corridors of corporate America. Some fool even themselves, until some life event-a layoff, an empty nest, an inheritance that frees them to spend time as they like-jolts them into taking stock of their true na
42、tures. You have only to raise this subject with 8your friends and acquaintances to find that the most unlikely people consider themselves introverts.It makes sense that so many introverts hide even from themselves. We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal the omnipresent belief th
43、at the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. He favors quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong. She works well in teams and socializes in groups. We like to
44、 think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual the kind whos comfortable “putting himself out there.“ Sure, we allow technologically gifted loners who launch companies in garages to have any personality they please, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, a
45、nd our tolerance extends mainly to those who get fabulously wealthy or hold the promise of doing so.Introversion-along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness-is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extro
46、vert Ideal are like women in a mans world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but weve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.The Extrovert Ideal has been documented i
47、n many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than
48、slow ones. Even the word introvert is stigmatized-one informal study, by psychologist Laurie 9Helgoe, found that introverts described their own physical appearance in vivid language, but when asked to describe generic introverts they drew a bland and distasteful picture.But we make a grave mistake t
49、o embrace the Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly. Some of our greatest ideas, art, and inventions-from the theory of evolution to van Goghs sunflowers to the personal computer-came from quiet and cerebral people who knew how to tune in to their inner worlds and the treasures to be found there.21. According to the author, there exists, as far as personality styles are concerned, a discrepancy betweenA. what people say they can do and what they actually can B. what society values and w
