- Câu hỏi 25849:
Read the following article and decide if the statement below is TRUE (A), FALSE (B) or NOT GIVEN (C)
Early morning in California, and Elizabeth Safran, a public relations consultant, is dealing with a huge number of e-mails. Everybody in the small company works from home and relies on e-mails and instant messaging to stay in touch. Elizabeth worries about her work-life balance and thinks that ‘technology makes us more productive, but everyone is working all the time – weekends, evenings. It is too much.’
Five o’clock Friday afternoon in the , Paul Renucci, managing director of a systems integration company, switches off his computer. He now works at home and is off to pick up his children. In the past, it would take him two hours to get home from the office.
Ms Safran and Mr Renucci represent different side of a modern problem: the capacities of the latest communications technologies, such as e-mails, texts, messaging and video conferencing, make it difficult to draw the line between work and leisure and raise important questions about the nature of ‘flexible working’- where employees can work where and when they choose.
There are three issues here. First, does the rise of portable, networked devices such as the Blackberry and Palm Treo really damage an individual’s work and life? Second, what is the effect of these devices on traditional workplace relationships? And third, how do individuals manage them?
A Microsoft survey found that where flexibility had increased, so had productivity and employee morale, together with lowered stress levels and staff turnover.
However, individuals can suffer technology-related stress as work moves into their free time and from the complexity of the gadgets they must use, such as mobile phones where manufacturers try to persuade customers upgrade more frequently.
Statement: It takes Paul a long time to get to work.
- Câu hỏi 25858:
Read the following article and choose the best answer for the following question:
For one group of children aged between ten and fifteen, Saturdays are spent learning the art of serious cooking. Their weekly lessons in small classes are so popular that there is a waiting list of 30 children who want to do the course. Parents pay $ 280 for the course where their children can have fun and learn how to make good food,
Class member Bill, aged ten, says, ‘I love my mum’s cooking and now I can do it better than her. The teachers make us laugh, especially when we sit down with them to share the good we’ve made’.
Flora is twelve, and she’s having problems preparing onions. ‘I love cooking. I did a meal for ten friends which they really enjoyed. Then my mum suggested I take up a hobby, instead of doing nothing at weekends. I was happy staying at home, so I wasn’t too keen at first. I’m really glad I decided to come, though’.
Their teacher, Phillipe, says, ‘It’s great fun. Children pay attention and remember things better than adults, although the kitchen isn’t always as tidy when they’re cooking! As adults, we’re always learning more about food. If parents interest their children in cooking while they are young, they’ll have enough skill to make food for themselves when they leave home.
Question: Why did Flora join the course?
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- Câu hỏi 25863:
Read the following article and choose the best answer for the following question:
Orbis is an organization which helps blind people everywhere. It has built an eye hospital inside an aeroplane and flown it all over the world with an international medical team. Samantha Graham, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl from England, went with the plane to Mongolia, Samatha tells the story of Eukhtuul, a young Mongolian girl.
Last year, when Eukhtuul was walking home from school, she was attacked by boys with sticks and her eyes were badly damaged. Dr Duffey, an Orbis doctor, said that without an operation she would never see again, I thought about all the everyday things I do that she couldn’t , things like reading schoolbooks, watching television, seeing friends, and I realized how lucky I am’.
‘The Orbis team agreed to operate on Eukhtuul and I was allowed to watch, together with some Mongolian medical students. I prayed the operation would be successful. The next day I waited nervously with Eukhtuul while Dr Duffey removed her bandages. ‘In six months your sight will be back to normal’, he said. Eukhtuul smiled, her mother cried, and I had to wipe away some tears, too!’
‘Now Eukhtuul wants to study hard to become a doctor. Her whole future has changed, thanks to a simple operation. We should all think more about how much out sight means to us.
Question: What is the writer’s main purpose in writing this text?
