研究生英語閱讀教程基礎(chǔ)級2版lesson06

1、READING SELECTION AThank God It's MondayBy Jyoti Thottam1 As researchers in psychology, economics and organizational behavior have been gradually discovering, the experience of being happy at work looks very similar across professions. People , who love their jobs, feel challenged by their work

2、but in control of it. They have bosses who make them feel appreciated and co-workers they like. They can find meaning in whatever they do. And they aren't just lucky. It takes real effort to reach that sublime state.2 An even bigger obstacle, though, may be our low expectations on the job. Love,

3、 family, communitythose are supposed to be the true sources of happiness, while work simply gives us the means to enjoy them. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow, which adherents of positive psychology would use to describe the job-induced highs, says that distinction is a false one. &

4、quot;Anything can be enjoyable if the elements of flow are present," he writes in his book Good Business." Within that framework, doing a seemingly boring job can be a source of greater fulfillment than one ever thought possible."3 Csikszentmihalyi encourages us to reach a state in wh

5、ich work is an extension of what we naturally want to do. Immersed in the pleasure of work, we don't worry about its ultimate reward. If that sounds out of reach, take heart. You may soon get some encouragement from the head office. A growing body of research is demonstrating that happy workers

6、not only are happier in life but are also crucial to the health of a company.4 Thirty-five years ago, the Gallup Organization started researching why people in certain work groups, even within the same company, were so much more effective than others. Donald Clifton, the Gallup researcher who pionee

7、red that work, conducted a series of extensive interviews with highly productive teams of workers. From those interviews, Gallup developed a set of 12 statements designed to measure employees' overall level of happiness with their work, which Gallup calls "engagement". Some of the crit

8、eria reflect the obvious requirements of any worker (Do you have what you need to do your job? Do you know what's expected of you at work?), while others reveal more subtle variables (Do you have a best friend at work? Does your supervisor or someone else at work care about you as a person?). Ga

9、llup started the survey in 1998, and it now includes 5. 4 million employees at 474 organizations; Gallup also does periodic random polls of workers in different countries.5 The polls paint a picture of a rather disaffected U.S. work force. In the most recent poll, from September 2004, only 29% of wo

10、rkers said they were engaged with their work. More than half, 55%, were not engaged, and 16% were actively disengaged. Still, those numbers are better than in many other countries. The percentage of engaged workers in the U. S. is more than twice as large as Germany's and three times as great as

11、 Singapore's. But neither the late 1990s boom nor the subsequent bust had much impact in either direction, indicating that the state of worker happiness goes much deeper than the swings of the economy.6 James Harter, a psychological directing that research at Gallup, says many companies are simp

12、ly misreading what makes people happy at work. Beyond a certain minimum level, it isn't pay or benefits; it's strong relationships with co-workers and a supportive boss. "These are basic human needs in the workplace, but they're not the ones thought by managers to be very important.

13、" Harter says. Gallup has found that a strong positive response to the statement "I have a best friend at work", for example, is a powerful predictor for engagement at work and is correlated with profitability and connection with customers. "It indicates a high level of belonging

14、," Hatter says.7 Without it, a job that looks good on paper can make a worker miserable. Martina Radix, 41, traded a high-pressure job as an executive assistant at a company where she liked her colleagues for a less taxing position as a clerical worker in a law firm six years ago. She has more

15、time and flexibility but feels stifled by her co-workers and unappreciated by her boss. "I am a misfit in that department," she says. "No matter how good your personal life is, if you go in to a bad atmosphere at work, it takes away from it."8 In fact, engagement at work is less

16、a function of your personality than is happiness in general. Harter estimates that individual disposition accounts for only about 30% of the difference between employees who are highly engaged and those who are not. The rest of it is shaped by the hundreds of interactions that employees have every d

17、ay with co-workers, supervisors and customers.9 The most direct fix(remedy/ cure/ solution), then, is to seek out a supportive workplace. Finding a job that fits a life calling unlocks the door to happiness. Lissette Mendez, 33, says her job coordinating the annual book fair at Miami Dade College is

18、 the one she was born to do. "Books are an inextricable part of my life," she says.10 Even if your passion does not easily translate into a profession, you can still find happiness on the job. Numerous studies have shown correlations between meaningful work and happiness, job satisfaction

19、and even physical health. That sense of meaning, however, can take many different forms. Some people find it in the work itself; others take pride in their company's mission rather than in their specific job. People can find meaning in anything.11 The desire for meaning is so strong that sometim

20、es people simply create it, especially to make sense of difficult or unpleasant work. In a recently completed six-year study of physicians during their surgical residency, for example, it was found that the surgeons were extremely dissatisfied in the first year, when the menial work they were assign

21、ed, like filling out endless copies of patient records, seemed pointless. Once they started to think of the training as part of the larger process of joining an elite group of doctors, their attitude changed. They're able to reconstruct and make sense of their work and what they do. By the end o

22、f year one, they've started to create some meanings.12 While positive psychology has mostly focused on the individual pursuit of happiness, a new fieldpositive organizational scholarshiphas begun to examine the connection between happy employees and happy businesses. Instead of focusing on profi

23、tability and competition to explain success, researchers in this field are studying meaningfulness, authentic leadership and emotional competence. Not the typical B-school buzzwords, but they may soon become part of the language spoken by every M. B. A.13 Until recently, business people would dismis

24、s employee well-being as "outside their domain and kind of fringe-ish", says Thomas Wright, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Nevada, Reno. Early hints of the importance of worker happiness were slow to be accepted. A 1920s study on the topic at the Hawthorne Plan

25、t of the Western Electric Co. in Cicero, It looked at whether increased lighting, shorter workdays and other worker-friendly fixes would improve productivity. While the workplace changes boosted performance, the experimenters eventually discovered that the differences workers were responding to were

26、 not in the physical environment but in the social one. In other words, the attention they were getting was what made them happier and more effective. This phenomenon came to be known as the Hawthorne effect. "The researchers came to realize that it was people's happiness that made the diff

27、erence," Wright says. But later studies that looked at job-satisfaction ratings were inconsistent. Broader measures of happiness, it turns out, are better predictors of productivity.14 Making any of those changes depends on the boss, although not necessarily, the CEO. So a handful of business s

28、chools are trying to create a new kind of frontline manager, based on the idea of "authentic leadership". Instead of imposing faddish management techniques on each supervisor, authentic leadership begins with self-awareness. Introverted bosses have to know their own style and then find str

29、ategies to manage people that feel natural. In other words, by figuring out their strengths, they learn to recognize those of employees.15 The goal of all that rethinking, however, is not necessarily a world in which people love their work above everything else. Work, by definition, is somewhat unpl

30、easant relative to all the other things we could be doing. That's why we still expect to get paid for doing it. But at the very least, businesses could do better just by paying attention to what their employees want and need. Then more of us could find a measure of fulfillment in what we do. And

31、 once in a while, we might hope to transcend it all. It can happen on the basketball court, in front of a roaring crowd, or in a classroom, in front of just one grateful student. (1, 669 words)ABOUT THE AUTHORJyoti Thottam is a writer and a business reporter for Time magazine in New York. She was th

32、e president of the South Asian Journalists' Association from 2001-2002.EXERCISES I . Reading ComprehensionAnswer the following questions or complete the following statements.1. By the title "Thank God It's Monday", the author wanted to convey the idea that _.A. people love their wo

33、rk above everything elseB. people can find happiness in their workC. most people have the experience of being happy at workD. people can find meaning in whatever they do2. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, _.A. love, family and community are not supposed to be the true sources of happinessB. wor

34、k simply gives us the means to enjoy the happiness we get from love, family and communityC. even a seemingly boring job can be a source of happiness for usD. the positive psychology that is used to describe the job-induced highs is false 3. According to the research made by the Gallup Organization,

35、what makes people happy at work?A. Reasonable pay or benefits.B. Positive relationship with co-workers and boss.C. People's engagement with their work.D. Both A and B.4. According to the research made by the Gallup Organization, the number of engaged workers in Singapore was about _.A.10%B. 14.5

36、%C.16%D.29%5. Now Martina Radix _.A. has a high-pressure job but she has positive relationship with her co-workersB. has a less demanding job but she has a bad relationship at workC. has more time and flexibility so she is satisfied with her personal lifeD. is an executive assistant at a company but

37、 she feels she is a misfit in that department6. People can find meaning in their work in the following situations EXCEPT _.A. if they love their job very muchB. if their work itself is very importantC. if their company's mission is very importantD. if they are paid at a minimum level7. By the en

38、d of year one, surgical residents can find their menial work meaningful because _.A. in the past year, they have become accustomed to the workB. they can stop doing such pointless jobs as filling out endless copies of patient recordsC. they realize that the menial work is a necessary step to become

39、a doctorD. they're able to construct their fame if they deal with patients more often8. What made the workers happier and more effective, according to the study at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Co. in Cicero, in the 1920s?A. The attention paid to the workers.B. The new worker-frien

40、dly measures.C. The improvement of the physical environment.D. The improvement of the social environment.9. According to the article, which of the following statements is true?A. The better productivity of a company depends on its CEO.B. Authentic leaders should learn more management techniques.C. B

41、osses should find strength in both themselves and their employees.D. The results of the studies on job-satisfaction ratings were all similar.10. The author's purpose in writing this article is _.A. to make more people enjoy their workB. for people to find fulfillment in what they doC. to reevalu

42、ate some theories in positive psychologyD. to help business be more effective and productiveII. VocabularyA. Read the following sentences and decide winch of the four choices below each sentence is closest in meaning to the underlined word.1. I advocate a holistic recognition that biology and cultur

43、e interpenetrate in an inextricable manner.A. complicatedB. unavoidableC. customaryD. incomprehensible2. The romantic painting movement introduced a taste for the mysterious as well as a love of the picturesque and sublime nature.A. immenseB. fascinatingC. magnificentD. enchanting3. One important fe

44、ature of the period was the growth of Buddhism. Its adherents honored the Buddha in order to be reborn in his paradise.A. sponsorsB. supportersC. advocatorsD. advisors4. As censorship was extremely strict in that period, little authentic news came out of the country.A. negativeB. disastrousC. offici

45、alD. reliable5. If a block of wood is completely immersed in water, the upward force is greater than the weight of the wood.A. dippedB. pressedC. forcedD. pushed6. According to Zhuangzi, a Daoist (道家) philosopher of the late 4th century B.C., through mystical union with the Dao the individual could

46、transcend nature and even life and death.A. dissolveB. upraiseC. surpassD. depress7. As economic growth ground to a halt, the local populations grew more and more disaffected.A. indifferentB. resentfulC. unvaluedD. indignant8. Capitalism was beset by cycles of "boom and bust", periods of e

47、xpansion and prosperity followed by economic collapse and waves of unemployment.A. failureB. transitionC. lossD. depression9. At that time, life was nearly as taxing for all-black bands: black musicians were required to use kitchen entrances and service elevators, which forced them to confront the u

48、gly realities of racial discrimination.A. miserableB. hardC. unbearableD. harsh10. Modern and implicit censorship has nothing like the power of the old system and contrary opinion is never entirely stifled.A. releasedB. arrestedC. retardedD. prohibitedB. Choose the best word or expression from the l

49、ist given for each blank. Use each word or expression only once and make proper changes where necessary. in control ofwithin the framework variablesit turns outon papertake away fromonce in a whiletrade. formake sensetake heart1. The most famous private boarding schools are open to the public on pap

50、er, but in reality are attended by those who can afford the fees.2. She loved her dog so much that after years of its death she still thinks of it once in a while.3. An equation is said to be satisfied for certain values of the variables if the expression on the left side of the equation is equal to

51、 that on the right side.4. The Commission was to formulate plans for establishing an international control organ within the framework of the Security Council.5. He lost his confidence after he lost the first two trails, but his coach told him to take heart, so that he could win at last.6. His refusa

52、l to accept the prize does not takes away from his success in writing it.7. The presentation of his paper was highly praised, but it turned out that the paper was copied from the Internet.8. Maria has read it for four times, but the letter still doesn't make sense to her.9. Susan was in control

53、of the meeting, and after singing and prayer she introduced a strange friend from America.10. The early settlers traded copper for corn from natives.IV. ClozeThere are ten blanks in the following passage. Read the passage carefully and choose theright word or phrase from the list given below for eac

54、h of the blanks. Change the form if necessary. supposed to beunlessall too oftenwhichexternalthoroughlythaton the other handin returnironicallyAlthough, as we have seen, people generally long to leave their places of work and get home, ready to put their hard-earned free time to good use, 1 all too

55、often they have no idea what to do there. 2 Ironically , jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback, rules and challenges, all of 3 which encourage one to become involved in one's work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it.

56、Free time, 4 on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed. Hobbies that demand skill, habits that set goals and limits, personal interests, and especially inner discipline, help to make leisure what it is 5 supposed to be chance

57、 for "re-creation" . But on the whole, people miss the opportunity to enjoy leisure even more 6 thoroughly than they do with working time. It is in the improvident use of our leisure time, I suspect, 7 that the greatest wastes of American life occur.Mass leisure, mass culture, arid even hi

58、gh culture when only attended to passively and for 8 external reasonssuch as the wish to display one's statusare parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength 9 in return. They leave us more exhausted, more disheartened than we were before.10 Unless a p

59、erson takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing. Most jobs and many leisure activitiesespecially those involving the passive consumption of mass mediaare not designed to make us happy and strong, or to make us learn to enjoy our work. -IV. TranslationPut the following party into Chinese.1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow, which adherents of positi