I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Are you reading this while sitting in an office cubicle ? If so, please take a moment and glance around you. Are there photos of your last vacation hung on the wall? One of your kid's drawings? A yellowed print of a favorite cartoon? If so, you are doing something good for both yourself and your organization. Newly published research suggests working in an environment that offers little privacy can lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout . But personalizing one's workplace is an effective protection against such unwanted outcomes. "Individuals may take comfort from the items with which they surround themselves at work, and these items may help employees to keep emotional energy high in the face of stresses that come from their work," writes a research team led by Gregory Laurence of the University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, in north central U.S. In the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Laurence and his colleagues describe a study featuring 87 white-collar employees at a large, urban university in the Midwestern United States. Research assistants noted whether they worked in a private office (with a door that can be closed) or a cubicle. They also counted the number of items each worker had brought from home to decorate his or her workspace - a list that included photographs, posters, artworks. Not surprisingly, Laurence and his colleagues found a connection between the amount of privacy an employee enjoys and his or her rate of burnout. "High privacy conditions tend to serve as strong protectors against unwelcome interferences and distractions ," they noted, "contributing to a work environment supporting reduced emotional exhaustion." But this link disappeared when those employees had personalized their cubicles. Employees who had turned their workspaces into areas that reflect their interests and personalities reported the same (relatively low) level of emotional exhaustion, no matter whether they worked in an office or a cubicle. The research confirms "the calming effect" of having your own stuff... Question: For employees, decorating cubicles with their own items _ . Options: A: offers them little privacy B: may help improve their work efficiency C: will sometimes cause burnout D: serve as interferences and distractions
B
(Question)
I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: The name "cowboy" conjures up many different images from movies, songs and TV. These imagined cowboys range from white-hat-wearing heroes to gun-shooting hooligans .But, cowboys are actually real people from US history. When the US Civil War ended, many soldiers had no place to call home. So, they began to drift to the country's rural West. Ranchers hired these men to take care of the cattle and work around the ranch. When the ranch owner wanted to sell the cattle, the cowboys would round up the herd from the open prairie and drive the cattle miles to the market. With the invention of barbed wire ,the cowboy era(1865-1890) began to come to an end. But people in the East had always been curious about their lifestyle. Many country/western songs during this time tried to capture the true cowboy spirit. Newspapers published cowboy tales in serial form and adventure novels followed. The bigger the fiction, the better the sales. These novels often portrayed cowboys as cruel and violent men. Cowboys carried the bad reputation for many years afterwards. When movies began to be popular in the 1920s, the cowboy image changed again. Now, a cowboy became the great white knight that loved his horse more than the beautiful ladies he rescued. As the cowboy of the "Old West" spent more time with his horse than the ladies, this era's image was not entirely false. Then, in the 50s,Hollywood began producing so-called "spaghetti westerns ".They earned the nickname because Italian companies financed the films and TV shows. This started the decade's "Cowboy Craze". While this didn't last long, it made modern country / western music, fashion and dance extremely popular. In recent years, with the help of musicians, radio stations and bars, cowboy nostalgia has returned. Even though his image is still changing -- somewhere between ballad singing country boy and bar room fighter -- there's one thing for sure, _ . Question: Before they became cowboys, they _ . Options: A: served in the army B: worked as bar-room fighters C: owned ranches D: were adventurous explorers
(Answer)
A
Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Each spring brings a new wildflower blooming in the fields along the highway I travel daily to work. There is one particular blue flower that has always caught my eye. I've noticed that it blooms only in the morning hours. The afternoon sun is too warm for it. Every day each year for about two weeks, I see those beautiful flowers. This spring, I started a wildflower garden in my yard. I can look out of the kitchen window while doing the dishes and see the flowers. I've often thought that those lovely blue flowers from the fields would look great in that bed alongside other wildflowers. Every day I drove past the flowers, thinking, "I'll stop on my way home and dig them." "Gee, I don't want to get my good clothes dirty..." Whatever the reason, I never stopped to dig them. My husband even gave me a tool one year for that expressed purpose. One day on my way home from work, I was saddened to see that the highway department had cleared up the fields and the pretty blue flowers were gone. I thought to myself, "Way to go, you waited too long. You should have done it when you first saw them blooming this spring. " A week ago we were shocked and saddened to learn that my oldest sister-in-law has a cancer. She is 20 years older than my husband and unfortunately, because of age and distance, we haven't been as close as we all would have liked. I couldn't help but see the connection between the pretty blue flowers and the relationship between my husband's sister and us. I do believe that God has given us some time left to plant some wonderful memories that will bloom every year for us. And yes, if I see the blue flowers again, I'm sure I'll stop and transplant them to my wildflower garden. Question: How long might the blue flower bloom in spring? Options: A: The whole day. B: The whole season. C: About one week. D: About two weeks
Ans:
D