Flexible working hours, homeworking opportunities and cover for emergencies or school holidays are the top concerns for working mothers, according to a British survey on Thursday. The survey of 1,677 people by specialist employment advice website workingmums.co.uk showed that despite a tougher job climate, in which redundancies had risen dramatically during the crisis, mothers demanded for a more flexible schedule. Flexible hours for full-time jobs came top of the list for 85 percent of respondents who were asked what they thought made for a family-friendly employer. That came just ahead of homeworking opportunities. "Flexibility is really key and able to help achieve an element of work/life balance," workingmums.co.uk founder Gillian Nissim told reporters. She said the crisis had not reduced the urgency of this issue for working mums and that employers who want to be prepared for the eventual upturn would do well to listen to them rather than risk losing them to more forward-thinking rivals. Many women said they had considered setting up their own business as a way around the flexibility problem and nearly half (45 percent) of respondents said they had looked into it. Nissim said the workingmums.co.uk database alone showed that on average working mums have more than 15 years of work experience and a range of valuable skills picked up in the workplace and from their parenting experiences. "So the benefits to employers of being able to accommodate a degree of flexibility is significant," she said. Part-time work, flexibility around emergency cover or school holidays were the next highest concerns with extended maternity pay as well on the list of concerns.More than half (54 percent) of respondents said they would accept a less well-paid job in return for flexibility, with 40 percent prepared to consider this option. Flexibility of working hours can help women _ . A) to have an extended maternity. B) to have opportunities to operate their own companies. C) to strike a balance between work and life. D) to pick up a range of valuable skills.
C
(Question)
Empathy is a quality that is essential to most people's lives and yet the modern world makes it easy to lose sight of the feelings of others. But almost everyone can learn to develop this crucial personality trait , says Roman Krznaric. Roman Krznaric used to regularly walk past a homeless man around the corner from where he lived in Oxford and took almost no notice of him. One day he stopped to speak to him. It turned out his name was Alan Human and he had a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. They afterwards developed a friendship based on their common interest in Aristotle's ethics . This unexpected meeting taught Roman that having conversations with strangers opens up our empathic minds. We can not only meet amazing people but also challenge the prejudices that we have about others based on their appearance, accents or backgrounds. Furthermore, it's about recovering the curiosity everyone had as children. Respect the advice of oral historian Studs Terkel, who always spoke to people on the bus, "Don't be an examiner, be the interested inquirer ." The world's first Empathy Museum, which is starting in the UK in late 2015 and will then be travelling to Australia and other countries. Amongst the unusual exhibitions will be a human library, where instead of borrowing a book you borrow a person for conversation-maybe an unhappy investment banker or a gay father. In other words, the kind of people you may not get to meet in everyday life. As the psychologist and inventor of emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman puts it, without empathy a person is "emotionally tone deaf". It's clear that with a little effort nearly everyone can put more of their empathic potential to use. So try putting on your empathy shoes and make an adventure of looking at the world through the eyes of others. Why did Roman and Alan become good friends? A) They helped each other. B) They felt pity for each other. C) They shared the same interest. D) They had to depend on each other.
(Answer)
C
Ques: CHICAGO ---Call it a reward, or just "bribery ". Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who getgoodies for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds. That's what worries parenting experts. "I think that reward systems have a time and a place and work really well in certain situations," says Marcy Safyer, director of the Adelphi University Institute for Parenting. "But what often gets lost for people is being able to figure out how to communicate to their kids that doing the thing is rewarding enough," Safyer says. Parents and experts alike agree that thedynamic is partly a reflection of the world we live in. It's unrealistic to think a parent wouldn't reward their children with material things sometimes, says Robin Lanzi, a clinical psychologist and mother of four who's the research director at the Center on Health and Education at Georgetown University. "But you want to make sure that they match the behavior, so it's not something huge for something small," Lanzi says. She recalls hearing about a father who offered his child a Nintendo Wii game system for scoring a couple goals in a soccer game. Elizabeth Powell, a mother of two young daughters in Austin, Texas, knows what she means. "You want to raise them in a way that they're respectful and appreciate things," Powell says of her children. "But sometimes, you wonder now if kids appreciate even a new pair of shoes. " What Safyer says suggests that _ . A) reward systems are quite limited in developing abilities B) reward systems work well regardless of time and place C) reward systems are still not made full use of to develop abilities D) reward systems are often used at the wrong time and place
Ans: D
Ques: I'm sure you know the song "Happy Birthday". But do you know who wrote the song and for whom it was written? The retired professor, Archibald A. Hill in Lucasville, USA could tell us the story. Ninety-seven years ago, two of Mr. Archibald Hill's aunts, Miss Patty Hill and Miss Mildred Hill were asked to write some songs for a book called "Song Storied for the Sunday Morning". Miss Patty Hill and Miss Mildred Hill were both kindergarten teachers then. They loved children very much and wrote many beautiful songs for the book. One of them was the famous "Good Morning to You." The song said, "Good morning to you, good morning to you, children, good morning to all." This song was very popular at that time among kindergarten children. But not many grown-ups knew it. A few years later little Archibald was born. As his aunt, Miss Patty Hill sang the song "Happy Birthday" to the melody of "Good Morning to you" to her little nephew . She sang the song like this: Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, Archie! Happy birthday to you! Miss Patty Hill and her sister had never expected that this song would become so popular, but it really did. People all over the world like the song because of its simplicity in tune and friendliness in words. Professor Archibald A. Hill was Miss Mildred Hill's _ . A) son B) student C) brother D) nephew
Ans:
D