单选题One of the biggest threats to a company’s productivity is absenteeism. Studies have shown that companieswith in-house childcare programs see fewer absences among their employees who are parents than companies without such programs. Therefore, many comp

Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the text about some parents’ attitudes to ward commercials?

Directions:In this section, there is one passage followed by 5 questions. Read the passage carefully, then answer the questions in a maximum of 10 words. Remember to write the answers on the Answer Sheet.　　High Dropout Rate in US　　Many young people in the United States never finish high school. Exactly how many dropouts is another issue. Recent studies of dropout rates have had conflicting results. For one thing, schools define and measure their dropout rates differently.　　Some researchers say about fifteen to twenty parents of public school students do not complete their education. But many other experts and policymakers believe that for the past twenty years, the dropout rate has been around thirty percent. For Latino and black students, the numbers are even higher. Researchers say almost half of them leave school.　　At the same time, almost half the states let students leave school before the age of eighteen without informing their parents.　　Finding a good job without a high school education is more and more difficult. A Northeastern University study in 2002 found that almost half of all dropouts aged sixteen to twenty-four did not have a job.　　The lack of high school education can also lead to other problems. An estimated two-thirds of prisoners in the United States dropped out of high school.　　Recent studies have shown that the majority of students who drop out do not do it because they are failing. Many are bored with their classes or feel disconnected from their school and teachers. Some students feel that educators place low expectations on them. Teen pregnancies also add to the dropout problem.　　During the past twenty years, there have been efforts to increase graduation rate through education reforms. Some communities are working on dropout prevention programs. These include alternative high schools to meet special needs.　　Some programs, for example, provide free transportation and childcare to help young mothers and fathers finish school. Yet special programs can cost a lot, and many school systems have limited budgets.　　Federal spending on second-chance programs to help students finish school has decreased from the 1970s. This was shown in a report last year from the Educational Testing Service.　　Experts suggest early warning systems to help identify young schoolchildren at risk of dropping out of high school. They say schools also need to get parents more involved, especially if their children are missing school often.　　Questions:　　1．What is the researchers’ estimated percentage of school dropouts among Latino and black students?　　2．What efforts have been made to increase graduation rates?　　3．What has been done to help young parents complete their education?　　4．Who made a report about the decrease，of Federal spending on second-chance programs to help students finish school?　　5．What do experts suggest setting up to help prevent students from dropping out of school?

Practice 8　　Over the years, organizations have implemented incentive plans for a variety of reasons: high labor costs, competitive product markets, slow technological advances, and high potential for production bottlenecks. While these reasons are still cited, contemporary arguments for incentive plans focus on pay-for-performance and link compensation rewards to organizational goals. By meshing compensation and organizational objectives, managers believe that employees will assume “ownership” of their jobs, thereby improving their effort and overall job performance. Incentives are designed to encourage employees to put out more effort to complete their job tasks-effort they might not be motivated to expend under hourly and/or seniority-based compensation systems. Financial incentives are therefore offered to improve or maintain high levels of productivity and quality.　　Do incentive plans work? Various studies have demonstrated a measurable relationship between incentive plans and improved organizational performance. In a survey of organizations with more than 500 employees, conducted by the New York Stock Exchange,70 percent of organizations with gain sharing programs stated that those programs improved productivity. In the area of manufacturing productivity will often improve by as much as 20 percent after the adoption of incentive plans.

An automaker is facing financial difficulties. The vice president of marketing has determined that the root of the company’s problems is low brand loyalty. The vice president proposes, there- fore, that the company begin an aggressive advertising campaign focused on children aged from three to eight years. By securing strong brand recognition with this demographic, he argues, the company will have an advantage when these customers reach an age when they can buy cars.　 Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubts about the vice president’s proposal?

Practice 4　　If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition—wealth, distinction, control over one’s destiny—must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition’s behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared, and it especially must be highly regarded by people who are themselves admired, the educated not least among them. In an odd way, however, it is the educated who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited from ambition, if not always their own then that of their parents and grandparents.

In this section, there is one passage followed by a summary. Read the passage carefully and complete the summary below by choosing no more than four words from the passage. Remember to write the answers on the Answer Sheet.　　As a result of all these factors, when the recession eases and people find more confidence, there will be an explosion of employees seeking new opportunities to escape their current jobs. This will be led by younger, less-experienced employees and the hard - headed young graduates. ‘Headhunters’ confirm that older staff are still cautious, having seen so many good companies ‘go to the wall’, and are reluctant to jeopardize their redundancy entitlements. Past experience, however, suggests that, once triggered, the expansion in recruitment will be very rapid.　　The problem which faces many organizations is one of strategic planning; of not knowing who will leave and who will stay. Often it is the best personnel who move on whilst the worst cling to the little security they have. This is clearly a problem for companies, who need a stable core on which to build strategies for future growth.　　Whilst this expansion in the recruitment market is likely to happen soon in Britain, most employers are simply not prepared. With the loss of middle management, in a static marketplace, personnel management and recruitment are often conducted by junior personnel. They have only known recession and lack the experience to plan ahead and to implement strategies for growth. This is true of many other functions, leaving companies without the skills, ability or vision to structure themselves for long-term growth. Without this ability to recruit competitively for strategic planning, and given the speed at which these changes are likely to occur, a real crisis seems imminent.　　SUMMARY:　　Taking all of these various factors into consideration, when the economy picks up and people 　1　there will be a very rapid expansion in recruitment. Younger employees and graduates will lead the search for new jobs, older staff being more　2　Not knowing who will leave creates a problem for companies; they need a　3　of personnel to plan and build future strategies. This is a serious matter, as　4　are often conducted by inexperienced staff, owing to the loss of many middle management positions. This inability to recruit strategically will leave many companies without the skills and vision to plan ahead and　5　to achieve long-term growth.

Renting luxury for employees _____.

A recent study of an insurance company’s underwriters indicated that those who worked in pleasant physical surroundings were 25 percent more productive than their peers in unpleasant physical surroundings. Objective criteria for evaluating job performance included caseload and complexity of cases. This shows that improving workers’ environments increases those workers’ productivity.　 Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion above?

One of the biggest threats to a company’s productivity is absenteeism. Studies have shown that companieswith in-house childcare programs see fewer absences among their employees who are parents than companies without such programs. Therefore, many companies could boost their productivity by starting in-house childcare programs.　 Which of the following, if true, most weakens the above argument?