考试吧恩波：2008年12月四级预测试卷及解析(四)

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　　Part ⅠWriting(30 minutes)

　　Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic How to Get Prepared for a Job. You should write at least 120 words and you should base your composition on the outline given below in Chinese:

　　1. 求职之前必须准备充分;

　　2. 你认为大学生在校期间应该如何为将来求职作准备?

　　Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)

　　Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1.

　　For questions 1-7, mark

　　Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;

　　N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;

　　NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.

　　For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

　　Unemployment ‘Blessings’

　　Community Involvement

　　For Lisa Perez, the wakeup call was burned pork chops. An executive who previously hadn’t been particularly interested in home and health had become obsessed with homemaking during a stint of unemployment.

　　Ms. Perez, 35, resolved to become an active volunteer for the duration of her search. She gave her time to a health-care concern, a housing program and a political campaign.

　　The work bolstered her self-confidence. “Volunteering takes the focus off of you. One thing you have that’s still valuable is your time. And, of course, you learn that there are thousands of people with a life that’s much worse than yours,” she says.

　　Volunteer assignments are also great ways to meet powerful and well-connected people. Over a six-month period, her volunteering evolved into working as a paid consultant and then as a full-time employee, a job she still holds today. In all, she was unemployed for eight months.

　　Continuing Education

　　Even as the economy improves, a jobless executive may face up to a year or more of unemployment. This is a lot of time, especially for hard-charging high-performers who are not used to having any free time.

　　When laid off from the position of executive in a steel company near Cleveland, Mr. Bellavance, single and virtually debt free, shifted his finances into survival mode. He cashed out his pension, sold his house, unloaded things he didn’t need at garage sales, and rented an apartment with a roommate. Then, he says, “I signed up for every benefit I could find.”

　　But he wasn’t just waiting out the year. He spent the rest of his search updating his skills, including becoming certified in new database, project-management software and other related areas.

　　“People should not feel guilty about accepting government aid,” he says, “I saw this in a lot of people. They felt they were some kind of loser for taking benefits. My advice is: Get all you can. You’ve been paying for these programs in your entire career, and you may as well start to benefit from them.”

　　Family Matters

　　In addition to pursuing training or volunteering, some displaced careerists use their time off work to attend to family matters. Many executives rediscover their children or find time to help their parents.

　　Stanford Rappaport held three jobs in San Francisco, including high-tech and teaching positions. When he was laid off from the high-tech job last year, he knew it might be a long slog before he could get another post like it in the Bay Area.

　　Mr. Rappaport’s remaining job, a part-time faculty position with City College of San Francisco, didn’t pay enough to support him. After a couple of months of searching with no results, he decided to escape the Northern California jobs meltdown. “My plan,” he says, “was to get out of an expensive living situation, and either seek work in another section of the U.S. or overseas, for those two years.” Mr. Rappaport, who speaks five languages, had worked overseas before.

　　Before he found an assignment, his Arkansas-based mother was diagnosed with a serious chronic illness, and he was called into duty as a son. Mr. Rappaport was able to help his mother get her affairs in order not to interrupt his search by using a San Francisco mail drop and cell phone. “I continued to look for work in California while I was in Fayetteville, Ark., helping my mother through this crisis.”

　　Mr. Rappaport’s stay in Arkansas lasted six months. “It’s amazing that at this stage I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with my mother and improve her life and get a lot of things done for her. Most people never have that opportunity. I’m very thankful that I had the chance. It was absolutely worth it,” he says.

　　One of the unexpected benefits was the huge boost in confidence he gained from his role as caregiver. He’d been feeling depressed and defeated when he left California, but after returning, he felt renewed. He landed a job with a former employer after returning to San Francisco and remains a part-time faculty member.