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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.
Discovery and Exploration
Instead of spending time off lamenting your unemployed status, ask yourself: "Is there something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of the demands of my job?"
Michael Ross, 42, a former IT administrator in El Cerrito, Calif., recently spent his 10 months of unemployment playing guitar and exploring his lifelong interest in scriptwriting and the movie business. "After 18 years at my former employer and how hard I had worked, I knew I had to recover, to get restored," he says, "I looked at this as an opportunity, rather than a penalty. This was very much about clearing space for me."
At the executive level, even a very efficient and successful job search may be quite lengthy. It makes sense to spend that time in an enriching and productive manner. These job seekers pursued service, continuing education and shoring up family bonds. How you’ll look back on a period of unemployment depends on what you do with it.
1. This passage mainly tells that being unemployed is actually lucky.
2. Lisa Perez found a new interest in homemaking during the period of unemployment.
3. Lisa Perez was always idle during the period of her unemployment.
3. Being a volunteer is helpful because volunteer assignments can provide you with chances to meet powerful and well-connected people.
4. After she got a new job, Lisa Perez regretted that she had done volunteering work.
5. Unemployment means a lot of time, especially for those hard-charging executives who are not used to having any free time.
6. Mr. Bellavance spent the rest of his search updating his skills such as computing.
7. When unemployed, in addition to pursuing training or volunteering, some careerists take the opportunity to be in charge of all the domestic affairs.
8. After staying with his sick mother as caregiver in Arkansas for six months, Mr. Rappaport unexpectedly gained
9. Michael Ross resigned and spent part of his unemployment time playing guitar and exploring his lifelong interest in
10. During the off-work period, the unemployed people can pursue service, continuing education and 本新闻共 6页,当前在第 2页 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
