此篇文章选自2009年5月的 TIME, 考到我们在课堂上常提到到经济类话题。这篇文章主要讲述经济形势的变化对人们的工作模式产生的影响:越来越多的员工倾向于在家办公,越来越多的公司也在采取新的措施适应这种变化。同时这一变化,也给白领们的生活带来了影响——他们开始更加注重生活与工作的平衡。
On the worst days, Chris Keehn used to go 24 hours without seeing his daughter with her eyes open. A soft-spoken tax accountant in Deloitte's downtown Chicago office, he hated saying no when she asked for a ride to preschool. By November, he'd had enough. "I realized that I can have control of this," he says with a small shrug. Keehn, 33, met with two of the firm's partners and his senior manager, telling them he needed a change. They went for it. In January, Keehn started telecommuting four days a week, and when Kathryn, 4, starts T-ball this summer, he will be sitting along the baseline.
文章开头即出现人名,很显然,作者在运用例子做铺垫引出后文主旨。这种开头模式非常符合新闻文体的结构特征,即我们在新东方课堂上所讲的菱形模式。意识到这点后,我们也应该立刻明白,本段的内容旨在引出主题,其作用是举出典型例子论证主题。我们可以看到问题的第一道题目即考察了相应的例子功能题。
In this economy, Keehn's move might sound like hopping onto the mommy track — or off the career track. But he's actually making a shrewd move. More and more, companies are searching for creative ways to save — by experimenting with reduced hours or unpaid furloughs or asking employees to move laterally. The up-or-out model, in which employees have to keep getting promoted quickly or get lost, may be growing outmoded. The changing expectations could persist after the economy reheats. Companies are increasingly supporting more natural growth, letting employees wend their way upward like climbing vines. It's a shift, in other words, from a corporate ladder to the career-path metaphor long preferred by Deloitte(德勤) vice chair Cathy Benko: a lattice. (See pictures of cubicle designs submitted to The Office.)
第二段开始逐步深入主题,在第三句话出我们可以看出文章主题渐渐显露,即越来越多的公司正在采取更加创造性的措施使得员工更好的处理好工作与生活之间的矛盾。
At Deloitte, each employee's lattice is nailed together during twice-a-year evaluations focused not just on career targets but also on larger life goals. An employee can request to do more or less travel or client service, say, or to move laterally into a new role — changes that may or may not come with a pay cut. Deloitte's data from 2008 suggest that about 10% of employees choose to "dial up" or "dial down" at any given time. Deloitte's Mass Career Customization (MCC) program began as a way to keep talented women in the workforce, but it has quickly become clear that women are not the only ones seeking flexibility. Responding to millennials demanding better work-life balance, young parents needing time to share child-care duties and boomers looking to ease gradually toward retirement, Deloitte is scheduled to roll out MCC to all 42,000 U.S. employees by May 2010. Deloitte executives are in talks with more than 80 companies working on similar programs.
接下来,作者继续举Deloitte的例子,进一步指出许多公司都在采取不同的措施解决员工所遇到的工作与生活的矛盾。很明显,在时间比较紧张的情况下,我们根本没有必要去读这些细节。