Directions: For each numbered blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.
Organized volunteering and work experience has long been a vital companion to university degree courses. Usually it is left to 【A1】______ to deduce the potential from a list of extracurricular adventures on a graduate’s resume, 【A2】______ now the University of Bristol has launched an award to formalize the achievements of students who 【A3】______ time to activities outside their courses. Bristol PLUS aims to boost students in an increasingly 【A4】______ job market by helping them acquire work and life skills alongside 【A5】______ qualifications.
“Our students are a pretty active bunch, but we found that they didn’t 【A6】______ appreciate the value of what they did 【A7】______ the lecture hall,” says Jeff Goodman, director of careers and employability at the university. “Employers are much more 【A8】______ than they used to be. They used to look for 【A9】______ and saw it as part of their job to extract the value of an applicant’s skills. Now they want students to be able to explain why those skills are 【A10】______ to the job.”
Students who sign 【A11】______—for the award will be expected to complete 50 hours of work experience or 【A12】______ work, attend four workshops on employ-ability skills, take part in an intensive skills-related activity 【A13】______, crucially, write a summary of the skills they have gained. 【A14】______ efforts will gain an Outstanding Achievement Award. Those who 【A15】______ best on the sports field can take the Sporting Plus Award which fosters employer-friendly sports accomplishments.
The experience does not have to be 【A16】______ organized. “We’re not just interested in easily identifiable skills,” says Goodman. “【A17】______, one student took the lead in dealing with a difficult landlord and so 【A18】______ negotiation skills. We try to make the experience relevant to individual lives.”
Goodman hopes the 【A19】______ will enable active students to fill in any gaps in their experience and encourage their less-active 【A20】______ to take up activities outside their academic area of work.