Suicide, proclaimed Albert Camus, a French Algerian author, philosopher, and journalist, in "The Myth of Sisyphus", is the only serious philosophical problem. In France at the moment it is also a serious management problem. A series of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom—many of them explicitly prompted by troubles at work—has sparked a national debate about life in the modern corporation. There are some insular reasons for this melancholy trend. France Telecom is making the difficult transition from state monopoly to multinational company. It has shed 22,000 jobs since 2006, but two-thirds of the remaining workers enjoy civil-service-like job-security. This is forcing it to pursue a toxic strategy : teaching old civil servants new tricks while at the same time putting new hires on short-term contracts. Yet the problem is not confined to France. And suicide is only the tip of an iceberg of work-related unhappiness. The most obvious reason for the rise in unhappiness is the recession, which is destroying jobs at a startling rate and spreading anxiety throughout the workforce. But the recession is also highlighting longer-term problems. Unhappiness seems to be particularly common in car companies, which suffer from global overcapacity, and telecoms companies, which are being strongly impacted by a technological revolution. A second source of misery is the drive to improve productivity, which is typically accompanied by an obsession with measuring performance. Giant retailers use "workforce management" software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britain, is brimming with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism , which Charlie Chaplin mocked so memorably in "Modern Times", has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers. A more subtle problem lies in the mixed messages that companies send about loyalty and commitment. Many firms—particularly successful ones—demand extraordinary dedication from their employees. Some provide fringe benefits that are intended to make the office feel like a second home. But companies also reserve the right to trim their workforce at the first sign of trouble. Most employees understand that their firms do not feel much responsibility to protect jobs. But they nevertheless find it wrenching to leave a post that has consumed so much of their lives.

单选题 Albert Camus is mentioned to

单选题 According to Paragraph 2, "a toxic strategy" denotes

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】解析：细节理解题。根据题干直接定位到第二段。该段第四句冒号后的内容具体解释了toxic strategy的内容，该策略是让老员工学习新技能，给新员工短期合同。而上句提到这些老员工享受的是公务员般的工作保障(civil-service-like job-security)，言下之意即这些人拥有稳定的工作，这与新员工的short-termcontracts形成鲜明对比。由此可知，该公司区别对待新老员工，故B正确。

单选题 In the author"s opinion, recession is

单选题 The word "Taylorism"(line 5, Paragraph 4)most probably means

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】解析：词义推测题。解答本题需结合第四段的大意。本段是典型的“总一分”结构，该段首句指出工作不愉快情绪也来自雇主对提高生产率的追求，同时会伴随着对员工工作表现的考核(measuring performance)，第二、三句及末句则举出具体例子来支持首句的论点。故第四句提到的Taylorism应该与雇主这种为提高生产率而对员工的表现进行评估的行为相关，A项中的improving productivity复现原文原词，performance evaluation与measuring perfomance为同义复现，故为正确答案。