Conventional wisdom holds that Millennials are entitled, easily distracted, impatient, self-absorbed, lazy, and unlikely to stay in any job for long. On the positive side, they're also looking for purpose, feedback, and personal life balance in their work. Companies of all kinds are obsessed with understanding them better. The fascination with Millennials has given rise to a new consulting industry. Hundreds of firms, speakers, authors and individual experts are competing for a share of the "Millennials are Different" segment of the $ 150 billion-a-year global HR consulting market. There's even a consultancy that specializes in helping other consultants hone their message to tap into this lucrative market,. While concise descriptions of what makes Millennials unique are presented as self -evident and seem to have a ring of truth to them, very few are supported with solid empirical research. On the contrary, a growing body of evidence suggests that employees of all ages are much more alike than different in their attitudes and values at work. To the extent that any gaps do exist, they amount to small differences that have always existed between younger and older workers throughout history and have little to do with the Millennial generation per se. In the research presented in our 2002 book, The Human Capital Edge, Ira Kay and I found that whether one looks across generation, race, or gender employees have generally wanted the same things from work. Four key questions continue to recur when employees are deciding whether to join, give their best effort or stay at an organization. And they appear to stand the test of time: Is this a winning organization I can be proud of? Employees want to be proud of the organization they work for. They want to work for a successful, high-performing company and for leaders with a blend of competence, integrity and vision. Can I maximize my performance on the job? Virtually all employees want to be able to do a good job. That means working in an environment that will make the most of their skills and which provides the resources, information, authority and training necessary to perform at their best. Are people treated well economically and interpersonally? People want to work in an inclusive environment where they are respected, valued and treated fairly. They want their opinions to count, and they want their contributions recognized and rewarded both financially and psychologically. Is the work itself fulfilling and enjoyable? Everyone wants to enjoy the work they do and the people with whom they work. They also want to derive a sense of meaning and purpose from what they do every day. Companies that create environments in which employees answer each of these four questions with a resounding "Yes"-regardless of their generation-are those most likely to win the war for talent.

As college seniors hurtle into the job hunt, little lies on the resume—for example, claiming a degree when they"re three credits shy of graduation—seem harmless enough. So new grads ought to read this memo now: those 20-year-old falsehoods on cream-colored, 32-lb. premium paper have ruined so many high-profile executives that you wonder who in the business world hasn"t got the message. A resume listing two fabricated degrees led to the resignation of David Edmondson, CEO of RadioShack, in February. Untruthful resume have also hindered the careers of executives at the U.S. Olympic Committee. The headlines haven"t dented job seekers" desire to dissemble even as employers have grown increasingly able to detect deception. InfoLink Screening Services, a background-checking company, estimates that 14% of job applicants in the U.S. he about their education on their resumes. Employees who lie to get in the door can cause untold damage on a business, experts say, from staining the reputation and credibility of a firm to upending co-workers and projects to igniting shareholder wrath—and that"s if the lie is found out. Even when it isn"t, the falsified resume can indicate a deeply rooted inclination toward unethical behavior. "There"s a lot of evidence that those who cheat on job applications also cheat in school and in life," says Richard Griffith, director of the industrial and organizational psychology program at the Florida Institute of Technology. "If someone says they have a degree and they don"t, I"d have little faith that person would tell the truth when it came to financial statements and so on." Employers" fears have sparked a boom in the background-screening industry. But guarding the henhouse does little good if the fox is already nestled inside. To unmask the deceivers among them, some employers are conducting checks upon promotion. Verified Person markets its ability to provide ongoing employee screening through automated criminal checks. With this increased alertness comes a thorny new dilemma: figuring out whether every lie is really a fireable offense. Many bosses feel that a worker"s track record on the job speaks more strongly than a stretched resume, says John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Rather than booting talented workers, Challenger suggests, employers should offer a pardon period "A moratorium would let anyone who needs to come clean," he says And the culprit could always go back to school and finish that degree—maybe even on company time.

The global reputation of Japan"s animation industry—an animated cartoon industry—has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki"s new film, Howl"s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan"s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can"t be replaced, he"s a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn"t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as ￡10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world"s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets." But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it"s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

In the following article, some sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) At Columbia University, where I taught economics for many years before coming to China, most of my students spent a great deal of time in volunteer work. They taught poor children in the local neighborhoods, they visited the elderly in hospitals and at home and helped them with their shopping, they worked to preserve historic sites and places of beauty, they cleaned up waste dumps, they prepared food for the hungry, they created and ran student newspapers, they organized concerts and artistic events, they acted as translators for migrant workers, they formed political pressure groups, they raised money to combat AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and so on. As part 0f that tradition I do volunteer work here in Beijing, just as I did in New York, but I find that my students at Tsinghua University and at other schools in Beijing are much less involved in volunteering then I had expected; In part, of course, this reflects the heavier workload in Chinese schools, which leaves less time for outside activities. But I think there is more to it than just this. I think it also reflects a very different system, in which volunteer work for students here is usually organized or sponsored by government, schools, or other official groups, rather than by the students themselves. (41)______. This is unfortunate. I think it would be better both for them and for society if Chinese students took the initiative to decide what kinds of problems or issues they felt to be of importance, and then played a more active role in organizing the work. (42)______. But there are at least two other important reasons for doing volunteer work. The first is that you can learn a lot about yourself and about your abilities by organizing, taking on responsibilities, deciding on objectives, and fulfilling them. (43)______. This is an important lesson. Many of my students here work very hard, but their attitude towards their work is not always a healthy one. They do the work not because they love it or feel that it is exciting but rather because it is expected of them, and they will get rewarded (or at least not punished) if they do it. With charitable work there is no explicit reward. You work because you have goals, and in the end the only judge of your work is yourself. (44)______. It also forces you to think about what you are doing and the best way to accomplish your objectives. You are no longer simply doing something because your teacher or your boss told you to do it. The second important reason for charitable work is that it changes your relationship with your society. Sometimes I feel that many of the people I meet here don"t really appreciate the greatness of China and the excitement of the process through which it is currently living. The Chinese are well-known for being nationalistic, but sometimes I think this nationalism has more to do with distrust of foreigners than with love of country. Many of my friends and students simply do not know very much about their own country, and often seem unhappy with or embarrassed by certain aspects of China. (45)______. For example, if you help the children of migrant workers with their education, you will quickly realize that poor migrant workers should not be seen as an embarrassment to Beijing. On the contrary, they are a great strength, and their stories are part of a huge and dramatic experiment that China is undergoing. In a small way by working with migrant children you can help make the experiment a success.A. I think that if they had spent more time engaged in activities outside of school and family such as doing volunteer work, they would feel very differently.B. This changes the way you think about work and about your responsibilities to yourself and others.C. You will realize how future events can have just as Big an impact on your life and those of your friends and family.D. This means that many students here in Beijing think of volunteering as something that must be done to please teachers, bosses, or other figures of authority, rather than because of a desire to address a problem about which they have thought very deeply.E. When you work closely with others who are less fortunate than you, or when you set a local goal and work to accomplish it, you see directly how your actions can affect the world around you.F. If you are interested in volunteer work you don"t have to wait for your school, your teachers, or officials on television to tell you what to do.G. There are many reasons why this would be good. The most obvious reason, of course, is that we all have obligations towards our society, and volunteer work is one way of repaying this obligation.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

I had no sooner reached home than it began to rain.

Title: Children from One-Child FamiliesWord limit: 160～200 words.Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE given in Chinese below: 1. 有人认为独生子女的优点多于缺点； 2. 有人认为独生子女的缺点多于优点； 3. 我的观点。

Give the Senate some credit: in shaping the current immigration-reform bill, it has come up with one idea that almost everybody hates. That"s the plan to create a new class of "guest workers"—immigrants who would be allowed to work in the U.S. for three two-year stretches, at most, provided that they return home for a year after each visit. Conservatives dislike the plan because they elieve that the guest workers won"t return home after their visas expire. Liberals dislike it because they believe the program will depress American wages and trap guest workers in a state of serfdom. The only vocal supporters of the provision are businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor, and they"re presumably just looking out for themselves. With the broader concerns about the effects of illegal immigration, the hostility to the new plan is understandable. It"s also misguided. However imperfect, the guest-worker program is better than any politically viable alternative. Opponents of immigration sometimes imply that adding workers to a workforce automatically brings wages down. But immigrants tend to work in different industries than native workers, and have different skills, and so they often end up complementing native workers, rather than competing with them. That can make native workers more productive and therefore better off. According to a recent study by the economists Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, between 1990 and 2004 immigration actually boosted the wages of most American workers; its only negative effect was a small one, on the wages of workers without a high-school diploma. And if by increasing the number of legal guest workers we reduced the number of undocumented workers, the economy would benefit even more. Guest workers are also, paradoxically, less likely than illegal immigrants to become permanent residents. The U.S. already has a number of smaller—and less well-designed—temporary-worker programs, and there"s no evidence that workers in those plans routinely overstay their visas. One remarkable study found that after border enforcement was stepped up in 1993 the chances of an illegal immigrant returning to his homeland to stay fell by a third. In fact, whatever benefits the guest-worker program brought to the U.S. economy or to particular businesses, the biggest winners would be the workers themselves. Congress, of course, is under no obligation to care about foreign workers. But the program"s costs to American workers are negligible, the gains for the guest workers are enormous, and the U.S. economy will benefit. This is that rare option which is both sensible and politically possible.

The U.S. Supreme Court"s decision Monday to let stand a ruling in an online defamation case will make it more difficult to determine correct legal jurisdictions in other Internet cases, legal experts said. By opting not to take the case, the high court effectively endorsed a lower court"s decision that a Colorado company that posts ratings of health plans on the Internet could be sued for defamation in a Washington court. The lower court ruling is one of several that makes it easier for plaintiffs to sue Web site operators in their own jurisdictions, rather than where the operators maintain a physical presence. The case involved a defamation suit filed by Chehalis, Wash. -based Northwest Healthcare Alliance against Lakewood, Colo. based Healthgrades.com. The Alliance sued in Washington federal court after Healthgrades.com posted a negative ranking of Northwest Healthcares home health services on the Internet. Healthgrades.com argued that it should not be subject to the jurisdiction of a court in Washington because its publishing operation is in Colorado. Observers said the fact that the Supreme Court opted not to hear the case only clouds the legal situation for Web site operators. Geoff Stewart, a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., said that the Supreme Court eventually must act on the issue, as Internet sites that rate everything from automobile dealerships to credit offers could scale back their 9fferings to avoid lawsuits originating numerous jurisdictions. Online publishers also might have to worry about being dragged into lawsuits in foreign courts, said Dow Lohnes & Albertson attorney Jon Hart, who has represented the Online News Association. "The much more difficult problems for U.S. media companies arise when claims are brought in foreign countries over content published in the United States," Hart said. Hart cited a recent case in which an Australian court ruled that Dow Jones must appear in a Victoria, Australia court to defend its publication of an article on the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal Web site. According to Hart, the potential chilling effect of those sorts of jurisdictional decisions is substantial. "I have not yet seen publishers holding back on what they otherwise publish because they"re afraid they"re going to get sued in another country, but that doesn"t mean it won"t happen if we see a rash of U.S. libel cases against U.S. media companies being brought in foreign countries," he said. Until the high court decides to weigh in directly on this issue, Web site operators that offer information and services to users located outside of their home states must deal with a thorny legal landscape, said John Morgan, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and an expert in Internet law.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyontheANSWERSHEET.(20points)

Looking at how far we"ll be able to fund the Health Service in the 21st century raises any number of thorny issues. (46) Many of the options have already been rehearsed in the press: excluding some treatments from the NHS, charging for certain drugs and services, and developing voluntary or compulsory health insurance schemes. Compared to its European Union counterparts Britain operates a low-cost health system: we spend about 7 per cent of GDP on health, compared with 9 per cent in the Netherlands and 10 per cent in France and Germany. In terms of health outcomes versus spend, we compare pretty favorably. I don"t see private health care providing much of the solution to current problems. (47) More likely is a shift from universal health coverage to top-up schemes which give people basic health entitlements but require them to finance other treatment through private financing, or opt-out schemes which use tax relief to encourage individuals to make private provision. Neither is close to being implemented, but the future could see a deliberate shift of attention to voluntary health insurance and an emphasis on social insurance. (48) I expect individuals to take greater responsibility for their personal health using technology that allows self-diagnosis followed by self-treatment or home care. Even so, higher taxes will plainly be needed to fund health care. (49) I think we"ll eventually see larger NHS charges, more rationing of medical services and restrictions on certain procedures without proven outcomes. Stricter eligibility criteria for certain treatments are another possibility. All such options would mean a sharp break with tradition and political fall-out that could be extremely damaging. (50) None of them is going to win votes for the political party desperate enough to introduce them but then nobody is going to vote for ill-health or an early death either.

The staggering variety of free stuff available on the Internet sometimes seems to have repealed the first law of economics: There"s no such thing as a free lunch . But as so often happens, the dismal science actually has it right. When it looks like you"re getting something for nothing, somebody is paying, and it"s often instructive to know who that is. I"ve been testing a new phone service called ooma that provides an interesting case in point. Once you pay $399 up front for a box called the ooma Hub and connect it to your phone and the Internet via your home network, you are promised free, unlimited phone calls over two lines, plus voice mail. The system works fine and is simple to set up. When a voice-over-Internet call has to go to a regular phone number, a service such as ooma usually has to pay a "temination fee" to a carrier such as Verizon. Skype, for example, charges 2% per minute for calls outside the Skype network. But ooma avoids this by using some of its customers—those who have kept regular phone lines—to serve as gateways onto the local phone network at no charge. When you want to call outside the ooma network, the call moves from your Hub over the Internet to a second landline-connected Hub within the destination"s local calling area The Hub dials the target number and patches the call through. In effect, ooma customers with landlines pay to keep the whole system going. You don"t even notice if your landline is being used because your own phone calls go out over your broadband connection, with your flat-rate monthly phone bill covering the ooma traffic. In fact, this improves the efficiency of the phone system by putting idle lines to work. But if ooma ever gains real traction, I expect a legal assault from big phone companies, which are losing income from termination fees. Web services do take advantage of genuine economies. The phone network is more expensive than the Net. Lots of Net players build on these advantages. Skype relies on selected users who act, often without their knowledge, as "super nodes" to manage the system. FreeConference.com provides calls by taking advantage of regulatory quirks—namely, the stiff termination fees long-distance carriers must pay to certain rural phone companies that handle calls into their territory. In effect, the free conferences are subsidized by customers and shareholders of the long-distance carriers. You may as well enjoy free calls while you can. But it"s always a good idea to read the fine print. If it isn"t obvious who"s paying for a free service, it might well be you.

Studythepictureabovecarefullyandwriteanessayentitled"AfterGraduation".Intheessay,youshould(1)describethepicture;(2)interpretitsmeaning;(3)giveyouropinionaboutthephenomenon.Youshouldwriteabout200wordsneatly.

You had a wonderful weekend with Frank"s family at Fragrant Hill Villa. Write a letter to Frank in which you should: 1) express your gratitude; 2) recall the experience at the villa; 3) show your appreciation again. You should write 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write your address.

According to myth, Rwanda"s ancient line of kings descended from a man with secret knowledge: He could【B1】______ordinary rock into smooth, gleaming iron.【B2】______this new technology, he taught his people to make hard, durable weapons for defeating their enemies and sharp axes for cutting the forest to make fields. By the time the first Europeans arrived in the 19th century, iron had become【B3】______in the kingdom of Rwanda Other traditional African societies tell stories of【B4】______ironworkers who descended from heaven or came from other lands. The prevalence of such legends【B5】______the importance of ironworking in these cultures, and archaeologists have long wondered if the arrival of iron metallurgy【B6】______the growth of complex early societies. Did foreigners【B7】______bring ironworking to Africa, or did Africans invent it themselves? Entering the Iron Age was not easy. Metalworkers had to melt ore at【B8】______temperatures and then repeatedly hammer and reheat the spongy metal. The traditional view is that metallurgists in Turkey were the first to melt iron ore【B9】______, beginning around 1800 B.C.E. Initially, they【B10】______the new metal for precious【B11】______or ritual objects. But by 1200 B.C.E., workers in the Levant were boiling out【B12】______amounts of iron. The metal had a major【B13】______on societies. Iron was a transformative metal. Iron ores are much more【B14】______than copper or the tin needed to make bronze. Bronze was【B15】______costly and largely limited【B16】______use in ritual objects and goods for【B17】______. But once cultures learned to melt iron, they could put iron tools into the hands of【B18】______people for clearing forests and tilling the【B19】______. This boosted agricultural yields, increased the numbers of villages, and【B20】______ever more social complexity.

On the north bank of the Ohio river sits Evansville, Ind., home of David Williams, 52, and of a riverboat casino(a place where gambling games are played). During several years of gambling in that casino, Williams, a state auditor earning $35, 000 a year, lost approximately $175, 000. He had never gambled before the casino sent him a coupon for $20 worth of gambling. He visited the casino, lost the $20 and left. On his second visit he lost $800. The casino issued to him, as a good customer, a "Fun Card", which when used in the casino earns points for meals and drinks, and enables the casino to track the user"s gambling activities. For Williams, those activities become what he calls "electronic heroin". 【C1】______. In 1997 he lost $21, 000 to one slot machine in two days. In March 1997 he lost $72, 186. He sometimes played two slot machines at a time, all night, until the boat docked at 5 a.m., then went back aboard when the casino opened at 9 a.m.. Now he is suing the casino, charging that it should have refused his patronage because it knew he was addicted. It did know he had a problem. In March 1998 a friend of Williams"s got him involuntarily confined to a treatment center for addictions, and wrote to inform the casino of Williams" s gambling problem. The casino included a photo of Williams among those of banned gamblers, and wrote to him a "cease admissions" letter. Noting the "medical / psychological" nature of problem gambling behavior, the letter said that before being readmitted to the casino he would have to present medical / psychological information demonstrating that patronizing the casino would pose no threat to his safety or well-being. 【C2】______. The Wall Street Journal reports that the casino has 24 signs warning: "Enjoy the fun ... and always bet with your head, not over it." Every entrance ticket lists a toll-free number for counseling from the Indiana Department of Mental Health. Nevertheless, Williams" s suit charges that the casino, knowing he was "helplessly addicted to gambling," intentionally worked to "lure" him to "engage in conduct against his will." Well. 【C3】______. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says "pathological gambling" involves persistent, recurring and uncontrollable pursuit less of money than of the thrill of taking risks in quest of a windfall. 【C4】______. Pushed by science, or what claims to be science, society is reclassifying what once were considered character flaws or moral failings as personality disorders akin to physical disabilities. 【C5】______. Forty-four states have lotteries, 29 have casinos, and most of these states are to varying degrees dependent on—you might say addicted to—revenues from wagering. And since the first Internet gambling site was created in 1995, competition for gamblers" dollars has become intense. The Oct. 28 issue of Newsweek reported that 2 million gamblers patronize 1, 800 virtual casinos every week. With $3.5 billion being lost on Internet wagers this year, gambling has passed pornography as the Web" s most profitable business. [A]Although no such evidence was presented, the casino" s marketing department continued to pepper him with mailings. And he entered the casino and used his Fun Card without being detected. [B]It is unclear what luring was required, given his compulsive behavior. And in what sense was his will operative? [C]By the time he had lost $5, 000 he said to himself that if he could get back to even, he would quit. One night he won $5, 500, but he did not quit. [D]Gambling has been a common feature of American life forever, but for a long time it was broadly considered a sin, or a social disease. Now it is a social policy: the most important and aggressive promoter of gambling in America is the government. [E]David Williams" s suit should trouble this gambling nation. But don"t bet on it. [F]It is worrisome that society is medicalizing more and more behavioral problems, often defining as addictions what earlier, sterner generations explained as weakness of will. [G]The anonymous, lonely, undistracted nature of online gambling is especially conducive to compulsive behavior. But even if the government knew how to move against Internet gambling, what would be its grounds for doing so?

A month ago, the British government announced a plan to keep terrorist suspects indefinitely under house arrest (1)_____ the home secretary"s say-so, It has been attacked from all sides ever since. This week the government backtracked. Under the Prevention of Terrorism bill, (2)_____ to Parliament this week, house arrest would (3)_____ a potential (4)_____ in the government"s ever-expanding anti-terrorist arsenal, but the government would first have to (5)_____ of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing a right to liberty. Parliament would have to vote on that. The government could do this (6)_____ the terrorist threat to Britain, already described by the government as " (7)_____", got even worse. Even then, the powers would remain (8)_____ by political and judicial safeguards. Before the home secretary could make a house-arrest order, he would have to be satisfied on the (9)_____ of probabilities—no longer on the basis of "reasonable suspicion—that the suspect has been "involved in a terrorism-related activity". He would also have to be (10)_____ that such an order was "strictly required". The period of house-arrest will be limited to a maximum of six months, extendable through a new house-arrest order. Within seven days of its being imposed, the High Court would have to confirm that the home secretary had " (11)_____ grounds" for making such an order. Even if it were so satisfied, the case would go on to a full court (12)_____. The bill also provides for a whole range of lesser restrictions including tagging, curfews, a ban on association with specified people, prohibitions on using phones, restrictions on travel, and so on. (13)_____ to meet the threat (14)_____ by each suspect and limited to a renewable period of 12 months, these would not be subject to the same judicial scrutiny as house arrest. Nor would they require (15)_____ from the European convention. But the new orders, including house arrest, would be used only where a suspected terrorist could not be prosecuted (16)_____ because the evidence against him was not admissible in court, or because it might (17)_____ intelligence sources or (18)_____ techniques. Charles Clarke insists that he would prefer to prosecute. (19)_____ the home secretary is considering further anti-terrorist legislation, including making it (20)_____ to be involved in the preparation or commission of terrorist acts.

World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international body that promotes and enforces the provisions of trade laws and regulations. (46) The World Trade Organization has the authority to administer and police new and existing free trade agreements, to oversee world trade practices, and to settle trade disputes among member states. The WTO "was established in 1994 when the members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a treaty and international trade organization, signed a new trade pact. The WTO was created to replace GATT. The WTO began operation on January 1, 1995. GATT and the WTO coexisted until December 1995, when the members of GATT met for the last time. Although the WTO replaced GATT. the trade agreements established by GATT in 1994 are part of the WTO agreement. However, the WTO has a significantly broader scope than GATT. GATT regulated trade in merchandise. (47) The WTO expanded the GATT agreement to include trade in services, such as international telephone service, and protections for intellectual property—that is, creative works that can be protected legally, such as sound recordings and computer programs. The WTO is also a formally structured organization whose rules are legally binding on its member states. The organization provides a framework for international trade law. (48) Members can refer trade disputes to the WTO where a dispute panel composed of WTO officials serves as arbitrator. Members can appeal this panel"s rulings to a WTO appellate body whose decisions are final. Disputes must be resolved within the time limits set by WTO rules. As of 1996 almost all of the 123 nations that had signed the new GATT pact had transferred membership to the WTO, including the United States. About 30 other nations had also applied for membership. (49) The WTO is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is controlled by a general council made up of member states" ambassadors who also serve on various subsidiary and specialist committees. The ministerial conference, which meets every two years and appoints the WTO"s director-general, oversees the General Council. Renato Ruggiero, a former Italian trade minister, became the first full-time director-general of the WTO in May 1995. (50) The agreements that the WTO will administer are expected to increase annual world trade by at least $755 billion by the year 2002.

In 1924 America"s National Research Council sent two engineers to supervise a series of experiments at a telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago. It hoped they would learn how stop-floor lighting【C1】______workers" productivity. Instead, the studies ended【C2】______ giving their name to the "Hawthorne effect", the extremely influential idea that the very【C3】______of being experimented upon changed subjects" behavior. The idea arose because of the【C4】______behavior of the women in the plant. According to【C5】______of the experiments, their hourly output rose when lighting was increased, but also when it was dimmed. It did not【C6】______what was done in the experiment;【C7】______something was changed, productivity rose. A(n)【C8】______that they were being experimented upon seemed to be【C9】______to alter workers" behavior【C10】______itself. After several decades, the same data were【C11】______to econometric analysis. Hawthorne experiments has another surprise in store.【C12】______the descriptions on record, no systematic【C13】______ was found that levels of productivity were related to changes in lighting. It turns out that the peculiar way of conducting the experiments may have led to【C14】______ interpretations of what happened.【C15】______, lighting was always changed on a Sunday. When work started again on Monday, output【C16】______rose compared with the previous Saturday and【C17】______to rise for the next couple of days.【C18】______, a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Mondays. Workers【C19】______to be diligent for the first few days of the week in any case, before【C20】______a plateau and then slackening off. This suggests that the alleged "Hawthorne effect" is hard to pin down.

[A] Software enables companies to recruit employees who are more honest.[B] The application of software can help employ better workers.[C] Indirect questions help test the loyalty of a potential worker.[D] It is not always reliable to judge workers from experience.[E] People who once committed crimes find it more difficult to be employed.[F] The necessity of enhancing screening efficiency.[G] New progress can contribute to cutting cost. The problem with human-resource managers is that they are human. They have biases; they make mistakes. But with better tools, they can make better hiring decisions, say advocates of "big data". Software that crunches piles of information can spot things that may not be apparent to the naked eye. In the case of hiring American workers who toil by the hour, number-crunching has uncovered some surprising correlations. 【B1】______ For instance, people who fill out online job applications using browsers that did not come with the computer (such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer on a Windows PC) but had to be deliberately installed (like Firefox or Google's Chrome) perform better and change jobs less often.It could just be coincidence, but some analysts think that people who bother to install a new browser may be the sort who take the time to reach informed decisions. Such people should be better employees. Evolv, a company that monitors recruitment and workplace data, pored over nearly 3m data points from more than 30,000 employees to find this nugget. 【B2】______ Some 60% of American workers earn hourly wages. Of these, about half change jobs each year. So firms that employ lots of unskilled workers, such as supermarkets and fast-food chains, have to vet heaps—sometimes millions—of applications every year. Making the process more efficient could yield big payoffs.Evolv mines mountains of data. If a client operates call centres, for example, Evolv keeps daily tabs on such things as how long each employee takes to answer a customer's query. It then relates actual performance to traits that were visible during recruitment. 【B3】______ Some insights are counter-intuitive. For instance, firms routinely cull job candidates with a criminal record. Yet the data suggest that for certain jobs there is no correlation with work performance. Indeed, for customer-support calls, people with a criminal background actually perform a bit better. Likewise, many HR departments automatically eliminate candidates who have hopped from job to job. But a recent analysis of 100,000 call-centre workers showed that those who had job-hopped in the past were no more likely to quit quickly than those who had not. 【B4】______ Working with Xerox, a maker of printers, Evolv found that one of the best predictors that a customer-service employee will stick with a job is that he lives nearby and can get to work easily. These and other findings helped Xerox cut attrition by a fifth in a pilot programme that has since been extended. It also found that workers who had joined one or two social networks tended to stay in a job for longer. Those who belonged to four or more social networks did not. 【B5】______ There is no point asking jobseekers if they are honest. But surveys can measure honesty indirectly, by asking questions like "How good at computers are you?" and later; "What does control-V do on a word-processing programme?" A study of 20,000 workers showed that more honest people tend to perform better and stay at the job longer. For some reason, however, they make less effective salespeople. Algorithms and big data are powerful tools. Wisely used, they can help match the right people with the right jobs. But they must be designed and used by humans, so they can go horribly wrong. Peter Cappelli of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business recalls a case where the software rejected every one of many good applicants for a job because the firm in question had specified that they must have held a particular job title—one that existed at no other company.