单选题The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop"s Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than steanning from, human beings. Aesop"s fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable"s lesson, that we often play down that which we can"t achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of Other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop"s fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environ ment in which those culture existed.

单选题The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop"s Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than steanning from, human beings. Aesop"s fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable"s lesson, that we often play down that which we can"t achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop"s fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

单选题Anonymity is not something which was invented with the Internet. Anonymity and pseudonymity has occurred throughout history. For example, William Shakespeare is probably a pseudonym, and the real name of this 1 author is not known and will probably never be known. Anonymity has been used for many purposes. A well-known person may use a pseudonym to write messages, where the person does not want people"s 2 of the real author 3 their perception of the message. Also other people may want to 4 certain information about themselves in order to achieve a more 5 evaluation of their messages. A case in point is that in history it has been 6 that women used male pseudonyms, and for Jews to use pseudonyms in societies where their 7 was persecuted. Anonymity is often used to protect the 8 of people, for example when reporting results of a scientific study, when describing individual cases. Many countries even have laws which protect anonymity in certain circumstances. For instance, a person may, in many countries, consult a priest, doctor or lawyer and 9 personal information which is protected. In some 10 , for example confession in catholic churches, the confession booth is specially 11 to allow people to consult a priest, 12 seeing him face to face. The anonymity in 13 situations is however not always 100%. Ifa person tells a lawyer that he plans a 14 crime, some countries allow or even 15 that the lawyer tell the 16 . The decision to do so is not easy, since people who tell a priest or a psychologist that they plan a crime, may often do this to 17 their feeling more than their real intention. Many countries have laws protecting the anonymity of tip-offs to newspapers. It is regarded as 18 that people can give tips to newspapers about abuse, even though they are dependent 19 the organization they are criticizing and do not dare reveal their real name. Advertisement in personal sections in newspapers are also always signed by a pseudonym for 20 reasons.

单选题"Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?" Rick Scott, the Florida governor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told me that the firm regards admission to Harvard as a useful proof of talent, but a college education itself as useless. Parents and students themselves are acting on these principles, retreating from the humanities. I"ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria"s smart new book, In Defense of a Liberal Education . Like Mr. Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach critical thinking. So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well. First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labour force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities. "A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy," says Lawrence Katz, a labour economist at Harvard. Professor Katz says that the economic return to pure technical skills has flattened, and the highest return now goes to those who combine soft skills— excellence at communicating and working with people—with technical skills. My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions. To weigh these issues, regulators should be informed by first-rate science, but also by first-rate humanism. When the President"s Council on Bioethics issued its report in 2002, "Human Cloning and Human Dignity," it depends upon the humanities to shape judgments about ethics, limits and values. Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there"s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence. Science magazine published five studies indicating that research subjects who read literary fiction did better at assessing the feelings of a person in a photo than those who read nonfiction or popular fiction. Literature seems to offer lessons in human nature that help us decode the world around us and be better friends. Literature also builds bridges of understanding. In short, it makes eminent sense to study coding and statistics today, but also history and literature.

单选题Picture a typical MBA lecture theatre twenty years ago. In it the majority of students will have conformed to the standard model of the time: male, middle class and Western. Walk into a class today, however, and you'll get a completely different impression. For a start, you will now see plenty more women-the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, for example, boasts that 40% of its new enrolment is female. You will also see a wide range of ethnic groups and nationals of practically every country. It might be tempting, therefore, to think that the old barriers have been broken down and equal opportunity achieved. But, increasingly, this apparent diversity is becoming a mask for a new type of conformity. Behind the differences in sex, skin tones and mother tongues, there are common attitudes, expectations and ambitions which risk creating a set of clones among the business leaders of the future. Diversity, it seems, has not helped to address fundamental weaknesses in business leadership. So what can be done to create more effective managers of the commercial world? According to Valerie Gauthier, associate dean at HEC Paris, the key lies in the process by which MBA programmes recruit their students. At the moment candidates are selected on a fairly narrow set of criteria such as prior academic and career performance, and analytical and problem solving abilities. This is then coupled to a school's picture of what a diverse class should look like, with the result that passport, ethnic origin and sex can all become influencing factors. But schools rarely dig down to find out what really makes an applicant succeed, to create a class which also contains diversity of attitude and approach-arguably the only diversity that, in a business context, really matters. Professor Gauthier believes schools should not just be selecting candidates from traditional sectors such as banking, consultancy and industry. They should also be seeking individuals who have backgrounds in areas such as political science, the creative arts, history or philosophy, which will allow them to put business decisions into a wider context. Indeed, there does seem to be a demand for the more rounded leaders such diversity might create. A study by Mannaz, a leadership development company, suggests that, while the bully-boy chief executive of old may not have been eradicated completely, there is a definite shift in emphasis towards less tough styles of management- at least in America and Europe. Perhaps most significant, according to Mannaz, is the increasing interest large companies have in more collaborative management models, such as those prevalent in Scandinavia, which seek to integrate the hard and soft aspects of leadership and encourage delegated responsibility and accountability.

单选题Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States. It was 50 years ago this month that America"s Surgeon General sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20 million Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions and smoking bans have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current Surgeon General, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised end-game strategies to extinguish cigarettes altogether. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. E-cigarettes give users a hit of vapour infused with nicotine. In America, sales of the manufacturer, who is the fastest e-cigarettes-adopter, have jumped from nearly nothing five years ago to at least 1 billion in 2013. At first, it looked as if e-cigarettes might lure smokers from the big tobacco brands to startups such as NJOY. But tobacco companies have bigger war chests , more knowledge of smokers" habits and better ties to distributors than the newcomers. Some experts reckon Americans will puff more e-cigarettes than normal ones within a decade, but tobacco folk are skeptical. E-cigarettes account for just 1% of America"s cigarette market. In Europe 7% of smokers had tried e-cigarettes by 2012 but only 1% kept them up. And no one knows what sort of restrictions regulators will eventually place on reduced risk products, including e-cigarettes. If these companies can manage the transition to less harmful smokes, and convince regulators to be sensible, the tobacco giants could keep up the sort of performance that has made their shares such a fine investment over the years. But some analysts are not so sure. Many tobacco firms are struggling to deliver the consistency of the earnings-per-share model we"ve seen in the past. If that persists, investors may fall out of love with the industry. A half-century after the Surgeon General"s alarm, they, and hopeless smokers, are its last remaining friends.

单选题Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard"s chief executive, came out fighting on November 14th. In a conference call with analysts, she announced better-than-expected quarterly results, even though profits were down. Ms Fiorina also reiterated why she believes her $ 24 billion plan to acquire Compaq is the best way forward for HP, despite objections by Hewlett and Packard family members. Last week Walter Hewlett, whose father co-founded the company, expressed concern that the merger would increase HP"s exposure to the shrinking PC market and would distract managers from the more important task of navigating through the recession. There are two ways to defend the deal. One is to point out its advantages, which is what Ms Fiorina did this week. Merging with Compaq, she said, would enable HP to reach its goals faster than it could on its own. The deal would improve HP"s position in key markets such as storage and high-end computing, as well as the economics of its PC business. It would double the size of HP"s sales force and broaden its customer base, providing more potential clients for its services and consulting arms. It would improve cash flow, margins and efficiency by adding "breadth and depth" to HP. "Having spent the last several months planning the integration of these two companies, we are even more convinced of the power of this combination," Ms Fiorina concluded. It sounds too good to be true, and it almost certainly is. But the other way to defend the deal is to point out that, even if it was a bad idea to start with, abandoning it could be even worse—a view that, unsurprisingly, Ms Fiorina chose not to advance, but is being quietly put forward by the deal"s supporters. Scrapping the merger would be extremely painful for a number of reasons. Since the executive teams of both firms have committed themselves to the deal, they would be utterly discredited if it fell apart, and would probably have to go. Under the terms of the merger agreement, HP might have to pay Compaq as much as $ 675m if it backed out. The two firms would be considerably weakened; they would also be rivals again, despite having shared confidential technical and marketing information with each other over the past few months. In short, it would all be horribly messy. What can be done to save the deal? Part of the problem is that HP has no plan B. "They need a brand-recovery effort immediately," says one industry analyst. HP must give the impression that it is strong and vital, rather than desperate, and that its future is not dependent on the deal going forward. That could make the merger look more attractive and bring investors back on board. This week"s results will certainly help. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which owns just over one-tenth of HP"s shares, will decide whether to back the merger in the next few weeks, and HP"s shareholders are to vote on it early next year. The more credible HP"s plan B, the less likely it is that it will be needed.

单选题If you watched a certain swimmer"s Rio Games debut on Sunday night, when he propelled the United States 4x 100-meter relay team to a gold medal, you know the answer: Michael Phelps. While it may look like the athletes have been in a bar fight, the purple dots actually are signs of "cupping," an ancient Chinese healing practice that is experiencing an Olympic moment. In cupping, practitioners of the healing technique—or sometimes the athletes themselves—place specialized cups on the skin. Then they use either heat or an air pump to create suction between the cup and the skin, pulling the skin slightly up and away from the underlying muscles. The suction typically lasts for only a few minutes, but it"s enough time to cause the capillaries just beneath the surface to rupture, creating the circular, eye-catching bruises that have been so visible on Phelps as well as members of the United States men"s gymnastics team. Physiologically, cupping is thought to draw blood to the affected area, reducing soreness and speeding healing of overworked muscles. Athletes who use it swear by it, saying it keeps them injury free and speeds recovery. Phelps posted an Instagram photo showing himself stretched on a table as his Olympic swimming teammate Allison Schmitt placed several cups along the back of his thighs. "Thanks for my cupping today!" he wrote. While there"s no question that many athletes, coaches and trainers believe in the treatment, there"s not much science to determine whether cupping offers a real physiological benefit or whether the athletes simply are enjoying a placebo effect. "A placebo effect is present in all treatments, and I am sure that it is substantial in the case of cupping as well," said Leonid Kalichman, a senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. "A patient can feel the treatment and has marks after it, and this can contribute to a placebo effect." One 2012 study of 61 people with chronic neck pain compared cupping to a technique called progressive muscle relaxation, or PMR, during which a patient deliberately tenses his muscles and then focuses on relaxing them. About half the patients used cupping while the other half used PMR. Both patient groups reported similar reductions in pain after 12 weeks of treatment. Notably, the patients who had used cupping scored higher on measurements of well-being and felt less pain when pressure was applied to the area. Even so, the researchers noted that more study is needed to determine the potential benefits of cupping.

单选题Want to know how long you or your aging parents will live? One simple 1 of wellbeing and longevity among older people is their walking speed, new research shows. In an analysis of nine studies 2 more than 34,000 people aged 65 and older, faster walking speeds were 3 with living longer: Predicted years of remaining life for each age and both sexes increased 4 gait-speed increased, with the most significant gains after age 75. In addition, researchers found that predicting survival based on gait speed was as 5 as predictions 6 on age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index and hospitalization. "My hope is that we begin to think about ways to 7 the health and function of older people that goes 8 diseases," says lead researcher Stephanie Studenski, a geriatric physician at the University of Pittsburgh, 9 analysis appears today in the Journal of American Medical Association. "Functional status (walking speed) is an important reflection of health." Walking is a 10 tool to measure well-being, Studenski says, 11 it requires body support, timing and power, and places demands 12 the brain, spinal cord, muscles and joints, heart and lungs. Slowing down is associated with getting older. By age 80, gait speed is approximately 10% to 20% 13 than in young adults, she says. The findings can provide doctors with an inexpensive, safe and simple way of measuring performance 14 can help 15 health problems, she says, and in many cases 16 treatments that can improve well-being, 17 disabilities and help the elderly 18 independence. "I think it"s a very useful tool, and some physicians already use it," says Evan Hadley, associate director of geriatrics at the National Institute on Aging. "It"s 19 universal, though. This study 20 show walking speed is a very strong predictor of survival."

单选题You hear the refrain all the time: the U. S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn't feel good. Why doesn't ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97. The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, "hunger, sickness, and cold" threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. "Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours." After World War Ⅱ, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4.5 percent. To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn't really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as "a necessary evil". It's often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving, rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people's incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200. People feel "squeezed" because their rising incomes often don't satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections. The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fear they've become "the disposable American", as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name. Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian (乌托邦式的) possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much less physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions. Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment. But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity (肥胖症). Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes. Should we be surprised? Not really. We've simply reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.

单选题Much of continental Europe is in poor shape. True, the aggregate wealth of people is little changed and the social capital in museums, parks and other amenities is still intact. Yet, in the western part, the economy is failing society. Inclusion of ethnic minorities and youth in the economy is more lacking than ever. Among those who do participate, fewer are prospering. It is a measure of the decline that, in almost every country, the growth of wage rates has steadily slowed since 1995. What has gone wrong? European economists speak of a loss of competitiveness in southern Europe. They suggest that output and employment are down, relative to the past trend, because wages leapt ahead of productivity, making labour too expensive and forcing employers to cut back. Taking this perspective, some German economists argue that wages need to fall in the affected economies. Others argue instead for monetary stimulus—for instance, asset purchases by central banks—to raise prices and make current wage rates affordable. Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply. And they lay that contraction largely to outbreaks of fiscal profligacy—as happened in Europe from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Disciples of Keynes, who focus on aggregate demand, view any increase in household wealth as raising employment because they say it adds to consumer demand. They say Europe needs a lot more fiscal "profligacy" if it is to bring unemployment down. Some evidence favours the classics. Yet both sides of this debate miss the critical force at work. The main cause of Europe"s deep fall—the losses of inclusion, job satisfaction and wage growth—is the devastating slowdown of productivity that began in the late 1990s and struck large swathes of the continent. It holds down the growth of wages rates and it depresses employment. That slowdown resulted from narrowing innovation. Even in the postwar years, innovation in Europe was feeble by past standards. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, much of Europe is still suffering a slump on top of its post-1990s fall. The slump will pass but the fall will not be easily overcome. The continent is losing its best talent. It needs to fight for an economic life worth living.

单选题At a party for Ms. magazine"s 40th birthday, the Canadian writer Ann Dowsett Johnston waited for an audience with Gloria Steinem, hoping to cull wisdom for her research on women and alcohol. "Alcohol?" Steinem said to Johnston, looking "dismissive." "Alcohol is not a women"s issue." Steinem may have been hasty. We know that many women report drinking more often in recent decades, that they are drinking more when they do, and that the physiological impact and social meaning of it all is different for women than for men. Women are the engine of growth for the American wine market and are being arrested for drunken driving more often than before. How much alarm should be invested in those observations is up for debate in both Johnston"s book, Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol , and Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink—and How They Can Regain Control , by the American journalist Gabrielle Glaser, the second of which makes the more pointed case. Johnston turns in part to gauzy memory to make the case that female alcohol consumption is the negative byproduct of modem complexities and the pressure for women to be "perfect." "I don"t remember my grandmothers suffering from this syndrome," she asserts. "Women who raised families during the Depression, who baked and gardened and read well; who were fundamentally happy, and felt no pressure to look like stick figures." Well. Depression-era women"s lives were more circumscribed and less weighted with the pretext of "choice," sure. But were these women, all in all, "fundamentally happy"? And were they less eager for a fix when they could get it? A temptation for many trend journalists and headline writers is to see women"s higher rates of alcohol abuse and dependency as the uneasy consequence of female liberation. Glaser acknowledges that alcohol provides a form of self-medication during a time of dizzying changes in women"s lives, but she is skeptical of the notion that alcohol abuse is the price of too much liberation. Her concise assessment: "Women are drinking more because they can." Indeed, whereas Johnston often casts women as the victims of institutions, Glaser seems more interested in asking why institutions aren"t serving women"s needs better. Either way, what"s at stake is how we respond to the byproducts of equality that fit less comfortably on a placard.

单选题As a wise man once said, we are all ultimately alone. But an increasing number of Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. This isn't the stuff of gloomy philosophical contemplations, but a fact of Europe's new economic landscape, embraced by sociologists, real-estate developers and ad executives alike. The shift away from family life to solo lifestyle, observes a French sociologist, is part of the "irresistible momentum of individualism" over the last century. The communications revolution, the shift form a business culture of stability to one of mobility and the mass entry of women into the workforce have greatly wreaked havoc (扰乱) Europeans' private lives. Europe's new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence. The current generation of home-aloners came of age during Europe's shift from social democracy to the sharper, more individualistic climate of American-style capitalism. Raised in an era of privatization and increased consumer choice, today's tech-savvy (精通技术的) workers have embraced a free and temperamentally independent enough to want to do so. Once upon a time, people who lived alone tended to be those on either side of marriage-twenty something professionals or widowed senior citizens. While pensioners, particularly elderly women, make up a large proportion of those living alone, the newest crop of singles are high earners in their 30s and 40s who increasingly view living alone as a lifestyle choice. Living alone was conceived to be negative— dark and cold, while being together suggested warmth and light. But then came along the idea of singles. They were young, beautiful, strong! Now, young people want to live alone. The booming economy means people are working harder than ever. And that doesn't leave much room for relationships. Pimpi Arroyo, a 35-year-old composer who lives alone in a house in Paris, says he hasn't got time to get lonely because he has too much work. "I have deadlines which would make life with someone else fairly difficult." Only an Ideal Woman would make him change his lifestyle, he says. Kaufann, author of a recent book called "The Single Woman and Prince Charming", thinks this fierce new individualism means that people expect more and more of mates, so relationships don't last long—if they start at all. Eppendorf, a blond Berliner with a dee tan teaches grade school in the mornings. In the afternoon she sunbathes or sleeps, resting up for going dancing. Just shy of 50, she says she'd never have wanted to do what her mother did—give up a career to raise a family. Instead, "I've always done what I wanted to do: live a self-determined life./

单选题"Project gold" and "Project Nexus" sound like plans for bank robberies or military attacks. In reality, they are the names for KPMG"s ongoing attempt to squeeze its 6,700 London employees into ever smaller spaces. Since 2006 the professional-services firm has reduced the number of offices it uses in London from seven to two. By the spring of 2015 everybody will be crammed into one building in CanaryWharf. Firms have long known that only about half of all desks are in use at any moment, as employees work odd hours or disappear to meetings, but it was difficult to fill the spares. Better IT systems now mean that people need not be tied to a particular desk. They need not even be in the office at all: as cloud computing and virtual offices take off, more people are working from home or from other places, further reducing the need for desks. Aside from cheapness, there is a motive behind this squashing. Inspired by Silicon Valley, firms are trying to make their offices into "collaborative spaces", where people bump into each other and chat usefully. KPMG"s redesigned CanaryWharf offices will include lots of "breakout spaces" where employees can relax, and quiet rooms where people can get away from hubbub, says Alastair Young, who is planning the move. He thinks this will both improve productivity and save money. In this happy new world, offices are not just places to work but also a way of expressing corporate identity and a means of attracting and retaining staff. At the offices of Bain the crowds have also put pressure on the air-conditioning system.

单选题Pictures in the British papers this week of Prince William, Prince Charles's 18-year-old son, cleaning toilets overseas, have led to a surge of altruism (利他主义). Raleigh International, the charity that organized his trip, has seen inquiries about voluntary work abroad rise by 30%. But the image of idealistic youth that William presents no longer reflects the reality of the volunteer force. It's getting older and older. Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has about 2000 volunteers in the field around the world. After a dip in interest in the mid- 1990s, applications to work abroad are at record levels. Last year 7645 people submitted applications, and 920 successfully negotiated the VSO selection process and were sent abroad. When the organization was founded in 1959, the average volunteer was in his early 20s. Now, the average age is 35, and set to rise further. Partly, that is because there are more older people who want to do VSO. More people take early retirement; more, says the chief executive of VSO, "still feel that they have more to give and are in good health". And the demands of the African and Asian countries where most of the volunteers go are changing, too. Their educational standards have risen over the past couple of decades, so they want people with more qualifications, skills and experience. BESO (British Executive Service Overseas) recruits executives and businessmen with at least 15 years' experience for short-term contract work overseas. It organizes 500 placements (工作安置) a year, and at the moment supply is surpassing demand. A BESO spokesman said that the organization is "limited by funding rather than a lack of volunteers". Enthusiastic but unqualified students do not impress as much as they once did alongside accountants, managers and doctors. The typical volunteer, these days, has been in full-time employment for at least five years and is highly qualified. And the profession which provides the biggest portion of volunteers is education—headmasters and school inspectors as well as classroom teachers.

单选题When Liam McGee departed as president of Bank of America in August, his explanation was surprisingly straight up. Rather than cloaking his exit in the usual vague excuses, he came right out and said he was leaving "to pursue my goal of running a company". Broadcasting his ambition was "very much my decision." McGee says. Within two weeks, he was talking for the first time with the board of Hartford Financial Services Group, which named him CEO and chairman on September 29. McGee says leaving without a position lined up gave him time to reflect on what kind of company he wanted to run. It also sent a clear message to the outside world about his aspirations. And McGee isn't alone. In recent weeks the No.2 executives at Avon and American Express quit with the explanation that they were looking for a CEO post. As boards scrutinize succession plans in response to shareholder pressure, executives who don't get the nod also may wish to move on. A turbulent business environment also has senior managers cautious of letting vague pronouncements cloud their reputations. As the first signs of recovery begin to take hold, deputy chiefs may be more willing to make the jump without a net. In the third quarter, CEO turnover was down 23% from a year ago as nervous boards stuck with the leaders they had, according to Liberum Research. As the economy picks up, opportunities will abound for aspiring leaders. The decision to quit a senior position to look for a better one is unconventional. For years executives and headhunters have adhered to the rule that the most attractive CEO candidates are the ones who must be poached. Says Korn/Ferry senior partner Dennis Carey: "I can't think of a single search I've done where a board has not instructed me to look at sitting CEOs first." Those who jumped without a job haven't always landed in top positions quickly. Ellen Marram quit as chief of Tropicana a decade age, saying she wanted to be a CEO. It was a year before she became head of a tiny Internet- based commodities exchange. Robert Willumstad left Citigroup in 2005 with ambitions to be a CEO. He finally took that post at a major financial institution three years later. Many recruiters say the old disgrace is fading for top performers. The financial crisis has made it more acceptable to be between jobs or to leave a bad one. "The traditional rule was it's safer to stay where you are, but that's been fundamentally inverted," says one headhunter, "The people who've been hurt the worst are those who've stayed too long./

单选题In a famous lab trial, a chimp named Sultan put two interlocking sticks together and pulled down a bunch of bananas hanging just out of arm"s reach. Nearly a century later, eager tourists have conducted their own version of the experiment. Equipped with the camera extender known as a selfie stick, they can now reach for flattering CinemaScope selfies wherever they go. Art museums have watched this development nervously, fearing damage to their collections or to visitors, as users swing their sticks. Now they are taking action. One by one, museums across the United States have been imposing bans on using selfie sticks for photographs inside galleries (adding them to existing rules on umbrellas, rucksacks, tripods and monopods), yet another example of how controlling overcrowding has become part of the museum mission. The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington prohibited the sticks this month, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston plans to impose a ban. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been studying the matter for some time, has just decided that it, too, will forbid selfie sticks. "From now on, you will be asked quietly to put it away," said Sree Sreenivasan, the chief digital officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "It"s one thing to take a picture at arm"s length, but when it is three times arm"s length, you are invading someone else"s personal space." The personal space of other visitors is just one problem. The artwork is another. "We do not want to have to put all the art under glass," said Deborah Ziska, the chief of public information at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which has been quietly enforcing a ban on selfie sticks but is in the process of adding it formally to its printed guidelines for visitors. Last but not least is the threat to the camera operator, intent on capturing the perfect shot and oblivious to the surroundings. "If people are not paying attention in the Temple of Dendur, they can end up in the water with the crocodile sculpture," Mr. Sreenivasan said. "We have so many balconies you could fall from, and stairs you can trip on."

单选题McDonald"s, the burger behemoth announced a 5.2% drop in profits for the first three months of 2014 and a 1.7% decrease in same store sales in the U.S. President and CEO Don Thompson emphasized that McDonald"s would be focusing on its core products, like its Big Mac, Egg McMuffin, and its famous french fries. Thompson"s back-to-basics vow comes in response to the sort of menu creep the chain experienced in 2013, when it rolled out a seemingly endless stream of limited time offers. After all, those special promotions and innovations didn"t do much good. Same-store sales slipped by 0.2% in the U.S. last year, and chief operating officer Tim Fenton admitted that the fast-food chain "stumbled a bit, in 2013, with too many new products, too fast and we created a lot of complexity." Thompson said that McDonald"s "core products are familiar favorites for our customers. They truly represent McDonald"s to all of our customers, and at about 40% of total sales, they are an incredible business asset for us that requires a constant publicity and promotion." When McDonald"s first got off the ground in the 1940s, it had a nine-item menu made up of hamburger, cheeseburger, soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips, and a slice of pie. It built its iconic reputation on guaranteeing that these food and beverage items would have the same great taste no matter the McDonald"s location at which they were served. But as time goes on, too much menu diversification, which McDonald"s has suffered from of late, leads to longer customer wait times in an industry built on speed. "What McDonald"s workers do inside those four walls is really impressive. Everyone has their time and place, and their entire job is done in two or three steps," says Howard Penney, managing director at Hedgeye Risk Management. Adding more processes that come with a bigger menu, specifically the smoothie and espresso machines, has disrupted McDonald"s restaurants" time and motion. It takes a lot longer to make a smoothie than it does to pour a fountain Coke. "Everything they"ve done to become all things to all people has slowed service," Penney says. All in all, going back to its roots could be just what McDonald"s needs.

单选题My new home was a long way from the centre of London but it was becoming essential to find a job, so finally I spent a whole morning getting to town and putting my name down to be considered by London Transport for a job on the tube. They were looking for guards, not drivers. This suited me. I couldn"t drive a car but thought that I could probably guard a train, and perhaps continue to write my poems between stations. The writers Keats and Chekhov had been doctors. T. S. Eliot had worked in a bank and Wallace Stevens for an insurance company. I would be a tube guard. I could see myself being cheerful, useful, a good man in a crisis. Obviously I would be overqualified but I was willing to forget about that in return for a steady income and travel privileges those being particularly welcome to someone living a long way from the city centre. The next day I sat down, with almost a hundred other candidates, for the intelligence test, I must have done all right because after half an hour"s wait I was sent into another room for a psychological test. This time there were only about fifty candidates. The examiner sat at a desk. You were signaled forward to occupy the seat opposite him when the previous occupant had been dismissed, after a greater or shorter time. Obviously the long interviews were the more successful ones. Some of the interviews were as short as five minutes. Mine was the only one that lasted a minute and a half. I can remember the questions now: "Why did you leave your last job?" "Why did you leave your job before that?" "And the one before that?" I can"t recall my answers, except that they were short at first and grew progressively shorter. His closing statement, I thought, revealed a lack of sensitivity which helped to explain why as a psychologist, he had risen no higher than the underground railway. "You have failed the psychological test and we are unable to offer you a position." Failing to get that job was my low point. Or so I thought, believing that the work was easy. Actually, such jobs—being a postman is another one I still desire—demand exactly the sort of elementary yet responsible awareness that the habitual dreamer is least qualified to give. But I was still far short of full self-understanding. I was also short of cash.

单选题Rugby is a fast, rough game that is played throughout the British Isles. The game split off from British football in the mid-19th century when the Football Association forbade players to handle the ball. There are two codes of Rugby football, Rugby Union and Rugby League, which have slightly different rules and scoring systems. In Rugby League each team has 13 players compared with 15 in Rugby Union. Players sometimes change from one code to the other during their careers. In Rugby teams try to win possession of a large oval-shaped ball and carry or kick it towards the opposing team"s goal line, the line at each end of the pitch where the H-shaped goalposts are. If the ball is touched down, on the grass beyond the touchline a try, which worth five points in Rugby Union and four in Rugby League, is scored. A further two points are scored if the try is converted, meaning kicked between the goalposts, above the horizontal crossbar. Points can also be obtained from penalty goals scored as a result of free kicks, and from drop goals. Players try to stop opponents carrying and passing the ball by tackling them. When a minor rule is broken players restart play by forming a serum, lining together in a group, or by taking a free kick. Rugby Union, also called rugger, is the older for the two codes. It is said to have begun at Rugby School in 1823. It has always had strong upper-class and middle-class associations, except in Wales, and is the main winter sport of most English public schools. It is played mainly by men, though there are now some women"s teams. Rugby League broke away from Rugby Union in the 1890s. Rugby had become popular among working-class people in northern England and many could not afford to take time off work to play in matches without being paid. The Northern Union, later called Rugby League, was formed in 1895 and soon had many full-time paid professional players. The two codes may reunite in the future. In 1995 the International Rugby Board allowed Rugby Union players to become paid professionals.