2016年托福考试写作话题语料库_第2页

　　二、工作类话题语料库

　　1.能否同时做多件工作

　　在当今社会，仓促、匆忙和骄躁已经是很多人日常生活不可忽略的一部分了。所以我们找到了一个新词，用来形容我们面对我们所处时代的压力时做出的努力，即“同时进行若干工作”。这个词十几年来一直是用于描述计算机并行处理能力的，现在成了形容人们尽可能的追求更快更有技术含量的一心多用的一种噱头。

　　In modern times, hurry, bustle, and agitation have become a regular way of life for many people—so much so that we have embraced a word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing demands on our time: multitasking. Used for decades to describe the parallel processing abilities of computers, multitasking is now shorthand for the human attempt to do simultaneously as many things as possible, as quickly as possible, preferably marshalling the power of as many technologies as possible.

　　但是近来一段时间，同时进行若干工作的风潮开始面临挑战。相当数量的研究表明，有些同时进行若干工作存在致命的危险性，例如正在开车时使用手机或者其他的掌上设备。现在甚至很多多任务处理的方式已经被定为是违法的。在一直注重时间管理的商界，关于同时进行若干工作引起的工作精力分散，正受到越来越多的警惕的目光。

　　But more recently, challenges to the ethos of multitasking have begun to emerge. Numerous studies have shown the sometimes-fatal danger of using cell phones and other electronic devices while driving, for example, and several states have now made that particular form of multitasking illegal. In the business world, where concerns about time-management are perennial, warnings about workplace distractions spawned by a multitasking culture are on the rise.

　　同时进行若干工作，可能也会造成经济损失。加利福尼亚州大学的研究人员在Irvine有一项研究，监视办公室里的工作情况;他们发现员工平均需要25分钟才能从那些手机或者收发邮件的中断中恢复到手头的工作上来。2007年，Basex商业研究公司的研究员Jonathan B. Spira，在 时代周刊上发表评论说，信息过载和过度的同时进行若干工作已经造成美国每年65亿美元的损失。

　　Multitasking might also be taking a toll on the economy. One study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine monitored interruptions among office workers; they found that workers took an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task. Discussing multitasking with the New York Timesin 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, an analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking—information overload—costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.

　　2.确保事事正确比勇于冒险犯错更重要吗?

　　史蒂芬·法雷尔第一次遭绑架是在2004年的伊拉克。当时还是《时代周刊》记者的他，凭着一贯的坚持不懈，经协商返还他的装甲车和大部分设备之后，谢天谢地，那场短暂的风波才得以平息。接下来他又将所遭遇的一切以采访的形式整理成文，令世人更加了解了伊拉克人对乔治·布什的态度。

　　The first time Stephen Farrell was kidnapped was in Iraq in 2004. It was a thankfully brief affair that ended – with typical persistence from the then Times reporter – with him negotiating the return of his armoured car and most of his equipment. He went on to write up his encounter as an interview, casting light on Iraqi attitudes towards George Bush.

　　3.教师行业应实行绩效工资?

　　But Reginald Weaver, the president of the National Education Association, which represents 3.2 million teachers, says the federal focus should instead be on raising teacher salaries and improving working conditions in challenging schools. Craig Richards, a professor of education in the Teachers College at Columbia University, agrees. "It's not that a performance-pay plan couldn't work," he says. "It's that no one has come up with a thoughtful way to do it."

　　In Florida, a legislative plan called Special Teachers Are Rewarded collapsed early this year after educators and their unions called the plan arbitrary, unfair, and divisive. The STAR program would have given bonuses only to the top 25 percent of teachers in the state, and it was based largely on student test scores. It disadvantaged librarians, art and music teachers, and others whose students were not tested.

　　Carla Sparks, a nationally certified teacher in Tampa who didn't get a $2,000 bonus under the state's latest merit pay program last year, says it's unfair to rate a teacher mostly on student test scores. "If you're evaluating teachers and students on one day of testing, you don't get a true picture," she says. "We have some veteran teachers with outstanding evaluations who have done some remarkable things for education who did not get a bonus, and they are feeling like a failure."

　　雷金纳德·韦弗，代表着3，200，000名教师的国家教育部主席，联邦应关注的是提高落后学校的教师工资，改善落后学校的工作条件。克雷格·理查兹，哥伦比亚大学教育学院的一位教育学教授对此表示同意说,“没有人提出全面的解决方案。”在佛罗里达，今年初，一项叫做“特别教师奖励”的立案瓦解了，因为教育者及其联盟称它“武断、不公、矛盾”。“星计划”只将奖金发给州内排名在前25%的教师，而这很大程度上是以学生的测试成绩为依据的。这对图书管理员、美术老师、音乐老师和那些教授不必测试科目的老师不利。

　　卡拉·斯帕克斯，坦帕市的一位国家级教师，在州实施最新的绩效工资情况下，得到的奖金不足2，000美元，说主要依据学生测试成绩给教师排名是不公平的。“如果以某一天的测试来评价教师和学生，那么你不可能获知真实的情况，”她说，“我们一些有特别好评的资深教师曾为教育事业做出过突出贡献，但他们并未得到奖金，这使他们感觉很自己很失败。”

　　4.年轻人对将会影响社会将来的重要决定没有任何影响?

　　Han Han is China's rebel writer who has become the unofficial voice for his generation. As a teenager the 27-year-old began writing novels about angst-ridden characters that proved tremendously popular with China's angsty youth. But it is his blog that has propelled him to celebrity status in China and earned him the accolade as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2009. He's been touted as mouthpiece for the "post-80's generation"; China's youth who have grown up during the country's economic boom and are often characterized as apolitical and consumer-obsessed.

　　韩寒是一个已经成为他的那一代的非官方声音的中国叛逆作家. 这个27岁的青年开始写一本关于焦虑缠身的角色并已经在中国的愤青团体中大热的小说。但是他的博客才是将他推上中国的名人地位并为他挣到了2009年《时代》杂志全球最具影响力100人的荣誉的真正帮手。他已经被追捧为80后的代言人;一群成长于国家经济爆炸式增长时期并经常被描绘成不关心政治，痴迷于消费的形象的中国青年。