(江苏专用)2020高考英语二轮复习 专题限时检测(三十)任务型阅读(五)

专题限时检测(三十) 任务型阅读(五)(限时24分钟)A(2020·扬、泰、南、淮、徐、宿、连三模)How many cabs in New York City? How many tears in a bottle of wine? These aren't just the lyrics (歌词) to a song by the Australian musician Paul Kelly.They are the kind of questions you are likely to be asked during a job interview.In recent years, it has become common for bosses to ask interview questions that are impossible to answer.There is no right answer to these “brainteasers”．Instead, they are supposed to help an interviewer calculate an applicant's ability to reason.What matters is how you come to the conclusion, not what conclusion you arrive at.Brainteasers started out in management consultancy firms.Young graduates hoping to join the company would be asked: “How many phone booths are there in Manhattan？” They weren't expected to blurt out (脱口说出) a random number — instead, they were expected to show they could solve even the most stupid problem.As consultants swarmed across other organizations, they bought their inscrutable (难以理解的) questions with them.Now, people applying for a job in a call centre can expect to be asked how a nuclear power plant works.While many bosses have great confidence in how good or effective brainteasers are, a research paper published in the journal Applied Psychology found they are useless for spotting the best candidate for the job.What they are great for is to make employers feel like intellectual giants.The study's findings are not surprising.Studies have repeatedly foundthat most methods of selecting job candidates are hopelessly flawed (有缺点的)．Job interviews are among the worst way of picking the right person for the job.The results of this research raise the question: if interviews are bad at picking the right person for the job, what are they there for? One feeling I have is that many job selection processes are thinly disguised (伪装的) forms of suffering, designed to make applicants feel worthless and boost the confidence of the person asking the question.Think about the extensive list of personal skills required for even the most lowly entry­level job.Or those painful assessment centres where you are supposed to play nice with people you are competing against to get the job.And then there are the firms that ask applicants to make a presentation to convey how awesome the firms are.All these exercises seem designed not to get the best person for the role, but to assure the boss how great they are, and remind you just how lucky you would be to get this boring job.语篇解读：本文主要讲述了一些公司在招聘新的员工的时候，所问的一些与应聘的岗位没有太大的关系的、让求职者感到闹心的问题。

1．open/subjective/left 根据第二段第二句“There is no right answer to these ‘brainteasers’．”可知，这些脑筋急转弯的问题没有正确的答案，所以说答案是开放的，或者主观的。

2．reasoning 根据第二段第三、四句“Instead, they are supposed to help an interviewer calculate an applicant's ability to reason.”可知，这些问题考查受试者的推理能力。

3．Origin/Beginning/Start 文章第三、四段讲了brainteasers的起源和广泛应用。

4．irrelevant/unrelated/unconnected 根据第四段最后一句“Now, pe ople applying for a job in a call centre can expect to be asked how a nuclear powerplant works.”可知，一个申请呼叫中心工作的人可能会被问道核能源工厂如何工作。

也就是被问到和职业不相关的问题。

5．Contrary 第五段讲研究发现这类问题和老板们的相反，在选拔人才时并不能起到太大的作用。

Contrary to ...“与……相反”。

6．intelligence/wisdom/knowledge/greatness/excellence 根据第五段最后一句“What they are great for is to make employers feel like intellectual giants.”可知，问这些问题最大的好处就在于让雇主感觉自己像个智力巨人。

所以说面试官问这些问题是为了炫耀自己的智商。

7．assessment/evaluation/opinion/image根据第七段最后一句“...to make applicants feel worthless ...”可知，这样的面试旨在让求职者觉得自己一文不值，使求职者对自己的评价很差。

8．beyond根据最后一段第一句“Think about the extensive list of personal skills required for even the most lowly entry­level job.”可知，最低级的入门级工作应该不需要这么多的个人技能，可见有些要求已经远远超过了这个职位的需要。

beyond“超越”。

9．competitors/rivals/opponents 根据最后一段第二句“Or those painf ul assessment centres where you are supposed to play nice with people you are competing against to get the job.”可知答案。

10．praise/applaud 根据最后一段倒数第二句“And then there are the firms that ask applicants to make a presentation to convey how awesome the firms are.”还有一些公司要求申请者做一个演讲来表达公司有多棒。

也就是要让求职者来表扬这家公司。

B(2020·苏、锡、常、镇三模)Human love isn't neatly ordered or easily predictable.But that doesn't mean that mathematics hasn't got something because, love, as with most of life, is full of patterns.Mathematics is, basically, all about the study of patterns, patterns from predicting the weather to the fluctuations (起伏) in the stock market, to the movement ofthe planets or the growth of cities.And if we're being honest, none of those things are exactly neatly ordered and easily predictable, either.So let us talk about how to pick a perfect partner using a bit of mathematics that is called Optimal Stopping Theory.Imagine that you start dating when you're 15 and ideally, you'd like to be married by the time that you're 35.And there's a number of people that you could potentially date across your lifetime, and they'll be at varying levels of goodness.The math says then that what you should do in the first 37 percent of your dating window, you should just reject everybody as serious marriage potential.And then, you should pick the next person that is better than everybody that you've seen before.If you do this, it can be mathematically proven, in fact, that this is the best possible way of maximizing your chances of finding the perfect partner.But unfortunately, I have to tell you that this method does come with some risks.For instance, imagine if your perfect partner appeared during your first 37 percent.Now, unfortunately, you'd have to reject them.Now, if you're following the maths, I'm afraid no one else will appear that's better than anyone you've seen before, so you have to go on rejecting everyone and die alone.Okay, another risk is, let's imagine, instead, that the first people that you dated in your first 37 percent are just incredibly dull, boring, terrible people.Now, that's okay, because you're in your rejection phase.But then imagine, the next person to come along is just slightly less boring, dull and terrible than everybody that you've seen before.Now, if you are following the maths, I'm afraid you have to marry them and end up in a relationship which is, frankly, not most satisfying.Okay, so this method doesn't give you a 100 percent success rate, butthere's no other possible strategy that can do any better.And actually, I also think that subconsciously, humans, we do sort of do this anyway.We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we're young.And then we only start looking seriously at potential mar riage candidates once we hit our mid­to late­20s.I think this is convincing proof, if ever it were needed, that everybody's brains are prewired(天生的) to be just a little bit mathematical.Therefore, it can be mathematically proven that this is the best way to find the perfect partner.the stu dy of patterns”可知，数学是研究规律的。