Section C Directions:In this
section, there is one passage followed by 6 statements. Go over the passage
quickly. For questions 66-71, mark T (for True) if the statement agrees with the
information given in the passage; F (for False) if the statement contradicts
with information given in the passage; NG (for Not Given) if the information is
not given in the passage. Questions 66-71 are based on the following
passage. You might be of the opinion that a little hard
work never hurt anyone, but this old saying is wearing thin. Tokyo interiors
filter Nobuo Miuro, quite literally, died in his word boots in the middle of a
17-hour shift: a Japanese doctor returned a verdict of death by overwork. It’s a
phenomenon that has become so common in Japan (where a typical office worker can
leave home at 7 a.m., only getting back after 11 p.m.) that they even have their
own word for it: "karoshi". Karoshi has yet to make it as a
buzzword in current British usage, but that’ not to say that long hours and
work-related stress aren’t taking their toll on us here. Self-reported health
problems in the past 12 months by people in the UK working 48 hours or more have
included mental exhaustion (54%), difficulty sleeping (43%) and range from
chronic headaches and irritable bowel trouble to ulcers and drug or alcohol
problems. The weird thing is that not all of this chaos is
brought about because we work for mean bosses, keen to keep up working even on
Christmas day. Deborah is the marketing director of a major
fashion outlet. She regularly burns the midnight oil but has few regrets. "I did
begin to worry a bit when they moved the chocolate vending machine right outside
my office door. Apparently I get through more chocolate bars in one week than
the entire second floor get through in a month. But other than not having a
particularly healthy diet and probably drinking more coffee than is good for me,
I really love my job." But there’s another reason Deborah says
she works so hard. "Most offices are still a little dominated by males," she
says. "Being a woman, I feel that I have to work even harder than the men if I
want to be taken seriously." Deborah believes that for women to succeed in the
workplace they have to shoulder more than their fair share of the workload, but
she’s adamant that her efforts are being rewarded. "In
recognition of my hard work I was given a new Alfa Romeo as my company car and
they’re talking about giving me a posting in Italy next year." Lucky Deborah!
Italians, according to the Trades Union Congress, only work an average of 38.5
hours every week. ______ Deborah eats a lot of chocolate because the chocolate vending machine is just outside her office door.