Seven Steps to a More Fulfilling Job

    Many people today find themselves in unfulfilling work situations. In fact, one in four workers is dissatisfied with their current job, according to the recent “Plans for 2004” survey. Their career path may be financially rewarding, but it doesn’t meet their emotional, social or creative needs. They’re stuck, unhappy, and have no idea what to do about it, except move to another job.
    Mary Lyn Miller, veteran career consultant and founder of the Life and Career Clinic, says that when most people are unhappy about their work, their first thought is to get a different job. Instead, Miller suggests looking at the possibility of a different life. Through her book, 8 Myths of Making a Living, as well as workshops, seminars and personal coaching and consulting, she has helped thousands of dissatisfied workers reassess life and work.
    Like the way of Zen, which includes understanding of oneself as one really is, Miller encourages job seekers  and those dissatisfied with work or life to examine their beliefs about work and recognize that “in many cases your beliefs are what brought you to where you are today.” You may have been raised to think that women were best at nurturing and caring and, therefore, should be teachers and nurses. So that’s what you did. Or, perhaps you were brought up to believe that you should do what your father did, so you have taken over the family business, or become a dentist “just like dad.” If this sounds familiar, it’s probably time to look at the new possibilities for your future.
    Miller developed a 7-step process to help potential job seekers assess their current situation and beliefs, identify their real passion, and start on a journey that allows them to pursue their passion through work.
Step 1: Willingness to do something different.
    Breaking the cycle of doing what you have always done is one of the most difficult tasks for job seekers. Many find it difficult to steer away from a career path or make a change, even if it doesn’t feel right. Miller urges job seekers to open their minds to other possibilities beyond what they are currently doing.
Step 2: Commitment to being who you are, not who or what someone wants you to be.
    Look at the \gifts and talents you have and make a commitment to pursue those things that you love most. If you love the social aspects of your job, but are stuck inside an office or “chained to your desk” most of the time, vow to follow your instinct and investigate alternative careers and work that allow you more time to interact with others. Dawn worked as a manager for a large retail clothing store for several years. Though she had advanced within the company, she felt frustrated and longed to be involved with nature and the outdoors. She decided to go to school nights and weekends to pursue her true passion by earning her master’s degree in forestry. She now works in the biotech forestry division of a major paper company.
Step 3: Self-definition
    Miller suggests that once job seekers know who they are, they need to know how to sell themselves. “In the job market, you are a product. And just like a product, you most know the features and benefits that you have to offer a potential client, or employer.” Examine the skills and knowledge that you have identify how they can apply to your desired occupation. Your qualities will exhibit to employers why they should hire you over other candidates.
Step 4: Attain a level of self-honoring.
    Self-honoring or self-love may seem like an odd step for job hunters, but being able to accept yourself, without judgment, helps eliminate insecurities and will make you more self-assured. By accepting who you are – all your emotions, hopes and dreams, your personality, and your unique way of being – you’ll project more confidence when networking and talking with potential employers. The power of self-honoring can help to break all the falsehoods you were programmed to believe – those that made you feel that you were not good enough, or strong enough, or intelligent enough to do what you truly desire.
Step 5: Vision.
    Miller suggests that job seekers develop a vision that embraces the answer to “What do I really want to do?” one should create a solid statement in a dozen or so sentences that describe in detail how they see their life related to work. For instance, the secretary who longs to be an actress describes a life that allows her to express her love of Shakespeare on stage. A real estate agent, attracted to his current job because her loves fixing up old homes, describes buying properties that need a little tender loving care to make them more saleable.
Step 6: Appropriate risk.
    Some philosophers believe that the way to enlightenment comes through facing obstacles and difficulties. Once people discover their passion, many are too scared to do anything about it. Instead, they do nothing. With this step, job seekers should assess what they are willing to give up, or risk, in pursuit of their dream. For one working mom, that meant taking night classes to learn new computer-aided design skills, while still earning a salary and keeping her day job. For someone else, it may mean quitting his or her job, taking out loan and going back to school full time. You’ll move one step closer to your ideal work life if you identify how much risk you are willing to take and the sacrifices you are willing to make.
Step 7: Action.
    Some teachers of philosophy describe action in this way, “If one wants to get to the top of a mountain, just sitting at the foot thinking about it will not bring one there. It is by making the effort of climbing up the mountain, step by step, that eventually the summit is reached.” All too often, it is the lack of action that ultimately holds people back from attaining their ideals. Creating a plan and taking it one step at a time can lead to new and different job opportunities. Job-hunting tasks gain added meaning as you sense their importance in your quest for a more meaningful work life. The plan can include researching industries and occupations, talking to people who are in your desired area of work, taking classes, or accepting volunteer work in your targeted field.
    Each of these steps will lead you on a journey to a happier and more rewarding work life. After all, it is the journey, not the destination, that is most important.

The rise of the sharing economy.

　　A) Last night 40 000 people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250 000 rooms in 30 000 cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online. But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4 million people have used it 2.5 million of them in 2012 alone. It is the most prominent example of a huge new "sharing economy", in which people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet.
　　B) You might think this is no different from running a bed-and-breakfast (家庭旅店), owning a timeshare (分时度假房) or participating in a car pool. But technology has reduced transaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever-and therefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be divided and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, a power tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usually more trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb, Relay Rides and SnapGoods match up owners and renters; smartphones with GPS let people sec where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle the billing.
What's mine is yours, for a fee
　　C) Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharing sites let individuals act as an ad hoc (临时的) taxi service, car-hire firm or boutique hotel (精品酒店) as and when it suits them. Just go online or download an app. The model works for items that are expensive to buy and are widely owned by people who do not make full use of them. Bedrooms and cars are the most obvious examples, but you can also rent camping spaces in Sweden, fields in Australia and washing machines in France. As advocates of the sharing economy like to put it, access trumps (胜过) ownership.
　　D) Rachel Botsman, the author of a book on the subject, says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth $26 billion. Broader definitions of the sharing economy include peer-to-peer lending or putting a solar panel on your roof and selling power back to the grid (电网). And it is not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent out spare offices and idle machines, too. But the core of the sharing economy is people renting things from each other.
　　E) Such "collaborative (合作的) consumption" is a good thing for several reasons. Owners make money from underused assets. Airbnb says hosts in San Francisco who rent out their homes do so for an average of 58 nights a year, making $9300. Car owners who rent their vehicles to others using RelayRides make an average of $250 a month; some make more than $1000. Renters, meanwhile, pay less than they would if they bought the item themselves, or turned to a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-hire firm. And there are environmental benefits, too: renting a car when you need it, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required and fewer resources must be devoted to making them.
　　F) For sociable souls, meeting new people by staying in their homes is part of the charm. Curmudgeons (倔脾气的人) who imagine that every renter is a murderer can still stay at conventional hotels. For others, the web fosters trust. As well as the background checks carried out by platform owners, online reviews and ratings are usually posted by both parties to each transaction, which makes it easy to spot bad drivers, bathrobe-thieves and surfboard-wreckers. By using Facebook and other social networks, participants can check each other out and identify friends (or friends of friends) in common. An Airbnb user had her apartment trashed in 2011. But the remarkable thing is how well the system usually works.
Peering into the future
　　G) The sharing economy is a little like online shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people were worried about security. But having made a successful purchase from, say, Amazon, they felt safe buying elsewhere. Similarly, using Airbnb or a car-hire service for the first time encourages people to try other offerings. Next, consider eBay. Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated by professional "power sellers" (many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users). The same may happen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for enterprise. Some people have bought cars solely to rent them out, for example.
　　H) Existing rental businesses are getting involved too. Avis, a car-hire firm, has a share in a sharing rival. So do GM and Daimler, two carmakers. In future, companies may develop hybrid (混合的) models, listing excess capacity (whether vehicles, equipment or office space) on peer-to-peer rental sites. In the past, new ways of doing things online have not displaced the old ways entirely. But they have often changed them. Just as internet shopping forced Wal-mart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport, tourism, equipment-hire and more.
　　I) The main worry is regulatory uncertainty. Will room-renters be subject to hotel taxes, for example? In Amsterdam officials are using Airbnb listings to track down unlicensed hotels. In some American cities, peer-to-peer taxi services have been banned after lobbying by traditional taxi firms. The danger is that although some rules need to be updated to protect consumers from harm, existing rental businesses will try to destroy competition. People who rent out rooms should pay tax, of course, but they should not be regulated like a Ritz-Carlton hotel. The lighter rules that typically govern bed-and-breakfasts are more than adequate.
　　J) The sharing economy is the latest example of the internet's value to consumers. This emerging model is now big and disruptive (颠覆性的) enough for regulators and companies to have woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing.

    Convenience food helps companies by creating growth; but what is its effect on people? For people who think cooking was the foundation of civilization, the microwave is the last enemy. The communion (共享) of eating together is easily broken by a device that liberates household  citizens from waiting for mealtimes.  The first great revolution in the history of food is in danger of being undone. The companionship of the campfire, cooking pot and common table, which have helped to bond humans in collaborative living for at least 150,000 years, could be destroyed.
    Meals have certainly suffered from the rise of convenience food. The only meals regularly taken together in Britain these days are at the weekend, among rich families struggling to retain something of the old symbol of togetherness. Indeed, the day’s first meal has all but disappeared. In the 20th century the leisure British breakfast was undermined by the cornflake; in the 21st breakfast is vanishing altogether, a victim of the quick cup of coffee in Starbucks and the cereal bar.
    Convenience food has also made people forget how to cook. One of the apparent paradoxes of modern food is that, while the amount of time spent cooking meals has fallen from 60 minutes a day in 1980 to 13 minutes a day in 2002, the number of books and television programmes on cooking has multiplied. But perhaps this isn’t a paradox. Maybe it is because people can’t cook any more, so they need to be told how to do it. Or maybe it is because people buy books about hobbies—golf, yachting—not about chores. Cooking has ceased to be a chore and has become a hobby.
    Although everybody lives in the kitchen, its facilities are increasingly for display rather than for use. Mr. Silverstein’s new book, “Trading Up”, looks at mid-range consumers’ willingness to splash out. He says that industrial-style Viking cooktops, with nearly twice the heat output of other ranges, have helped to push the “kitchen as theatre” trend in home goods. They cost from $1,000 to $9,000. Some 75% of them are never used.
    Convenience also has an impact on the healthiness, or otherwise, of food. Of course, there is nothing bad about ready-to-eat food itself. You don’t get much healthier than an apple, and all supermarkets sell a better-for-you range of ready-meals. But there is a limit to the number of apples people want to eat; and these days it is easier for people to eat the kind of food that makes them fat.
    The three Harvard economists in their paper “Why have Americans become more obese?” point out that, in the past, if people wanted to eat fatty hot food, they had to cook it. That took time and energy—a good chip needs frying twice, once to cook the potato and once to get it crispy (脆) —which discouraged of consumption of that sort of food. Mass preparation of food took away that constraint. Nobody has to cut and double-cook their own fries these days. Who has the time?

Ⅲ植物侧芽的生长受生长素（IAA）及其他物质的影响。有人以豌豆完整植株为对照进行以下实验：
实验一：分组进行去除顶芽、去顶并在切口涂抹IAA处理后，定时测定侧芽长度，见下左图；
实验二：用饲喂叶片，测定去顶8h时侧芽附近放射性强度和IAA含量，见下右图。

(1)IAA是植物之间传递________的分子，顶芽合成的IAA通过________方式向下运输。
（2）实验一中，去顶32h时Ⅲ组侧芽长度明显小于Ⅱ组，其原因是_________。
（3）实验二中，进入叶绿体后，首先能检测到的有机物是_______，该物质被还原成糖类需要光反应提供______________。a、b两组侧芽附近信号强度差异明显，说明去顶后往侧芽分配的光合产物_________。
（4）总和两个实验的数据推测，去顶8h时Ⅰ组合Ⅲ组侧芽附近的IAA浓度关系为:Ⅰ组______(大于/小于/等于)Ⅲ组；去顶8h时Ⅱ组侧芽长度明显大于Ⅰ组，请对这些结果提出合理的假设：_______________________。

　　Eleven summers ago I was sent to a management program at the Wharton School to be prepared for bigger things. Along with lectures on finance and entrepreneurship and the like, the program included a delightfully out-of-place session with Al Filreis, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, on poetry.
　　For three hours he talked us through "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The experience-especially when contrasted with the horrible prose of our other assigned reading-sent me fleeing to the campus bookstore, where I resumed a long-interrupted romance with meter and rhyme (韵).
　　Professor Filreis says that he is "a little shocked" at how intensely his Wharton students respond to this unexpected deviation from the businesslike, not just as a relief but as a kind of stimulus. Many write afterward asking him to recommend books of poetry. Especially now.
　　"The grim economy seems to make the participants keener than ever to think ‘out of the box' in the way poetry encourages," he told me.
　　Which brings me to Congress, an institution stuck deeper inside the box than just about any other these days. You have probably heard that up on Capitol Hill (美国国会山), they're very big on prayer breakfasts, where members gather over scrambled eggs and ask God for wisdom. You can judge from the agonizing debt spectacle we've watched this summer how well that's working. Well, maybe it's time to add some poetry readings to the agenda.
　　I'm not suggesting that poetry will guide our legislators to wisdom any more than prayer has. Just that it might make them a little more human. Poetry is no substitute for courage or competence, but properly applied, it is a challenge to self-certainty, which we currently have in excess. Poetry serves as a spur to creative thinking, a reproach to dogma and habit a remedy to the current fashion for pledge signing.
　　The poet Shelley, in defense of poetry nearly two centuries ago, wrote, "A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own." Shelley concludes that essay by calling poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world," because they bring imagination to the realm of "reasoners and mechanists."
　　The relevance of poetry was declared more concisely in five lines from the love poem "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower," by William Carlos Williams:
　　It is difficult
　　to get the news from poems
　　yet men die miserably every day
　　for lack
　　of what is found there.

下列变法措施与结果对应，符合史实的是(　　)

    Looking at the basic biological systems, the world is not doing very well. Yet economic indicators show the world is (1) ______ .Despite a slow start at the beginning of the eighties, global economic output increased by more than a fifth during the (2) ______. The economy grew, trade increased, and millions of new jobs were created. How can biological indicators show the (3) ______ of economic indicators?
    The answer is that the economic indicators have a basic fault: they show no difference between resource uses that (4) ______ progress and those uses that will hurt it. The main measure of economic progress is the gross national product (GNP). (5) ______, this totals the value of all goods and services produced and subtracts loss in value of factories and equipment. Developed a half-century ago, GNP helped (6) ______ a common way among countries of measuring change in economic output. For some time, this seemed to work (7) ______ well, but serious weaknesses are now appearing. As indicated earlier, GNP includes loss in value of factories and equipment, but it does not (8) ______ the loss of natural resources, including nonrenewable resources such as oil or renewable resources such as forests.
    This basic fault can produce a (9) ______ sense of national economic health. According to GNP, for example, countries that overcut forests actually do better than those that preserve their forests. The trees cut down are counted as income but no subtraction is made for (10) ______ the forests.

满足（为实数，且），，，，，，成等差数列．
（I）求的值和的通项公式；
（II）设，，求数列的前项和．