Section A: Banked Cloze
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Trust is fundamental to life. If you can't trust anything, life becomes intolerable. You can't have relationships without trust, let alone good ones.
In the workplace, too, trust is (26) ______. An organization without trust will be full of fear and (27) ______. If you work for a boss who doesn't trust their employees to do things right, you'll have a (28) ______ time. They'll be checking up on you all the time, correcting “mistakes” and (29) ______ reminding you to do this or that. Colleagues who don't trust one another will need to spend more time (30) ______ their backs than doing any useful work.
Organizations are always trying to cut costs. Think of all the additional tasks caused by lack of trust. Audit departments only exist because of it. Companies keep large volumes of (31) ______ because they don't trust their suppliers, their contractors or their customers. Probably more than half of all administrative work is only there because of an ever-existing sense that “you can't trust anyone these days.” If even a small part of such valueless work could be (32) ______, the savings would run into millions of dollars.
All this is extra work we (33) ______ onto ourselves because we don't trust people—the checking, following through, doing things ourselves because we don't believe others will do them (34) ______—or at all. If we took all that away, how much extra time would we suddenly find in our life? How much of our work (35) ______ would disappear?
Word Bank
Answers & Explanations
26. C (essential)。解析：在系动词 is 之后作表语。上文说信任是生活的基础，这里指在职场同样是“必不可少的”。
27. M (suspicion)。解析：与 fear (恐惧) 并列的名词。没有信任的组织充满了恐惧和“怀疑”。
28. G (miserable)。解析：修饰 time。在不被信任的老板手下工作，你会过得很“痛苦/糟糕”。
29. A (constantly)。解析：修饰现在分词 reminding。意为“不断地”提醒。
30. O (watching)。解析：动宾搭配 watching their backs 意为“提防他人/小心背后”，符合不信任的语境。
31. J (records)。解析：动宾搭配 keep records。公司保存大量的“记录”是因为不信任。
32. K (removed)。解析：位于 could be 之后，需填过去分词。意为如果这些无价值的工作被“移除/消除”。
33. L (stacks)。解析：动词填空。stacks onto ourselves 意为“堆积/加在自己身上”。
34. I (properly)。解析：修饰动词 do。意为不相信别人能“正确地/恰当地”做事。
35. F (load)。解析：构成复合名词 work load，意为“工作负荷”。