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Question
Individuals can do nothing to improve the environment; only governments and large companies can make a difference. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Answer
Environmental degradation has become a pressing global issue, and many people argue that only governments and multinational corporations possess the power to tackle this problem effectively. Although I acknowledge that authorities and large businesses play a crucial role in environmental protection, I strongly disagree with the idea that individuals are powerless. In my opinion, collective individual efforts can significantly contribute to improving the environment.
On the one hand, governments and major corporations undeniably have the resources and authority to bring about large-scale environmental changes. Governments can introduce strict environmental regulations, invest in renewable energy projects, and impose heavy penalties on industries that pollute the environment. Likewise, multinational companies can reduce carbon emissions by adopting sustainable manufacturing methods and eco-friendly technologies. For instance, many global firms are now switching to biodegradable packaging and clean energy sources in order to minimize their environmental footprint. Such measures can create a substantial impact because these organizations operate on a massive scale.
On the other hand, individuals also have an essential role to play in protecting the environment. Small actions taken by millions of people can collectively produce remarkable results. For example, people can reduce plastic consumption, recycle household waste, conserve electricity, and use public transport instead of private vehicles. Moreover, individuals can influence others through social awareness and responsible consumer behavior. If consumers prefer environmentally friendly products, companies will automatically be encouraged to adopt sustainable practices to meet public demand. Therefore, it is evident that ordinary citizens are not helpless and can actively contribute to environmental preservation.
In conclusion, while governments and large corporations are capable of implementing wide-ranging environmental policies, individuals are equally important in addressing environmental problems. I firmly believe that environmental protection requires a combined effort from authorities, businesses, and ordinary people alike.
High-Level Lexical Resources (LR) Used
Vocabulary
Environmental degradation – damage to the environment
Pressing global issue – urgent worldwide problem
Multinational corporations – large international companies
Collective efforts – combined actions of many people
Renewable energy – energy from sustainable sources
Carbon emissions – gases released into the atmosphere
Sustainable manufacturing – environmentally friendly production
Environmental footprint – impact on the environment
Biodegradable packaging – packaging that decomposes naturally
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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions
27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3.
We Have Star Performers
Most
organisations are looking for talent. But what if they’ve got it wrong, asks
Jeffrey Pfeffer
A. One widely held assumption about talent is that it is a
reasonably fixed characteristic and it is therefore the job of organisations to
identify, recruit and retain star performers. This belief affects the way
people are managed in the workplace. Most recruitment decisions are influenced
by the skills and abilities of an individual rather than their aptitude and
attitude. In terms of career development, organisations invest in staff who
have been selected to reach higher-level positions, while ignoring front-line
employees and people with less perceived potential. This idea, that talent is a
fixed, identifiable characteristic – and that those firms with the best people
do the best – is both flawed and harmful to people and organisations. There is
a lot of evidence on this point, and it is useful to highlight some of the most
pertinent arguments.
B. First, are there stars? There is no question that in
every field, from sports to computer programming to music, there are people who
are better than the rest. As psychologist Dean Keith Simonton, who has spent
his career studying greatness, has said, 'Wherever you look, the same story can
be told. Identify the ten per cent who have achieved the most in a certain
endeavour. Count the accomplishments they have to their credit. Now tally the
accomplishments of the remaining 90 per cent. The first tally will equal or
surpass the second.' For instance, in music, 16 individuals have produced about
50 per cent of the Western classical music that is performed and recorded
today, while another 235 composers have produced the remaining half. The more
interesting questions concern not the existence of stars, but whether these
stars can be reliably identified and, even more importantly, whether their
talent is a fixed aspect or can be altered.
C. Identifying the best people is tricky. Quality of
performance changes over time and this is true whether we are talking about
professors or footballers. If performance naturally varies, any measurement
taken at a single point in time, such as when someone is being hired, will have
error and imprecision. Therefore, single assessments of talent are likely to
contain mistakes in their categorisation of people. Also, judgements about
performance and ability depend on the standards used to judge what is good and
bad. It should surprise no-one that for Bach to be considered a great musician,
standards of music needed to change to embrace the qualities that his
compositions possessed. Similarly, artists and art come in and out of fashion,
which means that what is genius depends not only on a person's ability, but on
the prevailing standards used to evaluate output.
D. Finally, it is difficult to evaluate people and their
abilities with precision. In the domain of work, research shows that the best
predictors of job performance tend to be measures of intelligence. But even
these measures correlate only loosely with performance, which means that more
than 80 per cent of the variation in performance is unexplained by even the
best predictors. Even in the sports arena, where one would think natural
ability would be readily assessed because sports teams spend lots of resources
on identifying talent, mistakes get made. Basketball star Michael Jordan was
dropped by his high school basketball coach and a number of top American
football quarterbacks were available early in their careers because they were
not considered good enough by various teams.
E. This leads on to the next question: is talent born or
made? Should organisations assume that almost anyone can become a star
performer, which implies that there ought to be a greater emphasis on
motivation and development, or do they just figure out who is good and who
isn't? Here the evidence is clear: talent is at least as much 'created' as
inherent and, more importantly, the customary way companies think about
identifying talent almost certainly works to destroy a lot of untapped
potential. Decades of research by K Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at
Florida State University, show that exceptional performance doesn't happen
without around ten years of nearly daily, deliberate practice for about four
hours a day, by people who with the assistance of their coaches have access to
the best techniques. Once achieved, exceptional performance can't be maintained
without relentless effort. So performance may be as much a consequence of
training as it is of innate ability, which suggests that performance can be
altered by how people are managed.
F. Further research by Stanford psychology professor Carol
Dweck shows that the tendency of organisations to see performance results as an
opportunity for an 'assessment' of ability, results in lower performance and
poor motivation. Dweck identified two sets of goals that people bring to a
performance context: 'performance goals, where the purpose is to validate one's
ability or avoid demonstrating a lack of ability, and learning goals, where the
aim is to acquire new knowledge and skills'. People with performance goals have
been shown to be more prone to helpless behaviour and debilitation after a
setback, while people with learning goals strive for higher performance. The
implications for managing people and talent are clear. Seeing talent as fixed
and job performance as a way of classifying people creates a self-fulfilling
prophecy in which ability and intelligence do become fixed. By contrast, seeing
ability as malleable leads to a different sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, in
which individuals and their employers may invest in ways to enhance
performance.
Questions 27 – 32
Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
27 disagreement with the view that
employing talented people enables companies to achieve top performance
28 a description of what individuals have to do on a
regular basis to improve their performance
29 the evidence that exceptional talent exists in all areas
of life
30 how different ways of evaluating achievement at work can
cause different reactions in employees
31 the belief that the time when an assessment is carried out
affects its accuracy
32 the extent to which different talented individuals have
contributed to their particular area of achievement
Questions 33 – 35
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
33 How many Western classical composers are identified as
exceptionally talented?
34 Which composer initially received little recognition for
his work?
35 Who can help improve the performance of people
practising daily?
Questions
36 – 40
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write
·TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
·FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
·NOT
GIVEN if there is no information on this
36 Companies usually hire people on the basis of their
character.
37 There are some areas of sport that have a greater
proportion of talent than others.
38 Measures of intelligence accurately predict performance
at work.
39 There are cases in which talented sportspeople have been
overlooked.
40 Newly formed organisations have the most highly
motivated staff.
