题目内容
“I find myself glancing at my watch to see how long I’ve been standing in line,” she said. “Everywhere I go, I notice if the dumpster(垃圾罐)gates are open or if there’s trash in the parking lot.” Ms. Clark is a “mystery shopper”, one of thousands of contract workers that companies hire to pretend as regular customers in order to judge customer service, cleanliness and whether a store is selling a product that meets company specifications (规格).
Mystery shoppers can be found or, rather, not found, everywhere from restaurants and automotive shops to convenience stores and department stores. They play a constant cat-and-mouse game with store and restaurant employees and managers. However it’s not all fun and games. Once in the field, a mystery shopper will typically visit several stores or restaurants per hour, taking mental notes while inside, then jotting down physical notes after they leave.
It’s important for mystery shoppers to be as exact as possible, because the client companies are looking for data they can use to improve their service. The questionnaire won’t say, “Does the trash can need to be emptied?” What an educated shopper will say is, “The trash can to the left of the front door was overflowing with 10 pieces of trash on the ground.” Companies don’t need opinion but facts.
Nowadays mystery shoppers are armed with a number of high-tech devices, such as a digital scale and a digital thermometer, as well as a handheld PC for recording the entire experience. It’s a challenging job but a rewarding one. Mystery shoppers can be full time or part time, but the full-time workers tend to stick to standard mystery shopping while part-timers often choose the less complex reward-based programs. In those , the shoppers stay disguised(装扮的) only until the “shop” is finished, and then reveal (透漏) themselves to the store management and award prizes to employees who provided excellent service.
To be a mystery shopper, it’s important to be a good observer, but sometimes it’s important to have the right profile(外表), too. Companies often hire shoppers from particular backgrounds to better blend in with clients’ regular customers. If a secret shopper will be sent in, for example, to do a high-end automotive shop, the candidate must have a particular profile that meets a high-end, luxury car-type buyer profile. “It’s a challenge to perform your shop without being discovered,” Ms. Clark said, “because most of the people that we work for are very aware of the mystery shopping program.”
1. According to the text a “mystery shopper” would not have to .
A. sign a contract with the employer B. travel a lot around the city
C. provide exact facts to the company D. fill in questionnaires
2. We learn from the text that Ms. Clark .
A. visits some shops regularly and sometimes does something special
B. pretends to be a shopper and evaluates the services
C. is a government official looking into the services
D. is a manager of a company offering good services
3. People are willing to become a mystery shopper mainly because they can .
A. get the best service and get paid at the same time
B. play a cat-and-mouse game with shop employees and managers
C. do the job either full time or part time and get paid well
D. observe clearly what happens in the shops
4. What does the underlined word “those” in the 4th paragraph refer to?
A. The shops where the mystery shoppers go.
B. The less complex reward-based programs.
C. Part-time jobs.
D. Excellent services.
DBCB
Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers when he was employed as a patent clerk. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him on their staff.
If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of yourself as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiter tables—and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft(手艺)in the off hours.
While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what you should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.
Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.
【小题1】According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “_______.”
A.Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else |
B.The job is just what I want, I should work very hard at it |
C.I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’t give physics up |
D.I must wait until I find my favorite job |
A.have enough spare time for his hobbies |
B.have no time left to make his dream come true |
C.do nothing else |
D.make a good living |
A.Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical. |
B.We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true. |
C.We shall do practical things rather than dream. |
D.We shall dream big dreams and practice as well. |
A.start work quickly | B.select job carefully and patiently |
C.dream often | D.make up our minds quickly |