Reading Comprehension #9 - Pre Intermediate

Read the article. Choose the correct answers, according to the text.

Work to live or live to work? When you realise how much of your life you will spend working, it’s important to make good choices when you think about the career you want to follow. Our parents retired when they were sixty or sixty-five but in the future the retirement age may rise to seventy which means that an average person will be in employment for about fifty years! It’s a frightening thought if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy. There are so many jobs to choose from and so much information available. You can do research on the internet, get advice from your school or college, ask friends and family or perhaps you’ll be one of the lucky ones and know exactly what you want to do when you are very young. The majority of people aren’t born, however, knowing that they want to be a musician or a writer or a surgeon or an explorer, so for them the choices are difficult. If you want to run your own company, do you have the right personality? Are you determined, organised and motivated? If you want to be a teacher, do you love your subject? Are you patient and relaxed? Perhaps you want to be a journalist. Can you write well under pressure? Are you happy to travel and work long hours? What is important to you? Do you want to have a high salary with a company car and a big bonus at the end of every year? Is your job title important?  And what about the place where you work? How important is your relationship with your boss and the other employees? How important is the working environment? When people are asked these questions, interestingly money is hardly ever the most important factor.  So next time you pick up an application form, think about what you really want to achieve. You might find that you’ll be happier working for less money with more free time. The question is, do we live to work or do we work to live?

Choose the correct answers.

1) A normal person __________.

a. enjoys their job

b. will woek for most of their adult life

c. is afraid of working hard

2) Most people __________.

a. know what they want to do when they are young

b. are very young when they decide

c. don't know what they want to do when they are young

3) When you choose a career, it's important __________.

a. to understand your personality

b. to be the best

c. to work under pressure

4) For most people, the salary __________.

a. is the most important thing

b. isn't very important

c. isn't important at all

5) When you apply for a job, you should __________.

a. ask for more free time

b. offer to work for less money

c. think about what is most important to you

 

 

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