Section 2 passage 4

這篇文章于2006年8月21日發表在英國衛報上, 原題為< More Americans swap beach for the office>,講述了一個大家都非常熟悉的工作壓力話題, 由于話題非常熱門,根據新東方多年的教學經驗,考生面對這樣的文章基本上心就會比較定。由于在課堂中，我們新東方的老師也一直補充英美文化的知識，所以我們的學生應該看到工作壓力問題就知道美國人工作壓力要比歐洲人大得多，對文章有一個基本的預計和判斷。

文章的第一段，第二段就開宗明義，說明了工作壓力問題，美國人的工作壓力太大，甚至有一些“閑無能”了。后面的第16題就說了美國人對歐洲人的看法，這只要具備基本的英美文化知識，這道題就是迎刃而解了。

從第三段到第五段，文章中說了現在美國人繁重的工作量，似乎沒有什么時間去放假休閑，第17，18題就是針對這部分的問題，特別是第17題提到了人名，那去第三段找答案就很方便了。

第六段，第七段中說明了即使美國人放假也沒有辦法“放心”，神經一直是緊繃著，第19題就是針對它的提問。

第八段是對幫助美國人脫離這樣的困境所提出的建議，第20題就是對其發問，提干中本身就有長串名詞的提示，所以找到答案應該是沒有難度的。

1 It is already common knowledge, on the beaches and in the cafes of mainland Europe, that Americans work too hard - just as it is well known on the other side of the Atlantic that Europeans, above all the French and the Germans, are slackers who could do with a bit of America's vigorous work ethic.

2 But a new survey suggests that even those vacations American employees do take are rapidly vanishing, to the extent that 40% of workers questioned at the start of the summer said they had no plans to take any holiday at all for the next six months, more than at any time since the late 1970s.

3 It is probably mere coincidence that George Bush, one of the few Americans who has been known to enjoy a French-style month off during August, cut back his holiday in Texas this year to a fortnight. But the survey by the Conference Board research group, along with other recent statistics, suggests an epidemic泛濫 of overwork among ordinary Americans.

4 A quarter of people employed in the private sector in the US get no paid vacation at all, according to government figures. Unlike almost all other industrialized nations, including Britain, American employers do not have to give paid holidays.

5 The average American gets a little less than four weeks of paid time off, including public holidays, compared with 6.6 weeks in the UK - where the law requires a minimum of four weeks off for full-time workers - and 7.9 weeks for Italy. One study showed that people employed by the US subsidiary of a London-based bank would have to work there for 10 years just to be entitled to the same vacation time as colleagues in Britain who had just started their jobs.

6 Even when they do take vacations, overworked Americans find it hard to switch off. One in three finds not checking their email and voicemail more stressful than working, according to a study by the Travelocity website, while the traumas 創傷of travel take their own toll. "We commonly complain we need a vacation from our vacations," the author Po Bronson wrote recently. "We leave home tired; we come back exhausted."

7 Christian Schneider, a German-born scholar at the Wharton business school in Philadelphia, argues that there is "a tendency to really relax in Europe, to disengage脫離from work. When an American finally does take those few days of vacation per year they are most likely to be in constant contact with the office."

8 Mindful that well-rested workers are more productive than burnt-out ones, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has started closing all its US offices completely twice a year, for 10 days over Christmas and about five around Independence Day. "We wanted to create an environment where people could walk away and not worry about missing a meeting, a conference call or 300 emails," Barbara Kraft, a partner at the company, told the New York Times.

9 Left to themselves, Americans fail to take an average of four days of their vacation entitlement - an annual national total of 574m unclaimed days.