2. 外语
  3. If you like to take lots of vacation, the United States is not the place to work. Besides a handful of national holidays, the ty

If you like to take lots of vacation, the United States is not the place to work. Besides a handful of national holidays, the ty

admin2014-01-20  56
问题     If you like to take lots of vacation, the United States is not the place to work. Besides a handful of national holidays, the typical American worker gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world—much less than what people in many other countries receive. And even that amount of vacation often comes with strings attached.
    So what’s going on here?
    A big reason for the difference is that paid time off is demanded by law in many parts of the world. Germany is among more than two dozen industrialized countries—from Australia to Japan—that require employers to offer four weeks or more of paid vacation to their workers, according to a 2009 study by the human resources consulting company Mercer. Finland, Brazil and France are the champions, guaranteeing six weeks of time off. But employers in the United States are not obliged under federal law to offer any paid vacation, so about a quarter of all American workers don’t have access to it, government figures show. That makes the U. S. the only advanced nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee its workers annual leave.
    Most U. S. companies, of course, do provide vacation as a way to attract and retain workers. But the fear of layoffs and the ever-faster pace of work mean many Americans are reluctant to be absent from the office—anxious that they might look like they’re not committed to their job. Or they worry they won’t be able to cope with a pile of work waiting for them after a vacation.
    Then, there’s the way we work.
    Working more makes Americans happier than Europeans, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Happiness Studies. That may be because Americans believe more than Europeans do that hard work is associated with success.
    So despite research documenting the health and productivity benefits of taking time off, a long vacation can be undesirable, scary, unrealistic or just plain impossible for many U. S. workers.
The phrase "with strings attached"(Para. 1)probably means "______".
选项 A、with specified conditions
B、with full freedom
C、with many options
D、with work in mind
答案A
解析 此题是一道词组含义题，考查考生根据上下文推断词组含义的能力和掌握的词组量。如果我们知道另一个词组“with no strings attached”的中文释义是“不附带任何条件”，我们就可以推断出“with strings attached”的意思是“受约束，有条件限制"。另外，我们也可以根据文章上下文来推断。相关内容指出：除了几个国家规定的假日外，典型的美国工人一整年中可以获得宝贵的两周或者三周的假期来放松自己去游览世界——比许多其他国家的人的假期少得多。而且甚至这些假期常常会有许多附加的约束条件。根据最后一句话中的“even”及string的意思“绳索，绳子”，我们可以推断出这个短语应该与“束缚，限制”等语义相近。因此本题的正确答案应该是A，有特殊的条件。选项B：有充分的自由；C：有许多选择；D：心中有工作；这三个选项在原文中都没有提到，均为干扰项。
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