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Informational Documents: Synthesizing Sources
Standard: Reading Comprehension 2.4 – Synthesize the content from several sources or works by a single author dealing with a single issue; paraphrase the ideas and connect them to other sources and related topics to demonstrate comprehension.
ESLR: Resourceful Learner
Directions: Read the following two articles. Then, read each multiple-choice question that follows, and circle the letter of the best response. Don’t forget to use your test-taking strategies!
What Price Glory?
Len Lewis
Your flight is delayed for the third time this week, you have 22 e-mails and 10 voice messages since you checked an hour ago, and another late night will turn into another lost weekend of just trying to catch up – let alone getting ahead of the power curve.
If this seems like a familiar scenario[1], it’s one being played out every day in the industry by a cast of thousands. When playwright Arthur Miller created the character of Willy Loman[2], the quintessential[3] road warrior, one character uttered the now famous line: “Attention must be paid.” But attention to business and career at what price?
Clearly, success in an increasingly competitive and complex industry carries a stiff price. The question is, how much is too much?
Will the legacy of the late twentieth century be a generation of managers whose commitment and passion for career and company lead to emotional distress or boardroom burnout? When does an executive’s total attention to business become his or her downfall? How many boards, committees, synergy or share groups can you sit on? And what is the point of diminishing returns when building a career makes you a better candidate for antidepressants, psychotherapy, and family counseling than a promotion?
An overstatement? Perhaps! But the road to success for a new generation of managers is a bumpy one in terms of person growth. Adding richness to daily life by striking a balance between home and office is the essence of a successful businessperson. Yet emotional connection to home and family and even oneself can be easily lost in a maze of meetings, workshops, committee work, or just the frustrating business of clearing the morning e-mails.
Life outside the office is not a weakness. It’s what makes people stronger. Taking the time to attend a school function or have dinner with a spouse or friend will not burst the new economic bubble. A child’s hug after a bad day won’t suffocate, but invigorate. And taking the time to decompress alone or with family – even if it means missing a conference or another meeting – won’t derail years of hard work and dedication.
The solution to this dilemma won’t be found in the hallowed halls of academia[4] or in the next workshop. It lies in a self-analysis of what we want to be. Maybe it is this self-analysis that has led so many food executives to walk away from 30-year careers into the arms of the new economy – for better or worse.
- from Progressive Grocer, May 2000
Deprived of Parent Time?
Kim Campbell
Houses may be messier and parents may be sleepier, but that’s a good sign for kids.
Across America, time spent in the company of children has become the holy grail [5] of working parents – and it appears to be well within their grasp. By curtailing everything from shut-eye to volunteer work to vacuuming, most moms and dads today are finding ways to put kids first, perhaps more consciously than in earlier eras.
“Anytime I’m not working, I’m with my kids,” says Pamela Alexander, a manager at Ford Motor Company in Deerborn, Mich. To have more hours with their two girls, she and her husband hire out the housecleaning, and instead of giving time to charities, “I write big checks,” she says.
With dual-income families now the norm, spending time with the children requires more creativity than it did during the days of Ozzie and Harriet.[6] Solutions vary – from staggered job schedules, to one parent quitting work for a time, to dads picking up more of the child-rearing responsibility.
“We’re in the midst of an evolution, not a revolution,” says James Levine, director of the Fatherhood Project at the Families and Work Institute in New York.
Changes in technology and lifestyle patterns have certainly helped parents eke out more family time. Fast food and microwaves, for example, offer shortcuts for meal preparation. Children are also home less often than they used to be, being pulled out for activities like preschool, summer camp, and swimming lessons. Couples today also have fewer children than did their counterparts of recent decades, allowing for more parental “face time” per child.
Thanks to such changes, mothers today spend about the same amount of time with their children as mothers did in the 1960s, according to the new findings by Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1998, women spent 5.8 waking hours with their children each day, versus 5.6 hours for mother in 1965. Fathers did even better – increasing their time from 2.7 hours per day in 1965 to 4 hours in 1998.
Indeed, dads are the resource parents are drawing on most often to make up for the time women are spending at the office. Perhaps as a result, attitudes about men’s role in the family are gradually changing.
“When fathers define success today, it’s no longer just in terms of being a breadwinner. It means being involved with the kids as well,” says Dr. Levine, author of Working Fathers.
Many mothers say their husbands help with everything from folding laundry to picking up kids after school. Fathers’ share of housework has increased in recent years, too, with men taking over some of the duties (although not half of them) from moms – both working and nonworking.
Luvie Myers, a stay-at-home mom in Winnetka, Illinois, says her husband can more easily leave work for a family event than a father could have in her parents’ era. “Spending time with family is an excuse at work that people are willing to accept,” she says.
-from The Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2000
1. The main idea of “What Price Glory?” is that busy executives –
A. need more time to do their jobs well.
B. need to work more efficiently.
C. need to balance their home and office lives.
D. should change careers.
2. In “What Price Glory?” the author’s attitude towards the topic can BEST be described as –
A. hesitant.
B. impassioned.
C. bitter.
D. indifferent.
3. One of the main ideas of “Deprived of Parent Time?” is that fathers today –
A. spend less time with their children than in the past.
B. spend more time with their children than in the past.
C. cannot juggle jobs and family life.
D. are conflicted over family roles.
4. “Deprived of Parent Time?” includes all of the following types of supporting evidence EXCEPT –
A. quotations.
B. examples.
C. statistics.
D. opinion polls.
5. Which article would you cite in a research report on boardroom burnout?
A. “Deprived of Parent Time?”
B. “What Price Glory?”
C. Both articles
D. Neither article
6. “What Price Glory?” differs from “Deprived of Parent Time?” because the former is based on –
A. the author’s opinion.
B. statistical research.
C. extensive interviews.
D. opinion polls.
7. Both articles discuss the importance of –
A. more efficient work schedules.
B. better child-care programs.
C. a shorter work week.
D. more quality time for families.
8. Which of the following ideas is NOT discussed in BOTH articles?
A. Many working people are redefining the meaning of success.
B. Spending time with children brings parents many rewards.
C. Modern technology can help solve our time-crunch problems.
D. Career success alone is not enough for a rich life.
[1] Scenario: n.: outline of a play or movie or of any planned series of events.
[2] Willy Loman: traveling salesman and the main character in Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman.
[3] Quintessential: adj.: serving as a perfect example.
[4] Academia: n.: academic world: colleges and universities.
[5] Holy grail: ultimate, hard-to-attain goal. According to medieval legend, the grail was a magical cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper.
[6] Ozzie and Harriet: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a very popular TV show from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s.