2016年12月六级第3套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) Americans are working longer and harder hours than ever before. 83% of workers say they're stressed about their jobs, nearly 50% say work-related stress is interfering with their sleep, and 60% use their smartphones to check in with work outside of normal working hours; No wonder only 13% of employees worldwide feel engaged in their occupation.

美国人工作时间比以往更长、更辛苦。83%的员工表示他们对工作感到压力，近50%表示工作压力干扰了他们的睡眠，60%使用智能手机在正常工作时间外查看工作；难怪全球只有13%的员工感到投入于自己的职业。

B) Glimmers (少许) of hope, however, are beginning to emerge in this bruising environment: Americans are becoming aware of the toll their jobs take on them, and employers are exploring ways to alleviate the harmful effects of stress and overwork. Yet much more work remains to be done. To call stress an epidemic isn't exaggeration. The 83% of American employees who are stressed about their jobs — up from 73% just a year before — say that poor compensation and an unreasonable workload are their number-one sources of stress. And if you suspected that the workplace had gotten more stressful than it was just a few decades ago, you're right. Stress levels increased 18% for women and 24% for men from 1983 to 2009. Stress is also starting earlier in life, with some data suggesting that today's teens are even more stressed than adults.

然而，在这个残酷的环境中，一线希望开始显现：美国人正意识到工作对他们的损害，雇主正在探索减轻压力和过度工作有害影响的方法。但还有更多工作要做。称压力为流行病并非夸大。83%对工作感到压力的美国员工——一年前仅为73%——表示薪酬不佳和不合理的工作量是他们的首要压力来源。如果你怀疑工作场所比几十年前更具压力，你是对的。1983年至2009年，女性的压力水平增加了18%，男性增加了24%。压力也开始更早地出现在生活中，一些数据表明今天的青少年甚至比成年人更紧张。

C) Stress is taking a significant toll on our health, and the collective public health cost may be enormous. Occupational stress increases the risk of heart attack and diabetes, accelerates the aging process, decreases longevity, and contributes to depression and anxiety, among numerous other negative health outcomes. Overall, stress-related health problems account for up to 90 % of hospital visits, many of them preventable. Your job is "literally killing you," as The Washington Post put it. It's also hurting our relationships. Working parents say they feel stressed, tired, rushed and short on quality time with their children, friends and partners.

压力正在严重损害我们的健康，公共卫生总成本可能巨大。职业压力增加心脏病发作和糖尿病的风险，加速衰老过程，减少寿命，并导致抑郁和焦虑等众多其他负面健康结果。总体而言，与压力相关的健康问题占医院就诊的90%，其中许多是可预防的。正如《华盛顿邮报》所说，你的工作“正在杀死你”。它也损害我们的关系。在职父母表示他们感到压力大、疲惫、匆忙，与孩子、朋友和伴侣的优质时间不足。

D) Seven in 10 workers say they struggle to maintain work-life balance. As technology (and with it, work emails) seeps (渗入) into every aspect of our lives, work-life balance has become an almost meaningless term. Add a rapidly changing economy and an uncertain future to this 24/7 connectivity, and you've got a recipe for overwork, according to Phyllis Moen. "There's rising work demand coupled with the insecurity of mergers, takeovers, downsizing and other factors," Moen said. "Part of the work-life issue has to talk about uncertainty about the future."

十分之七的员工表示他们难以维持工作与生活的平衡。随着技术（以及随之而来的工作电子邮件）渗入我们生活的方方面面，工作与生活平衡已成为几乎无意义的术语。根据Phyllis Moen的说法，将快速变化的经济和不确定的未来添加到这种全天候连接中，你就有了过度工作的配方。Moen说：“工作需求上升，同时伴随着并购、收购、裁员等因素的不安全感。”“工作生活问题的一部分必须谈论未来的不确定性。”

E) These factors have converged to create an increasingly impossible situation with many employees overworking to the point of burnout. It's not only unsustainable for workers, but also for the companies that employ them. Science has shown a clear correlation between high stress levels in workers and absenteeism (旷工), reduced productivity, disengagement and high turnover. Too many workplace policies effectively prohibit employees from developing a healthy work-life balance by barring them from taking time off, even when they need it most.

这些因素汇聚在一起，创造了一个日益不可能的情况，许多员工过度工作到精疲力竭的程度。这不仅对员工不可持续，对雇佣他们的公司也不可持续。科学表明，员工高压力水平与缺勤、生产力下降、脱离和高流动率之间存在明确的相关性。太多的工作场所政策通过禁止员工休假，即使在他们最需要的时候，有效地阻止他们发展健康的工作与生活平衡。

F) The U. S. trails far behind every wealthy nation and many developing ones that have family friendly work policies including paid parental leave, paid sick days and breast-feeding support, according to a 2007 study. The U. S. is also the only advanced economy that does not guarantee workers paid vacation time, and it's one of only two countries in the world that does not offer guaranteed paid maternity leave. But even when employees are given paid time off, workplace norms and expectations that pressure them to overwork often prevent them from taking it. Full time employees who do have paid vacation days only use half of them on average.

根据2007年的一项研究，美国远远落后于每个拥有家庭友好工作政策的富裕国家和许多发展中国家，这些政策包括带薪育儿假、带薪病假和母乳喂养支持。美国也是唯一不保证工人带薪休假时间的发达经济体，并且是世界上仅有的两个不提供带薪产假保证的国家之一。但即使员工获得带薪休假，工作场所规范和期望的压力常常阻止他们休假。拥有带薪年假的全职员工平均只使用一半。

G) Our modern workplaces also operate based on outdated time constraints. The practice of clocking in for an eight-hour workday is a leftover from the days of the Industrial Revolution, as reflected in the then-popular saying, "Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest."

我们的现代工作场所也基于过时的时间约束运作。打卡八小时工作日的做法是工业革命时期的遗留，正如当时流行的谚语所反映：“八小时劳动，八小时娱乐，八小时休息。”

H) We've held on to this workday structure — but thanks to our digital devices, many employees never really clock out. Today, the average American spends 8.8 hours at work daily, and the majority of working professionals spend additional hours checking in with work during evenings, weekends and even vacations. The problem isn't the technology itself, but that the technology is being used to create more flexibility for the employer rather than the employee. In a competitive work environment, employers are able to use technology to demand more from their employees rather than motivating workers with flexibility that benefits them.

我们一直坚持这种工作日结构——但由于我们的数字设备，许多员工从未真正下班。今天，平均美国人每天工作8.8小时，大多数职场专业人士在晚上、周末甚至假期花额外时间查看工作。问题不是技术本身，而是技术被用来为雇主创造更多灵活性，而不是为员工。在竞争激烈的工作环境中，雇主能够使用技术要求员工更多，而不是用对员工有益的灵活性来激励他们。

I) In a study published last year, psychologists coined the term "workplace telepressure" to describe an employee's urge to immediately respond to emails and engage in obsessive thoughts about returning an email to one's boss, colleagues or clients. The researchers found that telepressure is a major cause of stress at work, which over time contributes to physical and mental burnout. Of the 300 employees participating in the study, those who experienced high levels of telepressure were more likely to agree with statements assessing burnout, like "I've no energy for going to work in the morning," and to report feeling fatigued and unfocused. Telepressure was also correlated with sleeping poorly and missing work.

在去年发表的一项研究中，心理学家创造了“工作场所远程压力”一词，描述员工立即回复电子邮件并沉迷于回复老板、同事或客户电子邮件的强迫性想法。研究人员发现，远程压力是工作中压力的主要原因，随着时间的推移导致身心衰竭。在参与研究的300名员工中，那些经历高水平远程压力的人更可能同意评估衰竭的陈述，如“我没有精力早上去上班”，并报告感到疲劳和注意力不集中。远程压力还与睡眠不良和缺勤相关。

J) Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow explains that when people feel the pressure to be always "on," they find ways to accommodate that pressure, including altering their schedules, work habits and interactions with family and friends. Perlow calls this vicious cycle the "cycle of responsiveness". Once bosses and colleagues experience an employee's increased responsiveness, they increase their demands on the employee's time. And because a failure to accept these increased demands indicates a lack of commitment to one's work, the employee complies.

哈佛商学院教授Leslie Perlow解释说，当人们感到必须始终“在线”的压力时，他们会找到方式来适应这种压力，包括改变他们的时间表、工作习惯以及与家人和朋友的互动。Perlow称这种恶性循环为“响应循环”。一旦老板和同事体验到员工增加的响应性，他们就会增加对员工时间的要求。因为未能接受这些增加的需求表明对工作缺乏承诺，员工就会遵从。

K) To address skyrocketing employee stress levels, many companies have implemented workplace wellness programs, partnering with health care providers that have created programs to promote employee health and well-being. Some research does suggest that these programs hold promise. A study of employees at health insurance provider Aetna revealed that roughly one quarter of those taking in-office yoga and mindfulness classes reported a 28% reduction in their stress levels and a 20% improvement in sleep quality. These less-stressed workers gained an average of 62 minutes per week of productivity. While yoga and meditation (静思) are scientifically proven to reduce stress levels, these programs do little to target the root causes of burnout and disengagement. The conditions creating the stress are long hours, unrealistic demands and deadlines, and work-life conflict.

为了解决员工压力水平飙升的问题，许多公司实施了工作场所健康计划，与医疗保健提供者合作创建促进员工健康和福祉的计划。一些研究确实表明这些计划有希望。对医疗保险提供商Aetna员工的一项研究显示，大约四分之一参加办公室瑜伽和正念课程的人报告压力水平降低28%，睡眠质量改善20%。这些压力较小的员工每周平均获得62分钟的生产力提升。虽然瑜伽和冥想被科学证明能减少压力水平，但这些计划很少针对倦怠和脱离的根本原因。造成压力的条件是长时间工作、不切实际的要求和截止日期，以及工作与生活冲突。

L) Moen and her colleagues may have found the solution. In a 2011 study, she investigated the effects of implementing a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) on the productivity and well-being of employees at BestBuy's corporate headquarters.

Moen和她的同事们可能已经找到了解决方案。在2011年的一项研究中，她调查了在BestBuy公司总部实施结果导向工作环境（ROWE）对员工生产力和福祉的影响。

M) For the study, 325 employees spent six months taking part in ROWE, while a control group of 334 employees continued with their normal workflow. The ROWE participants were allowed to freely determine when, where and how they worked — the only thing that mattered was that they got the job done. The results were striking. After six months, the employees who participated in ROWE reported reduced work-family conflict and a better sense of control of their time, and they were getting a full hour of extra sleep each night. The employees were less likely to leave their jobs, resulting in reduced turnover. It's important to note that the increased flexibility didn't encourage them to work around the clock. "They didn't work anywhere and all the time — they were better able to manage their work," Moen said. "Flexibility and control is key," she continued.

在这项研究中，325名员工花了六个月时间参与ROWE，而334名员工的控制组继续他们正常的工作流程。ROWE参与者可以自由决定何时、何地以及如何工作——唯一重要的是完成工作。结果令人震惊。六个月后，参与ROWE的员工报告工作与家庭冲突减少，对时间有更好的控制感，每晚多睡一整小时。员工离职的可能性降低，从而减少了流动率。值得注意的是，增加的灵活性并没有鼓励他们全天候工作。Moen说：“他们没有随时随地工作——他们能更好地管理工作。”她继续说：“灵活性和控制是关键。”