VIP PLUS - ĐỀ SỐ 5

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR
One more chance! That's all we're giving you to tell us about your favourite restaurant and boost its chances of becoming the winner of our Restaurant of the Year competition. This is the last time the official
(26) __________ form will appear in the paper and next Thursday is the final date for receipt of completed forms. Over the (27) __________ few weeks we have been swamped by a paper mountain as diners across the city jot down the (28) __________ reasons why they believe their chosen restaurant should definitely win our hotly contested competition.
Once the deadline has passed, our judges will sit down and count all the forms. The three restaurants
(29) __________ receive the most votes will then be visited by the judges. These visits will of course be unannounced, (30) __________ the restaurants themselves will not know that the judges are there. After their visits, the judges will make their final decision over who wins the prestigious title "Restaurant of the Year'.
(Adapted from Cambridge English Advanced Practice Tests by Mark Harrison)

The days when only men would hold management positions are over. More and more women are moving into top jobs in the USA. Despite a slowing economy, the number of women in management has risen to 16% since 1995, when it used to be less than 9%. This means that out of every 14,000 managers, 2,000 are women. One result of the increasing number of female managers is that women are now more accepted in these roles, and it has also been found that women in management ease tension and gender conflict in the workplace.
Whereas women who wanted promotion used to imitate men in their behaviour, the findings now suggest that men might benefit from being more like women. A comprehensive nation-wide study of executive performance accidentally found that women scored higher in almost all areas of performance evaluation, while compiling a large- scale analysis of 425 high-level managers. When the results were further analysed, it was found that women out-performed men in 42 of the 52 skills rated in the study. Areas where women are particularly effective are in supporting their staff, and sharing information. They tend to work harder behind the scenes, while men prefer the glamorous, more aggressive side of management. The masculine approach is more suited to the traditional style of business, where the boss would work alone and simply dictate orders to his staff. Now, in the global information age, teamwork and partnering are increasingly important, and these are exactly the areas where women excel.
It is also surprising to learn that the greatest prejudice against female bosses comes from women themselves. In a recent Gallup poll, 70% of men said that they would be prepared to accept a female boss, compared to 66% of women. Although this gap is narrowing, women continue to be more prejudiced against their own sex than the men. One possible reason for this is that of tradition. Since nearly all bosses used to be male, women feel more comfortable being supervised by a man than by another woman. Some

women also feel that a male boss is less demanding, and feels more relaxed about being in a position of authority. Since women have to work harder to get to the top, they expect more of their staff when they get there.
(Adapted from Achieve IELTS by Louis Harrison, Caroline Cushen and Susan Hutchison)

We are constantly required to process a wide range of information to make decisions. Sometimes, these decisions are trivial, such as what marmalade to buy. At other times, the stakes are higher, such as deciding which symptoms to report to the doctor. However, the fact that we are accustomed to processing large amounts of information does not mean that we are better at it (Chabris & Simons, 2009). Our sensory and cognitive systems have systematic ways of failing of which we are often, perhaps blissfully, unaware. Imagine that you are taking a walk in your local city park when a tourist approaches you asking for directions. During the conversation, two men carrying a door pass between the two of you. If the person asking for directions had changed places with one of the people carrying the door, would you notice? Research suggests that you might not. Harvard psychologists Simons and Levi (1998) conducted a field study using this exact set-up and found that the change in identity went unnoticed by 7 (46.6%) of the 15 participants. This phenomenon has been termed 'change blindness' and refers to the difficulty that observers have in noticing changes to visual scenes (e.g. the person swap), when the changes are accompanied by some other visual disturbance (e.g. the passing of the door).
Drawing from change blindness research, scientists have come to the conclusion that we perceive the world in much less detail than previously thought (Johansson, Hall, & Sikstrom, 2008). Rather than monitoring all of the visual details that surround us, we seem to focus our attention only on those features that are currently meaningful or important, ignoring those that are irrelevant to our current needs and goals. Thus at any given time, our representation of the world surrounding us is crude and incomplete, making it possible for changes or manipulations to go undetected (Chabris & Simons, 2010).

Given the difficulty people have in noticing changes to visual stimuli, one may wonder what would happen if these changes concerned the decisions people make. To examine choice blindness, Hall and colleagues (2010) invited supermarket customers to sample two different kinds of jams and teas. After participants had tasted or smelled both samples, they indicated which one they preferred. Subsequently, they were purportedly given another sample of their preferred choice. On half of the trials, however, these were samples of the non-chosen jam or tea. As expected, only about one-third of the participants detected this manipulation. Based on these findings, Hall and colleagues proposed that choice blindness is a phenomenon that occurs not only for choices involving visual material but also for choices involving gustatory and olfactory information.
(Adapted from The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS by Pauline Cullen, Amanda French and Vanessa Jakeman)