Question

The Most
Productive Day of the Week

 

It's possible that while you are at work, you may dream
about a month of Sundays, but your boss wishes for a week of Tuesdays. That's
because she or he probably knows that productivity is one of the main factors
supporting a company's growth. A recent poll shows that workers are most
productive on Tuesdays! An employment agency carried out a survey of office
managers which shows that by the middle of the week a dramatic productivity
decrease occurs.

 While Monday is
considered second in "productivity value," only nine percent of office
managers think Wednesday is the peak productivity day. And only five percent
believe that the most productive day of the week is Thursday. However,
forty-eight percent of the managers say that Tuesday is, by far, the most productive
day of the week. A close analysis of workweek rhythms offers some obvious
reasons for those survey results.

First of all, Monday is full of meetings, designed to
"get things moving," and everybody knows meetings aren't very
productive. Wednesday is "hump day" - to get over it as painlessly as
possible, a worker thinks, and the week is more than halfway over. On Thursday,
people are running out of energy; and on Friday, everybody's thinking about the
weekend. There are reasons why the other days aren't productive, but what makes
Tuesday special? On Tuesday employees hit peak performance because they are
very focused on day-to-day activities. Also, it's usually the first day of the
week when they're focused on their own task. They're not in meetings that take
them away from their main responsibilities. And so, in 10 hours, they're doing
20-hour work. That's productive, but it's also tough.

This does not mean that nothing happens on the last
three days of the workweek. Things do not get so casual that people are sitting
with their feet on desks, drinking coffee and talking on the phone all day, but
there's a definite lack of focus. The pace softens and the rhythm slows down.
And this is not healthy: it produces tiredness and decreases productivity. To
prevent this midweek slowdown, some management consultants suggest that
employers avoid squeezing so many meetings into Mondays and answer the
question: “What motivates people to work?” Variations in productivity are only
natural, but both workers and bosses win when the peaks and valleys are less
dramatic than they are now.

 

 


1. Answer the question.                                                                     
         
 Why
do bosses wish for a week of Tuesdays?

 


  2. Find in the text the
synonyms for the word and word combination given below.        

a) to conduct a poll -________________________________

b) evident -
 3. Find in the text the
antonyms for the words given below.           
                      
a) to raise -__________________

b) easy -_____________________

 


4. Identify and circle the
correct variant (True/False).  Justify
your choice.                  .

a)
Monday is considered to be the most productive working day.                          True False

because________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

                                                                                                                               
  True False

b) On
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays employees relax, drink coffee and talk on the
phone.

Because________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5. Give another title to the
text. Write your title in the form of a sentence.                      

6. Answer the question below
in 4 lines.                                                                        
   

  “What motivates people to work?”.


 

7. Identify the message of the
text and comment on it in 5 lines.                                  

Answer 1

1. Answer the question.
Why do bosses wish for a week of Tuesdays?
Workers are most productive on Tuesdays and employees hit peak performance because they are very focused on day-to-day activities.

2. Find in the text the synonyms for the word and word combination given below.
a) to conduct a poll – to carry out a survey
b) evident – obvious

3. Find in the text the antonyms for the words given below.
a) to raise - decrease
b) easy - painlessly

4. Identify and circle the correct variant (True/False). Justify your choice. .

a) Monday is considered to be the most productive working day, because.
False. Monday is considered the second in productivity value.

b) On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays employees relax, drink coffee and talk on the phone, because.
False. Wednesday is "hump day" - to get over it as painlessly as possible, a worker thinks, and the week is more than halfway over. On Thursday, people are running out of energy; and on Friday, everybody's thinking about the weekend.

5. Give another title to the text. Write your title in the form of a sentence.
“How Could Weekly Productivity Be Improved”

6. Answer the question below in 4 lines.
“What motivates people to work?”.

In order to have normal lives, to live decently – not alone, but together with their families – people are supposed to get some “means of earning”. They can achieve this only by having a paid job. Each person, usually, is looking for an employment that fits his/her abilities, passion, hobbies, so that the job become something pleasant, so that each of these people go with pleasure on daily basis to perform the work.

7. Identify the message of the text and comment on it in 5 lines.

The message of the text is: improving the productivity so that peaks and valleys in work time to be less dramatic.

 It is important for any employer to have employees who come with pleasure at work, who can focus on everyday activities and carry them on in time. A good working mechanism leads to profit, and implicitly to win-win situations: both employers and employees get money to live their lives. This can be achieved only by organizing smartly the work time each day to avoid as much as possible peaks and valleys, and to have smooth/equal focus on activities and tasks.