英语听力精选进阶版 6467（在线收听）

Can you concentrate in a crowded environment? If you want to work in a modern office you'd better start getting used to it. Millions of workers spend their long shifts in open-plan offices these days. And your co-workers? Well, don't stretch your arms out too far or you might knock over their cup of coffee!

Offices today might have the latest computers, but the idea of having dozens of workers gathered in a big room isn't new. Henry Ford, the American industrialist of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, had a lot to do with that. The owner of the famous Ford cars loved efficiency - one of the main themes in the story of open-plan offices.

Companies say they use these layouts to encourage communication and collaboration among staff. But does this really happen?

Franklin Becker, social psychologist at Cornell University in the US, doesn't think so. He says: "The fundamental reason why open-plan has taken root has to do with the fact that you can reduce the amount of space per person in an open-plan versus any kind of closed cellular office."

Becker says that if you put walls amongst the desks, offices would look like prison cells. But a big room feels different, so having lots of workers is acceptable.

Although an open-plan office can save a company money, they might have a negative impact on productivity.

Sound expert Julian Treasure, chairman of the Sound Agency, explains: "We have bandwidth for about 1.6 people talking. If I'm trying to do work it requires me to listen to a voice in my head to organise a flow of words and put them on paper. If you're talking at the same time, then you're taking up one of my 1.6. I'm left with 0.6 in my head."

Well, it sounds like that big report you have to finish by end of play might be just a whisper inside your head struggling against all that chatter around you.

So, do you like open-plan offices?

Quiz 测验

1. True or false? According to the article, one problem of working in an open-plan office is that workers steal each other’s coffee.

False. The article warns workers not to stretch their arms out because they might knock each other's coffee over.

2. Who does the article say is an important figure in the history of open-plan offices?

The American industrialist Henry Ford.

3. True or false? Franklin Becker believes that the real reason that open plan offices have become common because more people can fit into them than into traditional, smaller, closed offices.

True.

4. Why might offices with walls between desks not be popular?

According to social psychologist Franklin Becker, they remind people of prison cells.

5. True or false? Sound expert Julian Treasure says that listening to a colleague's voice uses up all the 'bandwidth' that we have for listening to voices both inside and outside our heads.

False. He says we have a 'bandwidth' of about 1.6. Listening to a colleague’s voice uses about 1.0, leaving us with 0.6 in our heads.

Glossary 词汇表

to concentrate 集中注意力

shift 当班时间

open-plan office 开放式办公室

industrialist 工业家

efficiency 效率

collaboration 合作

staff 员工

to take root 建立；确立

per person 人均

productivity 生产力；生产率

flow 某事物的持续或连续供应（量）

end of play 下班的时候

chatter 喋喋不休的说话声