TOEFL IBT 範文 integrated writing

Read the following reading passage in three minutes:

In the United States, employees typically work five days a week for eight hours each day. However, many employees want to work a four-day week and are willing to accept less pay in order to do so. A mandatory policy requiring companies to offer their employees the option of working a four-day workweek for four-fifths (80 percent) of their normal pay would benefit the economy as a whole as well as the individual companies and the employees who decided to take the option.

The shortened workweek would increase company profits because employees would feel more rested and alert, and as a result, they would make fewer costly errors ...

The common theme of the short essay and the lecture of the narrator is the policy of 4-day workweek for employee. The essay advocates the benefits 4-day workweek can bring, but obviously the narrator doesn't think so. The following are the major disagreements.

  First, the essay argues that four-day policy will not affect the expense of the company since workers who adopt this strategy will get 80 percent of their salary. However, the narrator asserts that one should not only consider only the salary, but the space, computer, and health insurance accreted with the hiring of new employee.

   Second, the essay highlighted that four-day workweek policy can reduce the unemployment rate, for companies can hire one more person every four 4-day working employees with the same expense. Yet, in the speaker’s eyes, the companies have the alternative to put the same work load on the original employees without hiring new men, which harms the life qualities of the workers instead of improve them as argued in the essay.

  Finally, the speaker challenged the contention that the new policy will allow employees to have more time stay with their families and increase their productivities. In the speaker’s opinion, four-day workers suffer disadvantage over five-day workers because it decrease their accountability. Besides, the company may prefer promoting five-day workers with an eye on their ability to supervise for the entire work week.