Passage 10

Attention to detail is something everyone can and should do —

— especially in a tight job market.Bob Crossley, a human—resources expert notices this in the job applications that come across his desk every day."It's amazing how many candidates eliminate themselves," he says.

"R'esume arrive with stains.some candidates don't bother to spell the company's name correctly."Once I see a mistake, Ieliminate the candidate," Crossley concludes."If they cannot take care of these details, why should we trust them with a job?"

Can we pay too much attention to details? Absolutely.Perfectionists struggle over little things at the cost of something larger they work toward."To keep from losing the forest for the tree," says Charles Garfield, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, "we must constantly ask ourselves how the details we're working on fit into the larger picture.if they don't, we should drop them and move to something else."

Garfield compares this process to his work as a computer scientist at NASA."The Apollo II moon launch was slightly off—course 90 percent of the time," says Garfield."But a successful landing was still likely because we knew the exact coordinates of our goal.This allowed us to make adjustments as necessary." Knowing where we want to go helps us judge the importance of every task we undertake.

Too often we believe what accounts for others' success is some special secret or a lucky break (机遇).But rarely is success so mysterious.Again and again, we see that by doing little things within our grasp well, large rewards follow.

  1. According to the passage, some job applicants were rejected

.

  1. because of their carelessness as shown in their failure to present a clean copy of a resume

  2. because of their inadequate education as shown in their poor spelling in writing a resume

  3. because they failed to give a detailed description of theirbackground in their applications

  4. because they eliminated their names from the applicants' list themselves

  1. The word "perfectionists" (Para.3, Line 1—2) refers to those who

.

  1. demand others to get everything absolutely right

  2. know how to adjust their goals according to the circumstances

  3. pay too much attention to details only to lose their major

    objectives

  4. are capable of achieving perfect results in whatever they do

  1. Which of the following is the author's advice to the reader?

    1. Although too much attention to details may be costly, they

      should not be overlooked.

    2. Don't forget details when drawing pictures.

    3. Be aware of the importance of a task before undertaking it.

    4. Careless applicants are not to be trusted.

  2. The example of the Apollo II moon launch is given to illustrate that

.

  1. minor mistakes can be ignored in achieving major objectives

  2. failure is the mother of success

  3. adjustments are the key to the successful completion of any work

  4. keeping one's goal in mind helps in deciding which details can be

    overlooked

  1. The best title for this passage would be .

    1. Don't Be a Perfectionist

    2. Importance of Adjustments

    3. Details and Major Objectives

    4. Hard Work Plus good luck