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Từ vựng IELTS từ con số 0

Work-life balance

VOCABULARY:
• accounting n. - the department in charge of keeping financial accounts
• alert v. -to tell someone about something or remind them about something
• deadline n. –a time limit for any activity
• draft n. -an early version of a letter, report, etc. that you might change later
• draw the line v. -to make a distinction between two things and consider them as being
separate
• enter (data) v. –to write or key information in a computer
• human resource manager n. –the person in charge of the department that interviews,
appoints or keeps records of employees in an organization
• manage your money v. –to spend your money carefully so that you do not waste it and so
that you have enough for the things you need
• milestone n. –a significant event that marks an important stage in a process
• nursery n. -a school for young children, usually from three to five years old
• on the dot phr. –at exactly the arranged time
• outline n. –a general plan or description of something, without the exact details
• part-time adj. -Part-time work is work in which you only work for part of each day or week.
• phase n. -a particular stage in a process, project, etc.
• pick up v. –to collect someone and take them somewhere
• pressure n. -a worried feeling that you get because you have to do a lot of things in a short
time or because people expect a lot from you
• questionnaire n. –a set of written questions that are sent to a lot of people in order to get
information
• stress n. –a feeling of being worried or tense
• task n. –an activity or piece of work that you have to do
• timetable n. –a list of your lessons and when they will happen
• worry n. -a feeling of being anxious because of problems you have or be cause of what might
happen

IDIOMS for IELTS

1. Pace of life: Nhịp độ của cuộc sống
Ex: “I really can’t keep up with the pace of life in London, I think I will move to the country and try
to get a job there”.
2. Rat race: cuộc đua hung hãn ở thành phố lớn
Ex: “I think I will try to leave this rat race and start up my own business from home”
3. Progress up the corporate ladder: Tiến lên những nấc thang thành đạt;
Ex: “If I keep working hard, eventually I should be able to progress up the corporate ladder”.
4. To take time off: nghỉ một chút
Ex: “I’ve been working so many long hours lately, I really need to take some time off to relax”.
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5. All work and no play: làm việc quần quật không ngưng nghỉ
Ex: “You must take a holiday soon, life is not just all work and no play”.

Ex 1: Circle the words in each list that do not have a similar meaning to the others.
1. career/ job/ hobby/ profession/ occupation
2. relaxation/ leisure/ rest/ holidays/ work
3. stress/ worry/ difficulty/ pressure/ comfort
4. factory/ beach/ office/ shop/ workshop
5. employer/ boss/ owner/ worker/ manager
6. deadline/ limit/ goal/ target/ start

Ex 2: You are going to hear a recording of a new employee describing the problems she has
with time management. Listen and complete the sentences with words from the text. Write no
more than THREE WORDS or a NUMBER.
1. In her previous job, the speaker worked from .................. to ..................
2. In her new job, employees are allowed to
..................................... the office between 8.00 and 10.00 in the morning.
3. If the employees ..................................... a lunch break they can go home between 3.00 and 5.00
pm.
4. ..................................... she goes to the gym in the morning.
5. The children ..................................... of school at 4.00.

TRANSCRIPT:
I started this new job a couple of weeks ago and I’m having a lot of trouble with my work-life balance.
In my last job we had fixed hours. We had to be at the office at 9.00 on the dot and we always finished
at exactly 5.00. Any work we hadn’t finished we could just leave for the next day. But this new job's
very different. I mean, in this job, we can come into the office any time between 8.00 and 10.00 in the
morning. Then we can choose whether to have a lunch break or not. Then it gets a bit complicated.
Ummm ... If we have a lunch break we can leave between 4.00 and 6.00. If we don’t have a lunch
break, we can go home between 3.00 and 5.00. OK, well at first this system sounded really good,
especially for me because I have young children. But, the problem is that, if we haven’t finished our
work, we have to finish it off at home. So it's actually very difficult to draw the line between work and
home.
For example, on Mondays I can leave the children at school, go to the gym and get into the office quite
late. But I can't take a lunch break, because I need to leave early to pick the children up from school.
They come out at 4.00. And then I have to work from home in the evening to finish what I have to do.

Ex 3: Questions 1-5
You will hear a human resource manager talking about her company’s work-life balance
policy. Complete the sentences. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER.
1. The company is concerned about the physical ..................................... health of the workers.
2. It aims to give employees a chance to create a balance between their work and ................................
lives.
3. Some parents need to work ............................ hours so they can look after their children.
4. A lot of parents work part time and others work ......................................
5. Women who have had a baby can take ..................................... off work before they come back to
the office.
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In our company we believe that our employees are more productive, you know, they work better, if
they’re happy.
Naturally, we have to make sure the company makes a profit, but at the same time we need to think
about the physical and mental health of our employees. We do understand that they aren't just working
machines ...
So we have a policy of helping them find a fair balance between their work and their private lives.
What we call a work-life balance. We do this in several ways.
Firstly, we have a family friendly policy, so parents can look after their children when they’re very
young. For example, sometimes they need to work flexible hours, you know, times that aren’t fixed.
Other times parents have to work part-time ... and quite a lot work from home. Another example of
our family friendly policy is our generous maternity leave package. In our company,
we allow women who’ve had a baby to take a whole year off work after the baby’s born. And, of
course, while they’re away, their jobs are protected.

Questions 6-8
Listen to the next part of the recording and label the pie chart. Write NO MORE THAN
THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER.

Because we want our employees to be happy, we carried out a survey recently, to find out which
working patterns are really most popular. In general, our staff prefer to work at the office. In fact,
nearly half come in during regular office hours ... you know, from 9.00 to 5.00. Anyway, we also asked
about part-time work, working from home and another option ... job sharing.
Job sharing is a kind of part-time work, where two people share the responsibilities for one full time
job. Anyway, we found that only 5% of our staff wanted to share a job. So, it’s not very popular, on
the whole. But when it comes to working part-time, we were surprised to find that 27% of our
employees would actually prefer it. That’s a very high number, really ... over a quarter of the staff...
And then it was interesting to see that quite a lot of our staff - 20% in fact, would like to work from
home.

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Questions 9-10
Listen to the last part of the recording and complete the notes. Write NO MORE THAN
THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER.
Sally has (9) .................................... Leaves them at nursery before 8.00 a.m.
Collects them from (10) ....................... house in the afternoon. Finishes her work at home.
I’d like to give you an example of the kind of person who benefits most from our family friendly
policy. Sally is one of our assistants in accounting, who has two small children. Sally’s husband travels
abroad a lot so she has to look after the children on her own most of the time. Both the children go to
a nursery early in the morning. So, we’ve agreed that Sally can come in at 8 o ’clock, after she leaves
the children. At lunchtime Sally's sister picks the children up from the nursery. But she has to go to
work herself at three o’clock. So Sally leaves the office at two to collect the children from her sister’s.
And she makes up the extra time by finishing her work at home

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