Question

One of the executives gathered at the Aspen Institute for a day-long leadership workshop using the works of Shakespeare was discussing the role of Brutus in the death of Julius Caesar. “Brutus was not an honorable man,” he said. “He was a traitor（叛徒）. And he murdered someone in cold blood.” The agreement was that Brutus had acted with cruelty when other options were available to him. He made a bad decision, they said—at least as it was presented by Shakespeare—to take the lead in murdering Julius Caesar. And though one of the executives acknowledged that Brutus had the good of the republic in mind, Caesar was nevertheless his superior. “You have to endeavor,” the executives said, “our policy is to obey the chain of command.”

During the last few years, business executives and book writers looking for a new way to advise corporate America have been exploiting Shakespeare’s wisdom for profitable ends. None more so than husband and wife team Kenneth and Carol Adelman, well-known advisers to the White House, who started up a training company called “Movers and Shakespeares”. They are amateur Shakespeare scholars and Shakespeare lovers, and they have combined their passion and their high level contacts into a management training business. They conduct between 30 and 40 workshops annually, focusing on half a dozen different plays, mostly for corporations, but also for government agencies.

The workshops all take the same form, focusing on a single play as a kind of case study, and using individual scenes as specific lessons. In Julius Caesar , sly provocation（狡詐的挑唆） of Brutus to take up arms against the what was a basis for a discussion of methods of team building and grass roots organism.

Although neither of the Adelmans is academically trained in literature, the programmes, contain plenty of Shakespeare tradition and background. Their workshop on Henry V, for example, includes a helpful explanation of Henry’s winning strategy at the Battle of Agincourt. But they do come to the text with a few biases (偏向): their reading of Henry V minimizes his misuse of power. Instead, they emphasize the story of the youth who seizes opportunity and becomes a masterful leader. And at the workshop on Caesar, Mr. Adelmans had little good to say about Brutus, saying “the noblest Roman of them all” couldn’t make his mind up about things.

Many of the participants pointed to very specific elements in the play that they felt related Caesar’s pride, which led to his murder, and Brutus’s mistakes in leading the after the murder, they said, raise vital questions for anyone serving as a business when and how do you resist the boss?

1.According to paragraph 1, what did all the executives think of Brutus?

A. Cruel. B. Superior.

C. Honorable. D. Bade

2.According to the passage, the Adelmans set up “Movers and Shakespeares” to ________.

A. help executives to understand Shakespeare’s plays better

B. give advice on leadership by analyzing Shakespeare’s plays

C. provide case studies of Shakespeare’s plays in literature workshops

D. guide government agencies to follow the characters in Shakespeare’s plays.

3.Why do the Adelmans conduct a workshop on Henry V?

A. To highlight the importance of catching opportunities.

B. To encourage masterful leaders to plan strategies to win.

C. To illustrate the harm of prejudices in management.

D. To warn executives against power misuse.

4.It can be inferred from the passage that ____.

A. the Adelmans’ programme proves biased as the roles of characters are maximized.

B. executives feel bored with too many specific elements of Shakespeare’s plays.

C. the Adelmans will make more profits if they are professional scholars.

D. Shakespeare has played an important role in the management field.

5.The best title for the passage is _____.

A. Shakespeare’s plays: Executives reconsider corporate culture

B. Shakespeare’s plays: An essential key to business success

C. Shakespeare’s plays: a lesson for business motivation

D. Shakespeare’s plays: Dramatic training brings dramatic results

Answer 1