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STUDY FOR CAE: READING
PART THREE (multiple-choice comprehension)
Read the passage and answer the questions which follow.
SICK BUILDINGS
Like people, buildings get sick. When they do, the people inside them also get sick. They suffer from coughs, colds, wheezes, skin rashes, sickness, tiredness, headaches, eye troubles. They work slowly and inefficiently. They stay away from work. Sick buildings cause a 40 per cent drop in productivity and a 30 per cent rise in absenteeism. Management in North America and Europe have been slow to respond to the need to maintain a healthy environment for office workers, just as much as for blue collar workers. In a typical case in a large London office block, about 25 years old, staff complained about constant lethargy and lack of natural light. The complaints dragged on for years. Management were unwilling to admit to the problem because of the bad publicity which would result. They preferred to think that workers were malingerers or hypochondriacs. What would happen to rental values if a building were admitted to be sick?
The trouble is the difficulty of knowing whether it is the people who are sick, or suffering from hysteria, or whether something has gone seriously wrong with the place they work in. A professor of design analysis at Cornell University gives the example of a building in Anchorage, Alaska, where three women, all heavy smokers, developed bronchitis. One of them was advised to wear a mask to work. The reaction of her colleagues led to an evacuation of the building, an investigation by consultants wearing full protective clothing, newspaper reports, and many lawyers. No cause was ever found. On the other hand, he also cites the example of the headquarters of the US Environmental Protection Agency where 70 people fell ill. The outbreak was traced to 4PC, a chemical produced by the interaction between adhesive and foam backing on new carpets.
A survey in 1987 found that 80 per cent of British office workers suffered sickness related to the buildings in which they worked. Lethargy was cited by 57 per cent, followed by stuffy nose, dry throat and headaches. The United States Institute for Occupational Health investigates about 50 buildings a year. These are mainly energy-efficient "tight" buildings which save money by using recycled warmed air rather than cold air from outside. They are usually open-plan or "deep" offices, where daylight has been replaced by artificial lighting. Thirdly, they are offices dominated, of course, by the data processor.
What goes wrong? For a start, the whole place can be at the wrong temperature, usually too warm. A four degree rise above a comfortable 20C can half productivity. It is almost certainly too dry, with a relative humidity below 40 per cent, resulting in stuffy and stale air. Equally certainly, the air is dirty: too many people still smoke, and smoke containing ammonia, formaldehyde, phenols and hydrogen cyanide circulate is breathed by nonsmokers. Gases are given off by synthetic carpets and furniture. Ozone is produced by malfunctioning photocopiers.
The lighting may be all wrong. Low-frequency fluorescent lights produce a flicker which the eye cannot see but the brain can. It causes anxiety and headaches. Medical studies have shown that headaches are less frequent on higher floors which receive more natural light. Headaches fall by half when high-frequency lights are introduced. The computer screen has been linked to illness and to pregnancy problems, but there is no definite proof of links between health and the VDU. If you wanted a building not to work in, it would be air-conditioned, dusty, date from the mid-seventies, have tinted and sealed windows, and house batteries of clerical workers.
The trouble may lie less in the building itself, and more in the design of the workplace and the jobs that people are expected to do. The office worker has become more like a factory worker, tied to a work station in an assembly line. You can introduce full spectrum lighting and you can litter the office with spider plants to eat the carbon monoxide, but the central problem remains. The modern office has been built to house machines, not people. There is something psychologically wrong with the high-tech office which makes people prefer polluted "natural" air to the air-conditioned "pure" air of the office block. In one case, absenteeism through sickness increased by 30 per cent after the workforce moved from an old naturally-ventilated office into a new air-conditioned one, without any change in the nature of the work being carried out.
The new technology creates a prison, and people go "prison crazy". An occupational health specialist says: "If you are trying to get the best out of your equipment, then the easiest thing is to chain your operator to the chair. Everything in the worming environment is geared to keeping people working. Restaurants care close by. You can carry out food, People even come round selling sandwiches at the work station. But you are wringing the sponge dry, allowing it no time to recover. work becomes one-dimensional. "You take away the opportunity for human contact, for simply walking around and feeling there are wider horizons. Just because building technology and information technology have made it possible to extract 150 per cent out of people doesn't mean that is what you ought to do. It's a bit like a new drug. We don't know the long-term effects of what we are doing."
1. Building managers ignored complaints from office workers because
- A.they thought the workers were lazy
B.there was nothing really wrong
C.their companies would lose money
D.the workers were suffering from hysteria
2. People become lethargic from stuffy conditions when
- A.too many people smoke
B.air is recycled
C.photocopiers don't work properly
D.the air is too dry
3. Office workers worry less and feel less stress
- A.in an ozone-free environment
B.when there is less dust in the atmosphere
C.in natural light
D.in an open-plan office
4. Workers stay away from work more often when
- A.the office is air-conditioned
B.they have to use a computer screen
C.there are no plants in the office
D.the office has polluted natural air
5. According to a health expert, office workers
A.need more convenient working conditions
B.shouldn't be allowed to eat at their desks
C.need to get more exercise
D.are too isolated
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