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TOEFL Test – Reading Test 2
Instructions: Now try our second free TOEFL test for reading below. To see the questions, click on the “start quiz” button at the end of this practice TOEFL test. Then click the “finish quiz” button and check your answers.
TOEFL Test – Reading Passage for Test 2
Labor Demand and Supply
Employers use a range of different methods to recruit employees and employees use a range of different methods to look for work. Where people who are looking for work are using the same methods as employers are using to seek employees, then a match between the two is likely. However, this is not always obvious to either party, which limits the efficiency of the job-matching process.
If there is balance in the local labor market, employers will be able to find employees easily and people seeking work will be able to find jobs easily. At the same time, the market price of jobs (wages and earnings) should arguably be stable or rise in line with national trends.
Where employers cannot fill their vacancies with workers of the desired caliber, they may report to surveys that they have ‘hard-to-fill vacancies’ or ‘skill-shortage vacancies’ and may also respond by raising the earnings offered to potential recruits. Earnings of existing workers should rise as increased overtime is paid. In the same way that motorists will pay increased prices for gasoline when petroleum supplies are scarce, rising earnings above the national or local average will indicate some degree of excess of employer demand over labor supply in the local area.
Normally, difficulties in filling vacancies are specific to particular occupations. Where these difficulties persist and employers respond by more actively recruiting and increasing wage offers to recruits, people with similar skill sets may move into that occupation, and/or people living outside the area may apply for the jobs. This may, if continued, cause specific skill shortages to become general labor shortages.
Skills shortages will continue to persist in occupations in local areas if employers do not undertake remedial action through changing recruitment, pay, and training practices. The changing nature of labor market demand may make it difficult for employers to change their human resource practices and pay structures, but employers must nevertheless respond to skill shortages within the context of their management and staffing structures.
It is possible and indeed likely that skill shortages in one occupational group in a local area will coexist with an excess of labor supply over employer demand affecting other occupational groups. For example, there may well be a scarcity of ‘Merger and Acquisition’ specialists, but a surplus of people who wish to be cleaners.
Questions
Question 1: When the writer talks about limits on the efficiency of the job-matching process, her main argument is:
A) Normal market forces make it difficult for the job-matching process to function effectively.
B) Limits occur because potential employees sometimes do not understand the means by which prospective employers fill jobs.
C) Hard to fill vacancies place a strain on the job-matching process.
D) An imbalance in the job-matching process will result in a shortage of jobs.
Question 2: Which of the following can be inferred from the analogy between ‘hard-to-fill vacancies’ and petrol shortages?
A) Petrol consumption increases during periods of scarcity.
B) Increased demand causes prices to increase.
C) ‘Scarcity’ is defined as an excess of demand over supply.
D) Reports to surveys often exacerbate the problems of shortages.
Question 3: Why does the writer provide an example in the last paragraph?
A) To illustrate how specific skill shortages become general labour shortages
B) To argue that employers must change their recruitment, pay and training practices
C) To demonstrate the difficulties employers face when trying to change their human resource practices and pay structures in order to respond to skill shortages
D) To show that employer demand varies locally for different occupations
Answers
Answer 1: The correct answer is B. When the writer talks about limits on the efficiency of the job-matching process, her main argument is that limits occur because potential employees sometimes do not understand the means by which prospective employers fill jobs. In the first paragraph, the writer states that ‘Where people who are looking for work are using the same methods as employers are using to seek employees, then a match between the two is likely. However, this is not always obvious to either party, which limits the efficiency of the job-matching process’. The first sentence in this quotation states that employers and employees are on the same wavelength, but the word ‘however’ in the next sentence signals that the previous sentences is not always true.
Answer 2: The correct answer is C. The inference that ‘‘scarcity’ is defined as an excess of demand over supply’ can be made from the analogy between ‘hard-to-fill vacancies’ and petrol shortages. Paragraph 3 of the text states: ‘In the same way that motorists will pay increased prices for petrol when petrol supplies are scarce, rising earnings above the national or local average will indicate some degree of excess of employer demand over labour supply in the local area’. So, we can notice here the relationship between price and supply. In the same way, when employers have a demand for someone needed to fill a job, and it is difficult to meet that demand, the employer ‘may also respond by raising the earnings offered to potential recruits’.
Answer 3: The correct answer is D. The writer provides the example about Mergers and Acquisitions specialists in the last paragraph to show that employer demand varies locally for different occupations. The last paragraph also states that scarcities and surpluses can exist at the same time in different places, so we know from this that employer demand is variable.
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