Part 6: Cross-Text Matching · C1 Reading & Use of English

Practice activity

The Future of Remote Work

Read the four experts' opinions below. For each question, choose the text (A, B, C, or D) whose writer expresses the stated opinion.

AMariam Osei — workplace strategist

I welcome the shift away from the office with genuine enthusiasm. For decades, the daily commute stripped employees of hours that could have been spent with family, on personal projects, or simply in rest. Remote work has handed that time back, and the results speak for themselves: parents can now collect their children from school, carers no longer have to choose between a career and a dependent, and employees report feeling trusted for the first time.

None of this has come at the expense of output. In most sectors, productivity has climbed rather than collapsed. The office, for all its rituals, was never the engine of work it claimed to be; it was merely a place where we could be observed. To insist we return to it is to prioritise the appearance of diligence over diligence itself.

BJürgen Holtz — design director

I remain unconvinced. My team generates its best ideas not in scheduled video calls but in the chaotic margins of the day: a remark in the corridor, a shared lift, a whiteboard sketched over coffee. These moments cannot be replicated through a screen, however sophisticated the software becomes.

What troubles me most is that we are sacrificing serendipity for convenience. Already I notice newer colleagues struggling to absorb our culture, since culture is caught, not taught. The office is far from perfect, but it provides the friction that turns strangers into collaborators. Without that proximity, we risk becoming a collection of efficient strangers who happen to share a logo.

CPriya Ramanathan — HR consultant

The truth, as ever, lies somewhere between the zealots and the doubters. A blanket mandate — whether for five days in the building or five days at home — ignores the fact that different tasks have different needs. Collaborative workshops and onboarding flourish face-to-face; deep, focused work is frequently better done alone, away from interruption.

The most sensible employers I advise are settling on two or three anchor days in the office, leaving the remainder flexible. Neither camp holds a monopoly on wisdom, and pretending otherwise is unhelpful. We should be designing systems that flex with human reality, not bending people to a single doctrine.

DKofi Mensah — labour researcher

Though I am broadly sympathetic to remote arrangements, I am wary of presenting them as an uncontested good. Consider the young tenant sharing a cramped flat with no dedicated workspace, or the employee whose home circumstances make concentration impossible. For them, the office was a refuge: quiet, heated and connected.

A wholesale move to remote work would therefore widen the gap between those with comfortable homes and those without, and it would do so quietly, invisibly. We must measure productivity alongside equity, or we will simply export old inequalities into a new setting and call it progress.

Question 1

Which writer argues that remote working allows people to reconcile their professional lives with personal responsibilities more easily?

Answer for question 1

Question 2

Which writer warns that working apart threatens the spontaneous exchange of ideas?

Answer for question 2

Question 3

Which writer cautions that a fully remote model could deepen existing social inequalities?

Answer for question 3

Question 4

Which writer advocates a flexible compromise rather than adherence to one extreme?

Answer for question 4