Read the following passage and choose the best answer to each question.

Finding The Real You

Psychometric testing for recruitment - assessing personality traits as an indicator of performance in a certain role - has mushroomed as studies show their results to be three times more accurate in predicting your job performance than all your previous work experience combined. These tests are now included in virtually all graduate recruitment and are used in the selection of more than 50% of managers. Similar tests may be given to university applicants in future, dating agencies swear by them, and they are used to match pets to owners. Online personality tests are immensely popular, too. So does your personality meet the grade?

I decided to try a test. At one particular site I was informed of my career personality and the job that best matches it. This is the appeal of online tests: the premise that there is a perfect job, a perfect mate and a perfect you. These tests are also the ideal selfdiscovery vehicle for our alienated hi-tech age: intimate but anonymous. It is incredibly compulsive; when you get hooked on a test you’re there for hours. And there is no aspect of life too frivolous to test for. After recording my reaction to a series of ink blots (Is the mood of this picture nostalgic, violent or neutral? Can you find the chicken in this picture? Can you find your wife’s/ husband's mother?], I discovered I am mainly motivated by peace. (Somewhat unconvincing as I’d just had a row with my partner!)

The most popular of these personality tests is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It is based on the theory that we are born with a predisposition to one personality type which stays more or less fixed throughout life. You answer 88 questions and are then given our "type”: Introvert or Extrovert, Thinking or Feeling, Sensing or Intuitive, and Judging or Perceiving. If you're Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceptive, you'll probably find it harder to do work where you’re required to entertain, or persuade lots of people, such as a job in sales or public relations.

Critics of personality testing mutter darkly about "social engineering”. Psychologist Dr. Colin Gill agrees that too many organizations want people with the same traits. But, he warns, these “popular” personality traits have their downside. "An extreme extrovert tends to be a selfish "get on" type, who may walk over others. Overly conscientious people are prone to burn out and people who are extremely open to new experiences can be butterflies, going from one big idea to the next without mastering any of them." Nevertheless, the psychometric test is here to stay - which may be why a whole subindustry on cheating personality tests has sprung up. “It's possible to cheat,” admits expert David Bartram, “but why try to pretend you're an ambitious extrovert if you're a more thoughtful introvert? Having to fake the person you are at work will be exhausting and miserable and probably short-lived.”

So can we change our personality? “Your basic personality is fixed by the time you’re 21,” says Gill, “but it can be affected by motivation and intelligence. If you didn’t have the personality type to be a brain surgeon but desperately wanted to be one and were intelligent enough to master the skills, you could still go ahead. You can overcome certain aspects, but trying to go too much against type for too long requires a huge amount of psychic energy and is actually too draining to be sustained for long. 1 think it's why we’re seeing this trend for downshifting - too many people trying to fit into a type or role that they aren't really suited for.”

Our obsession with personality now invades every aspect of our lives. If you ask an expert for advice on just about anything, you'll probably be quizzed about your personality. But if personality tests have any value to us (rather than employers), perhaps it is to disabuse us of the illusion that all of us are full potential, and remind us of what we are. As they say in one test when they ask for your age: pick the one you are, not the one you wish you were.

(Cambridge English Advanced Result Student’s Book)

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