Quiet Quitting A team can look healthy on paper while something inside it is quietly thinning out. The dashboards stay green, deadlines are...

Quiet Quitting

A team can look healthy on paper while something inside it is quietly thinning out. The dashboards stay green, deadlines are met, and meetings still end with polite jokes. Yet the energy that used to spill over into the work, the extra draft, the extra check, the extra care, begins to disappear. People do not storm out or slam laptops shut. They stay. [I] They deliver. They simply stop reaching beyond what is written, because beyond what is written has started to feel like a trap.

You can see it in the small moments. Messages that once got instant replies now wait until office hours. Volunteers for “quick favours” become rare. The same people who used to mentor juniors or rescue messy documents now keep their heads down and finish their own lane. [II] It is not laziness so much as budgeting. Time becomes a scarce resource, attention becomes a cost, and emotional labour becomes something you spend only when it will be returned. In hybrid work, the shift is easier to miss, because effort has fewer visible signals and withdrawal is quieter than absence.

The pattern usually grows out of mismatch, not mood. [III] Flexibility turns into permanent availability. Praise arrives as slogans, not pay, and “growth” becomes a promise with no date attached. When the rules feel unstable, people protect themselves by shrinking the game to the contract. Only later does the internet hand the pattern a label: quiet quitting. [IV] The phrase is dramatic, but the behaviour is almost boring, a worker still present, still delivering, simply no longer donating free hours and free enthusiasm.

What follows is the part most organisations underestimate. Productivity may not collapse, but the invisible strengths that make teams resilient start to fade: initiative, creativity, trust, and the habit of catching problems early. Work becomes more transactional, less cooperative, and small frictions turn into chronic delays. Leaders often respond by demanding “engagement”, which can deepen the retreat, because it asks for feeling rather than fixing conditions. The real lever is practical: clearer boundaries, fair workloads, credible progression, and a culture where extra effort is chosen, not extracted. Otherwise the workplace keeps running, but it runs on thinner and thinner air.

[Adapted from Oxford Languages]

Question 31: Where in the passage does the following sentence best fit?

Work expands in tasks and expectations while support stays flat.

A. [I]        B. [II]        C. [III]        D. [IV]

Question 32: The phrase "keep their heads down" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. avoiding work responsibilities        B. concentrating on limited tasks

C. following instructions strictly        D. hiding from their supervisors

Question 33: The word "it" in paragraph 2 refers to __________.

A. hybrid work        B. office hours        C. the shift        D. emotional labour

Question 34: According to the passage, which of the following is NOT mentioned as a reason for the emergence of quiet quitting?

A. The imbalance between increasing work tasks and stable support levels.

B. The transformation of flexible working into a state of constant availability.

C. The absence of financial rewards in exchange for verbal encouragement.

D. The inability of employees to meet the deadlines of their core assignments.

Question 35: Which of the following best summarises the content of paragraph 4?

A. Organisations often underestimate the importance of emotional engagement, leading to a situation where productivity collapses due to a lack of initiative and chronic delays.

B. Leaders should respond to the fading of team resilience by demanding more feelings from their workers, as this is the only practical lever to fix deteriorating workplace conditions.

C. The erosion of intangible team strengths requires a shift toward structural remedies such as fair workloads and clear boundaries rather than superficial appeals for emotional commitment.

D. While small frictions in a team can lead to chronic delays, most organisations find that productivity remains stable when extra effort is extracted through a transactional culture.

Question 36: The word "transactional" in paragraph 4 is OPPOSITE in meaning to __________.

A. commercial        B. professional        C. collaborative        D. competitive

Question 37: Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage regarding the consequences of quiet quitting?

A. The primary danger of this trend is the immediate and total collapse of team productivity.

B. Critical but non-measurable qualities like creativity and trust begin to diminish over time.

C. Small frictions in the workplace are usually resolved more quickly due toTransactional work.

D. Leaders can effectively reverse the pattern by asking employees to express more feelings.

Question 38: Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 3: "When the rules feel unstable, people protect themselves by shrinking the game to the contract."?

A. People tend to violate their employment agreements when they perceive that the workplace regulations are no longer consistently applied by the management.

B. Because of the unpredictability of office policies, workers often expand their roles beyond the contract to ensure they remain safe from potential layoffs.

C. In response to perceived workplace instability, individuals safeguard their well-being by limiting their professional contributions to the minimum legal requirements.

D. Unstable environments encourage employees to negotiate new contracts that clearly define the rules of the game to avoid further emotional exhaustion.

Question 39: Which of the following can most likely be inferred from the passage?

A. Hybrid work is the main cause of quiet quitting because it prevents leaders from fixing the practical conditions of the workplace.

B. Employees who practice quiet quitting are likely to be fired eventually because they no longer catch problems early enough.

C. Quiet quitting is a defensive mechanism against a culture that exploits enthusiasm without providing tangible career progression.

D. The internet label "quiet quitting" accurately describes a dramatic rebellion that aims to destroy the productivity of modern organisations.

Question 40: Which of the following best summarises the passage?

A. Quiet quitting is a dramatic internet trend where workers intentionally miss deadlines and stop cooperative work to protest against the lack of slogans and growth.

B. The phenomenon is a subtle withdrawal from discretionary effort caused by systemic imbalances, requiring practical structural changes rather than mere emotional appeals.

C. Leaders often underestimate the impact of quiet quitting on productivity, which leads to chronic delays and the eventual collapse of the entire organisational culture.

D. High-performing teams often thin out because employees prefer to work in hybrid settings where they can easily hide their lack of initiative and creativity from leaders.