One important variable affecting communication across cultures is destiny (命运) and personal responsibility. This refers to the degree to which we feel ourselves the masters of our lives, contrary to the degree to which we see ourselves as subject to things outside our control. Another way to look at this is to ask how much we see ourselves able to change and act, to choose the course of our lives and relationships. Some have drawn a parallel between the personal responsibility in North American settings and the view itself. The North American view is vast, with large spaces of unpopulated land. The frontier attitude of “King” of the wilderness, and the expansiveness of the land reaching huge distances, may relate to generally high levels of confidence in the ability to shape and choose our destinies.
In this expansive land, many children grow up with a heroic sense of life, where ideas are big, and hope springs forever. When they experience temporary failures, they are encouraged to redouble their efforts, to “Try, try again.” Action, efficiency, and achievement are valued and expected. Free will is respected in laws and enforced by courts.
Now consider places in the world with much smaller land, whose history reflects wars and tough struggles: Northern Ireland, Mexico, Israel, Palestine. In these places, destiny’s role is more important in human life. In Mexico, there is a history of hard life, fighting over land, and loss of homes. Mexicans are more likely to see struggles as part of their life and unavoidable. Their passive attitude is expressed in their way of responding to failure or an accident by saying “ni modo” (“no way” or “tough lick”), meaning that the failure was destined.
This variable is important to understanding cultural conflicts. If someone believing in free will crosses paths with someone more passive, miscommunication is likely. The first person may expect action and responsibility. Failing to see it, he may conclude that the second is lazy, not cooperative, or dishonest. The second person will expect respect for the natural order of things. Failing to see it, he may conclude that the first is forcible, rude, or big headed in his ideas of what can be accomplished or changed.
1.The author thinks that one’s character is partly determined by ________.
A．physical senses B．general attitude
C．financial background D．geographic characteristics
2.According to the passage, Mexicans would think that Americans are ________.
A．impractical B．dishonest C．ambitious D．hesitant
3.The underlined word “subject” in Paragraph 1 probably means ________.
A．a topic of a discussion B．a branch of knowledge
C．a person being experimented on D．a person under the power of others
4.The author would probably agree that ________.
A．vast land may lead to a more controllable desire
B．heroic sense of life roots deeply in a small country
C．living in limited space contributes to an accepting attitude
D．fighting over land helps people gain high levels of confidence
Everyone knows about straight-A students. We see them frequently in TV situation comedies and in movies like Revenge (报复) of the Nerds. They get high grades, all right, but only by becoming dull laborers, their noses always stuck in a book. They are not good at social communication and look clumsy while doing sports.
How, then, do we account for Domenica Roman or Paul Melendres? Roman is on the tennis team at Fairmont Senior High School. She also sings in the choral group, serves on the student council and is a member of the mathematics society. For two years she has maintained A’s in every subject. Melendres, a freshman at the University of New Mexico, was student-body president at Valley High School in Albuquerque. He played soccer and basketball well, exhibited at the science fair, and meanwhile worked as a reporter on a local television station. Being a speech giver at the graduation ceremony, he achieved straight A’s in his regular classes, plus bonus points for A’s in two college-level courses.
How do super-achievers like Roman and Melendres do it? Brains aren’t the only answer. “Top grades don’t always go to the brightest students,” declares Herbert Walberg, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has conducted major studies on super-achieving students. “Knowing how to make full use of your innate (天生的) abilities counts for more. Much more.”
In fact, Walberg says, students with high IQ sometimes don’t do as well as classmates with lower IQ. For them, learning comes too easily and they never find out how to get down. Hard work isn’t the whole story, either. “It’s not how long you sit there with the books open,” said one of the many-A students we interviewed. “It’s what you do while you’re sitting.” Indeed, some of these students actually put in fewer hours of homework time than their lower-scoring classmates.
The kids at the top of the class get there by mastering a few basic techniques that others can readily learn.
1.The underlined word “nerds” in paragraph 1 can probably be ________.
A．dull bookworms lacking sports and social skills
B．successful top students popular with their peers
C．students with certain learning difficulties
D．born leaders crazy about social activities
2.What can we conclude from the first paragraph?
A．Most TV programs and films are about straight-A students.
B．People have unfavorable impression on straight-A students.
C．Everyone knows about straight-A students from TV or films.
D．Straight-A students are well admired by people in the society.
3.Some students become super-achievers mainly because ________.
A．they are born cleverer than others B．they work longer hours at study
C．they make full use of their abilities D．they know the shortcut to success
4.What will be talked about after the last paragraph?
A．The interviews with more students. B．The role IQ plays in learning well.
C．The techniques to be better learners. D．The achievements top students make.
5.What can we infer from the passage?
A．IQ is more important than hard work in study.
B．The brightest students can never get low grades.
C．Top students certainly achieve all-around developments.
D．Students with average IQ can become super-achievers.
Visiting London can be an expensive trip, so establishing a budget and finding bargains when you arrive will help you get around London on the cheap. The following steps can help you find cheaper alternatives for transport for your London trip.
l Familiarize yourself with the city’s boroughs and specifically the area where you will be staying. You can use a street map, or an online map search engine, to establish where in the city you will be staying and the distance you are from the major tourist attractions you want to visit.
l Find a local provider of Transport for London tickets or travel cards, since your first bargain purchase will be an Oyster Card. Traveling around London with an Oyster Card will give you access to the cheapest option of transportation methods and the Oyster Card is accepted citywide on buses, boats and the London Underground, known by the locals as “the tube”.
l Seek out your nearest Tube Station. The Tube is the cheapest and most reliable form of transportation and runs from around 6 a.m. until around 1 a.m. ..., depending on the line or the station.
There are 287 tube stations in London that accept the Oyster Card, with a high concentration in central London. If you are staying anywhere in central London, there will be a tube station less than 10 minutes away.
The Transport for London website offers a tube station search facility to find the nearest subway station to any location in the city. When you find a tube station, you can easily locate the closest bus stop by using the comparison bus-tube maps at the station’s entrance.
l Follow the Transport for London Tube Guide to your destinations and always plan ahead. Making a plan for transport will save you unnecessary expenses, wasted trips on the tube and doubling back on your journey .
1.What’s the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
A．To introduce the public transport system in London.
B．To show readers how to use the Oyster Card.
C．To prove the subway in London is easy to use.
D．To offer tips for saving transport costs in London.
2.Which of the following can help a traveler spend the least money on transport?
A．Trying different transportation methods.
B．Taking buses as much as possible.
C．Traveling with an Oyster Card.
D．Making a plan before your journey.
3.By visiting the Transport for London website, people can ________.
A．identify their own location B．locate the nearest bus station
C．find the nearest subway station D．use an online map to avoid getting lost
4.We can conclude from the passage that ________.
A．the subway is the cheapest means of transport in London.
B．only Tube stations in Central London accept Oyster Card.
C．subway lines in London run no less than 19 hours a day.
D．the transfer from subway to bus is very convenient.
Elephants have four distinct personalities that help their herd survive in the African bush, scientists have found.
With their grey skin, mournful eyes and slow heavy pace, you could be forgiven for thinking elephants are uniformly melancholy(忧郁的) creatures. But scientists have now discovered the largest living land animals have personalities to match their size.
In a new study of African elephants, researchers have identified four distinct characters that are common in a herd – the leaders, the gentle giants, the playful rogues(小淘气) and the reliable plodders (辛勤工作的人).
Each of the types has developed to help the giant mammals survive in their harsh environment and is almost unique in the animal kingdom, according to the scientists.
Professor Phyllis Lee and her colleague Cynthia Moss studied a herd of elephants in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya known as the EB family — famous for their matriarch Echo before she died in 2009.
Using data collected over 38 years of watching this group, the researchers analyzed them for 26 types of behavior and found four personality features tended to emerge.
The strongest personality to emerge was that of the leader. Unlike other animals, where leadership tends to be won by the most dominant and aggressive individual, the elephants instead respected intelligence and problem solving in their leader. Echo, the matriarch and oldest in the group, her daughter Enid, and Ella, the second oldest female, all emerged as leaders.
The playful elephants tended to be younger but were more curious and active. Eudora, a 40-year-old female in the herd, seemed to be the most playful, consistently showing this feature throughout her life while playfulness in some of the other elephants declined with age.
Gentle elephants, which included two 27-year-old females Eleanor and Eliot, touched and rubbed against others more than the others.
Those that were reliable tended to be those that were most consistent at making good decisions, helped to care for infants in the herd and were calm when faced with threats. Echo and her youngest daughter Ebony seemed to be the most reliable.
Professor Lee said that elephants with these features tended to be the most socially integrated in the group while those who tended to be less reliable and pushy were more likely to split from the herd.
1.From the passage we get to know that ________.
A．the researchers reached their conclusion by analyzing the data
B．the research centered on the 26 types of behavior of the matriarch
C．the scientists conducted the research by comparing elephants with other animals
D．professor Phyllis Lee and her colleague spent nearly 38 years tracking the herd
2.According to the new findings of the scientists, ________.
A．playfulness of an elephant will always decline with age
B．those elephants which are caring and wise are most reliable
C．each elephant can be matched with only one of the four personalities
D．once becoming a member of a herd, an elephant will never split from it
3.In the EB family Echo and Eudora are ________.
A．mother and daughter B．two oldest females
C．the gentlest ones D．leader and member
Due to the increasing number of violence acts produced in schools all over the world, more and more parents prefer to have their children educated at home rather than at school. This way they can ensure their safety and well-being, although teachers and school representatives are trying to improve the situation in schools by increasing the number of the persons in charge of the safety of the students.
The main reason for violence acts are the films and cartoons that fill the children’s time. They want to do everything they watch on TV and never think of the consequences, and they may hurt a classmate or a teacher.
On the other hand, parents are not fully satisfied with the children’s results obtained in classes and they consider private classes would have better results.
When a teacher has to watch 30 students in class he can’t probably see what each of them is doing, how he is writing, or if he understands the explanations. At home the teacher can explain in details everything the child doesn’t understand as many times as he considers proper.
And many times the child grows fond of the teacher at home, who becomes his best friend, and who helps him whenever he needs someone to talk to.
However, the best solution would be a mixture between the education received at school and that at home, because school makes children communicate and socialize. Keeping a child at home for fear there might happen something bad to him only makes the child’s character weak and prevents him from knowing what real life is. Staying in a crystal ball only does harm to the child.
All in all, schools have been created to help children, not to harm them, so it’s best to keep children in these special places, where they learn, laugh, have fun and make new friends.
1.The writer’s purpose in writing the text is to ________.
A．teach parents the ways to keep their children safe
B．show solutions to developing children’s character
C．explain the main reason for violence acts in schools
D．analyze an education problem and give opinions
2.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
A．Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Classes
B．Who is to Blame, Parents or Schools?
C．Which Is Better, School Study or Home Study?
D．The Relationship between Teachers and Children
3.What does “a crystal ball” in the passage refer to?
A．A toy that can be used for entertainment.
B．A safe and comfortable environment.
C．A round object that is made of crystal.
D．An obstacle that is hard to overcome.
4.We can infer from the passage that ________.
A．violence TV programs have bad effects on children’s behavior
B．the teacher at home is more patient than the teacher at school
C．children today are weak from lack of sense of right and wrong
D．there are too many students in class for a teacher to teach
It’s only after three weeks into a new job that I made a serious mistake. My boss called it “extremely embarrassing” in a company-wide e-mail — which, 11 , he wrote because he felt he needed to explain that what I did was something 12 in the company should ever do. I wish I 13 give a good excuse for what I did. At the very least, I wish I could explain it somehow — 14 it on youth, inexperience or ignorance. Unfortunately, I’m 15 , experienced and I know better.
16 I work with some very kind and compassionate (富于同情心的) people. For the past couple of days many of them have taken time to 17 by my desk and offer comfort, encouragement and support. Some have shared with me similar 18 they have made. Evidently I’m not the only “ 19 ” person here.
One of the exchanges I had this week was with Lois, the much-honored, much-respected professional who 20 the desk right next to mine. Lois was completely 21 about her work, and to be honest I was a little nervous about how she would 22 to such an extremely embarrassing incident.
As I expected, Lois didn’t pass over the 23 when she saw me the next day. She mentioned it directly, 24 with empathetic consideration. She listened to my 25 . Just as I was ready to express my regrets, she brought my self-pity partly to a(n) 26 .
“It happened”, she said, “There’s nothing you can do to 27 that. It happened. But it’s over now. It’s 28 . It’s in the past. You need to let it go, and move on.” And with that she returned her 29 to her work, as if to say, “We’re done here.”
I beat myself up for weeks. At such times I need to remember those 30 words: It’s over. It’s done. Let it go. And mostly, move on.
1. A．by the way B．in the way C．on the way D．to the way
2. A．someone B．anyone C．no one D．the one
3. A．should B．might C．will D．could
4. A．fix B．blame C．rely D．put
5. A．outgoing B．old C．cheerful D．energetic
6. A．Thankfully B．Naturally C．Generally D．Hopefully
7. A．work B．stop C．watch D．sit
8. A．decisions B．troubles C．attempts D．mistakes
9. A．annoying B．confusing C．embarrassing D．puzzling
10. A．repairs B．wants C．works D．occupies
11. A．mad B．serious C．curious D．hopeful
12. A．react B．agree C．turn D．object
13. A．issue B．outcome C．standard D．message
14. A．for B．therefore C．but D．otherwise
15. A．challenge B．imagination C．conclusion D．explanation
16. A．order B．key C．end D．process
17. A．forget B．ruin C．prevent D．change
18. A．broken B．done C．lost D．kept
19. A．attention B．skill C．patience D．interest
20. A．sweet B．pleasant C．meaningful D．colorful
