The British are known for their sense of humor. However, it is often difficult for foreigners to understand their jokes. The main point to remember is that the British often use understatement.
Understatement means saying less than you think or feel. For example, if someone gets very wet in a shower of rain, he might say, “It’s a little damp (潮湿的) outside.” Or, if someone is very impolite and shouts at another person, someone else might say, “She isn’t exactly friendly.” Understatement is often used in unpleasant situation or to make another person look silly. Understatement plays an important part in British humor.
Another key to understanding British humor is that the British like to make fun of themselves as well as others. They often laugh about the silly and unpleasant things that happen to our everyday life when someone accidentally falls over in the street. They also like to make jokes about people from different classes of society. They like to make jokes about their accents, the way they dress and the way they behave. What’s more, the British love to watch comedies (喜剧) about people who do not know how to behave in society. The comedies series Mr. Bean is a good example of this kind of humor.
Mr. Bean is the character created by British actor Rowan Atkinson in 1990. Mr. Bean doesn’t talk often, and instead he uses his body movement and facial expressions to make people laugh. Perhaps what makes Mr. Bean so funny is that he does things that adults in the real world cannot do. Mr. Bean is popular in many countries around the world because you do not have to speak English to understand the humor. Because of this, many people have become familiar with the British sense of humor.
1.Why is it difficult for foreigners to understand British jokes?
A. The British often enlarge the fact.
B. British jokes are connected with many different cultures.
C. British jokes are not as funny as jokes in other countries.
D. The British try to make out that something is less important than it is.
2.The author explains understatement by _______.
A. describing a process B. making comparisons
C. following time order D. using examples
3.Mr. Bean makes laugh by ______.
A. using his body movement and facial expressions
B. making jokes about others’ accent
C. copying how others behave
D. telling funny stories
4.What can be the best title for the text?
A. British Humor in Comedy B. Humor in Different Cultures
C. Understanding British Humor D. Developing Your Sense of Humor
Letter One
Dear Editor,
After I finish my homework, I often go online and chat with my friends. Sometimes I play computer games. But my parents hate to see me playing games on the computer. Maybe they have heard too much news about how QQ and computer games harm children. Once I went to a net bar(网吧) to play games after school. But after that I told my parents that I was playing basketball at school. I said so because I didn't want to make them unhappy. I feel bad about it. However, I need to rest for a while by playing computer games after studying for a long time. I really want my parents to understand that. Do foreign parents do the same to their children? Please help me.
Li Ping,
Beijing
Letter Two
Dear Li Ping,
I don't think it's strange for parents to keep their children away from anything bad. Foreign parents will do the same as your parents! They may not let their children watch TV for too long a time, or like your parents, they don't want their children to play computer games.
Talk to your parents and be honest to them, I think. Tell them what you are doing and why you are doing so to make them understand you. It's never good to do things behind your parents. They aren't fools as you think sometimes! Our parents seem to know what is the best for us.
Remember: to be honest is the best way.
Good luck,
Rebecca
1.From the passage we can learn that Li Ping often__________ .
A. talks with his friends on the Internet
B. plays basketball after school
C. plays computer games at home
D. chats online before homework
2.The boy goes online_____________.
A. to get news on QQ B. just to have a rest
C. to show he hates study D. to make new friends
3.The editor thinks ____________.
A. children should play computer games in the net bar secretly
B. playing computer game can be very helpful to children’s studies
C. children should be honest and try to make their parents understand them
D. foreign parents don’t care for their children as much as Chinese parents
SummaryWriting
Sociologists have long recognized that organization of less than 200individuals can operate through the free flow of information among the members.Once their size goes beyond this figure, the organizations are getting lessflexible. So it seems necessary to prevent total disorder resulting fromfailures of communication.
One solution to this problem would, of course, be tostructure large organizations into smaller units of a size that can act as agroup. By allowing these groups to build reliance on each other, largerorganizations can be built up. However, merely having groups of, say, 150 willnever of itself be a complete solution to the problems of the organization.Something else is needed: the people involved must be able to build directpersonal relationships. To allow free flow of information, they have to be ableto communicate with each other in a casual way. Maintaining too formal astructure of relationships inevitably prevents the way a system works.
The importance of this was drawn to my attention twoyears ago by the case of a TV station. Whether by chance or by design, it sohappened that there were almost exactly 150 people in the station. The wholeprocess worked very smoothly as an organization for many years until they weremoved into purpose-built accommodation. Then, for no apparent reason, the workseemed to be more difficult to do, not to say less satisfying.
It was some time before they work out what the problemwas. It turn out that, when the architects were designing the new building,they decided that the coffee room where everyone ate their sandwiches at lunchtimes was an unnecessary luxury and so did away with it. And with that, theyaccidentally destroyed the close social networks that strengthened the wholeorganization. What had apparently been happening was that, as people gatheredinformally over their sandwiches in the coffee room, useful information wascasually being exchanged.
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Various studies have shown that increased spending on education has notled to measurable improvements in learning. Between 1980 and 2008, staff andteachers at U.S. public schools grew roughly twice as fast as students.1.
Universities show similar trends ofincreased administration personnel and costs without greater learning, asdocumented in Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's recent book Academically Adrift:Limited Learning on College Campuses.
A survey shows that 63% ofemployers say that recent college graduates don't have the skills they need tosucceed and 25% of employers say that entry-level writing skills are lacking.
Some simplistically attribute thedecline in our public education system to the drain of skilled students byprivate schools, but far more significant events were at work.
Public schools worked well untilabout the 1970s.2. It was the underperforming students who werethrown out of public schools and went to private ones.
A prominent reason public schoolsdid well was that many highly qualified women had few options for workingoutside the house other than being teachers or nurses. 3.
Having such a large supply oftalented women teachers meant that society could pay less for their services.Women’s liberation opened up new professional opportunities for women, and,over time, some of the best left teaching as a career option, bringing about agradual decline in the quality of schooling.
4.Large educationbureaucracies and unions came to dominate the landscape, confusing activitywith achievement. Bureaucrats regularly rewrite curriculums, talk nonsenseabout theories of education, and require ever more administrators. The endresult has been that, after all the spending, students have worse math andreading skills than both their foreign peers and earlier generations spendingfar less on education ---- as all the accumulating evidence has now documented.
A.They accepted relatively low pay, difficult working conditions, and gave their very best.
B.In fact, until that time, public schools provided far better education than private ones.
C. Achievement tests have failed to truly reflect the quality of teaching.
D. The heavy teaching loads left them little time and energy for family life.
E.Also around that time, regulations, government, and unions came to dictate pay, prevent adjustments.
F.Yet students showed no additional learning in achievement tests.
If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be? Your neighbouror a super star? A few people have experienced what it might be like to stepinto the skin of another person, thanks to an unusual virtual reality device.Rikke Wahl, an actress, model and artist, was one of the participants in a bodyswapping experiment at the Be Another lab, a project developed by a group ofartists based in Barcelona. She swapped with her partner, an actor, using amachine called The Machine to Be Another and temporarily became a man. "AsI looked down, I saw my whole body as a man, dressed in my partner'spants," she said. "That's the picture I remember best."
The set-up is relatively simple.Both users wear a virtual reality headset with a camera on the top. The videofrom each camera is sent to the other person, so what you see is the exact viewof your partner. If she moves her arm, you see it. If you move your arm, shesees it.
To get used to seeing anotherperson's body without actually having control of it, participants start byraising their arms and legs very slowly, so that the other can follow along.Eventually, this kind of slow synchronised（同步的）movement becomes comfortable, and participants reallystart to feel as though they are living in another person's body.
Using such technology promises toalter people's behaviour afterwards-potentially for the better. Studies haveshown that virtual reality can be effective in fighting racism-the bias thathumans have against those who don't look or sound like them. Researchers at theUniversity of Barcelona gave people a questionnaire called the ImplicitAssociation Test, which measures the strength of people's associations between,for instance, black people and adjectives such as good, bad, athletic orawkward. Then they asked them to control the body of a dark skinned digitalcharacter using virtual reality glasses, before taking the test again. Thistime, the participants' bias scores were lower. The idea is that once you've"put yourself in another’s shoes" you're less likely to think ill ofthem, because your brain has internalised the feeling of being that person.
The creators of The Machine to BeAnother hope to achieve a similar result. "At the end of body swapping,people feel like holding each other in their arms," says Arthur Pointeau,a programmer with the project. "It's a really nice way to have this kindof experience. I would really, really recommend it to everyone."
1.The word "swapping" (paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to______.
A. building
B. exchanging
C. controlling
D. transplanting
2.We can infer from the experimentat the Be Another lab that______.
A. our feelings are related to our bodily experience
B. we can learn to take control of other people's bodies
C. participants will live more passionately after the experiment
D. The Machine to Be Another can help people change their sexes
3.In the Implicit Association Test,before the participants used virtual reality glasses to control a dark skinneddigital character, ______.
A. they fought strongly against racism
B. they scored lower on the test for racism
C. they changed their behaviour dramatically
D. they were more biased against those unlike them
4.It can be concluded from the passage that______.
A. technology helps people realize their dreams
B. our biases could be eliminated through experiments
C. virtual reality helps promote understanding among people
D. our points of view about others need changing constantly
Humpback Whales
Humpback whales are sometimes calledperformers of the ocean.This is because they can make impressive movements whenthey dive.The name“humpback”, which isthe common name for this whale, refers to the typical curve shape the whale'sback forms as it dives.
Sometimes the humpback will dive with a fantasticmovement known as a breach.During breaching the whale uses its powerful tailflukes to lift nearly two-thirds of its body out of the water in a giant leap.A breach might also include a sideways twist with fins stretched out likewings, as the whale reaches the height of the breach.
A humpback whale breathes air at the surface of thewater through two blowholes which are located near the top of the head.It blowsa double stream of water that can rise up to 4 metres above the water.
The humpback has a small dorsal fin located towardsthe tail flukes about two-thirds of the way down its back.Other distinguishingfeatures include large pectoral fins, which may be up to a third of the bodylength, and unique black and white spots on the underside of the tailflukes.These markings are like finger prints: no two are the same.
Humpback whales live in large groups.They communicatewith each other through complex “songs”.
Quick Facts | |
Size: | 14m-18m in length; 30-50 tons in weight |
Living | Open ocean and shallow coastline waters |
Environment | From warm tropical waters, where they breed, to cold polar waters, where they eat |
Diet: | Shellfish, plants and fish of small size |
Hunting: | Sometimes in groups, in which several whales form a circle under the water, blowing bubbles that form a “net” around a school of fish.The fish are then forced up to the surface in a concentrated mass. |
Current state: | Endangered: it is estimated that there are about 5000-7500 humpback whales worldwide |
1.According to Quick Facts, ahumpback whale _____.
A. cannot survive in waters near the shore
B. doesn't live in the same waters all the time
C. lives mainly on underwater plants
D. prefers to work alone when hunting food
2.To make a breach, a humpback whale must _____.
A. use its tail flukes to leap out of the water
B. twist its body sideways to jump high
C. blow two streams of water
D. communicate with a group of humpbacks
3.From the passage we can learn that a humpback whale _____.
A. has its unique markings on its tail flukes
B. has black and white fingerprints
C. gets its name from the way it hunts
D. is a great performer due to its songs
