Ideas about polite behavior are different from one culture to another. Some societies, such as America and Australia, for example, are mobile and very open. People here change jobs and move houses quite often. As a result, they have a lot of relationships that often last only a short time, and they need to get to know people quickly. So it’s normal to have friendly conversations with people that they have just met, and you can talk about things that other cultures would regard as personal.
On the other hand, there are more crowded and less mobile societies where long–term relationships are more important. A Malaysian or Mexican business person, for example, will want to get to know you very well before he or she feels happy to start business. But when you do get to know each other, the relationship becomes much deeper than it would in a mobile society.
To Americans, both Europeans and Asians seem cool and formal at first. On the other hand, as a passenger from a less mobile society puts it, it’s no fun spending several hours next to a stranger who wants to tell you all about his or her life and asks you all sorts of questions that you don’t want to answer.
Cross-cultural differences aren’t just a problem for travelers, but also for the flights that carry them. All flights want to provide the best service, but ideas about good service are different from place to place. This can be seen most clearly in the way that problems are dealt with.
Some societies have “universalist” cultures. These societies strongly respect rules, and they treat every person and situation in basically the same way. “Particularist” societies, on the other hand, also have rules, but they are less important than the society’s unwritten ideas about what is right or wrong for a particular situation or a particular person. So the normal rules are changed to fit the needs of the situation or the importance of the person.
This difference can cause problems. A traveler from a particularist society, India, is checking in for a flight in Germany, a country which has a universalist culture. The Indian traveler has too much luggage, but he explains that he has been away from home for a long time and the suitcases are full of presents for his family. He expects that the check–in official will understand his problem and will change the rules for him. The check–in official explains that if he was allowed to have too much luggage, it wouldn’t be fair to the other passengers. But the traveler thinks this is unfair, because the other passengers don’t have his problem.
1.Often moving from one place to another makes people like Americans and Australians ______.
|
A．like traveling better |
|
B．easy to communicate with |
|
C．difficult to make real friends |
|
D．have a long–term relationship with their neighbors |
2. People like Malaysians prefer to associate with those ______.
|
A．who will tell them everything of their own |
|
B．who want to do business with them |
|
C．they know quite well |
|
D．who are good at talking |
3.Which of the following is true about “particularist societies”?
|
A．There is no rule for people to obey. |
|
B．People obey the society’s rules completely. |
|
C．No one obeys the society’s rules though they have. |
|
D．The society’s rules can be changed with different persons or situations. |
4. The writer of the passage thinks that the Indian and the German have different ideas about rules because of different ______.
|
A．interests |
B．habits and customs |
C．cultures |
D．ways of life |
阅读快车系列答案科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Microwaves may be great at warming up food, but what about warming people?
Using microwaves to directly heat owners of a room would save much of the energy wasted by heating walls and furniture. And despite popular ideas about microwaves, this technique would be safe, according to Charles R. Burlier of the Microwave Research Center in Marlborough, New Hampshire. Low-power microwaves only penetrate (贯穿) the skin (low-power microwave penetration in a ham is about 0.2 inches, for example) and with no negative effects.
To test this idea, Buffler subjected himself to microwaves in a special room using a standard 500-watt, 2459 MHz magnetron (磁控管). He found that a person will start to feel warmth at about 20 kilowatts per square centimeter (mw. / sq. cm. ) ; a satisfactory feeling of warmth occurs between 35 and 50 mw. / sq. cm. By comparison, a person standing in noonday summer sun feels the amount of 85 mw. / sq. cm. And a frozen meat pie in your microwave oven receives about 1000 mw. / sq. cm.
In houses of the future, each room could be provided with its own magnetron, says Buffler. When you stepped into the living room, for example, a motion detector (运动感应器)would turn on the magnetron, filling the room with low-power microwaves. In the same way that a microwave oven heats up a hamburger, but not the plate it’s on, you would feel warmth from the microwaves without changing the temperature of your coffee table. (You could, however, make your favorite easy chair even more comfortable by treating it with a radiation-absorbing chemical.)
While it might be some time before homeowners are comfortable enough with the idea to set up whole-body microwave heaters in houses, Buffler says microwaves may attract livestock(家畜) farmers. Lambs that are born outdoors in winter, for example, are frequently lost to cold. Microwaves could warm the lambs safely and quickly.
Which of the following can tell the main idea of the passage?
A. A new heating system.
B. A new microwave oven.
C. A popular technique.
D. The magnetron.
According to Paragraph 2, which of the following does not describe the characteristics of a microwave heater?
A. It directly heats people in a room.
B. It heats walls and furniture in a room.
C. It is safe.
D. It saves energy．
The test conducted by Buffler shows that when a person feels comfortable warmth, he receives about ________________.
A. 20 mw. / sq. cm. B. 40 mw. / sq. cm.
C. 60 mw. / sq. cm. D. 85 mw. / sq. cm.
According to Paragraph 4, which of the following fills the room with low-power microwaves?
A. The magnetron.
B. The motion detector.
C. The microwave oven.
D. The radiation-absorbing chemical.
Which of the following statements about microwave heaters would Buffler most probably agree with?
A. Microwave heaters will soon be widely used by homeowners.
B. Microwave heaters sometimes make people feel uncomfortable.
C. Perhaps microwave heaters will be first used by livestock farmers, who wish to protect their lambs in winter.
D. Microwave heaters cannot be accepted by the public because they are somewhat unsafe.
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
I’m seventeen. I had worked as a box boy at a supermarket in Los Angeles. People came to the counter and you put things in their bags for them. And carried things to their cars. It was hard work.
While working, you wear a plate with your name on it. I once met someone I knew years ago. I remembered his name and said,“Mr Castle, how are you?"We talked about this and that. As he left, he said,“It was nice talking to you, Brett."I felt great, he remembered me. Then I looked down at my name plate. Oh no. He didn?t remember me at all, he just read the name plate. I wish I had put“Irving"down on my name plate. If he?d have said,“Oh yes, Irving, how could I forget you?"I d have been ready for him. There?s nothing personal here.
The manager and everyone else who were a step above the box boys often shouted orders. One of these was: you couldn?t accept tips(小费). Okay, I?m outside and
I put the bags in the car. For a lot of people, the natural reaction(反应)is to take a quarter and give it to me. I?d say,“I?m ?sorry,? I can’t."They’d get angry. When you give someone a tip, you?re sort of being polite. You take a quarter and you put it in their hand and you expect them to say,“Oh,thanks a lot."When you say,“I'm sorry, I can't."They feel a little put down.They say,“No one will know."And they put it in your pocket. You say,“I really can’t."It gets to a point where you almost have to hurt a person physically(身体上)to prevent him from tipping you. It was not in agreement with the store?s belief in being friendly. Accepting tips was a friendly thing and made the customer feel good. I just could?t understand the strangeness of some people?s ideas. One lady actually put it in my pocket, got in the car, and drove away. I would have had to throw the quarter at her or eaten it or something.
I had decided that one year was enough. Some people needed the job to stay alive and fed. I guess I had the means and could afford to hate it and give it up.
1.What can be the best title for this text?
A.How Hard Life for Box Boys
B.Getting along with Customers
C.Why I Gave up My Job
D.The Art of Taking Tips
2.From the second paragraph, we can infer that _______ .
A.the writer didn’t like the impersonal part of his job
B.with a name plate, people can easily start talking
C.Mr Castle mistook Irving for Brett
D.Irving was the writer?s real name
3.The box boy refused to accept tips because _______.
A.customers only gave small tips
B.some customers had strange ideas about tipping
C.the store forbade the box boys to take tips
D.he didn’t want to fight with the customers
4.The underlined phrase“put down"in the third paragraph probably means _______.
A.misunderstood B.defeated C.hateful D.hurt
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科目：高中英语 来源：2013届广西平南县六陈高级中学高三模拟考试英语试卷（带解析） 题型：阅读理解
There have been big changes in the attitudes of most parents over the last few years. Physical punishment is banned in schools in most countries, and in many countries, there are moves to ban all physical punishment of children even at home. However, many parents still believe that they have the right to use some physical punishments to deal with certain misbehavior at certain ages.
It’s easy to find reasons to allow some physical punishments. One issue is that many parents find it very difficult to abandon physical punishment completely. Parents argue that this was the way they were brought up and that it didn’t do any harm to them. They believe that for the child’s sake they have the right to discipline the child in any way they consider fit, including using some physical punishments. The other one is that physical punishment can be quick and effective. There is not much point reasoning with a screaming child in the supermarket.
However, there are several reasons why we should stop using physical punishment. One point is that most parents are not trained to deal with misbehaving children. They don’t have enough resources or choices to handle the situation. As a result, they immediately react by hitting the child even if there are other solutions to the problem. Another point is that unless people are challenged or forced to change their belief, they may keep following negative habits. An example is seat belt use —now most people wear seat belts without thinking, while years ago the idea of using seat belts was strange to most people. In the same way, banning physical punishment will force people to change their habits.
In conclusion, parents have to change some of their belief and ideas about how children should be raised. It is possible to avoid the use of physical force, and doing so will help us move closer to the dream of removing violence from our society.
【小题1】According to the first paragraph, many parents think that ____________.
| A．they are free to use physical punishment on their children |
| B．most of the children behave badly in their daily life |
| C．they have changed their attitudes towards their children |
| D．physical punishment is effective to educate their children |
| A．they are disappointed with their children |
| B．they were brought up just in the same way |
| C．they don’t want to hurt their children badly |
| D．they don’t know what to do with their children |
| A．most people are used to wearing seat belts |
| B．it’s not difficult to change some negative habits |
| C．seat belts are really very necessary and useful |
| D．people won’t change their old habits unless forced |
| A．talk about a ban on using physical punishment |
| B．tell us we should educate our children in other ways |
| C．advise parents to give up using physical punishment |
| D．suggest physical punishment should be used at home |
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科目：高中英语 来源：湖北省武汉市武昌区2010届高三下学期五月调研测试试卷（英语） 题型：阅读理解
Vampires (吸血鬼), creatures of myth, have been around in one form or another for centuries. Terrifying but also attractive, they are as popular in the early 21 st century as ever, as the current popularity of Twilight series, and its hero Edward Cullen, show.
Vampires first appeared in fiction in the 1700s. in 1895 Irish novelist Bram Stoker published Dracula, introducing the world’s most famous vampire.
But just what is it about these drinkers of human blood that continues to fascinate us? Speaking to Eric Lewis of the Times and Transcript website, academic Deborah Wells said that vampires are “culturally adaptive”. “We create very different vampires to fit different times. Edward Cullen is not the same as Count Dracula,” she said.
Different as they are, Wells believes vampires are “the perfect containers into which we can pour our current cultural anxieties”, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is powerful, yet old and physically ugly. Stoker’s book dealt with fear of the fall of the British Empire, real fears in the day in which it was written.
According to the website Bookrags, today’s vampires have all our cultural desires, money, power and sexual attraction. Represented by Cullen, they are noble, handsome young men whom women find irresistible. What’s more, vampires challenge traditional ideas about death, science and parental authority. This may be why teenagers are drawn to vampire tales.
“In many ways, the vampire story shows up teenage concerns,” said wells. “The emotional intensity (强度) of the relationship with the vampire matches the intensity of how it feels to have your first real love affairs. Your first real love, it really feels like life and death.”
55．The best title for this passage should be_______.
A．Vampires may continue to drink our blood
B．Vampires have been around us for long
C．Why Twilight is so popular nowadays
D．We still like the story about vampires
56．What is the image of the vampire in Bram Stoker’s book?
A．Anxious but perfect.
B．Powerful, old and ugly.
C．Terrifying but also attractive.
D．Afraid of the fall of the British Empire.
57．According to the website Bookrages, today’s vampires_______.
A．desire money, power and sexual attraction
B．may not think highly of parental authority
C．dare to give up traditional ideas
D．are likely to be resisted by women
58．Which of the following statements is true according to Wells?
A．People need different vampires in different times.
B．Our current cultural anxieties are hidden in vampires.
C．The vampire story reflects the conches of the teenagers.
D．The relationship with the vampire equals your first real love.
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科目：高中英语 来源：2010-2011学年湖北省高三上学期第二次联考英语卷 题型：阅读理解
I live in Hollywood. You may think people in such an attractive, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells “happiness”.
But in memoir（回忆录） after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
The way people stick to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equates happiness actually reduces their chances of ever obtaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is true: More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very endeavors that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment, civic or charitable work, and self-improvement.
1.What does the author want to tell us? He wants to tell us .
|
A．he lives in Hollywood, so he feels not happy |
|
B．the true meaning of happiness |
|
C．in fact, famous people are not very happy |
|
D．happiness is not equal to fun |
2.What is many intelligent people’s viewpoint about happiness?
|
A．Happiness just means having fun. |
B．Happiness is not equal to fun. |
|
C．Happiness means doing what you like. |
D．Happiness means being rich. |
3.What does the underlined word “equate” in the second paragraph mean? It means .
|
A．compare |
B．think |
|
C．similar or connected |
D．match |
4.According to the passage, the author may agree .
|
A．amusement park can bring us happiness |
|
B．fun will bring some happiness to us |
|
C．pain will bring us happiness |
|
D．efforts can bring us happiness |
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