You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this overlooked form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette (礼仪) is sort of odd (奇怪的),” Gray told the BBC. “They (elevators) are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, lift users unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box. If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally (对角线地) across from each other to create distance. When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
New entrants to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be construed (理解) as threatening or odd. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
1.The main purpose of the article is to _____.
A. tell us some unwritten rules of elevator etiquette
B. share an interesting but awkward elevator ride
C. remind us to enjoy ourselves in the elevator
D. analyze what makes people feel awkward in an elevator
2.According to Gray, when people enter an elevator, they usually _____.
A. turn around and greet one another
B. try to keep a distance from other people
C. look around or examine their phone
D. make eye contact with those in the elevator
3.The writer wrote the passage in a tone of ___________.
A. disapproved B. supportive
C. negative D. objective
4.Which of the following describes how people usually stand when there are at least two people in an elevator?
Can you be too beautiful? It is hardly a problem that most of us have to bother — as much as we might like to dream that it were the case.
Yet the blessings and curses of beauty have been a long-standing interest in psychology. Do those blessed with shiny faces and an attractive body live in a cloud of appreciation — or does it sometimes pay to be ordinary?
Combing through decades of findings, social psychologists Lisa Slattery Walker and Tonya Frevert at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte have reviewed all the evidence to date and their conclusions are not what you might expect.
At the most basic level, beauty might be thought to carry a kind of halo(光环) around it; we see that someone has one good quality, and by association, our deep mind may assume that they have other good ones too.
Even in the courts, a pleasing appearance can work its magic. Attractive criminals are likely to get less strict sentences, or to escape punishment entirely; attractive plaintiffs(原告), meanwhile, are more likely to win their case and get bigger financial settlements. “It’s an effect seen everywhere,” says Walker.
But if beauty pays in most circumstances, there are still situations where it can have opposite results. While attractive men may be considered better leaders, for instance, hidden sexist prejudices can work against attractive women, making them less likely to be hired for high-level jobs that require power. And as you might expect, good-looking people of both sexes run into envy — one study found that if you are interviewed by someone of the same sex, they may be less likely to employ you if they judge that you are more attractive than they are.
More worryingly, being beautiful or handsome could harm your medical care. We tend to link good looks to health, meaning that illnesses are often taken less seriously when they affect the good-looking. When treating people for pain, for instance, doctors tend to take less care over the more attractive people.
And the bubble of beauty can be a somewhat lonely place. One study in 1975, for instance, found that people tend to move further away from a beautiful woman on the pathway — perhaps as a mark of respect, but still making interaction more distant. “Attractiveness can convey more power over visible space — but that in turn can make others feel they can’t approach that person,” says Frevert. Interestingly, the online dating website OKCupid recently reported that people with the most beautiful pictures are less likely to find dates than those with less perfect pictures.
Ultimately, Frevert points out that focusing too much on your appearance can itself be harmful if it creates stress and anxiety — even for those already blessed with good looks. “If you are crazy about attractiveness, it may affect your experience and interactions,” she says. It’s an outdated saying, but no amount of beauty can make up for a bad personality. As the writer Dorothy Parker put it so elegantly: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
1.From paragraph one, we can learn that _______.
A. we might always dream about being bothered by others[
B. most people are not afraid of being too beautiful
C. some may be bothered by their unattractive appearance
D. being too beautiful can be a problem bothering everyone
2.Which is the benefit for beautiful people?
A. An attractive plaintiff has more chances to get away with punishment.
B. Beautiful criminals are more likely to persuade the judge and win the case.
C. Good-looking people are often regarded as having many good qualities.
D. Women with pleasing appearance will always be considered as better leaders.
3.What can be inferred from OKCupid’s finding?
A. Don’t use perfect pictures when trying to find dates online.
B. Less attractive women are lonely because of their appearances.
C. We may feel more excited to approach those with attractive appearances.
D. People with perfect pictures will find dates sooner or later.
4.What might be the best title for the passage?
A. Sexist Prejudice B. Negative Sides of Beauty
C. Blessed with Beauty D. Beauty vs Ugliness
NANJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou will shake hands in their historic meeting scheduled in Singapore on Saturday, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said on Wednesday.
The two-part meeting includes one session open to the media and another behind closed doors, said Zhang Zhijun, who is also head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, when interviewed at the Zijinshan Summit for Entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait.
According to Zhang, Xi and Ma, as "leaders of the two sides" of the Taiwan Strait, will exchange views during the closed-door meeting.
After the meeting, press conferences will be held by both sides. Later, the two leaders are expected to attend a dinner, said Zhang.
Zhang said the meeting will lift cross-Strait communication to a new high.
The landmark meeting is a breakthrough in face-to-face exchange and communication between the leaders across the Taiwan Strait after the relationship became strained following the events of 1949.
Zhang said the meeting will improve mutual trust and allow for an exchange of opinions on handling the cross-Strait ties.
In addition, the meeting will help strengthen the 1992 Consensus(共识), which was reached in talks between the two sides in 1992 and recognizes the one-China principle, and safeguards the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties, according to Zhang.
Zhang added that the scheduled meeting will also benefit regional peace and stability.
Also at Wednesday's summit, Chiang Pin-kung, former chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, hailed the upcoming meeting between the two leaders as a milestone for cross-Strait ties.
Chiang told the media that he believed the meeting will give a boost to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties.
1.According to the article, the meeting of the two leaders will _____.
A. be all open to the media
B. improve mutual trust and benefit regional peace and development
C. be held at the Zijinshan Summit for Entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait
D. be the first face-to-face communication between people across the Taiwan Strait
2.Which of the following statements about the 1992 Consensus is not true?
A. It was reached in 1992.
B. It recognizes the one-China principle.
C. It is an agreement between China and Japan.
D. It safeguards the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties.
3.Which of the following can best substitute the word “hailed” in the last paragraph but one?
A.was impressed with B. got well prepared for
C. sang high praise for D. was concerned about
4.Which might be the right sequence of the following events?
a. The two leaders shake hands in front of the media.
b.The two leaders hold press conferences.
c.The two leaders exchange views during the closed-door meeting.
d.The two leaders have dinner together.
A. b; a; c; d B. a; d; b; c
C. a; c; b; d D. a; b; c; d
书面表达
假设你是李华，寒假就要来临了，你的美国朋友Tom来信询问你的寒假计划。请你给他回信告知你的安排并邀请他来中国做客。内容要点如下：
1、你的寒假安排（完成寒假作业、锻炼身体、做家务）。
2、欢度春节（享受美食、欣赏烟花、领压岁钱）。
3、发出邀请。
要求：3段式作文、120词左右、书写规范整洁。
参考词汇：fireworks (烟花） lucky money( 压岁钱）
短文改错
文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词，
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉，
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改 10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分
Believe it or not, some strange things are often happen before an earthquake. In 1976, a great earthquake shake Tangshan. Before the earthquake, strange things was happening in the countryside of northeast Hebei. Farmers noticed that the well walls had deep cracks in it. A smelly gas came out the cracks. In the farmyards, the chickens and even the pigs were such nervous that they didn’t want to eat anything. Mice ran out of the fields look for places to hide. So the one million people of the city, that thought little of these events, were asleep as usual that night. As a result, the number of people who were killed or serious injured reached more than 400,000.
语法填空题
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的词或括号内单词的正确形式(每空最多3个词)。
Tony was born on a small farm near Yuma Arizona on March 31, 1931. Tony was ten years old 1.______ he began working in the fields. He was forced to leave school after 2.______ (graduate) from the3.______ (eight) grade in order to support his family4.______ had very little money and often not enough food to eat. But Tony and his family never thought of 5._____ (them) as being poor. His mother would often tell him and his brother Richard to find homeless and hungry men so she could cook them a meal.
A few years 6.______(late), Tony met a man named Fred Ross. And his life7.______(total) changed. Fred Ross believed that if people worked together, they could make their community(社区) better. Tony now worked to bring people together and find ways to address their problems. Tony, Fred Ross and the Community Service Organization helped people in the community learn how to vote. They also8.______ (teach) people that community leaders should respect (尊重) voters. Tony worked in many communities 9._____ (help) people get respect10.______ others.
