The meaning of silence varies among cultural groups.Silences may be thoughtful, or they may be empty when a person has nothing to say. A silence in a conversation may also show stubbornness, uneasiness, or worry. Silence may be viewed by some cultural groups as extremely uncomfortable; therefore attempts may be made to fill every gap(间隙) with conversation. Persons in other cultural groups value silence and view it as necessary for understanding a person's needs.
Many Native Americans value silence and feel it is a basic part of communicating among people, just as some traditional Chinese and Thai persons do. Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what may be implied(暗示) is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing.In these cultures, silence is a call for reflection.
Other cultures may use silence in other ways, particularly when dealing with conflicts among people or in relationships of people with different amounts of power. For example, Russian, French, and Spanish persons may use silence to show agreement between parties about the topic under discussion. However, Mexicans may use silence when instructions are given by a person in authority rather than be rude to that person by arguing with him or her. In still another use, persons in Asian cultures may view silence as a sign of respect, particularly to an elder or a person in authority.
Nurses and other care-givers need to be aware of the possible meanings of silence when they come across the personal anxiety their patients may be experiencing. Nurses should recognize their own personal and cultural construction of silence so that a patient’s silence is not interrupted too early or allowed to go on unnecessarily. A nurse who understands the healing(治愈) value of silence can use this understanding to assist in the care of patients from their own and from other cultures.
1.What does the author say about silence in conversations?
A.It implies anger.
B.It promotes friendship.
C.It is culture-specific.
D.It is content-based.
2.Which of the following people might regard silence as a call for careful thought?
A.The Chinese.
B.The French.
C.The Mexicans.
D.The Russians.
3.What does the author advise nurses to do about silence?
A.Let it continue as the patient pleases.
B.Break it while treating patients.
C.Evaluate its harm to patients.
D.Make use of its healing effects.
4.What may be the best title for the text?
A.Sound and Silence
B.What It Means to Be Silent
C.Silence to Native Americans
D.Speech Is Silver; Silence Is Gold
Grandparents Answer a Call
As a third－generation native of Brownsville, Texas, Mildred Garza never planned to move away.Even when her daughter and son asked her to move to San Antonio to help with their children, she politely refused.Only after a year of friendly discussion did Ms.Garza finally say yes.That was four years ago.Today all three generations regard the move as a success, giving them a closer relationship than they would have had in separate cities.
No statistics show the number of grandparents like Garza who are moving closer to adult children and grandchildren. Yet there is evidence suggesting that the trend is growing.Even President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, has agreed to leave Chicago and move into the White House to help care for her granddaughters. According to a study by grandparents.com, 83 percent of the people said Mrs.Robinson's decision will influence grandparents in the American family.Two－thirds believe more families will follow the example of Obama’s family.
“In the 1960s we were all a little wild and couldn't get away from home far enough or fast enough to prove we could do it on our own,”says Christine Crosby, publisher of Grand, a magazine for grandparents. “We now realize how important family is and how important it is to be near them, especially when you’re raising children.”
Moving is not for everyone. Almost every grandparent wants to be with his or her grandchildren and is willing to make sacrifices, but sometimes it is wiser to say no and visit frequently instead.Having your grandchildren far away is hard, especially knowing your adult child is struggling, but giving up the life you know may be harder.
1.Why was Garza’s move a success?
A.It strengthened her family ties.
B.It improved her living conditions.
C.It enabled her to make more friends.
D.It helped her know more new places.
2.What was the reaction of the public to Mrs.Robinson’s decision?
A.17% expressed their support for it.
B.Few people responded sympathetically.
C.83% believed it had a bad influence.
D.The majority thought it was a trend.
3.What did Crosby say about people in the 1960s?
A.They were unsure of themselves.
B.They were eager to raise more children.
C.They wanted to live away from their parents.
D.They had little respect for their grandparents.
4.What does the author suggest the grandparents do in the last paragraph?
A.Make decisions in the best interests of their own.
B.Ask their children to pay more visits to them.
C.Sacrifice for their struggling children.
D.Get to know themselves better.
I read somewhere that we spend a full third of our lives waiting. But where are we doing all of this waiting, and what does it mean to an impatient society like ours? To understand the issue, let’s take a look at three types of “waits”.
The very purest form of waiting is the Watched-Pot Wait. It is without doubt the most annoying of all. Take filling up the kitchen sink(洗碗池) as an example. There is absolutely nothing you can do while this is going on but keep both eyes fixed on the sink until it’s full. During these waits, the brain slips away from the body and wanders about until the water runs over the edge of the counter and onto your socks. This kind of wait makes the waiter helpless and mindless.
A cousin to the Watched-Pot Wait is the Forced Wait. This one requires a bit of discipline. Properly preparing packaged noodle soup required a Forced Wait. Directions are very specific. “Bring three cups of water to boil, add mix, simmer three minutes, remove from heat, let stand five minutes.”I have my doubts that anyone has actually followed the procedures strictly. After all, Forced Waiting requires patience.
Perhaps the most powerful type of waiting is the Lucky-Break Wait. This type of wait is unusual in that it is for the most part voluntary. Unlike the Forced Wait, which is also voluntary, waiting for your lucky break does not necessarily mean that it will happen.
Turning one’s life into a waiting game requires faith and hope, and is strictly for the optimists among us. On the surface it seems as ridiculous as following the directions on soup mixes, but the Lucky-Break Wait well serves those who are willing to do it. As long as one doesn’t come to rely on it, wishing for a few good things to happen never hurts anybody.
We certainly do spend a good deal of our time waiting. The next time you’re standing at the sink waiting for it to fill while cooking noodle soup that you’ll have to eat until a large bag of cash falls out of the sky, don’t be desperate. You’re probably just as busy as the next guy.
1.While doing a Watched-Pot Wait, we tend to ___________.
A.keep ourselves busy
B.get absent-minded
C.grow anxious
D.stay focused
2.What is the difference between the Forced Wait and the Watched-Pot Wait?\
A.The Forced Wait requires some self-control.
B.The Forced Wait makes people passive.
C.The Watched-Pot Wait needs directions.
D.The Watched-Pot Wait engages body and brain.
3.What can we learn about the Lucky-Break Wait?
A.It is less voluntary than the Forced Wait.
B.It doesn’t always bring the desired result.
C.It is more fruitful than the Forced Wait.
D.It doesn’t give people faith and hope.
4.What does the author advise us to do the next time we are waiting?
A.Take it seriously.
B.Don’t rely on others.
C.Do something else.
D.Don’t lose heart.
5.The author supports his view by _________.
A.exploring various causes of “waits”.
B.describing detailed processes of “waits”.
C.analyzing different categories of “waits”
D.revealing frustrating consequences of “waits”
This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles(自主驾驶车辆). They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.
The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.
Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property(财产) damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.
“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.
Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability(法律责任) issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.
An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduces earlier this year, insists that a human “ be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.
But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.”Merat says. “You know — no driver.”
Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.
Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.
That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.
1.What does the phrase “death valley” in Paragraph 2 refer to?
A. A place where cars often break down.
B. A case where passing a law is impossible.
C. An area where no driving is permitted.
D. A situation where drivers’ role is not clear.
2.The proposal put forward by Dobrindt aims to __________.
A. stop people from breaking traffic rules
B. help promote fully automatic driving
C. protect drivers of all ages and races
D. prevent serious property damage
3.What do consumers think of the operation of driverless cars?
A. It should get the attention of insurance companies.
B. It should be the main concern of law makers.
C. It should not cause deadly traffic accidents.
D. It should involve no human responsibility.
4.Driverless vehicles in public transport see no bright future in __________.
A. Singapore
B. the UK
C. the US
D. Germany
5.What could be the best title for passage?
A. Autonomous Driving: Whose Liability?
B. Fully Automatic Cars: A New Breakthrough
C. Autonomous Vehicles: Driver Removed
D. Driverless Cars: Root of Road Accidents
Suppose you’re in a rush, feeling tired, not paying attention to your screen, and you send an email that could get you in trouble.
Realisation will probably set in seconds after you’ve clicked “send”. You freeze in horrors and burn with shame.
What to do? Here are four common email accidents, and how to recover.
Clicking “send” too soon
Don’t waste your time trying to find out if the receivers has read it yet. Write another email as swiftly as you can and send it with a brief explaining that this is the correct version and the previous version should be ignored.
Writing the wrong time
The sooner you notice, the better. Respond quickly and briefly, apologizing for your mistake. Keep the tone measured: don’t handle it too lightly, as people can be offered, especially if your error suggests a misunderstanding of their culture(I.e. incorrect ordering of Chinese names).
Clicking “reply all” unintentionally
You accidentally reveal(透露)to entire company what menu choices you would prefer at the staff Christmas dinner, or what holiday you’d like to take. In this instance, the best solution is to send a quick, light-hearted apology to explain your awkwardness. But it can quickly rise to something worse, when everyone starts hitting “reply all” to join in a long and unpleasant conversation. In this instance, step away from your keyboard to allow everyone to calm down.
Sending an offensive message to it’s subject
The most awkward email mistake is usually committed in anger. You write an unkind message about someone, intending to send it to a friend, but accidentally send it to the person you’re discussing. In that case, ask to speak in person as soon as possible and say sorry. Explain your frustrations calmly and sensibly—see it as an opportunity tic hear up any difficulties you may have with this person.
1.After realizing an email accident, you are likely to feel _______.
A. curious B. tired
C. awful D. funny
2.If you have written the wrong name in an email, it is best to ________.
A. apologise in a serious manner
B. tell the receiver to ignore the error
C. learn to write the name correctly
D. send a short notice to everyone
3.What should you do when an unpleasant conversation is started by your “reply all” email?
A. Try offering other choices.
B. Avoid further involvement.
C. Meet other staff members.
D. Make a light-hearted apology.
4.How should you deal with the problem caused by an offensive email?
A. By promising not to offend the receiver again.
B. By seeking support from the receiver’s friends.
C. By asking the receiver to control his anger.
D. By talking to the receiver face to face.
5.What is the passage mainly about?
A. Defining email errors.
B. Reducing email mistakes.
C. Handling email accidents.
D. Improving email writing.
A new commodity brings about a highly profitable, fast-growing industry, urging antitrust(反垄断) regulators to step in to check those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants(巨头) that deal in data, the oil of the digital age. The most valuable firms are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. All look unstoppable.
Such situations have led to calls for the tech giants to be broken up. But size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without search engines or a quick delivery. Far from charging consumers high prices, many of these services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). And the appearance of new-born giants suggests that newcomers can make waves, too.
But there is cause for concern. The internet has made data abundant, all-present and far more valuable, changing the nature of data and competition. Google initially used the data collected from users to target advertising better. But recently it has discovered that data can be turned into new services: translation and visual recognition, to be sold to other companies. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. So they have a "God’s eye view" of activities in their own markets and beyond.
This nature of data makes the antitrust measures of the past less useful. Breaking up firms like Google into five small ones would not stop remaking themselves: in time, one of them would become great again. A rethink is required — and as a new approach starts to become apparent, two ideas stand out.
The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial age into the 21st century. When considering a merger(兼并), for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to step in. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets(资产) when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an established company is buying a new-born threat. When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.
The second principle is to loosen the control that providers of on-line services have over data and give more to those who supply them. Companies could be forced to reveal to consumers what information they hold and how much money they make from it. Governments could order the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent.
Restarting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. But if governments don’t want a data economy controlled by a few giants, they must act soon.
1.Why is there a call to break up giants?
A.They have controlled the data market.
B.They collect enormous private data.
C.They no longer provide free services.
D.They dismissed some new-born giants.
2.What does the technological innovation in Paragraph 3 indicate?
A.Data giants’ technology is very expensive.
B.Google’s idea is popular among data firms.
C.Data can strengthen giants’ controlling position.
D.Data can be turned into new services or products.
3.By paying attention to firms’ data assets, antitrust regulators could .
A.kill a new threat
B.avoid the size trap
C.favour bigger firms
D.charge higher prices
4.What is the purpose of loosening the giants’ control of data?
A.Big companies could relieve data security pressure.
B.Governments could relieve their financial pressure.
C.Consumers could better protect their privacy.
D.Small companies could get more opportunities.
