题目
Time Pattern in America
A.Susan Anthony has an eight-to-five job with two 15-minute coffee breaks, a one-hour lunch break, scheduled appointments and weekly deadlines. Every time she enters and leaves her office building she "punches" the clock. Although she is not aware of it, her workday is strongly influenced by her culture"s attitudes toward time.
B.When travellers lack an awareness of how time is regulated in a foreign country, they can expect to feel somewhat confused. Since most people take time for granted, the effects of values, customs, and social manners on the use of time are seldom examined. A culture that values achievement and progress will discourage people from "wasting" time. Highly efficient business people from these cultures may feel frustrated in a country where work proceeds at a low pace. In religious societies, customs specify times of the day, week, or year for prayer and religious celebrations. If an individual tries to make an appointment during a sacred holiday, he or she could unknowingly offend a religious person. Social manners determine appropriate times for visits, meetings, and even phone calls. Arriving two hours late for an appointment may be acceptable in one culture, whereas in another, keeping someone waiting fifteen minutes may be considered rude.
C.Promptness is important in American business, academic and social settings. The importance of punctuality is taught to young children in school. Slow slips and the use of bells signal to the child that punctuality and time itself are to be respected. An amusing report of a schoolchild"s experience with time appeared in a recent newspaper article: As a child, my mother used to tell me how crucial it was to be at school when the first bell rang. Preparation for my "on-time" appearance began the night before. I was directed to go to bed early so I could wake up wide-eyed at 7 a.m. with enough time to get ready. Although I usually managed to watch my share of TV cartoons, I knew that in one hour I had to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and be on my way to school or I would be violating an important rule of Mum"s, the school"s, or of the world"s. It was hard to tell which.
D.People who keep appointments are considered dependable. If people are late tojob interviews, appointments, or classes, they are often viewed as unreliable and irresponsible. In the business world, "time is money" and companies may fine their executives for slowness to business meetings. Of course, it is not always possible to be punctual. Social and business etiquette also provides rules for late arrivals. Calling on the telephone if one is going to be more than a few minutes late for scheduled appointments is considered polite and is often expected. Keeping a date or a friend waiting beyond ten to twenty minutes is considered rude. On the other hand, arriving thirty minutes late to some parties is acceptable.
E. Respecting deadlines is also important in academic and professional circles. It is expected that deadlines for class assignments or business reports will be met. Students who hand in assignments late may be surprised to find that the professor will lower their grades or even refuse to grade their work. Whether it is a question of arriving on time or of meeting a deadline, people are culturally conditioned to regulate time.
F. Time is "tangible (有行资产)": one can "gain time", "spend time", "waste time", "save time", or even "kill time"! Common questions in American English reveal this concrete quality as though time were a possession. "Do you have time?Can you make some time for this?" "How much free time do you have?" The treatment of time as a possession influences the way time is carefully divided.
G. Generally, Americans are taught to do one thing at a time and may be uncomfortable when an activity is interrupted. In businesses the careful scheduling of time and the separation of activities are common practices. Appointment calendars are printed with 15-,30-, and 60-minute time slots. A 2:30-3:00 interview may end in time for a brief break before 3:15-4:00 meeting. The idea that "there is a time and place for everything" extends to American social life. Visitors who "drop by" without prior notice may interrupt their host"s persona! time. Thus, calling friends on the telephone before visitingthem is generally preferred to visitors" "dropping by". To accommodate other people"s schedules, Americans make business plans and social engagements several days or weeks in advance.
H. Cultures tend to favour either a past, present, or future orientation with regard to time. A future orientation, including a preference for change, is characteristic of American culture. The society encourages people to look to the future rather than to the past.
Technological, social and artistic trends change rapidly and affect people"s lifestyles and the relationships. Given this inclination toward change, it is not surprising that tradition plays a limited role in the American culture. Those who try to support traditional patterns of living or thought may be seen as rigid or "old-fashioned". In a society where change is so rapid, it is not uncommon for every generation to experience a "generation gap". Sometimes parents struggle to understand the values of their children. Even religious institutions have had to adapt to contemporary needs of their followers. Folk singers in church services, women religious leaders, slang versions of the Bible, all reflect attempts made by traditional institutions to "keep up with the times".
I. High rates of change, particularly in urban areas, have contributed to a focus on the future rather than the past or present. Some Americans believe that the benefits of the future orientation are achievement and progress which enable them to have a high standard of living. Others believe that high blood pressure and stomach ulcers are the results of such a lifestyle. As individuals in a culture, we all have an intuitive (直觉的) understanding about how time is regulated. Usually we do not think about the concept of time until we interact with others who have a different time orientation. Although individuals from any two cultures may view time similarly, we often sense that in another culture, life seems to proceed either at a slower or faster pace. Knowing how time is regulated, divided and perceived can provide valuable insights into individuals and their cultures.
Tradition plays a limited role in the American culture because Americans prefer rapidchanges.
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第1题
A mild sleeping pill can help a person to ______.
A.spend more time sleeping
B.recover their normal sleep pattern
C.keep awake at night
D.compensate for their missing sleep
第2题
A、will other types of writing
B、do other types of writing
C、on other types of writing
D、other types of writing
第3题
A、tolerance
B、spending lots of time in activities to obtain the substance
C、withdraw
D、Taking the substance in larger amount than before
第4题
There is no doubt that something of this kind will happen. The shorter working week, longer holidays, earlier retirement, job-sharing -- these and other ways of reducing the amount of time people spend on their jobs -- are certainly likely to spread. A mix of part-time paid work and part-time unpaid work is likely to become a much more common work pattern than today, and a flexi-life pattern of work -- involving paid employment at certain stages of life, but not at others -- will become widespread. But it is surely unrealistic to assume that this will make it possible to restore full employment as the dominant form. of work.
In the first place, so long as employment remains the overwhelmingly important form. of work and source of income for most people that it is today, it is very difficult to see how reductions in employees' working time can take place on a scale sufficiently large and at a pace sufficiently fast to make it possible to share out the available paid employment to everyone who wants it. Such negotiations as there have recently been, for example in Britain and Germany, about the possibility of introducing a 35-hour working week, have highlighted some of the difficulties. But, secondly, if changes of this kind were to take place at a pace and on a scale sufficient to make it possible to share employment among all who wanted it, the resulting situation --in which most people would not be working in their jobs for more than two or three short days a week -- could hardly continue to be one in which employment was still regarded as the only truly valid form. of work. There would be so many people spending so much of their time on other activities, including other forms of useful work, that the primacy of employment would be bound to be called into question, at least to some extent.
The author uses the negotiations in Britain and Germany as an example to
A.support reductions in employees' working time.
B.indicate employees are unwilling to share jobs.
C.prove the possibility of sharing paid employment.
D.show that employment will lose its dominance.
第5题
第6题
Ⅲ. Cloze (20 points)
Directions: For each blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that is most suitable and mark your answer by blackening the corresponding letter on the answer sheet.
We are interested in the weather because it (21) us so directly—what we wear, (22) we do, and even how we feel. Geographers, however, are (23) interested in climate than in weather. Climate is the pattern of all the weather conditions over a long period of time. Generally (24) , climate (25) to these normal weather conditions, not (26) daily or yearly changes.
Climate, like weather, changes (27) time. It is true (28) these changes (29) a long time, but not as long as we might expect. Records show that over the centuries large portions of the earth have experienced great changes (30) climate.
21. A. effects
B. defects
C. infects
D. affects
第7题
【36】consistently has been associated with the varying amount, quality, and pattern of electrophysiologically defined sleep. The newborn infant may spend an average of about 16 hours of each 24-hour period in sleep,【37】the sleep time drops sharply; by two years of age, it may【38】from nine to 12 hours. Decreases to approximately six hours have been observed among the elderly.
【39】will be discussed from below, EEG sleep studies have indicated that sleep can be considered to consist of several different stages. Developmental changes in the relative proportion of sleep time【40】in these sleep stages are as striking as age-related changes in total sleep time.
(31)
A.As
B.Despite
C.While
D.Whether
第8题
Children today not only exist; they have taken over, in no place more than in America, and at no time more than now. It is always Kids' Country here. Our civilization is child-centered, child-obsessed. A kid's body is our physical ideal. In Kids' Country we do not permit middle-age. Thirty is promoted over 50, but 30 knows that soon his time to be overtaken will come.
We are the first society in which parents expect to learn from their children. Such a topsy-turvy (颠倒) situation has come about at least in part because, unlike the rest of the world, ours is an immigrant society, and for immigrants the only hope is in the kids. In the Old Country, that is, Europe, hope was in the father, and how much wealth he could accumulate and pass along to his children. In the growth pattern of America and its everexpanding frontier, the young man was ever advised to GO WEST; the father was ever inheriting from his son. Kids' Country may be the inevitable result.
Kids' Country is not all bad. America is the greatest country in the world to grow up in because it is Kids' Country. We not only wear kids' clothes and eat kids' food; we dream Kids' dreams and make them come true. It was, after all, a boy's game to go to the moon.
If in the old days children did not exist, it seems equally true today that adults, as a class, have begun to disappear, condemning all of us to remain boys and girls forever, jogging and doing push-ups (俯卧撑) against eternity.
The author uses the example of the Renaissance painting to show that ______.
A.adults showed less concern for children than we do now
B.adults were smaller and thinner at that time; but they still had a lot of work to do
C.children looked and acted like adults at that time
D.children were not permitted to appear in family paintings at that time
第9题
Scientists have found that the cause of this strange weather is that the air circulation pattern has changed and is now more variable than earlier in the twentieth century. This means that different regions of the world get long spells (持续时间) of the same type of weather, whether hot , cold, wet or windy.
However, weather experts have different views about why this has happened. One theory is that the temperature of the sea has increased. Another is that man’s activities on earth have disturbed the balance of nature.
Whatever the cause, the economics of many countries in the world depend upon the weather. And until we know exactly what effect man’s activities are having on the weather, we cannot make changes which might help. So for the moment the only answer is …wait and see!
26. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the first paragraph?
A. We have never predicted the weather.
B. Man is now able to control the weather.
C. Strange weather has appeared only in some North American countries.
D. It has always been impossible for man to predict the weather accurately.
27. The strange weather patterns on the earth can he best described as ________.
A. steady and balanced C. likely to cause serious disasters
B. changeable but predictable D. unpredictable but favorable to man
28. The word “affecting” in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by ________.
A. yielding good crops in C. causing few losses in
B. having harmful effects on D. producing desired effects on
29. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that ________.
A. weather patterns are similar in different regions of the world
B. the air circulation pattern remains unchanged in the last century
C. our weather depends on the changes in the air circulation pattern
D. it is possible to predict weather patterns over a long period of time
30. It can be learned from this passage that ________.
A. scientists have similar opinions about the changing weather
B. no one is sure about the cause of the changing weather
C. cutting down forests has affected the climate
D. the weather will become worse in the future
第10题
A.One of the simplest and most important is through a positive feedback loop, where a master transcription regulator activates transcription of its own gene,in addition to that of other cell-typespecific genes. Each time a cell divides, the regulator is distributed to both daughter cells, where it continues to stimulate the positive feedback loop.?The continued stimulation ensures that the regulator will continue to be produced in subsequent cell generations.?Positive feedback is crucial for establishing the “self-sustaining” circuits of gene expression that allow a cell to commit to a particular fate—and then to transmit that decision to its progeny.
B.Although positive feedback loops are probably the most prevalent way of ensuring that daughter cells remember what kind of cells they are meant to be,there are other ways of reinforcing cell identity. One involves the methylation of DNA.In vertebrate cells, DNA methylation occurs on certain cytosine bases. This covalent modification generally turns off the affected genes by attracting proteins that bind to methylated cytosines and block gene transcription. DNA methylation patterns are passed on to progeny cells by the action of an enzyme that copies the methylation pattern on the parent DNA strand to the daughter DNA strand as it is synthesizeD
C.Another mechanism for inheriting gene expression patterns involves the modification of histones. When a cell replicates its DNA,each daughter double helix receives half of its parent’s histone proteins, which contain the covalent modifications that were present on the parent chromosom
E.Enzymes responsible for these modifications may bind to the parental histones and confer the same modifications to the new histones nearby. It has been proposed that this cycle of modification helps reestablish. the pattern of chromatin structure found in the parent chromosome
D.Because all of these cell-memory mechanisms transmit patterns of gene expression from parent to daughter cell without altering the actual nucleotide sequence of the DNA,they are considered to be forms of epigenetic inheritanc
E.These mechanisms, which work together, play an important part in maintaining patterns of gene expression, allowing transient signals from the environment to be remembered by our cells—a fact that has important implications for understanding how cells operate and how they malfunction in diseas
E.
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