题目内容

Unique New Year's Traditions from Around the World

How do you celebrate New Year’s? If I had to take a guess,you probably celebrate New Year’s surrounded by family and friends,enjoying drinks of your choice and watching the ball drop with Dick Clark.1.Listed below are five of the top ten“Unique New Year Traditions from Around the World.”

1.Breaking Dishes on Neighbor’s Door

A strange Danish New Year tradition,depending on how you look at it, is throwing dishes at neighbor’s door.2.The family with the tallest tower of broken plates,glasses,cups and other crockery is considered to be the luckiest person because it symbolizes their large amount of loyal friends.

2.Talking to Spirits

Talking to spirits is a part of Mexican belief.Mexicans strongly believe that they can communicate with the souls of their dead loved ones.3.And this is not done at home on an individual basis but is a legal Mexican practice.Taos Inn,in New Mexico for example,offers 15 minutes session of spiritualism and meditation for $15.6.Not a bad price for some helpful guidance!

3.Wearing Polka Dots

Imagine streets full of people wearing polka dots and dining room tables full of round shaped food and fruits on one single day of the year.4.Philippines believe that this will bring them prosperity by associating the round dots to coins and wealth.

4.Burning Scarecrow Dummy

Ecuador has a unique custom of crafting Scarecrows and then burning them at midnight.They adorn them and fill the scarecrows with newspapers and pieces of wood.As midnight approaches,everyone gathers outside their home and each family burns their own scarecrow.5.The scarecrow also scares away bad luck,which in rurn,fills their new year with luck and happiness.

A.New Year’s Eve is considered the best time to communicate with dead spirits to convey a message or ask for guidance.

B.It is also believed in the Irish culture that this act will help them get rid of bad luck.

C.Have you ever imagined how New Year’s would look in another country?

D.This all actually happens in the Philippines on New Year’s Eve every year.

E.Strangely,this makes them happy instead of annoying them.

F.We all want to start a new,fresh year with renewed enthusiasm and hope.

G.The tradition says that this destroys all the bad things that took place in the past months.

练习册系列答案
相关题目

Almost everyone accepts the fact that crime can never be wiped out entirely. Thus control of crime becomes the focus of police and government around the world. The question lawmakers must answer is, “Which system of criminal punishment works best for society?” Each country has developed its own ideas for solution to this question, and these solutions then determine how criminals are punished under different systems. However, none of the current system in use has proved 100 percent effective. There are many ideas about punishment of criminals. Some systems look only to (倾向于) get retribution (惩罚) against criminals. These systems work to frighten criminals away from repeating a crime in the future.

These systems also try to deter (威慑) others in society by using the criminal as an example of what can happen to a person if he or she is caught committing crimes. Rehabilitation (悔过) is another philosophy by which many systems of punishment operate. The goal of these systems is to return a former criminal to society after a required period of treatment and training, usually in prisons. The idea is to help change the person's behavior and approach so that he or she becomes a law-abiding citizen.

Capital punishment is another form of punishment which systems use in extreme criminal cases, sometimes involving such crimes as a murder, rape, and violent theft. In these cases, the person is put to death. Today, capital punishment is used in relatively few countries. Many countries have done away with it. In other words, capital punishment remains only in officially law books but is rarely used. However, capital punishment remains in use in some countries including the United States.

1.The police around the world usually concentrate their attention on_______ .

A. how to catch the person who commits crimes

B. how to punish the person who commits crimes

C. how to control crimes

D. how to determine the system of punishment of criminals

2.Different purposes of the systems of criminal punishment are mentioned in the passage except_________ .

A. to frighten criminals and stop them from committing crimes again

B. to warn others in society not to commit crimes

C. to reform criminals and help them return to society

D. to help criminals get some knowledge of law

3.Which of the following is NOT true?

A. Many countries including the USA have got rid of capital punishment.

B. In some countries capital punishment can only be found in law books, but it is hardly used.

C. Capital punishment is only used in extreme criminal cases.

D. Some countries including China still use capital punishment

A

Thanks to a young waiter, I only recently discovered that a friend of 20 years was once a yo-yo virtuoso(溜溜球大师).

“Oh, stop it!” Jackie said when I started laughing during our dinner. “I was, too. And I knew how to ‘Walk the Dog.’ ”

“Wow, really?” said our waiter, Jumario Simmons, flashing a big smile at us.

“Don’t encourage her,” I said.

“What else could you do?” he asked.

“I did ‘Round the World,’” Jackie said, now ignoring me completely. “That cradle(婴儿时期的) thing, too.”

I’d asked Jumario what he did when he wasn’t waiting on tables. The 24-year-old waiter was so smart that I knew there had to be more to his story. It turns out that he won a regional yo-yo competition last year. He also gives free lessons to kids. “It gives them something to do,” Jumario said. “Keeps them off the streets.”

One of the great things about eating out is the table talk with strangers, which reminds us that everyone has a life and a name. But the other day I heard that some restaurants are ending this talk between diners and servers. I listened to the reporter describe how their improvements are allowing customers to text orders from their tables to speed up service.

The reporter got my attention with this sentence: “Five minutes after typing ‘I’m at table 3’, a meal arrives at the table.” But there wasn’t a “please” with this order, which should have been a request, by the way. If you’ve ever waited on tables, you know that the last thing you need is yet another way for a customer to be unpleasant.

Most servers are constantly mediating(调解) between customers’ requests for substitutions and overworked cooks’ accusations of treason. Except at high-end restaurants, servers also have to hover like mothers of preschoolers so that we might consider them worthy of a large enough tip to lift their pay to minimum wage.

Texting a server from a table a few feet away is equal to moving our fingers and shouting, “Hey, you!” It was rude in 1957, and it’s rude now. You won’t ever find me texting a waiter or waitress.

1.What do we know from the text?

A. The waiter knows Jackie well.

B. The waiter is good at playing yo-yo. .

C. Jackie plays yo-yo in her spare time.

D. The author has a great interest in playing yo-yo.

2.Some restaurants allow diners to text a server from a table to .

A. improve their service

B. reduce the cost of service

C. show respect for diners

D. stop talks between diners and servers

3.What’s the last but one paragraph mainly about?

A. The pay of servers

B. The work of servers.

C. The customers’ request.

D. The work of mothers of preschoolers.

4.From the passage, the author’s attitude towards texting a server from a table is _________.

A. indifferent B. negative

C. curious D. positive

5.The passage mainly focuses on .

A. how to wait on tables

B. the friendship between old friends

C. where to eat out

D. the relationship between customers and waiters

You are a new manager at the American branch of your German firm in Chicago.With a few minutes to spare between meetings,you go to get a quick cup of coffee.

“Hey,David,how are you?”one of the senior partners at the firm asks you.

“Good,thank you,Dr.Greer,”you reply.You’ve really been wanting to make a connection with the senior leadership at the firm,and this seems like a great opportunity.But as you start to think of something to say,your American colleague breaks in to steal your spotlight.

“So Arnold”,your colleague says to your boss,in such a casual manner that it makes your German soul cringe(畏缩),“So what’s your Super bowl prediction? I mean,you’re a Niners fan,right?”

The conversation moves on,and you walk silently back to your desk with your coffee.You know how important small talk is in the U.S.,and you feel jealous of people you’re your colleague who can do it well.

There’s nothing small about the role that small talk plays in American professional culture.People from other countries are often surprised at how important small talk is in the U.S.and how naturally and comfortably people seem to do it—with peers,men,women,and even with superiors.You can be the most technically skilled worker in the world,but your ability to progress in your job in the United States is highly dependent on your ability to build and maintain positive relationships with people at work.And guess what skill is critical for building and maintaining these relationships? Small talk.

What can you do if you are from another culture and want to learn to use small talk in the U.S.to build relationships and establish trust? Work hard to hone(磨练)your own version of American-style small talk.Watch how others do it.You don’t have to mimic what they do;in fact,that would likely backfire because people would see you as inauthentic.But if you can develop your own personal version,that can go a long way toward making you feel comfortable and competence.

1.The author introduces the topic of the passage by______.

A. raising an interesting question

B.describing an interesting scene

C.making comparisons

D.telling a small jokes

2.What do we know about German people?

A.They usually make small talk in work breaks.

B.They hate making small talk.

C.They don’t make so much small talk.

D.They are good at making small talk too.

3.What makes people from other countries surprised in American professional culture?

A.American workers’ ability to make progress.

B.American workers’ attitude towards superiors.

C.The special meaning of small talk.

D.The role small talk plays in work settings.

4.What does“backfire”underlined in the last paragraph mean?

A.be difficult B.be helpful

C.have a good result D.have the opposite effect

违法和不良信息举报电话:027-86699610 举报邮箱:58377363@163.com

精英家教网