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.
【小题1】Often moving from one place to another makes people like Americans and Australians ______.

Sorry I’m so late，but you cannot imagine________great trouble I took to find your house.

五、Cloze test(完形填空)20分
In the last century there were not 　1　 big towns in the U.S.　2　 there are today.Most towns in the country were small.And in these small towns,the general store was 　3　 people 　4  the things they couldn't made or grow at home.
  5  the store sold   6  a good deal about life in the United States at that time.People bought tools that they needed on their farms.They bought salt,sugar,coffee and   7  that their farms didn't produce.They bought articles of   8  that they could not make themselves,and cloth or other materials that the  9  would make into dresses for themselves,shirts for the men and clothes for their children.
Life in the   10  century America was   11 .One proves that most people were satisfied with what they had   12  still they looked forward   13  courage to whatever the future would   14  them.It would be interesting to know   15  they would feel about life in the world today.  16  to them that life is too complex,or would they be glad to see that life is   17  in the past?
Nobody will   18  know the   19  people at that time would enjoy life today or not.Perhaps man is always the same of his kind.They did take things for granted,and also they did try to make life more comfortable.We have to admit that it is the same   20  people at present.
1.A.many            B.so many         C.so much           D.a lot of
2.A.where           B.like              C.what              D.as
3.A.where           B.for               C.in which          D.that
4.A.made                B.bought            C.sold          D.paid for
5.A.That                B.No matter         C.Which         D.What
6.A.says                B.talks             C.refers        D.tells
7.A.other things        B.another food C.other foods        D.foods and drinks
8.A.clothes         B.clothing          C.dresses               D.suits
9.A.farmers         B.men               C.women             D.children
10.A.eighteenth     B.nineteenth            C.twentieth         D.next
11.A.easy           B.simple                C.interesting       D.tiresome
12.A.and which      B.and yet               C.and that          D.but what
13.A.in             B.to                    C.of                D.with
14.A.bring          B.take              C.happen to         D.serve
15.A.what           B.whether           C.that              D.how
16.A.Did it appear  B.Would it seem     C.What did it seem  D.What appeared
17.A.still what it used to be           B.better than what it was
C.much more easier than                 D.no more than it was
18.A.never              B.always        C.once              D.ever
19.A.truth that         B.fact whether C.idea how           D.information of
20.A.as                 B.for               C.with                  D.like

When other nine-year-old kids were playing games, she was working at a petrol station. When other teens were studying or going out, she struggled to find a place to sleep on the street. But she overcame these terrible setbacks to win a highly competitive scholarship（奖学金）and gain entry to Harvard University. And her amazing story has inspired a movie, “Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story”, shown in late April.
　Liz Murray, a 22-year-old American girl, has been writing a real-life story of willpower and determination. Liz grew up in the shadow of two drug-addicted（吸毒）parents. There was never enough food or warm clothes in the house. Liz was the only member of the family who had a job. Her mother had AIDS and died when Liz was just 15 years old. The effect of that loss became a turning point in her life. Connecting the environment in which she had grown up with how her mother had died, she decided to do something about it.
　Liz went back to school. She threw herself into her studies, never telling her teachers that she was homeless. At night, she lived on the streets.“What drove me to live on had something to do with understanding, by understanding that there was a whole other way of being. I had only experienced a small part of the society,”she wrote in her book Breaking Night.
　She admitted that she used envy to drive herself on. She used the benefits that come easily to others, such as a safe living environment, to encourage herself that “next to nothing could hold me down”. She finished high school in just two years and won a full scholarship to study at Harvard University. But Liz decided to leave her top university a couple of months earlier this year in order to take care of her father, who has also developed AIDS. “I love my parents so much. They are drug addicts. But I never forget that they love me all the time.”
　　Liz wants moviegoers to come away with the idea that changing your life is “as simple as making a decision”.
【小题1】In which order did the following things happen to Liz?
　　a. Her mother died of AIDS.   　b. She worked at a petrol station.
　　c. She got admitted into Harvard.　d. The movie about her life was put on.
　　e. She had trouble finding a place to sleep.

In times of economic crisis. Americans turn to their families for support. If the Great Depression is any guide, we may see a drop in our skyhigh divorce rate. But this won't necessarily represent. an increase in happy marriages. In the long run, the Depression weakened American families, and the current crisis will probably do the same.

　　We tend to think of the Depression as a time when families pulled together to survive huge job losses, By 1932. when nearly one-quarter of the workforce was unemployed, the divorce rate had declined by around 25% from 1929 But this doesn't mean people were suddenly happier with their marriages. Rather, with incomes decreasing and insecure jobs, unhappy couples often couldn't afford to divorce. They feared neither spouse could manage alone.

　　Today, given the job losses of the past year, fewer unhappy couples will risk starting separate households, Furthermore, the housing market meltdown will make it more difficult for them to finance their separations by selling their homes.

　　After financial disasters family members also tend to do whatever they can to help each other and their communities, A 1940 book. The Unemployed Man and His Family, described a family in which the husband initially reacted to losing his job "with tireless search for work."He was always active, looking for odd jobs to do.

　　The problem is that such an impulse is hard to sustain Across the country, many similar families were unable to maintain the initial boost in morale(士气). For some, the hardships of life without steady work eventually overwhelmed their attempts to keep their families together. The divorce rate rose again during the rest of the decade as the recovery took hold.

　　Millions of American families may now be in the initial stage of their responses to the current crisis, working together and supporting one another through the early months of unemployment.

　　Today's economic crisis could well generate a similar number of couples whose relationships have been irreparably(无法弥补地)ruined. So it's only when the economy is healthy again that we'll begin to see just how many broken families have been created.

1.In the initial stage, the current economic crisis is likely to __________.

A.tear many troubled families apart

B.contribute to enduring family ties

C.bring about a drop in the divorce rate

D.cause a lot of conflicts in the family

2.In the Great Depression many unhappy couples close to stick together because

A.starting a new family would be hard

B.they expected things would turn better

C.they wanted to better protect their kids

D.living separately would be too costly

3.In addition to job losses. What stands in the way of unhappy couples getting a divorce?

A.Mounting family debts

B.A sense of insecurity

C.Difficulty in getting a loan

D.Falling housing prices

4.What will the current economic crisis eventually do to some married couples?

A.It will force them to pull their efforts together

B.It will undermine their mutual understanding

C.It will help strengthen their emotional bonds

D.It will irreparably damage their relationship

5.What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A.The economic recovery will see a higher divorce rate

B.Few couples can stand the test of economic hardships

C.A stable family is the best protection against poverty.

D.Money is the foundation of many a happy marriage