From Mr. Ward Hoffman.

   Sir, I was halfway through Professor Raj Persaud's article “What's the tipping point"

(Financial Times Weekend, April 9-l0) when it occurred to me that what I was reading was not ironic(讽刺的). If Prof Persaud wants to know why Americans tip in restaurants, he need only ask the first American he meets in London.

   Americans tip in restarts for one reason, and one reason only: we tip to supplement (补贴) the salary of restaurant workers. Quality of service does not enter into it, beyond the fact that one may tip a bit less for poor service, or a little more for good service.

   Not tipping at all in a non-fast-food restaurant is not a choice. In the US, one used to tip about 15 per cent for dining in a family-style restaurant or in an up-market (高档的) restaurant. Here, in San Francisco Bay area restaurants, we me encouraged to tip 20 per cent or more, to help restart workers live in this very expensive area.

   After eating at an Italian restart in my city, I left a tip of 20 per cent on the non-tax part of our dinner bill. It was expected. There is nothing more complicated (复杂的) than that about Americas tipping in restaurants.

Ward Hoffman, 

Palo Alto, CA 94306, US

*                *                  *

From Mr. Philip McBride Johnson.

    Sir, I agree with most of Raj Persaud's opinion about the doubtful value of tipping, but with one exception(例外). Tips can be very useful when one is a repeat customer or diner.

It is only when the tipper is a stranger and likely to remain so that the system does not work to his or her advantage. But frequent a hotel or a restaurant, always tip a bit more, and the difference in service and treatment will ha easily felt.

Phfiip McBnde Johnson,

Great Falls, VA 22066, US

68. What can we learn from Hoffrnan's letter?

     A. Quality of service determines tipping in the US.

     B. Americans don't tip in non fast-food restaurants.

     C. Tipping in US upmarknt restarts is unnecessary.

     D. How to tip in the United States is not complicated.                               

69. Johnson's letter shows ________.

     A. a stranger in a restaurant is likely to tip a bit more

     B. diners receive better service if they frequent a restaurant

     C. repeat dinners may get good service ifthay tip a bit more

     D. the tipping system works to the advantage of new customers           

70. From tbe two letters, we can learn Professor Raj Persaud ______ .

     A. feels doubtful about the value of tipping

     B. believes tipping improves quality of service

     C. wats to ask Hoffman about tipping m the US

     D. thinks tipping a bit mom one can get good service                     

71. The two letters most probably appears in a ______.

 (05·湖南D篇)

From Mr. Ward Hoffman.

   Sir, I was halfway through Professor Raj Persaud's article “What's the tipping point"

(Financial Times Weekend, April 9-l0) when it occurred to me that what I was reading was not ironic(讽刺的). If Prof Persaud wants to know why Americans tip in restaurants, he need only ask the first American he meets in London.

   Americans tip in restarts for one reason, and one reason only: we tip to supplement (补贴) the salary of restaurant workers. Quality of service does not enter into it, beyond the fact that one may tip a bit less for poor service, or a little more for good service.

   Not tipping at all in a non-fast-food restaurant is not a choice. In the US, one used to tip about 15 per cent for dining in a family-style restaurant or in an up-market (高档的) restaurant. Here, in San Francisco Bay area restaurants, we me encouraged to tip 20 per cent or more, to help restart workers live in this very expensive area.

   After eating at an Italian restart in my city, I left a tip of 20 per cent on the non-tax part of our dinner bill. It was expected. There is nothing more complicated (复杂的) than that about Americas tipping in restaurants.

Ward Hoffman, 

Palo Alto, CA 94306, US

*                *                  *

From Mr. Philip McBride Johnson.

    Sir, I agree with most of Raj Persaud's opinion about the doubtful value of tipping, but with one exception(例外). Tips can be very useful when one is a repeat customer or diner.

It is only when the tipper is a stranger and likely to remain so that the system does not work to his or her advantage. But frequent a hotel or a restaurant, always tip a bit more, and the difference in service and treatment will ha easily felt.

Phfiip McBnde Johnson,

Great Falls, VA 22066, US

68. What can we learn from Hoffrnan's letter?

     A. Quality of service determines tipping in the US.

     B. Americans don't tip in non fast-food restaurants.

     C. Tipping in US upmarknt restarts is unnecessary.

     D. How to tip in the United States is not complicated.                                

69. Johnson's letter shows ________.

     A. a stranger in a restaurant is likely to tip a bit more

     B. diners receive better service if they frequent a restaurant

     C. repeat dinners may get good service ifthay tip a bit more

     D. the tipping system works to the advantage of new customers            

70. From tbe two letters, we can learn Professor Raj Persaud ______ .

     A. feels doubtful about the value of tipping

     B. believes tipping improves quality of service

     C. wats to ask Hoffman about tipping m the US

     D. thinks tipping a bit mom one can get good service                      

71. The two letters most probably appears in a ______.

     A. notice             B. handbook      C. book review    D. newspaper          

“Long time no see” is a very interesting sentence. When I first read this sentence from an American friend’s email, I laughed. I thought it was a perfect example of Chinglish.
Obviously, it is a word-by-word literal translation of the Chinese greetings with a ruled English grammar and structure! Later on, my friend told me that it is a standard American greeting. I was too thrilled to believe her. Her words could not convince me at all. So I did a research on google.com. To my surprise, there are over 60 thousand web pages containing “Long time no see.” This sentence has been widely used in emails, letters, newspapers, movies, books, or any other possible places. Though it is sort of informal, it is part of the language that Americans use daily. Ironically, if you type this phrase in Microsoft Word, the software will tell you that the grammar needs to be corrected.
Nobody knows the origin of this Chinglish sentence. Some people believe that it came from Charlie Chan’s movies. In the 1930s, Hollywood moviemakers successfully created a world wide famous Chinese detective named “Charlie Chan” on wide screens. Detective Chan likes to teach Americans some Chinese wisdom by quoting Confucius. “Long time no see” was his trademark. Soon after Charlie Chan, “Long time no see” became a popular phrase in the real world with thanks to the popularity of these movies.
Some scholars refer to America as a huge pot of stew. All kinds of culture are mixed in the stew together, and they change the color and taste of each other. American Chinese, though a minority ethnic(少数民族的成员) group in the United States, is also contributing some changes to the stew! Language is usually the first thing to be influenced in the mixed stew.
You can have some other examples than adoptions from Chinese, such as pizza from Italian, susi from Japanese, and déjà vu from French etc. There is a long list! Americans do not just simply borrow something from others. They will modify it and make it their own, so you would not be surprised to find a tofu and peanut butter hamburger in a restaurant, or to buy a bottle of iced Chinese green tea with honey in a grocery store. Since Americans appreciate Chinese culture more and more nowadays, I believe more Chinese words will become American English in the future. In this way the American stew keeps adding richness and flavor.
【小题1】The writer himself felt surprised at ______. 

If California were not already so famous for Sillicon Valley(硅谷) and Hollywood, it might be well－known for the groups of water－technology firms in its San Diego County. The reverse－osmosis (RO) spiral module, the technique that supports turning seawater and waste－water into drinkable stuff, began in San Diego in 1964. Today dozens of firms in the area supply many of the world's approximately 13，000 RO plants in places from the Persian Gulf and Israel to Australia and China.
Southern California itself, however, has not so far been a big user of its own technology. This is surprising, given that the whole American south－west faces a water problem. But now as the climate gets warmer and the population increases, there is more agreement that the existing infrastructure, consisting of vast pipes that carry water from the Sacramento Delta in the north and the Colorado River in the east, will not be enough. In places such as San Diego, which has inadequate and salty groundwater and currently imports 90% or its water, the answers must be greater conservation, reusing as much water as possible, and getting most of the rest from the sea.
The first part, conservation, has been widely accepted by the public. San Diego today uses less water with a larger population than it did in 1989, the year water consumption peaked. The second part, water recycling has been a hard sell, because of an unpleasant factor. Americans still use the term “toilet－to－tap” for recycling, even though properly treated waste－water is nowadays completely clean. Singapore made its programme acceptable in part by renaming it as NEWater.
This is where desalination comes in, which means taking the salt out of salt water. A firm called Poseidon Resources is now close to building the biggest desalination plant in America behind a power station by the beach in Carlsbad. The power plant sucks in 304m gallons of seawater a day for cooling, so Poseidon plans to change 104m gallons a day by using the RO spiral module.
Lots of people like the idea. Once fully running in 2015, the plant could produce 10% of the region's water. And there are plans for more desalination plants. Many places would need to take much less water from the endangered Colorado River. But a few people hate it a lot. Joe Geever, an expert in biology, says desalination uses too much energy and that Poseidon plant would kill too much sea life. He understands that there is a role for desalination, he says, but would rather not have it right there, right now, and on this scale.
【小题1】Which of the following is WRONG about the RO spiral module according to the passage?

America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!
【小题1】 The writer of this passage must be ______.