题目内容
| Some African countries are _______ rainforests for wood. |
| exploiting |
At a psychology conference in England years ago, a woman said to me: “I’ll knock you up in the morning.” I was taken aback by her strange suggestion, but it occurred to me that I might not have understood what she really meant. As it turned out, what she had meant was, “I’ll knock on your door in the morning so that we can meet for breakfast to discuss the panel we’re on.”
This example of the difference in the meaning of “knock you up” in British and American English shows the complicated situations that can result from cultural misunderstandings. A cultural misunderstanding occurs when something — a word, gesture, object, social context, or almost anything you can think of — has a different meaning in two cultures. Sometimes the misunderstandings get resolved, sometimes they lead nowhere, and sometimes they can become the starting point of something much more extreme, from love to war.
Race is one area where cultural misunderstandings are common. We Americans tend to assume that racial categories are biological rather than social, so it may not occur to us that people from other cultures have a different set of racial concepts and classify themselves and us differently. Some African Americans complain that certain immigrants from other countries, such as Haiti or Jamaica, “act as if they aren’t black.” The cultural misunderstanding is that, in the immigrants’ countries of origin, they would never describe themselves as “black”. This doesn’t mean that they think they are white. It just means that their cultures have more categories, like marabou or grimaud in Haiti, or fair or brown in Jamaica, than are used in the United States. Meanwhile, white people in America, unaware of this cultural diversity, sometimes refer to all darker-skinned people as “black” without realizing that an issue exists.
Resolving cultural misunderstandings can clear the air or even lead to laughter. Sometimes, though, when it comes to race, unidentified cultural misunderstandings can create tension, unhappiness and distrust.
【小题1】The main purpose of the first paragraph is to .
| A．show that language misunderstandings would cause big problems |
| B．show the differences between British and American English |
| C．explain in general what cultural misunderstandings are |
| D．introduce the idea of cultural misunderstandings with a story |
| A．complicated | B．settled | C．accepted | D．noticed |
| A．mostly come from body language |
| B．are the most serious social problem in the US |
| C．can cause negative feelings among people |
| D．can be cleared up with laughter |
| A．There’s no need to notice racial differences. |
| B．Haitians prefer to be described as fair or brown. |
| C．Cultural misunderstandings based on racial categories may be difficult to spot. |
| D．Americans are especially likely to misunderstand people from other cultures. |
There are many older people in the world and there will be many more. A little-known fact is that over 60 percent of the older people live in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization, by 2020 there will be 1 billion, with over 700 million living in developing countries.
It is a surprising fact that the population ageing is particularly rapid in developing countries. For example, it took France 115 years for the rate of older people to double from 7 percent to 14 percent. It is estimated to take China a mere 27 years to achieve this same increase.
What are the implications of these increased numbers of older folk? One of the biggest worries for governments is that the longer people live, the more likelihood there is for diseases and for disability. Attention is being paid to the need to keep people as healthy as possible, including during old age, to lessen the financial burden on the state.
Another significant problem is the need for the younger generations to understand and value the older people in their society. In some African countries, certainly in Asia, older people are respected and regarded as the ones with special knowledge. Yet traditions are fading away daily, which does not make sure the continued high regard of older people. As society changes, attitudes will change.
Much needs to be done to get rid of age discrimination in employment. Life-long learning programs need to be provided to enable older people to be active members in a country's development.
Social security policies need to be established to provide adequate income protection for older people. Both public and private schemes are vital in order to build a suitable safety net.
1.The rate of older people________.
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A．is bigger in developed countries than in developing countries |
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B．is one-seventh of the population in developing countries |
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C．will increase much faster in China than in France |
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D．will be sixty percent in developing countries by 2020 |
2.According to passage, which of the following are governments most worried about
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A．Thediseasesanddisabilityofolderpeople. |
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B．Thelongerlifeandgoodhealthofpeople. |
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C．Thelossoftaxesonolderpeople. |
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D．Theincreasingrespectforolderpeople. |
3. It is stated directly in the passage that older people should ________.
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A．be treated differently in different cultures |
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B．enjoy a similar lifestyle |
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C．be ignored as society changes |
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D．be valued by the yonger generations |
4.Which of the following measure is NOT mentioned to solve the population ageing problem?
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A．Getting rid of age discrimination in employment. |
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B．Supplying life-long learning programs to older people. |
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C．Making sure adequate income protection for older people. |
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D．Providing free health care for sick older people. |
5.The author concludes in the last paragraph that ________.
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A．governments have spent lots of time in solving the ageing problem |
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B．population ageing is a hard problem, but it needs to be solved urgently |
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C．people are too busy to solve the population ageing problem |
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D．much time and effort will be lost in solving the ageing problem |