题目内容
I don't ___________ weight so easily.
[ ]
A. wear B. increase C. pick up D. put on
When my family moved to America in 2010 from a small village in Guangdong, China, we brought not only our luggage, but also our village rules, customs and culture. One of the rules is that young people should always respect(尊敬) elders. Unluckily, this rule led to my very first embarrassment in the United States.
I had a part-time job as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. One time, when I was serving food to a middle-aged couple, the wife asked me how the food could be served so quickly. I told her that I had made sure they got their food quickly because I always respect the elderly. As soon as I said that, her face showed great displeasure. My manager, who happened to hear what I said, took me aside and gave me a long lecture about how sensitive(敏感) Americans are and how they dislike the description “old”. I then walked back to the table and apologized to the wife. After the couple heard my reason, they understood that the problem was caused by cultural differences, so they laughed and were no longer angry.
In my village in China, people are proud of being old. Not so many people live to be seventy or eighty, and people who reach such an age have the most knowledge and experience. Young people always respect older people because they know they can learn from their rich experience.
However, in the United States, people think “growing old” is a problem since “old” shows that a person is going to retire or that the body is not working well. Here many people try to keep themselves away from growing old by doing exercises or jogging, and women put on makeup, hoping to look young. When I told the couple in the restaurant that I respect the elderly, they got angry because this caused them to feel they had failed to stay young. I had told them something they didn’t want to hear.
After that, I changed the way I had been with older people. It is not that I don’t respect them any more; I still respect them, but now I don’t show my feelings through words.
By Jack
【小题1】Jack brought the couple their food very fast because _______.
| A．the manager asked him to do so |
| B．he respected the elderly |
| C．the couple wanted him to do so |
| D．he wanted more pay |
| A．nervous | B．satisfied | C．unhappy | D．excited |
| A．people dislike being called “old” |
| B．people are proud of being old |
| C．many people reach the age of seventy or eighty |
| D．the elderly are the first to get food in restaurants |
| A．The more Jack explained, the angrier the couple got. |
| B．Jack wanted to show his feelings through words after his experience. |
| C．The manager went back to the table and apologized to the couple. |
| D．From this experience, Jack learned more about American culture. |
It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.
Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself!
【小题1】“I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means .
| A．it was a firm arrangement |
| B．he prefers a pencil to a pen |
| C．the arrangement should be written as a diary |
| D．it was an uncertain arrangement |
| A．favorited | B．messaged | C．emailed | D．texted |
| A．message | B．mobile | C．email | D．page |
| A．Technology and Language. | B．Development of the English language |
| C．New Technology and New words | D．New Verbs from Nouns |
Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. One night I went to pick up a passenger at 2:30 AM. When I arrived to collect, I found the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.
I walked to the door and knocked, “Just a minute,” answered a weak, elderly voice.
After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her eighties stood before me. By her side was a small suitcase.
I took the suitcase to the car, and then returned to help the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the car.
She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”
“Oh, you’re such a good man.” She said. When we got into the taxi, she gave me an address, and then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”
“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.
“Oh, I’m in no hurry,” she said. “I’m on my way to a hospice(临终医院). I don’t have any family left. The doctor says I don’t have very long.”
I quietly reached over and shut off the meter(计价器).
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked, the neighborhood where she had lived, and the furniture shop that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she’d ask me to slow down in front of a particular building and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
At dawn, she suddenly said,” I’m tired. Let’s go now.”
We drove in silence to the address she had given me.
“How much do I owe you?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I said.
“You have to make a living,” she answered. “Oh, there are other passengers,” I answered.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. Our hug ended with her remark, “You gave an old woman a little moment of joy.”
【小题1】 The old woman chose to ride through the city in order to ______.
| A．show she was familiar with the city | B．see some places for the last time |
| C．let the driver earn more money | D．reach the destination on time |
| A．wanted to do her a favor |
| B．shut off the meter by mistake |
| C．had received her payment in advance |
| D．was in a hurry to take other passengers |
| A．Giving is always a pleasure. |
| B．People should respect each other. |
| C．An act of kindness can bring people great joy. |
| D．People should learn to appreciate others’ concern. |
I travel a lot, and I find out different “styles”(风格) of directions every time I ask “How can I get to the post office?”
Foreign tourists are often confused(困惑的) in Japan because most streets there don’t have names; in Japan, people use landmarks(地标) in their directions instead of street names. For example, the Japanese will say to travelers, “Go straight down to the corner. Turn left at the big hotel and go past a fruit market. The post office is across from the bus stop.”
In the countryside of the American Midwest, there are not usually many landmarks. There are no mountains, so the land is very flat; in many places there are no towns or buildings within miles. Instead of landmarks, people will tell you directions and distances. In Kansas or Iowa, for example, people will say, “Go north two miles. Turn east, and then go another mile.”
People in Los Angeles, California, have no idea of distance on the map; they measure distance in time, not miles. “How far away is the post office?” you ask. “Oh,” they answer, “it’s about five minutes from here.” You say, “Yes, but how many miles away is it?” They don’t know.
It’s true that a person doesn’t know the answer to your question sometimes. What happens in such a situation? A New Yorker might say, “Sorry, I have no idea.” But in Yucatan, Mexico, no one answers “I don’t know.” People in Yucatan believe that “I don’t know” is impolite. They usually give an answer, often a wrong one. A tourist can get very, very lost in Yucatan!
【小题1】When a tourist asks the Japanese the way to a certain place, they usually ______.
| A．describe the place carefully |
| B．show him a map of the place |
| C．tell him the names of the streets |
| D．refer to recognizable buildings and places |
| A．New York. | B．Los Angeles. | C．Kansas. | D．Iowa. |
| A．in order to save time | B．as a test |
| C．so as to be polite | D．for fun |
| A．It’s important for travelers to understand cultural differences. |
| B．It’s useful for travelers to know how to ask the way properly. |
| C．People have similar understandings of politeness. |
| D．New Yorkers are generally friendly to visitors. |