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Our culture has caused most Americans to assume not only that our language is universal bu

t that the gestures we use are understood by everyone. We do not realize that waving good-bye is the way to summon a person from the Philippines to one's side, or that in Italy and some Latin-American countries, curling the finger to oneself is a sign of farewell.

Those private citizens who sent packages to our troops occupying Germany after World War II and marked them GIFT to escape duty payments did not bother to find out that "Gift" means poison in German. Moreover, we like to think of ourselves as friendly, yet we prefer to be at least 3 feet or an arm's length away form. others. Latins and Middle Easterners like to come closer and touch, which makes Americans uncomfortable.

Our linguistic and cultural blindness and the casualness with which we take notice of the developed tastes, gestures, customs and languages of other countries, are losing us friends, business and respect in the world.

Even here in the United States, we make few concessions to the needs of foreign visitors. There are no information signs in four languages on our public buildings or monuments; we do not have multilingual guided tours. Very few restaurant menus have translations, and multilingual waiters, bank clerks and policemen are rare. Our transportation systems have maps in English only and often we ourselves have difficulty understanding them.

When we go abroad, we tend to cluster in hotels and restaurants where English is spoken. The attitudes and information we pickup are conditioned by those natives—usually the richer—who speak English. Our business dealings, as well as the nation's diplomacy, are conducted through interpreters.

For many years, America and Americans could get by with cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance. After all, America was the most powerful country of the free world, the distributor of needed funds and goods.

But all that is past. American dollars no longer buy all good things, and we are slowly beginning to realize that our proper role in the world is changing. A 1979 Harris poll reported that 55 percent of Americans want this country to play a more significant role in world affairs; we want to have a hand in the important decisions of the next century, even though it may not always be the upper hand.

It can be inferred that Americans being approached too closely by Middle Easterners would most probably ______.

A.stand still

B.jump aside

C.step forward

D.draw back

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更多“Our culture has caused most Am…”相关的问题
第1题
Culture shock might be called an occupational disease of people who have been suddenly tra
nsplanted abroad. Like most ailments, it has its own (1)_____ and cure.

Culture shock is (2)_____ by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. Those signs or cues include the thousand and one (3)_____ in which we orient ourselves to the (4)_____ of daily life: when to shake hands and what to say when we meet people, when and how to give tips, how to (5)_____ purchases, when to accept and when to refuse invitations, when to take statement seriously and when not. These cues, (6)_____ may be words, gestures, facial (7)_____ customs, or norms, are (8)_____ by all of us in the course of growing up and are as much a (9)_____ of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept. All of us (10)_____ for our peace of mind and our efficiency on hundreds of these cues, (11)_____ of which we do not carry on the (12)_____ of conscious awareness.

Now when an individual (13)_____ a strange culture, all or most of these familiar cues are removed. He or she is like a fish out of water. No matter how broad-minded or (14)_____ of goodwill you may be, a series of props have been (15)_____ under you, followed by a feeling of frustration and (16)_____. People react to the frustration in much the (17)_____ way. First they reject the environment which causes the (18)_____. "The ways of the host country are bad because they make us feel bad." When foreigners in a strange land get together to (19)_____ about the host country and its people, you can be sure they are (20)_____ from culture shock.

A.significance

B.symptoms

C.diseases

D.symbols

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第2题
What will be the impact of a global computer network on cultural forms? The construction
of exclusive information societies has restarted【M1】______ the debate about cultural diversity by renewing the common perception and evolution of this elusive term We shall focus on the meaning of the two words "diversity" and "culture". Diversity is often perceived as disparity, variation, singularity, that is, the opposite of uniformity and【M2】______ homogeneity. In its first and literal sense, cultural diversity then refers quite simply the multiplicity of cultures or cultural identities. This【M3】______ vision has now been replaced, though As for many experts "diversity" is not so much defined in opposite to "homogeneity". It is synonymous【M4】______ with dialogue and sharing values. In fact, the concept of cultural【M5】______ diversity, like that of biodiversity, goes on further, because it considers【M6】______ the multiplicity of cultures in a systemic perspective when each culture【M7】______ develops and evolves through contact with other cultures. As to culture, it draws its origins from the Latin word "cultura", that indicated the【M8】______ cultivation of fields and cattle. In the sixteenth century it acquires the meaning of the action of cultivating, or formation, which is at the【M9】______ source of the sense it is given today. So, culture has then come to mean that whole complexity of meanings, values and beliefs that determine【M10】______ how we do things and how we structure our ways of thinking.

【M1】

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第3题
Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a gi
ven group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.

To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages.

People once thought of the languages of backward group as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that languages in general began as a series of grunts and groans. It is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, whether by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own systems. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions for "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguishes between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.

This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.

The statement that "every group has a culture" grows out of the author's ______.

A.definition of culture

B.feeling about human beings

C.bias in regard to civilized humans

D.philosophy

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第4题
Americans and Arabs are different in their space habits. Arabs prefer close contact. Dr. H
all has explained that the Arabs belong to a touch culture and in conversation, they always envelop the other person. They hold his hand, look into his eyes, and bathe him in their breath.

Dr. Hall’s interest in man’s use of space developed in the early nineteen fifties when he was Director of the Point Four training program at the Foreign Service Institute. In talking with Americans who had lived overseas, he found that many of them had been highly uncomfortable because of culture differences. Such discomfort is usually referred to as culture shock.

The problem is that, relatively speaking, Americans live in a noncontact culture. Partly, this is a product of our puritan heritage (清教徒文化遗产). Dr. Hall points out that we spend years teaching our children not to crowd in and lean on us. And in situations where we ourselves are forced to stand close to another person on crowded subways, for example, we turn our eyes away, and if actual body contact is involved, tense the muscles on the contact side. Most of us feel very strongly that this is the only proper way to behave.

When the Arabs talk to you, they ______.

A.try to be as close to you as possible

B.keep a certain space from you

C.hold you tightly

D.do not allow you to feel their breath

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第5题
Lately social scientists have begun to ask if culture is found just in humans, or if some
animals have culture too. When we speak of culture, we mean a way of life a group of people have in common Culture includes the beliefs and attitudes we learn. It is the patterns of behavior. that help people to live together. It is also the patterns of behavior. that make one group of people different from another group.

Our culture lets us make up for having lost our strength, claws, long teeth, and other defenses. Instead, We use tools, cooperate with one another, and communicate in language. But these aspects of human behavior, or "culture", can also be found in the lives of certain animals.

We used to think that the ability to use tools was the dividing line between human beings and other animals. Lately, however, we have found that this is not the case. Chimpanzees can not only use tools but actually make tools themselves. This is a major step up from simply picking up a handy object and using it. For example, chimps have been seen stripping the leaves and twigs off a branch, then putting it into a termite nest. When the termites bite at the stick, the chimp removes it and eats them off the end—not unlike our use of a fork!

For some time we thought that although human beings learned their culture, animals couldn't be taught such behavior. Or even if they could learn, they would not teach one another in the way people do. This too has proven to be untrue. A group of Japanese monkeys was studied at the Kyoto University Monkey Centre in Japan. They were given sweet potatoes by scientists who wanted to attract them to the shore of an island. One day a young female began to wash her sweet potato to get rid of the sand. This practice soon spread through out the group. It became, learned behavior, not 'from humans but from other monkeys. Now almost all monkeys who have not come into contact with this group do not. Thus we have a "cultural" difference among animals.

We have ruled out tool use and invention as ways of telling animal behavior. from human behavior. We have also ruled out learning and sharing of behavior. Yet we still have held out the last feature—language. But even the use of language can no longer separate human culture from animal culture. Attempts to teach apes to speak have failed. However, this is because apes do not have the proper vocal organs. But teaching them language has been very successful if we are willing to accept another forms rather than just the spoken word. Two psychologists trained a chimpanzee named Washoe to use Standard American Sign Language. This is the same language used by deaf people. In this language, "talk" is made through gestures, and not by spelling out words with individual letters. By the time she was five years old, Washoe had a vocabulary of 130 signs. Also, she could put them together in new ways that had not been taught her originally. This means she could create language and not just copy it. She creates her own sentences that have real meaning. This has allowed two-way talk. It permits more than one-way command and response.

Of course, there are limits to the culture of animals. As far as we know, no ape has formed social institutions such as religion, law, or economics. Also, some chimps may be able to learn sign language; but this form. of language is limited in its ability to communicate abstract ideas. Yet with a spoken language we can communicate our entire culture to anyone else who knows that language. Perhaps the most important thing we have learned from studies of other animals is that the line dividing us from them is not as clear as we used to think.

The passage mainly tells us about______.

A.the history of animal learning

B.the difference between animals' culture and that of human beings

C.the various aspects of animals culture

D.the dividing line between animals and human beings

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第6题
Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a gi
ven group of human beings. In this (1)_____, every group has a culture, however un-developed or uncivilized it may seem to us.

To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture (2)_____ another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic (3)_____ among the different languages.

People once (4)_____ the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped (5)_____ of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. (6)_____ it is possible that language (7)_____ began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages (8)_____ no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of (9)_____ groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely (10)_____, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They (11)_____ behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, (12)_____ only in their vocabularies, which reflect their speakers' social (13)_____.

Even in this department, (14)_____, two things are to be noted: 1) All languages seem to (15)_____ the machinery for vocabulary expansion, either by putting together words already in existence (16)_____ by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2) The objects and activities requiring names and (17)_____ in "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often (18)_____ numerous and complicated. A Western languages distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness ("this" and "that"); some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker or to the person (19)_____ and what is removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.

This study of language, in turn, (20)_____ a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank.

A.perspective

B.sense

C.dimension

D.manner

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第7题
It has been justly said that while" we speak with our vocal organs we (1)_____ with our wh

It has been justly said that while" we speak with our vocal organs we (1)_____ with our whole bodies". All of us communicate with one another (2)_____, as well as with words. Sometimes we know what we're doing, as with the use of gestures such as the thumbs-up sign to indicate that, we (3)_____. But most of the time we're not aware that we're doing it. We gesture with eyebrows or a hand, meet someone else's eyes and (4)_____. These actions we (5)_____ are random and incidental. But researchers (6)_____ that there is a system of them almost as consistent and comprehensible as language, and they conclude that there is a whole (7)_____ of body language, (8)_____ the way we move, the gestures we employ, the posture we adopt, the facial expression we (9)_____, the extent to which we touch and the distance we stand (10)_____ each other.

The body language serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it can replace verbal communication, (11)_____ with the use of gesture. Secondly it can modify verbal communication, loudness and (12)_____ of voice is an example here. Thirdly it regulates social interaction: turn taking is largely governed by non-verbal (13)_____. Finally it conveys our emotions and attitudes. This is (14)_____ important for successful cross-culture communication.

Every culture has its own" body language", and children absorb its nuances (15)_____ with spoken language. The way an Englishmen crosses his legs is (16)_____ like the way a mate American does it. When we communicate with people from other, cultures, the body language sometimes help make the communication easy and (17)_____, such as shaking hand is such a (18)_____ gesture that people all over the world know that it is a signal for greeting. But sometimes—the body language can cause certain misunderstanding (19)_____ people of different cultures often have different forms behavior. for sending the same message or have different (20)_____ towards the same body signals.

A.address

B.reverse

C.converse

D.confer

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第8题
In the case of mobile phones, change is everything. Recent research indicates that the mob
ile phone is changing not only our culture, but our very bodies as well.

First, let's talk about culture. The difference between the mobile phone and its parent, the fixed-line phone, you get whoever answers it.

This has several implications. The most common one, however, and perhaps the thing that has changed our culture forever, is the "meeting" influence. People no longer need to make firm plans about when and where to meet. Twenty years ago, a Friday night would need to be arranged in advance. You needed enough time to allow everyone to get from their place of work to the first meeting place. Now, however, a night out can be arranged on the run. It is no longer "see you there at 8", but "text-me around 8 and we'll see where we all are".

Texting changes people as well. In their paper, "Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Text Messaging", two British researchers distinguished between two types of mobile phone users: the "talkers" and the "texters"--those who prefer voice to text message and those who prefer text to voice.

They found that the mobile phone's individuality and privacy gave texters the ability to express a whole new outer personality. Texters were likely to report that their family would be surprised if they were to read their texts. This suggests that texting allowed texters to present a self-image that differed from the one familiar to those who knew them well.

Another scientist wrote of the changes that mobiles have brought to body language. There are two kinds that people use while speaking on the phone. There is the "speakeasy": the head is held high, in a self-confident way, chatting away. And there is the "spacemaker': these people focus on themselves and keep out other people.

Who can blame them? Phone meetings get cancelled or reformed and camera-phones intrude on people's privacy. So, it is understandable if your mobile makes you nervous. But perhaps you needn't worry so much. After all, it is good to talk.

When people plan to meet nowadays, they ______.

A.arrange the meeting place beforehand

B.postpone fixing the place till last minute

C.seldom care about when and where to meet

D.still love to work out detailed meeting plans

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第9题
Changes in the economy, Europe's reunification and technological evolution challenge our e
ducational system. Vocational education will be particularly touched. It will be then necessary to intervene in the field of higher vocational education. Their level of education has to be qualitatively redefined and adapted to current demands. Professionals will have new chances of promotion through these reforms. At this point, vocational education has to define itself as being equal to high school-university courses, while keeping its particularities.

As far as employment opportunities are concerned, it is assumed that graduates from colleges of higher education have more or less the same chances to find a job as university graduates. In some areas, the former will probably even find employment easier, as their practical work experience is by far larger than university students. These may possess a much larger theoretical background as they start working but would in most cases need more time to get familiar with the practical side of their job.

Those among higher vocational schools that satisfy the prerequisite for courses and research-development studies will be upgraded to colleges of higher education.

We are happy to see that our higher vocational colleges (engineering school for example) have already good contacts with economical circles. By putting together different subjects and research-development facilities into a dozen of colleges of higher education, we will be able to guarantee quality education and a better use of already existing technical and financial means. We thus have to group schools together, most of which are being at present geographically separated.

Vocational education, also giving the possibility to deepen professional knowledge through attractive courses, must offer a real alternative to general culture schools. The creation of the new advanced vocational diploma as well as the colleges of higher education must contribute to the education of our future elite. Every youngster will thus have the possibility to better develop his/her own abilities.

Because of changes in economy and technological evolution challenge, vocational education has to ______.

A.be qualitatively redefined and adapted to current demands

B.follow the development mode of college and university education

C.offer more chances of promotion to professionals

D.be totally converted to college and university education

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第10题
根据下列材料,请回答 41~45 题: In the following text, some sentences have been removed

根据下列材料,请回答 41~45 题:

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1.(10 points)

Think of those fleeting moments when you look out of an aeroplane window and realise that you are flying, higher than a bird. Now think of your laptop, thinner than a brown-paper envelope, or your cellphone in the palm of your hand. Take a moment or two to wonder at those marvels. You are the lucky inheritor of a dream come true.

The second half of the 20th century saw a collection of geniuses, warriors, entrepreneurs and visionaries labour to create a fabulous machine that could function as a typewriter and printing press, studio and theatre, paintbrush and gallery, piano and radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. (41)

The networked computer is an amazing device, the first media machine that serves as the mode of production, means of distribution, site of reception, and place of praise and critique. The computer is the 21st century's culture machine.

But for all the reasons there are to celebrate the computer, we must also tread with caution. (42)I call it a secret war for two reasons. First, most people do not realise that there are strong commercial agendas at work to keep them in passive consumption mode. Second, the majority of people who use networked computers to upload are not even aware of the significance of what they are doing.

All animals download, but only a few upload. Beavers build dams and birds make nests. Yet for the most part, the animal kingdom moves through the world downloading. Humans are unique in their capacity to not only make tools but then turn around and use them to create superfluous material goods - paintings, sculpture and architecture - and superfluous experiences - music, literature, religion and philosophy. (43)

For all the possibilities of our new culture machines, most people are still stuck in download mode. Even after the advent of widespread social media, a pyramid of production remains, with a small number of people uploading material, a slightly larger group commenting on or modifying that content, and a huge percentage remaining content to just consume. (44)

Television is a one-way tap flowing into our homes. The hardest task that television asks of anyone is to turn the power off after he has turned it on.

(45)

What counts as meaningful uploading? My definition revolves around the concept of "stickiness" - creations and experiences to which others adhere.

[A] Of course, it is precisely these superfluous things that define human culture and ultimately what it is to be human. Downloading and consuming culture requires great skills, but failing to move beyond downloading is to strip oneself of a defining constituent of humanity.

[B] Applications like tumblr.com, which allow users to combine pictures, words and other media in creative ways and then share them, have the potential to add stickiness by amusing, entertaining and enlightening others.

[C] Not only did they develop such a device but by the turn of the millennium they had also managed to embed it in a worldwide system accessed by billions of people every day.

[D] This is because the networked computer has sparked a secret war between downloading and uploading - between passive consumption and active creation - whose outcome will shape our collective future in ways we can only begin to imagine.

[E] The challenge the computer mounts to television thus bears little similarity to one format being replaced by another in the manner of record players being replaced by CD players.

[F] One reason for the persistence of this pyramid of production is that for the past half-century, much of the world's media culture has been defined by a single medium - television - and television is defined by downloading.

[G]The networked computer offers the first chance in 50 years to reverse the flow, to encourage thoughtful downloading and, even more importantly, meaningful uploading

第 41 题 请在(41)填上最佳答案

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第11题
Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by c

Part A

Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)

"Making money is a dirty game", says the Institute of Economic Affairs, summing up the attitude of British novelists towards business. The IEA, a free market think-tank, has just published a collection of essays (The Representation of Business in English Literature) by five academics chronicling the hostility of the country's men and women of letters to the sordid business of making money. The implication is that Britain's economic performance is retarded by an anti-industrial culture.

Rather than blaming rebellious workers and incompetent managers for Britain's economic worries. Then, we can put George Orwell and Martin Amis in the dock instead. From Dickens's Scrooge to Amis's John Self in his 1980s novel Money, novelists have conjured up a rogue's gallery of mean, greedy, amoral money-men that has alienated their impressionable readers from the noble pursuit of capitalism.

The argument has been well made before, most famously in 1981 by Martin Wiener. an American academic, in his English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit. Lady Thatcher was an admirer of Mr. Wiener's, and she led a crusade to revive the "entrepreneurial culture" which the liberal elite had allegedly trampled underfoot. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, sounds as though he agrees with her. At a recent speech to the Confederation of British Industry, he declared that it should be the duty of every teacher in the country to "communicate the virtues of business and enterprise".

Certainly, most novelists are hostile to capitalism, but this refrain risks scapegoating writers for failings for which they are not to blame. Britain's culture is no more anti-business than that of other countries. The Romantic Movement. which started as a reaction against the industrial revolution of the 21st century, was born and flourished in Germany, but has not stopped the Germans from being Europe's most successful entrepreneurs and industrialists.

Even the Americans are guilty of blackening business's name. SMERSH and SPECTRE went our with the cold war, James Bond now takes on international media magnates rather than Rosa Kleb. His films such as Erin Brockovich have pitched downtrodden, moral heroes against the evil of faceless corporatism. Yet none of this seems to have dented America's lust for free enterprise.

The irony is that the novel flourished as an art form. only after, and as a result of the creation of the new commercial classes of Victorian England, just as the modern Hollywood film can exist only in an era of mass consumerism. Perhaps the moral is that capitalist societies consume literature and film to let off steam rather than to change the world.

In the first paragraph, the author introduces his topic by______.

A.posing a contract

B.justifying an assumption

C.making a comparison

D.explaining a phenomenon

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