Learning about other cultures is a valuable experience. Gaining an understanding of other cultures benefits both you and other people by deepening your understanding of how different people are.
Follow social media about your chosen culture. A great thing about the Internet is that it has made the world smaller and more accessible than ever.
Ask questions online. There are plenty of ways to ask members of a culture questions about that culture online directly. Take a look at local communities and forums that accept questions or conversations.
Look up YouTube videos. YouTube is another form of social media that allows passive watching or interaction. There are many channels on YouTube dedicated to a specific culture or some aspects of a culture.
| A．Read online news sources. |
| B．Post a question and wait for a response. |
| C．Ask what daily life is like in their culture. |
| D．There are many ways to attain knowledge about other cultures. |
| E．Ask what the major holidays are like there, and how they celebrate them. |
| F．You can find people from cultures all around the world on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. |
| G．Often, these videos are produced by people that come from that culture, or know a lot about it. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Make the most of your time when studying
Studying differs from one person to another so what works for one may not work for another.
Take notes in class on the important things.
Take frequent breaks. Of course, there are situations where you will need to study or work on homework for much longer than a few hours. In these cases, make sure that you are taking frequent breaks. Every 30minutes to an hour, get up and stretch your legs to avoid not easily bending or walking and muscle cramps.
Practice different techniques.
| A．Get into a regular sleeping pattern. |
| B．Moving around a bit will help you feel more energetic. |
| C．Develop a schedule that will allow you enough time to study. |
| D．Insist on seeking for new ways to study and create some for yourself. |
| E．Select four or five things that you absolutely must do or are important to you. |
| F．Making the most of your studying time depends on what works best for you. |
| G．They are the necessary clues to what you really need to focus on for an exam. |
【推荐2】When I first arrived in Terrassa, Spain, I was excited and nervous to start a new adventure in a country I love. The first few days seem so long ago now, trying to find a place to live, organising my timetable with the schools, meeting new people.
After a couple of weeks, the excitement started to fade, however, and homesickness started to set in. It wasn’t a powerful homesickness but enough to make me spend more than a few nights thinking about family and friends back home, wondering if I should be there with them.
All that started to change after meeting some new friends and spending good time with them, practising languages, eating together and seeing new places as a group. I suppose we should never forget how important it is to have good friends in your life, because they can make such a difference.
Coming back to Terrassa after visiting home for Christmas felt like returning to a second home, to a place that was mine with people I cared about. Things got even busier and more people came into my life; new friends, romance and a whole lot of good food flowed by in what seems to have been weeks, not months.
Now, looking forward, there are some decisions to make. Should I return home to Scotland and move on with life there or try to extend my time here, perhaps make it something permanent? To travel and visit other places is one of the most fulfilling things you can do in life. Experiencing other cultures, learning about the world, it’s such an important thing to do if you have the means.
My advice from my experience so far is to travel and try new things whenever you get the opportunity. You may find somewhere you were always supposed to be.
1. For what purpose did the writer go to Terrassa?| A．To settle there. | B．To study there. |
| C．To have a holiday. | D．To visit friends. |
| A．die away | B．increase |
| C．deepen | D．set off |
| A．Making new friends. | B．Learning a language. |
| C．Experiencing a new culture. | D．Going back home during Christmas. |
| A．To leave Terrassa. | B．To travel and learn. |
| C．To extend his stay there. | D．To go back to Scotland. |
【推荐3】Math anxiety is far from uncommon, but too often, those who fear the subject simply avoid it. Research from The University of Chicago offers evidence for the link between math anxiety and avoidance.
Studying nearly 500 adults through a computer program called the Choose—And—Solve Task (CAST) the researchers gave participants a choice between math and word problems labeled “easy” and “hard”. The easy problems were always worth two cents, while the hard problems were worth up to six cents. They also informed participants the computer task would modify the questions in the process of testing based on their abilities, enabling them to handle about 70% of the hard problems.
Although participants attempted hard word problems when promised higher monetary prizes, they rarely chose to do the same for math problems. “We found we couldn’t even pay math-anxious individuals to do difficult math problems,” researcher Rozek says.
The findings also contradict a widely held belief that feeling anxious about math and avoiding math-related problems is rooted in being bad at math. “If you take two students good at math, the math-anxious one will do worse at math than the one that isn’t anxious.”
Such a mentality does more than stopping people from taking calculus courses or pursuing a career in STEM. It can affect everyday interactions with math-like leaving a tip in a restaurant. But all is not lost. Reframing their anxiety from negative to positive could help math-anxious people re-engage. Giving those anxious about siting exams guidance may lead them to perform better. “Telling them if you’re anxious, this is your body getting you ready to perform and focus,” Rozek says. Another path may be to create early positive experiences around math. For example, telling stories featuring math and tackling problems around the story may be helpful.
1. What does the underlined word “modify” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Adjust. | B．Design. | C．Solve. | D．Add. |
| A．Math anxiety interacts with math avoidance. |
| B．Word problems are often regarded as easier. |
| C．Fear of math can outweigh higher rewards. |
| D．People underrate their mathematical ability. |
| A．It is the cause of math avoidance. |
| B．It causes people to be bored of math. |
| C．It is a complex phenomenon in life. |
| D．It results from poor math performance. |
| A．Consequences of math avoidance. |
| B．Ways to break the anxiety-avoidance link. |
| C．Explanations for math anxiety. |
| D．Mental barriers to mathematical achievements. |
【推荐1】The meaning of silence varies among cultural groups. Silences may be thoughtful, or they may be empty when a person has nothing to say. Silence may be viewed by some cultural groups as extremely uncomfortable; therefore attempts may be made to fill every gap (间隙) with conversation. Persons in other cultural groups value silence and view it as necessary for understanding a person’s needs.
Many Native Americans value silence and feel it is a basic part of communicating among people, just as some traditional Chinese and Thai persons do. Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what may be implied (暗示) is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing.
Other cultures may use silence in other ways, particularly when dealing with conflicts among people or in relationships of people with different amounts of power. For example, Russian, French, and Spanish persons may use silence to show agreement between parties about the topic under discussion. However, persons in Asian cultures may view silence as a sign of respect, particularly to an elder or a person in authority.
Nurses and other care-givers need to be aware of the possible meanings of silence when they come across the personal anxiety their patients may be experiencing. Nurses should recognize their own personal and cultural construction of silence so that a patient’s silence is not interrupted too early or allowed to go on unnecessarily. A nurse who understands the healing(治愈) value of silence can use this understanding to assist in the care of patients from their own and from other cultures.
1. What does the author say about silence in conversations?| A．It implies uncomfort. | B．It promotes friendship. |
| C．It is content-based. | D．It is culture-based. |
| A．The Mexicans. | B．The French. | C．The Chinese. | D．The Russians. |
| A．Make use of its healing effects. | B．Break it while treating patients. |
| C．Evaluate its harm to patients. | D．Let it continue as the patient pleases. |
| A．Sound and Silence | B．What It Means to Be Silent |
| C．Silence to Native Americans | D．Speech Is Silver; Silence Is Gold |
【推荐2】This year some twenty-three hundred teenagers (young people aged from 13 to 19) from all over the world will spend about ten months in US homes. They will attend US schools, meet US teenagers, and form impressions of the real America. At the same time, about thirteen hundred American teenagers will go to other countries to learn new language and gain a new understanding of the rest of the world.
Here is a two-way student exchange in action. Fred, nineteen, spent last year in Germany with George’s family. In turn, George’s son Mike spent a year in Fred’s home in America.
Fred, a lively young man, knew little German when he arrived, but after two months’ study, the language began to come to him. Schools were completely different from what he had expected—much harder. Students rose respectfully when the teacher entered the room. They took fourteen subjects instead of the six that are usual in the United States. There were almost no outside activities.
Family life, too, was different. The father’s word was law, and all activities were around the family rather than the individual. Fred found the food too simple at first. Also, he missed having a car.
“Back home, you pick up some friends in a car and go out and have a good time. In Germany, you walk, but you soon learn to like it.”
At the same time, In America, Mike, a friendly German boy, was also forming his idea. “I suppose I should criticize American schools,” he says, “It is far too easy by our level. But I have to say that I like it very much. In Germany we do nothing but study. Here we take part in many outside activities. I think that maybe your schools are better in training for citizens. There ought to be some middle ground between the two countries”.
1. The world exchange programme is mainly to ______.| A．help teenagers in other countries know the real America |
| B．send students in America to travel in Germany |
| C．let students learn something about other countries |
| D．have teenagers learn new languages |
| A．American food tastes better than German food |
| B．German schools were harder than American schools |
| C．Americans and Germans were both friendly |
| D．There were more cars on the streets in America |
| A．there is some middle ground between the two teaching buildings |
| B．there are a lot of after-school activities |
| C．students usually take fourteen subjects in all |
| D．students walk outside to enjoy themselves |
| A．The life in Germany schools was easier for students |
| B．German schools had a lot of outside activities |
| C．American schools were not as good as German schools |
| D．The life in American schools was easier for students |
| A．a better education should include something good from both America and Germany |
| B．German schools trained students to be better citizens |
| C．American schools were as good as German schools |
| D．the easy life in the American schools was more helpful to students |
【推荐3】Dr Wiseman started “the laugh lab” project in September 2001. It is the largest study of humour. Participants（参加者）are invited to log on to the laugh lab website, give a few personal details, tell their favourite jokes and judge the jokes told by other people.
The project will last for a year, and the organizers hope to finally discover the world’s funniest joke. But there is also a serious purpose. The researches want to know what people from different nations and cultures find funny. And they want to find out the differences between the male and female sense of humour. The idea is that if we want to understand each other, we have to find out what makes us laugh.
This is a subject that has long attracted psychologists and philosophers. Most of the time, people are not completely honest. We do things that society expects us to and say things that help us get what we want. But laughing cannot be controlled. When we laugh, we tell the truth about ourselves. By December 2001 over 10, 000 jokes had been submitted. This gave the scientists enough evidence to make early conclusions. It seems that men and women do have different senses of humour, for instance.
“Our findings show the major differences in the ways in which males and females use humour, ” said Dr. Wiseman. “Males use humour to appear superior to others, while women are more skilled in languages and prefer word play. ”Researchers also found that there really is such a thing as a national sense of humour. The British enjoy what is usually called “toilet humour”. But the French like their jokes short and sharp: “You’re a high priced lawyer. Will you answer two questions for $500?” “Yes. What’s the second question?”
The Germans are famous for not having a sense of humour. But the survey found that German participants were more likely to find submitted jokes funny than any other nationality. Perhaps that proves the point. Is this joke funny? I don’t know, but let’s say yes, just to be safe.
Dr Wiseman and his workmates also submitted jokes created by computer. But none of those who took part in the survey found any of them amusing. Perhaps this is relief. Computers already seem like they can do everything. At least they should leave the funny stuff to us.
1. Scientist started “ the laugh lab” project________
| A．to find the funniest joke in European countries |
| B．to get more personal details about participants |
| C．to know what funny people are like from different nations and cultures |
| D．to find out the differences between the male and female sense of humour |
| A．most of the people all over the world are completely honest |
| B．people tell the truth about themselves only when they laugh |
| C．ordinary people are not interested in “the laugh lab” project at all |
| D．psychologists and philosophers take interest in the “laugh lab” project |
| A．Jokes created by computer are less appealing to people. |
| B．Men and women have similar senses of humour. |
| C．The project lasted from September, 2001 to December, 2001. |
| D．Scientists have collected enough evidence to make final conclusions. |
| A．Funny or not? |
| B．Laugh louder! |
| C．Men laugh better. |
| D．Watch out for the trap in jokes! |
