1 . We’ve all been there: in a lift, in line at the bank or on an airplane, surrounded by people who are, like us, deeply focused on their smartphones or, worse, struggling with the uncomfortable silence.
What’s the problem? It’s possible that we all have compromised conversational intelligence. It’s more likely that none of us start a conversation because it’s awkward and challenging, or we think it’s annoying and unnecessary. But the next time you find yourself among strangers, consider that small talk is worth the trouble. Experts say it’s an invaluable social practice that results in big benefits.
Dismissing small talk as unimportant is easy, but we can’t forget that deep relationships wouldn’t
even exist if it weren’t for casual conversation. Small talk is the grease(润滑剂) for social communication, says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. ＂Almost every great love story and each big business deal begins with small talk,＂ he explains. ＂The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them.＂
In a 2014 study, Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at UBC, invited people on their way into a coffee shop. One group was asked to seek out an interaction(互动) with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary. The results showed that those who chatted with their server reported significantly higher positive feelings and a better coffee shop experience. ＂It’s not that talking to the waiter is better than talking to your husband,＂ says Dunn. ＂But interactions with peripheral(边缘的) members of our social network matter for our well-being also.＂
Dunn believes that people who reach out to strangers feel a significantly greater sense of belonging, a bond with others. Carducci believes developing such a sense of belonging starts with small talk. ＂Small talk is the basis of good manners,＂ he says.
1. What phenomenon is described in the first paragraph?| A．Addiction to smartphones. |
| B．Inappropriate behaviours in public places. |
| C．Absence of communication between strangers. |
| D．Impatience with slow service. |
| A．Showing good manners. | B．Relating to other people. |
| C．Focusing on a topic. | D．Making business deals. |
| A．It improves family relationships. | B．It raises people’s confidence. |
| C．It matters as much as a formal talk. | D．It makes people feel good. |
| A．Conversation Counts | B．Ways of Making Small Talk |
| C．Benefits of Small Talk | D．Uncomfortable Silence |
阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。
On a bright, warm July afternoon, Mac Hollan, a primary school teacher, was cycling from his home to Alaska with his friends. One of his friends had stopped to make a bicycle repair, but they had encouraged Mac to carry on, and they would catch up with him soon. As Mac pedaled (骑行) along alone, he thought fondly of his wife and two young daughters at home. He hoped to show them this beautiful place someday.
Then Mac heard quick and loud breathing behind him. “Man, that's a big dog!” he thought. But when he looked to the side, he saw instantly that it wasn’t a dog at all, but a wolf, quickly catching up with him.
Mac’s heart jumped. He found out his can of hear spray. With one hand on the bars, he fired the spray at the wolf. A bright red cloud enveloped the animal, and to Mac's relief, it fell back, shaking its head. But a minute later, it was by his side again. Then it attacked the back of Mac's bike, tearing open his tent bag. He fired at the wolf a second time, and again, it fell back only to quickly restart the chase（追赶）。
Mac was pedaling hard now. He waved and yelled at passing cars but was careful not to show down. He saw a steep uphill climb before him. He knew that once he hit the hill, he’d be easy caught up and the wolf’s teeth would be tearing into his flesh.
At this moment, Paul and Beeky were driving their car on their way to Alaska. They didn’t think much of it when they saw two cyclists repairing their bike on the side of the road. A bit later, they spotted what they, too, assumed was a dog running alongside a man on a bike. As they got closer, they realized that the dog was a wolf. Mac heard a large vehicle behind him. He pulled in front of it as the wolf was catching up fast, just a dozen yards away now.
注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 应使用5个以上短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
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3 . Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.
One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories.
Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day.
Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right.
If Tononi’s theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night’s, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.
Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size.
| A．We should also try to sleep well the night before. |
| B．It’s as if the brain is preserving its most important memories. |
| C．Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick. |
| D．The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories. |
| E．That’s why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning. |
| F．“Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea. |
| G．Tononi’s team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice. |
4 . A new commodity brings about a highly profitable, fast-growing industry, urging antitrust(反垄断) regulators to step in to check those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants(巨头) that deal in data, the oil of the digital age. The most valuable firms are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. All look unstoppable.
Such situations have led to calls for the tech giants to be broken up. But size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without search engines or a quick delivery. Far from charging consumers high prices, many of these services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). And the appearance of new-born giants suggests that newcomers can make waves, too.
But there is cause for concern. The internet has made data abundant, all-present and far more valuable, changing the nature of data and competition. Google initially used the data collected from users to target advertising better. But recently it has discovered that data can be turned into new services: translation and visual recognition, to be sold to other companies. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. So they have a "God’s eye view" of activities in their own markets and beyond.
This nature of data makes the antitrust measures of the past less useful. Breaking up firms like Google into five small ones would not stop remaking themselves: in time, one of them would become great again. A rethink is required — and as a new approach starts to become apparent, two ideas stand out.
The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial age into the 21st century. When considering a merger(兼并), for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to step in. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets(资产) when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an established company is buying a new-born threat. When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.
The second principle is to loosen the control that providers of on-line services have over data and give more to those who supply them. Companies could be forced to reveal to consumers what information they hold and how much money they make from it. Governments could order the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent.
Restarting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. But if governments don’t want a data economy controlled by a few giants, they must act soon.
1. Why is there a call to break up giants?| A．They have controlled the data market. |
| B．They collect enormous private data. |
| C．They no longer provide free services. |
| D．They dismissed some new-born giants. |
| A．Data giants’ technology is very expensive. |
| B．Google’s idea is popular among data firms. |
| C．Data can strengthen giants’ controlling position. |
| D．Data can be turned into new services or products. |
| A．kill a new threat |
| B．avoid the size trap |
| C．favour bigger firms |
| D．charge higher prices |
| A．Big companies could relieve data security pressure. |
| B．Governments could relieve their financial pressure. |
| C．Consumers could better protect their privacy. |
| D．Small companies could get more opportunities. |
5 . Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.
Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.
Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.
It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.
1. What does the smile usually mean in America?| A．Love. | B．Politeness. |
| C．Joy. | D．Thankfulness. |
| A．show friendliness to strangers |
| B．be used to hide true feelings |
| C．be used in the wrong places |
| D．show personal habits |
| A．Learn about their relations with others. |
| B．Understand their cultural backgrounds. |
| C．Find out about their past experience. |
| D．Figure out what they will do next. |
| A．Cultural Differences |
| B．Smiles and Relationship |
| C．Facial Expressiveness |
| D．Habits and Emotions |
6 . We all know that some things are obviously right. For example, it is right to be
Rules can help the public make the right
If people follow rules without taking other matters into consideration, it will be
Sometimes it may not be so easy to know
| A．kind | B．sensitive | C．fair | D．generous |
| A．equally | B．slightly | C．clearly | D．increasingly |
| A．suggestion | B．conclusions | C．turns | D．choices |
| A．accidents | B．mistakes | C．falls | D．deaths |
| A．interesting | B．vital | C．easy | D．valuable |
| A．seldom | B．rarely | C．merely | D．never |
| A．trouble | B．power | C．prison | D．control |
| A．roughly | B．eventually | C．deliberately | D．exactly |
| A．awful | B．cruel | C．unhealthy | D．unnecessary |
| A．still | B．even | C．later | D．somehow |
| A．nervous | B．anxious | C．afraid | D．guilty |
| A．begging | B．starving | C．growing | D．wandering |
| A．follow | B．instruct | C．treat | D．protect |
| A．disgusting | B．confusing | C．unsafe | D．unimportant |
| A．predict | B．explain | C．decide | D．consider |
7 . I don’t want to talk about being a woman scientist again. There was a time in my life when people asked constantly for stories about what it’s like to work in a field dominated (controlled) by men. I was never very good at telling those stories because truthfully I never found them interesting. What I do find interesting is the origin of the universe, the shape of space, time and the nature of black holes.
At 19, when I began studying astrophysics (天体物理学), it did not bother me in the least to be the only woman in the classroom. But while earning my Ph.D. at MIT and then as a post-doctor doing space research, the issue started to bother me. My every achievement — jobs, research papers, awards — was viewed through the lens (镜片) of gender (性别) politics. So were my failures. Sometimes, when I was pushed into an argument on left brain versus (相对于) right brain, or nature versus nurture (培育), I would instantly fight fiercely on my behalf and all womankind.
Then one day a few years ago, out of my mouth came a sentence that would eventually become my reply to any and all provocations (挑衅): I don’t talk about that anymore. It took me 10 years to get back the confidence I had at 19 and to realize that I didn’t want to deal with gender issues. Why should curing sexism be yet another terrible burden on every female scientist? After all, I don’t study sociology or political theory.
Today I research and teach at Barnard, a women’s college in New York City. Recently, someone asked me how many of the 45 students in my class were women. You cannot imagine my satisfaction at being able to answer, 45. I know some of my students worry how they will manage their scientific research and a desire for children. And I don’t dismiss those concerns. Still, I don’t tell them “war” stories. Instead, I have given them this: the visual of their physics professor heavily pregnant doing physics experiments. And in turn they have given me the image of 45 women driven by a love of science. And that’s a sight worth talking about.
1. Why doesn’t the author want to talk about being a woman scientist again?| A．She is fed up with the issue of gender discrimination (歧视). |
| B．She feels unhappy working in male-dominated fields. |
| C．She is not good at telling stories of the kind. |
| D．She finds space research more important. |
| A．the burden she bears in a male-dominated society |
| B．her involvement in gender politics |
| C．her over-confidence as a female astrophysicist |
| D．the very fact that she is a woman |
| A．Lack of confidence in succeeding in space science. |
| B．Unfair accusations from both inside and outside her circle. |
| C．People’s fixed attitude toward female scientists. |
| D．Widespread misconceptions about nature and nurtured. |
| A．Women students needn’t have the concerns of her generation. |
| B．Women can balance a career in science and having a family. |
| C．Women have more barriers on their way to academic success. |
| D．Women now have fewer problems pursuing a science career. |
