2 . Almost everyone who has studied English has been warned about the way Brits love their manners. It is part of our national identity, as much as fish and chips or complaining about the weather. Recently I have been wondering where this comes from and I read online that we say sorry up to eight times a day. Probably the same amount of times that any other person says “hello” or “how are you”. It is almost like greetings to us! It was only when I was explaining how there are five steps of saying thank you when you buy something from a shop to a Mexican friend of mine that I realised how mad it sounded.

After some research online I have not been able to find any specific reasons why we are the way we are. I suppose for centuries manners and how we eat at the table and talk to other people have been the barriers between the lower and upper classes and represent your social status. Britain has traditionally been a quite conservative country. There are many articles suggesting that this seemingly polite attitude of always saying please and thank you is quite false because it is impossible to always feel that you want to thank someone or say please.

Maybe it is for this reason that people are going one of two ways: they are incredibly polite and hold back on their feelings or not polite at all, and express their true feelings. Some Brits are fed up of pretending that they are always content and having to please people. Sometimes because we feel we have to be polite, we are prevented from saying what we truly think. Do you think it is better to not hurt people’s feelings and be polite or to let people know the truth? In your country what is the custom? I know in some countries if someone is considered to be doing their job, the clients think that they do not need to be thanked.

Wang Yaping has become the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk. Wang’s dream of becoming an astronaut    1     (inspire) by Yang Liwei’s 2003 space flight. “Now China has its first man in space. When will our country have its first woman?” thought Wang,    2     (work) then as a fighter pilot.

    3     (bear) in a small village in Yantai, Shandong Province in 1980, Wang has been     4     (active) participating in long-distance running since primary school. In 1997, Wang, a high school student, was encouraged     5     (apply) for the pilot recruitment (征募) program by her classmates. Given her strong build and ability to stay calm under pressure, Wang passed all tests.

In 2010, Wang became an astronaut. However, the joy of being selected did not last long as the cruel training began. In the first year, Wang could not get the top level in the high-G training, during    6     she had to stand eight times the force of gravity. Wang improved her performance by doing extra strength exercises every day. At last, Wang realized her space dream in 2013 as part of the Shenzhou-10 mission. During her mission, Wang taught China’s first live physics lesson from space. In 2020,    7     team of Chinese university students majoring    8       aerospace, art, architecture and music translated cosmic ( 宇宙的) rays into music. They said they had watched Wang’s live space lecture when they were teenagers.

During the next few months, Wang and her teammates will carry out scientific    9     (experiment) and do spacewalks. Wang is    10     (confidence) that they will complete this mission successfully.

5 . An economist, Adam Smith, famously wrote that “it is not from the benevolence (慈善)of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.” Like Smith, many economists today believe that one’s self-interest is what drives competition and growth in market economies. Yet, in an increasingly interconnected society, it is even more crucial to have collaborative skills. Thus we should encourage cooperation to better prepare children for the future.

Firstly, in the present age marked by the transformative potential of technology to facilitate interactions, cooperation is an especially prized soft skill to have. As a research study proves, soft skills such as good communication and empathy consist of qualitative indicators of outstanding employees as compared to technical skills or knowledge. In contrast, excessively (过分地)competitive and individualistic behaviour may fracture social relations in the community of co-workers and since no man is an island, even the most competent employee will not be able to pursue his goals effectively without the help of others who are able to share a common vision and understanding.

Moreover, encouraging cooperation increase a healthy sense of self-esteem in children that better prepares them for the competitive working world. Many modern societies today are consumed by an obsessive drive for success and the pressure to perform has infiltrated both classrooms and offices alike. The consequences of the fierce competitive culture include higher rates of anxiety and depression among university students and office workers, which are all counterproductive. Teamwork can help a maturing individual realise that each has his or her own unique set of abilities to bring to the table and that another person’s strengths do not in any way diminish (降低)the value of his or her talents. Thus, cooperation can affirm the self-worth of children by correcting the violent insight that winning or paper achievement is an exclusive (唯一)measure of success in life.

However, critics may claim that in a cutthroat world, adapting to competition should be of supreme priority in education and parenting. To achieve one’s deepest ambitions, such as to become a medical student, or to create a tech start-up, one has to adopt competition by actively fighting for opportunities and distinguishing oneself from others. Nevertheless, since passion can already stimulate children to work hard to fulfill their ambitions, the need to encourage competition may be at the end of the day. As much as external competition can drive people to pursue excellence, internal motivation is at least equally or arguably even more essential, and collaboration plays an instrumental role in helping one uncover one’s tendency and motivations.