1 . The word listen, as is shown in Longman Dictionary, means paying attention to what someone is saying or to a sound that you can hear. Listening is definitely an important skill in communication. “When people talk, listen completely.” Those words of Ernest Hemingway might be a pretty good guiding principle for many managers. After all, people like being listened to.
Some firms use a technique known as a “listening circle”. In such a circle, only one person can talk about the issues they face at a time and there is no interruption. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who had taken part in a listening circle subsequently suffered less social anxiety and had fewer worries about work-related matters than those who did not.
Listening has been critical to the career of Richard Mullender, who was a hostage (人质) negotiator, dealing with everything from suicide interventions to international kidnaps (绑架). He defines listening as “the identification, selection and interpretation of the key words”. It is crucial to all effective communication.
Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues. A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the other person’s values. Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. The listener’s focus should be on analysis.
Of course, a listener needs to speak occasionally. One approach is to make an assessment of what the other person is telling you and then check it with them. For example, you can check with the other person by saying “It seems to me that what you want is…”. That gives the other party a sense that they are being understood. The fundamental aim is to build up a relationship so the other person likes you and trusts you, Mr Mullender says.
1. What can we learn about a “listening circle”?| A．A listening circle focuses on personal issues. |
| B．In a listening circle, a speaker won’t be interrupted. |
| C．A listening circle increases worries about work-related matters. |
| D．Employees get rid of social anxiety by taking part in a listening circle. |
| A．Critical. | B．Opposed. | C．Cautious. | D．Favorable. |
| A．To be liked and trusted by the other person. |
| B．To check our assessments with the other person. |
| C．To make assessments of what the other person is saying. |
| D．To have a sense of being understood by the other person. |
| A．The Analysis of a Listening Circle |
| B．The Tricks of Successful Listening |
| C．The Misunderstanding of Listening |
| D．The Necessity of Effective Listening |
2 . It seems that friends often have similar body odor. Dogs greet other dogs using their noses first, as they are sniffing each other. People are not quite so open about the process of sniffing each other out.
They have also shown that this is probably the case from the get-go, with people picking friends at least partly on the basis of body odor, rather than the body odor of people who become friends subsequently converging.
As they report in Science Advances, these scientists started their research by testing the odors of 20 pairs of established, non-romantic, same-sex friends.
The e-nose results and the opinions of the second group of smellers were then subjected to a bit of multidimensional mathematical analysis, emerging as simple, comparable numbers.
All three approaches yielded the same result. The T-shirts of friends smelt more similar to each other than did the T-shirts of strangers.
| A．Participants were paired up at random. |
| B．Friends, in other words, do indeed smell alike. |
| C．Now, some scientists in Israel have gone a step further. |
| D．But the size of the perfume industry suggests the scent is important in human relations, too. |
| E．To do this they employed an electronic nose (e-nose) and two groups of human “smellers”. |
| F．One group of human smellers were given pairs of these shirts and rated how similar they smelt. |
| G．To cast light on whether friendship causes the similarity of scents, or the similarity of scents causes friendship. |
3 . In an era when many parents make efforts to ensure that boys and girls have equal opportunities, a recent study found that boys are paid twice as much allowance (零花钱) as girls for doing weekly chores.
An analysis of 10,000 families across the US showed that boys earned an average of $13.80 (92 yuan) each week compared with $6.71 earned by girls, according to BusyKid, a web platform that allows kids to receive, spend, or invest their allowance.
“I think this is a wake-up call for parents to realize what they are paying, to make sure they are being as fair as possible,” said Gregg Murset, CEO of BusyKid.
According to the analysis, boys averaged more allowance than girls because they were more often assigned chores considered more physically difficult, including cutting the grass. Girls, meanwhile, were more often paid for jobs such as loading the dishwasher. Boys also earned more money because they were paid for things girls were not paid for at all, including showering and brushing their teeth.
In Illinois, Vaishali Patel tries hard to teach her two children that gender shouldn’t determine what chores they are assigned or what activities they choose. The parents don’t pay their children an allowance, and instead expect them to help with all jobs around the house.
But Patel said the children still pick up on old-fashioned gender stereotypes (刻板印象) from elsewhere, like when they tell their son to try dance classes in addition to the sports he plays.
“He’s like, ‘No way am I doing that’,” said Patel. “Some of that is really hard to influence.”
Barbara Risman, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that while Americans have come a long way in terms of offering more equal opportunities for men and women, changing mindsets (心态) forever takes even more time.
1. According to the analysis, how much do girls earn on average every day in the US?| A．＄6.71. | B．＄0.96. | C．＄13.80. | D．＄1.97. |
| A．They do less work. |
| B．They have no gender stereotypes. |
| C．Most people think their task takes little effort. |
| D．They can do more physically difficult chores. |
| A．Changing mindsets all the time. |
| B．Updating attitudes over a short time. |
| C．Breaking old-fashioned gender stereotypes. |
| D．Providing different chances for different genders. |
| A．Paying equally. |
| B．The ways to get more allowance. |
| C．Differences between two different genders. |
| D．Boys should have more allowance than girls. |
4 . As a young child, I was painfully shy. I’d watch other children play in the park, wishing I could join them, but I was too scared to approach. Eventually, my mother would come to the rescue. She’d ask the other kids if I could play, too. Today, I feel comfortable giving public lectures in large halls and having conversations in small groups, but I still tend to avoid situations in which I’m expected to spend time with a roomful of strangers.
There could be many reasons. For one thing, I might be carrying some childhood fear of rejection. But beyond that possibility, one likely element is that I tend to underestimate how much people like me after I meet them, as most of us do.
A new research paper reports that the common concern that new people may not like us, or that they may not enjoy our company, is largely unfounded.
Erica Boothby of Cornell University and her colleagues conducted a series of studies to find out what our conversation partners really think of us. In doing so, they discovered a new cognitive illusion (认知错觉) they call “the liking gap”: our failure to realize how much strangers appreciate our company after a bit of conversation.
The researchers observed the gap in a variety of situations: strangers getting acquainted in the research laboratory, first-year college students getting to know their dormitory mates over the course of many months, and community members meeting fellow participants in personal development workshops. In each circumstance, people consistently underestimated how much others liked them. For much of the academic year, as dormitory mates got to know each other and even started to develop enduring friendships, the liking gap persisted.
The data also revealed some of the potential reasons for the illusion: we are often more severe with ourselves than with others, and our inner critic prevents us from appreciating how positively other people evaluate us. Not knowing what our conversation partners really think of us, we use our own thoughts as a proxy (代理人). This is a mistake, because our thoughts tend to be more negative than reality.
1. Why does the author mention his childhood experience?| A．To show how his character changed. |
| B．To explain what he was like when he was young. |
| C．To show an example of why people are shy of communication. |
| D．To emphasize the important role of a mother in one’s childhood. |
| A．Careless. | B．Baseless. | C．Selfless. | D．Meaningless. |
| A．It indicates what strangers really think of us. |
| B．It begins and ends quickly among strangers. |
| C．It disappears when strangers get to know each other. |
| D．It states our misunderstanding of how much others like us. |
| A．People Like You More than You Know |
| B．How to Get Along Well with Strangers |
| C．The Way to Know What Others Think of Us |
| D．Having Conversations with Strangers Benefits Us |
5 . When a Houston dad found out his eight-year-old son was being bullied (欺负), he didn’t get mad at the classmate who teased him. Instead, he talked with the so-called bully and realized that the boy was struggling, too.
Aubrey Fontenot’s son, Jordan, told him a boy named Tamarion was teasing him. Fontenot decided to sit down with his son and Tamarion to understand what was going on, and something unexpected happened.
Tamarion told Fontenot he was being teased at school, too. “I asked, ‘By who? You are big. You are huge. Who is teasing you?’” the father said. “He said, ‘Just all the other kids, man. They are making fun of me.” Fontenot learned that Tamarion was getting teased for his clothes and shoes—his clothes and shoes were old and dirty. Fontenot then spoke to the boy’s mother. “She kind of confirmed it,” Fontenot said. “And she said, ‘That’s the kind of situation.’”
He felt sympathetic to the young boy and wanted to help. So he asked Tamarion’s mom if he could take her son to do some shopping.
Fontenot posted videos of their trip to the mall on social media and they went viral. Tamarion eventually smiled, and then the two were laughing and singing together on their shopping trip. Just as if he were taking his own son to do some shopping, Fontenot got Tamarion new clothes and shoes, and shared words of wisdom with him.
Then, the dad united the two boys. He said it was awkward at first—just a day earlier, they didn’t get along well at school. But the two classmates started playing sports games together and soon became friends.
It was not just about the clothes and shoes. Tamarion gained a friend in Jordan, and a mentor in his dad. Fontenot said he was also bullied when he was a child, so he knew it was important to listen to Tamarion’s story. He chose kindness instead of anger and brought the two boys together. “I wouldn’t say that was the goal, but that was the reward,” Fontenot said.
1. What was Fontenot’s attitude toward his son’s being bullied?| A．Amazed and embarrassed. | B．Angry and impatient. | C．Calm and sensible. | D．Sad and discouraged. |
| A．Fontenot liked Tamarion instantly. | B．Tamarion bullied Jordan out of kindness. |
| C．Tamarion was also a victim of bullying. | D．Fontenot and Tamarion’s mother used to be friends. |
| A．He turned to the school for help. | B．He asked Tamarion’s mother to settle the problem. |
| C．He ordered his son never to play with Tamarion again. | D．He made the two boys united and join together. |
| A．Jordan’s being bullied arose from his clothes and shoes. |
| B．Jordan and Tamarion got along well in the beginning. |
| C．Tamarion’s mother paid little attention to Tamarion. |
| D．Fontenot communicated with Tamarion’s mother to know about him. |
6 . When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. But thinking about the future helps overcome relationship conflicts, according to a University of Waterloo study just published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology is the lead author of the study, which he published with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University.
Previous research has shown that third-perspective reasoning can be a positive strategy for reconciliation (调解) of interpersonal struggles. Huynh and his collaborators investigated whether similar benefit can be induced by simply thinking about the future. Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.
The team examined participants’ written responses through a text-analysis program for their use of pronouns — such as I, me, she, he. These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants’ focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict. Written responses were also examined for forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively, both of which implied the participants’ use of reasoning strategies.
The researchers found that envisioning future relationship affected both participants’ focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether, especially when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future.
“Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict — reflecting on how one might feel a year from now — may be a valuable coping tool for one’s psychological happiness and relationship well-being,” said Huynh.
1. What do romantic partners do in face of most disagreements?| A．They lose faith in their future. | B．They focus on their present feelings. |
| C．They look forward to a fierce conflict. | D．They care more about financial problems. |
| A．Caused. | B．Explained. |
| C．Reduced. | D．Improved. |
| A．All the study participants described how they felt both in the present and in the future. |
| B．Study participants described their recent relationship with their romantic partners or friends. |
| C．A text-analysis program was employed to examine participants’ use of negative words. |
| D．The reasoning strategies in participants’ written responses were well worthy of note. |
| A．You have a year to solve your interpersonal problems! |
| B．Thinking about future is essential for relationship maintenance! |
| C．Your current feelings are the real cause of your heated arguments! |
| D．Beneficial reasoning is a positive strategy for reconciliation! |
1.阐明礼貌的重要性；
2.谈谈如何养成有礼貌的好习惯。
注意：1.写作词数应为80左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Be a Person with Good Manners
Hello, everyone. I'm glad to be here to share the topic “Be a Person with Good Manners” with you.
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That’s all. Thank you for listening!
Alice had just been appointed in the multinational bank. After one month of severe training, today was her first day to go to work.
She got up a bit earlier than usual, and decided to skip her gym workout as she did not want to risk being tired or getting late to her office on her first day. She went through her morning routine and spent a lot of time in selecting what to wear. None of her dresses seemed to appeal to her—they were either a little too casual or too dull and she definitely wanted to make an impression right from the start. Finally she settled on the white embroidered (刺绣的) dress.
She waved bye to her mom and set off cheerfully towards the bus stop. But she saw a bus leaving the stop just as she crossed the street. Now she would have to wait for a good 15 minutes. 15 minutes passed and then 30 minutes and there was no sign of the bus. “It must be stuck in heavy traffic”, a kind lady who was also waiting for the bus told her. Hearing that, Alice got anxious. She had to reach her office on time. Then she saw a taxi approaching but when she tried to stop it, the taxi driver sped by without even taking a glance at her. Alice was wondering what she could do.
It was then that a car stopped near her and a man waved to her. The driver asked her where she was going and after Alice told him that she was going to the bank at Nariman Point, the man said “Oh, my office is in the nearby building. Can I give you a lift?” Alice hesitated for a moment and got into the car. They exchanged names and began to talk for a while. Then the driver switched on the radio and was absorbed in the song. Alice looked out of the window and imagined her first day at work, worrying whether she was capable of the new job, and if she could get along well with her colleagues. After about ten minutes, Alice realized they were not on the familiar route to her office.
注意:续写词数应为150左右；
Paragraph 1:
She began to worry that she might get into the car of a bad man.
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Paragraph 2:
Then the car turned around a corner and Alice saw the tall building where her office was unexpectedly.
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9 . One Saturday evening, there was a knock at the door of my clinic. My friend Jacqui was standing there holding a towel
Nursing birds is my usual
We had a large empty cage, and inside it was a bath with much leaf litter. The bath was a very
| A．hung | B．tied | C．folded | D．wrapped |
| A．mad | B．troubled | C．eager | D．disappointed |
| A．speciality | B．favorite | C．motivation | D．expectation |
| A．drop off | B．send on | C．pick out | D．leave aside |
| A．life | B．home | C．health | D．nature |
| A．touched | B．handled | C．fed | D．liked |
| A．credit | B．confusion | C．relief | D．content |
| A．improved | B．removed | C．checked | D．replaced |
| A．energetic | B．hungry | C．adorable | D．watchful |
| A．satisfactory | B．convenient | C．interesting | D．familiar |
| A．cured | B．bathed | C．locked | D．settled |
| A．in shape | B．in place | C．in sight | D．in order |
| A．shelter | B．escape | C．rest | D．attack |
| A．obviously | B．eventually | C．immediately | D．unwillingly |
| A．accompanied | B．remembered | C．spotted | D．caught |
10 . It is widely believed that smiling means a person is happy, and it usually occurs when they're meeting another person or a group of people. However, a new study led by the body language expert Dr Harry Witchel shows this isn't always the case.
In his research, he asked 44 participants aged 18—35 to play a geography quiz game consisting of nine difficult questions so that they often got the answer wrong. Participants seated interacted with a computer alone in a room while their faces were video recorded.
After the quiz, the participants were asked to rate their experience using a range of 12 emotions including “bored”, “interested” and “frustrated”. Meanwhile, their facial expressions were then computer analysed frame by frame in order to judge how much they were smiling based on a scale of between 0 to 1.
Dr Witchel said: “According to some researchers, a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement. However, behavioral ecology theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions, meaning cheerfulness is neither necessary nor rich for smiling. Our study showed that in these humancomputer interaction experiments, smiling isn't driven by happiness; it is associated with subjective involvement(主观参与) , which acts like a social fuel for smiling, even when socialising with a computer on your own.”
Surprisingly, participants didn't tend to smile during the period when they were trying to figure out the answers. However, they did smile right after the computer game informed them if their answer was correct or wrong. Participants smiled more often when they got the answer wrong. Dr Witched added: “During these computerised quizzes, smiling was greatly increased just after answering questions incorrectly.This behaviour could be explained by selfratings of involvement, rather than by ratings of happiness or frustration.”
1. Why did Dr Witchel use difficult questions in the quiz game?| A．To make it hard for participants to answer them correctly. |
| B．To make the answer period last as long as possible. |
| C．To discover the most intelligent participants. |
| D．To create a stressful situation for participants deliberately. |
| A．Other researchers' opinion of a real smile is quite right. |
| B．Smiles aren't necessarily useful tools in social interactions. |
| C．Subjective involvement doesn't motivate smiling in social interactions. |
| D．Witchel's study finding is consistent with behavioural ecology theory. |
| A．Participants were asked to interact with each other in the quiz. |
| B．Participants in the quiz smiled less often when they got the answer wrong. |
| C．In Dr Witchel's opinion, smiling is connected with subjective involvement. |
| D．Dr Witchel thinks that a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness. |
| A．What Contributes to Real Happiness? |
| B．How to Identify Whether a Person Is Really Happy? |
| C．Smiling Doesn't Necessarily Mean Happiness. |
| D．People Generally Hold a Wrong View on Happiness. |
