Every day, in hundreds of ordinary situations, actions speak far louder than words. We talk with our mouth, but we communicate with our facial expressions, our tone of voice and our whole body.
By understanding how to use body language, you can communicate more effectively. Here is how:
Work on your handshake.
Use eye contact. Eye contact is very important in forming an impression of someone. You should have the ability to keep direct eye contact if you want to be taken seriously. But some people feel uncomfortable when it is too strong.
Be yourself. Nonverbal (非言语的) messages come from deep inside you, from your own sense of self-respect. If you are comfortable with yourself, it shows.
| A．Use hand gestures carefully. |
| B．Pay attention to your body-talk. |
| C．A mirror can be useful to examine facial expressions. |
| D．People who know who they are have a relaxed way of talking and moving. |
| E．In the business world, the handshake shows important messages about power. |
| F．Understanding body language is one of the most useful skills you can develop. |
| G．To avoid this problem, change your focus so that you look at somewhere between the eyes and the chin. |
2 . Suppose you become a leader in an organization. It’s very likely that you’ll want to have volunteers to help with the organization’s activities. To do so, it should help to understand why people undertake volunteer work and what keeps their interest in the work.
Let’s begin with the question of why people volunteer. Researchers have identified several factors that motivate people to get involved. For example, people volunteer to express personal values related to unselfishness, to expand their range of experiences, and to strengthen social relationships. If volunteer positions do not meet these needs, people may not wish to participate. To select volunteers, you may need to understand the motivations of the people you wish to attract.
People also volunteer because they are required to do so. To increase levels of community service, some schools have launched compulsory volunteer programs. Unfortunately, these programs can shift people’s wish of participation from an internal factor (e.g. “I volunteer because it’s important to me”) to an external factor (e.g. “I volunteer because I’m required to do so”). When that happens, people become less likely to volunteer in the future. People must be sensitive to this possibility when they make volunteer activities a must.
Once people begin to volunteer, what leads them to remain in their positions over time? To answer this question, researchers have conducted follow-up studies in which they track volunteers over time. For instance, one study followed 238 volunteers in Florida over a year. One of the most important factors that influenced their satisfaction as volunteers was the amount of suffering they experienced in their volunteer positions. Although this result may not surprise you, it leads to important practical advice. The researchers note that attention should be given to “training methods that would prepare volunteers for troublesome situations or provide them with strategies for coping with the problem they do experience”.
Another study of 302 volunteers at hospitals in Chicago focused on individual differences in the degree to which people view “volunteer” as an important social role. It was assumed that those people for whom the role of volunteer was most part of their personal identity would also be most likely to continue volunteer work. Participants indicated the degree to which the social role mattered by responding to statements such as “Volunteering in Hospital is an important part of who I am.” Consistent with the researchers’ expectations, they found a positive correlation(正相关) between the strength of role identity and the length of time people continued to volunteer. These results, once again, lead to concrete advice: “Once an individual begins volunteering, continued efforts might focus on developing a volunteer role identity....Items like T-shirts that allow volunteers to be recognized publicly for their contributions can help strengthen role identity”.
1. People volunteer mainly out of __________.A．ac ademic requirements | B．social expectations |
| C．financial rewards | D．internal needs |
| A．Follow-up studies should last for one year. | B．Volunteers should get mentally prepared. |
| C．Strategy training is a must in research. | D．Volunteers are provided with concrete advice. |
| A．Individual differences in role identity. | B．Publicly identifiable volunteer T-shirts. |
| C．Role identity as a volunteer. | D．Practical advice from researchers. |
| A．How to Get People to Volunteer | B．How to Study Volunteer Behaviors |
| C．How to Keep Volunteers’ Interest | D．How to Organize Volunteer Activities |
In recent years, many writers have begun to speak of the ‘decline of class ’ and ‘classless society ’ in Britain. And in modern day consumer society everyone is considered to be middle class.
But pronouncing the death of class is too early. A recent wide-ranging study of pubic opinion found 90 percent of people still placing themselves in a particular class; 73 percent agreeed that class was still a vital part of British society.; and 52 percent thought there were still sharp class differences. Thus, class may not be culturally and politically obvious, yet it remains an imprtant part of British society. Britain seems to have a love of stratification.
One unchanging aspect of a British person’s class position is accent. The words a person speaks tell her or his class. A study of British accents during the 1970s found that a voice sounding like a BBC newsreader was viewed as the most attractive voice. Most people said this accent sounds ‘educated ’ and ‘soft ’. The accents placed at the bottom in this study, on the other hand, were regional(地区的) city accents. These accents were seen as ‘common ’ and ‘ugly ’. However, a similar study of British accents in the US turned these results upside down and placed some regional accents as the most attractive and BBC English as the least. This suggests that British attitudes towards accent have deep roots and are based on class prejudice.
In recent years, however, young upper midder-class people in London, have begun to adopt some regional accents, in order to hide their class origins. This is an indication of class becoming unnoticed. However, the 1995 pop song ‘ Common People ’ puts forward the view that though a middle-class person may ‘ want to live like common people ’ they can never appreciate the reality of a working class life.
1. A recent study of pubic opinion shows that in modern Britain_________.
| A．it is time to end class distinction |
| B．most people belong to middle class |
| C．it is easy to recognize a person’s class |
| D．people regard themselves socially different |
| A．variety | B．division |
| C．authority | D．qualification |
| A．regional | B．educated |
| C．prejudiced | D．unattractive |
| A．have a long tradition |
| B．are based on regional status |
| C．are shared by the Americans |
| D．have changed in recent years |
| A．The middle class is expanding. |
| B．A person’s accent reflects his class. |
| C．Class is a key part of British society. |
| D．Each class has unique characteristics. |
A few weeks ago he boarded the bus. A few stops later, a young woman boarded. She swiped (刷) her bus-card, only to find the machine would not accept it. The driver told her to pay the $2.25 fare. “I just bought this card,” she said. “I paid the money...”
The driver said she could take the card back to the sales office and explain the problem. In the meantime she would have to pay the fare for that day. The woman became confused and distressed. The rest of us just watched, wondering how the problem would be solved. Suddenly the man rose from his seat, dropped a few coins into the fare box.
“You’re lucky,” the bus driver said quietly. “He paid for you.” Silence fell over the bus. The rest of us had watched the woman’s discomfort, but he felt it. We lawyers, journalists and business people headed downtown to help fix the world. He fixed her world.
I haven’t seen him since that day. Some people believe angels occasionally drop down and move among us. All I know is that I have a new respect for the simple act of kindness. It speeds us along on our way.
1. According to the first paragraph, the author _______.
| A．thinks highly of the man |
| B．often gives the man some help |
| C．knows the man very well |
| D．considers the man strange |
| A．exited | B．generous | C．bored | D．anxious |
| A．to show concern for other people. |
| B．to lead a happy life like the man. |
| C．to share what he has with us. |
| D．to believe that people are born kind. |
5 . You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this overlooked form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette (礼仪) is sort of odd (奇怪的),” Gray told the BBC. “They [elevators] are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, liftusers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box.
If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally (对角线地) across from each other to create distance.
When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
New entrants to the lift will need tosize upthe situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward ( adj. 尴尬的) in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be construed (理解) as threatening or odd. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
1. The main purpose of the article is to _____.| A．remind us to enjoy ourselves in the elevator |
| B．tell us some unwritten rules of elevator etiquette |
| C．share an interesting but awkward elevator ride |
| D．analyze what makes people feel awkward in an elevator |
| A．turn around and greet one another |
| B．look around or examine their phone |
| C．make eye contact with those in the elevator |
| D．try to keep a distance from other people elevator? |
| A．A | B．B | C．C | D．D |
| A．judge | B．ignore | C．put up with | D．make the best of |
| A．someone’s odd behaviors |
| B．the lack of space |
| C．their unfamiliarity with one another |
| D．their eye contact with one another |
