Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: No opera smells of the sea quite like Britten's Peter Grimes. The music makes us constantly aware of the sea's immensity, it's potential for threat, and the play of light on its waves. But the sea isn't just a special background, it weighs on the lives of the characters, offering them a living, but at a price. In the first act the laboured sound of the strings evokes the complete heaviness of the sailor's work, as they haul the boats up the shingle . Then a storm gathers which rages through the scene at the Inn, and stirs up an orchestral hurricane. Even when it's calm and favorable, the sea is inescapable. In the comfortable enclosed world of the opera house, this can only be suggested. In the production of Peter Grimes about to open at the Aldeburgh Festival, it will be really present, because the opera is taking place on the beach, the setting for much of the narrative of Britten's opera, and also the poem by the Suffolk poet George Crabbe that inspired it. This won't be the first opera production to be set in the actual landscape in which the action takes place. There's a well-known filmed production of Tosca shot in Castel Gandolfo in Rome, and a production of Donizetti's Anna Bolena was once mounted in the moat surrounding the Tower of London. But those were manageable urban landscapes, with comfortingly solid buildings to act as wind shields and acoustic blocks. On the Aldeburgh beach there's actually nothing, apart from a few boats, some whole, some wrecked. Here anything more complicated than walking the dog is hard to solve. The wind blows away one's words, so conversation is hard, and anything not tied down tends to blow away. The sliding shingle turns one's steps into a drunken stagger. The idea of performing an opera in these conditions seems quite _ -- an accusation Aldeburgh director Jonathan Reakie takes cheerfully on the chin. Why has he done it? "Well, Grimes is the opera of Britten's that's most associated with Aldeburgh, but it's never been produced at the Festival which he founded.... Question: Which of the following can best describe the sailor's work in the first act? - Pleasant. - Hard. - Comfortable. - Attractive.
Hard.
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said humorously, "England and America are two nations divided by a common language. If he were writing today, he might add 'divided by a common technology--- e-mail'". Two completely different styles of e-mail have formed on either side of the Atlantic-Euromail and Amerimail. Americail is informal and chatty. It's likely to begin with a "Hi" and end with a "Bye". The chances of Amerimail containing a smiley face or an "xoxo" are disturbingly high. We Americans are unwilling to dive into the meat of an e-mail. We feel we have to first inform recipients about our vacation on the island which was really excellent except the jellyfish were biting and the kids caught a cold, so we had to skip the whale watching trip, then about that investors ' meeting in New York. Amerimail is a bundle of contradictions, casual and yet direct, respectful yet over proud. In other words, Amerimail is America. Euromail is stiff and cold often beginning with a formal "Dear Mr. X" and ending with a simple "Sincerely". You won't find any mention of kids or the weather or jellyfish in Euromail. It's all business. It's also slow. Your correspondent might take days even weeks to answer a message. Euromail is exactly like the Europeans themselves. Recently about 100 managers were asked on both sides of the Atlantic whether they noticed differences in e-mail styles. Most said yes. Here are a few of their observations: "Americans tend to write (e-mail) exactly as they speak." "Why don't you just call me instead of writing five e-mails back and forth?" "Europeans are less interested in checking e-mail". "In general, Americans are much more responsive to e-mail--they respond faster and provide more information." So which is better, Euromail or Amerimail? I realized it's not popular these days to suggest we have anything to learn from Europeans, but I'm fed up with an inbox filled with casual, barely meaningful e-mails from friends and colleagues. If the alternative is a few earnestly written, carefully... Question: What are characteristics of Amerimail? - Stiff and cold - Casual and indirect - Informal and chatty - Formal and direct
Informal and chatty
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The market investigation is indispensable to sales promotion. They are closely related as the lips and teeth, so to speak. What you produce is for sale on the market. It would be impossible to succeed in selling a product without first investigating the market. In the international market, goods on sale coming from different countries and suppliers are always facing keen competition. Under such circumstances, they will try everything possible to familiarize themselves with the market conditions. In making investigations, we ought to get information about what similar items the competitors are offering on the market, what prices they are quoting , what features their products have, who are their regular customers, etc. Then, how can we obtain such information? There are many channels that we can make use of in doing this sort of work. The commercial counselor's offices of our embassies stationed abroad can help us in making market investigations. Nowadays, our import and export corporations send their trade groups abroad every now and then. One of their purposes is to make market surveys on the spot. Certainly, face-to-face talks with foreign businessmen are also important channels to get market information. The Chinese Export Commodities Fairs and some other fairs of similar nature as well as visits of foreign businessmen provide us with such opportunities. Of course , there are some other ways of making market investigations. Question: All the following are channels to get market information except _ . - to have commercial counselor's office of our embassies stationed abroad - to promote the quality of our own products - to send trade groups abroad every now and then - to have face-to-face talks with foreign businessmen
to promote the quality of our own products
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