Q: Most people who move to a foreign country may experience a period of time when they have a lot of stress in the new culture. This feeling is often called "culture shock" and it is important to learn how to deal with culture shock. First of all, you should know that everyone in a new situation will go through some form of culture shock. There are four general stages of cultural adjustment . The first stage is usually referred to as the honeymoon stage. Upon arriving in a new environment, you'll be interested in the new culture. Everything will seem exciting, and everyone will seem friendly and helpful. The second stage is called the withdrawal stage. The excitement that you felt before changes to frustration as you find it difficult to deal with new problems. The language is hard to learn; friends are hard to make; simple things like shopping and going to the bank are challenges. It is at this stage that you are likely to feel anxious and homesick. If you are one of those who manage to stick it out , you will enter the third stage---- the recovery stage. At this point, you'll feel more confident in the new culture. You'll start to understand and accept the way things are done and the way people behave in your new environment. The last stage is the stability stage---- this is the point when people start to feel at home in the new culture. At this stage, you will behave well in the new culture, and prefer some aspects of the new culture to your own culture. There is, in a sense, a fifth stage to this process. If you decide to return home after a long period in a new culture, you may experience what is called "reverse culture shock". This means that you may find aspects of your own culture "foreign", because you're so used to the new culture. Reverse culture shock is usually pretty mild and doesn't last for very long. At the honeymoon stage, people will _ . A) find the new culture is hard to accept B) miss their family and friends very much C) begin to understand what culture shock is D) have a good impression of the new culture
A: D

Q: Digital technology -- email and smart phones especially -- have vastly improved workers' ability to be productive outside of a traditional office. Even so, most white-collar work still happens in an office. One reason is that, according to findings of a new survey of office workers conducted by Wakefield Research for the IT company Citrix, most bosses are doubtful about remote working. Half of the workers say their boss doesn't accept it and only 35 percent say it's tolerated. Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts reinforced by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they've watched TV or a movie while "working" remotely, while 35 percent have done housework,and 28 percent have cooked dinner. It is true, however,that working at home makes people much more efficient , because it allows workers to take care of annoying housework while still getting their jobs done. It's much faster, for example, to shop for groceries at a quarter to three than to stand in line during the after-work rush. The fact that such practices remain officially unaccepted reflects how far we haven't come as a society from the days when we expected every full-time worker to be supported by a full-time homemaker. More broadly the Wakefield survey suggests that employers may be missing a low-cost way to give workers something of value. Sixty-four percent of those survey participants who have worked remotely would rather give up some bonus in order to get even one day a week working from home. Under such circumstances, smart firms need to find ways to let their employees have enough flexibility to manage their time efficiently. Why do some employers hesitate to allow remote working? A) They fear losing control of their workers. B) They want to stick to their routine practice. C) They have little trust in modem technology. D) They are used to face-to-face communication.
A: A

Q: Years ago there was a group of kids who would hang around at some local ponds in the woods near their houses in Warwick, Rhode Island. In summer they caught frogs and fish. When winter arrived they couldn't wait to go skating. Time passed, and the ponds became the only open space for the kids to enjoy themselves in that neighborhood. One day a thirteen-year-old boy from this group of kids read in the local newspaper that a developer wanted to fill in the ponds and build over a hundred small houses called apartments. So the boy went door to door and gathered more than two hundred signatures to stop the development. A group of citizens met and decided to support him. At the meeting of the town planning organization,the boy was quite nervous at first and spoke very softly. But when he saw the faces of his friends and neighbors in the crowd and thought about what was happening to their favorite ponds,his voice grew louder. He told the town officials that they should speak for the citizens. He also insisted that they should leave enough space for children. A few days later,the developer stopped his plan. Nine years later, when that teen was a senior in college, he was informed that the developer was back with his proposal to build apartments. Now twenty-two years old, he was studying wetlands ecology. He again appeared before the town planning organization. This time as an expert, he used environmental protection laws to explain _ on development in and around wetlands and the knowledge of wetlands ecology to help to improve the development. Finally some apartments were built, but less than half the number the developer wanted. The ponds where those kids used to hang around were protected by a piece of natural land, and are still there today. The kids liked to _ at the local ponds in winter. A) make a snowman B) throw snowballs C) go skating D) go skiing
A: C

Q: With the possible exception of equal rights, perhaps the most heated argument across the United States today is the death penalty . Many argue that it is an effective deterrent to murder , while others think there is no enough proof that the death penalty reduces the number of murders. The argument advanced by those who are against the death penalty is that it is cruel and inhuman punishment, that it is a mark of a bad society and finally that it is of questionable effectiveness as a deterrent to crime anyway. In our opinion, the death penalty is a necessary action. Throughout recorded history there have always been those peculiar persons in every society who made terrible crimes such as murder. But some are more dangerous than others. For example, it is one thing to take the life of another in time of blind anger, but quite another to coldly plan and carry out the murder of one or more people in the style of a butcher. Thus, murder, like all other crimes, is a matter of different degree. While it could be argued with some reason that the criminal in the first instance should be merely kept from society, such should not be the fate of the latter type murderer. The value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime may be open to discussion. But the majority of people believe that the death penalty protects them. Their belief is proved by the fact that the death penalty prevents murder. For example, from 1954 to 1963, when the death penalty was carried out from time to time in California, the murder rate remained between three and four murders for each 100, 000 population. Since 1964 the death penalty has been done only once, and the murder rate has risen to10.4 murders for each 100, 000 population. The sharp climb in the state's murder rate, which began when killings stopped, does not happen by chance. It certainly shows that the death penalty does stop many murderers. If the law about death penalty is vetoed , some people will be murdered----some whose lives may have been saved if the death penalty... The main purpose of this passage is to _ . A) speak for the majority B) argue against the value of the death penalty C) speak ill of the government D) argue for the value of the death penalty
A: D