听力原文: Since we are all social beings, the quality of our lives depends in large measure on our interpersonal relationships. One strength of the human condition is our possibility to give and receive support from one another under stressful conditions. Social support is made up of the exchange of resources among people based on their interpersonal ties. Those of us with strong support systems appear better able to deal with major life changes and daily problems. People with strong social ties live longer and have better health than those without such ties. Studies over types of illnesses, from depression to heart disease, show that the presence of social support helps people defend themselves against illness, and the absence of such support makes poor health more likely.
Social support cushions stress in a number of ways. First, friends, relatives and co-workers may let us know that they value us. Our Self-respect is strengthened when we feel accepted by others in spite of our faults and difficulties. Second, other people often provide us with informational support. They help us to define and understand our problems and find solutions to them. Third, we typically find social companionship supportive. Taking part in free-time activities with others helps us to meet our social needs while at the same time distracting us from our worries and troubles. Finally, other people may give us instrumental support, money aid, material resources, and needed services--that reduces stress by helping us resolve and deal with our problems.
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A. Because they can make people live more easily.
Because they can smooth away daily problems.
C. Because they can deal with life changes.
D. Because they can cure types of illnesses.
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Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
The biographer has to dance between two shaky positions with respect to the subject (研究对象). Too close a relation, and the writer may lose objectivity. Not close enough, and the writer may lack the sympathy
necessary to any effort to portray a mind, a soul— the quality of life. Who should write the biography of a family, for example? Because of their closeness to the subject, family members may have special information, but by the same token, they may not have the distance that would allow them to be fair. Similarly, a king's servant might not be the best one to write a biography of that king. But a foreigner might not have the knowledge and sympathy necessary to write the king's biography—not for a readership from within the kingdom, at any rate.
There is no ideal position for such a task. The biographer has to work with the position he or she has in the world, adjusting that position as necessary to deal with the subject. Every position has strengths and weaknesses: to thrive, a writer must try to become aware of these, evaluate them in terms of the subject, and select a position accordingly.
When their subjects are heroes or famous figures, biographies often reveal a democratic motive: they attempt
to show that their subjects are only human, no better than anyone else. Other biographies are meant to change us, to invite us to become better than we are. The biographies of Jesus (耶酥) found in the Bible are in this class.
Biographers may claim that their account is the "authentic" one. In advancing this claim, they are helped if the biography is "authorized" by the subject; this presumably allows the biographer special access to private information. "Unauthorized" biographies also have their appeal, however, since they can suggest an independence of mind in the biographer. In book promotions, the "unauthorized" characterzsation usually suggests the prospect of juicy gossip that the subject had hoped to suppress. A subject might have several biographies, even several "authentic" ones. We sense intuitively that no one is in a position to tell "the" story of a life, perhaps not even the subject,and this has been proved by the history of biography.
According to the author, an ideal biographer would be one who
A. knows the subject very well and yet maintains a proper distance from him
B. is close to the subject and knows the techniques of biography writing
C. is independent and knows the techniques of biography writing
D. possesses special private information and is sympathetic toward the subject
Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D.
听力原文: You might not know it, but there is something wonderful at your fingertips. You can make people happier, healthier and more hard-working just by touching their arms or holding their bands.
Doctors say that body touch is a kind of medicine that can work wonders. When people are touched, the quantity of hemoglobin, a type of matter that produces the red color in blood increases greatly. This results in more oxygen reaching every part of the body and the whole body benefits. In experiments, bottle-fed baby monkeys were separated from their mothers for the first ten days of their life. They became sad and inactive. Studies showed the monkeys were more probable to become iii than other babies that were allowed to stay with their mothers.
Human babies react in much the same way. Some years ago, a scientist noticed that some well-fed babies in a clean nursery became weak. Yet babies in another nursery were growing healthily, even though they ate less well and were not kept as clean. The reason, he concluded, was that they often had touches from nurses.
Experiments show that most people like being touched. And nearly ail doctors believe touch helps to reduce patients' fear of treatment. Of course there is time when a touch is not welcome. But even if we don't like being touched, a smile can make as feel better. Smiling increases blood flow and starts the production of “happy brain” chemicals.
So let's have a big smile and don't forget to keep "in touch".
(27)
A. Everyone knows that body contact can make people happier.
B. People may work harder because of body contact.
C. Your fingertips can do something wonderful.
D. People may not understand the importance of touching.
Whether the eyes are "the windows of the soul" is debatable; that they are intensely important in interpersonal communication is a fact. During the first two months of a baby's life, the stimulus that produces a smile is a pair of eyes. The eyes need not be real: a mask with two dots will produce a smile. Significantly, a real human face with eyes covered will not motivate a smile, nor will the sight of only one eye when the face is presented in profile. This attraction to eyes as opposed to the nose or mouth continues as the baby matures. In one study, when American four-year-olds were asked to draw people, 75 percent of them drew people with mouths, but 99 percent of them drew people with eyes. In Japan, however, where babies are carded on their mother's back, infants do not acquire as much attachment to eyes as they do in other cultures. As a result, Japanese adults make little use of the face either to encode (把……编码) or decode (理解) meaning. In fact, Argyle reveals that the "proper place to focus one's gaze during a conversation in Japan is on the neck of one's conversation partner."
The role of eye contact in a conversational exchange between two Americans is well defined: speakers make contact with the eyes of their listener for about one second, then glance away as they talk; in a few moments they re establish eye contact with the listener or reassure themselves that their audience is still at{entire, then shift their gaze away once more. Listeners, meanwhile, keep their eyes on the face of the speaker, allowing themselves to glance away only briefly. It is important that they be looking at the speaker at the precise moment when the speaker re-establishes eye contact: if they are not looking, the speaker assumes that they are disinterested and either will pause until eye contact is resumed or will terminate the conversation. Just how critical this eye maneuvering is to the maintenance of conversational flow becomes evident when two speakers are wearing dark glasses: there maybe a sort of traffic jam of words caused by interruption, false starts, and unpredictable pauses.
The author is convinced that the eyes are______.
A. of extreme importance in expressing feelings and exchanging ideas
B. something through which one can see a person's inner world
C. of considerable significance in making conversations interesting
D. something the value of which is largely a matter of long debate
听力原文:M: Bob's writing to invite me to spend a weekend with him at his farm. He's planning a get-together with two or three other college friends. A fifty-year anniversary reunion.
W: Sounds like fun. Fifty Years? Wow!
M: It sounds like fun to me, too.
W: What kind of farm does he have?
M: I've never been there, but he has chickens and cows and all. That means fresh eggs and fresh milk.
W: Does he have a family?
M: No, he doesn't. He never married. He's not as lucky as I am to have a family and grandchildren. I'm a lucky man.
W: How come he never got married?
M: That's a good question. He never married because the girl he was in love with in college married someone else, and he never got over it.
W: He must have loved her very much.
M: Yes, very much. Lillian. She was in our class.
W: And what happened?
M: She was in love with Donald, who captained the football team.
W: Football players are always popular with the ladies.
M: She liked Bob, but her heart was with Donald.
W: Where is she today?
M: I don' t know. Maybe Lillian will be at the reunion.
W: You think so?
M: Bob's full of surprises.
W: I wish I could go there with you. What do you think the surprise will be?
M: With Bob, you never know, Robbin.
W: Won't it be exciting to see all your college friends there again?
M: It is already. I'm kind of excited about going now. Next weekend... deep over Friday and Saturday night and come back Sunday. I can't wait!
(23)
A. Bob is the man's college friend.
Bob is a farm owner.
C. Bob can never get over his love for a girl.
D. Bob was once the captain of the football team.