Twenty-first century humanity has mapped oceans and mountains, visited the moon, and surveyed the planets. But for all the progress, people still don’t know one another very well.

That brings about Theodore Zeldin’s “feast of conversation”－events where individuals pair with persons they don’t know for three hours of guided talk designed to get the past “Where are you from?”

Mr. Zeldin, an Oxford University professor, heads Oxford Muse, a 10-year-old foundation based on the idea that what people need is not more information, but more inspiration and encouragement.

The “feast” in London looks not at politics or events, but at how people have felt about work, relations among the sexes, hopes and fears, enemies and authority, the shape of their lives. The “menu of conversation” includes topics like “How have your priorities(优先考虑的事) changed over the years?” Or, “What have you rebelled against the past?”

As participants gathered, Zeldin opened with a speech: that despite instant communications in a globalized age, issues of human heart remain. Many people are lonely, or in routines that discourage knowing the depth of one another. “We are trapped in shallow conversations and the whole point now is to think, which is sometimes painful,” he says. “But thinking interaction is what separates us from other species, except maybe dogs…who do have generations of human interactions.”

The main rules of the “feast”: Don’t pair with someone you know or ask questions you would not answer. The only awkward moment came when the multi-racial crowd of young adults to seniors, in sun hats, ties and dresses, looked to see whom they would be ‘intimate’ with for hours. But 15 minutes later, everyone was seated and talking, continuing full force until organizers interrupted them 180 minutes later.

“It’s encouraging to see the world is not just a place of oppression and distance from each other,” Zeldin summed up. “What we did is not ordinary, but it can’t be madder than the world already is.”

Some said they felt “liberated” to talk on sensitive topics. Thirty-something Peter, from East London, said that “it might take weeks or months to get to the level of interaction we suddenly opened up.”

1.What can the “conversations” be best described as?

A．Deep and one-on-one.                   B．Sensitive and mad.

C．Instant and inspiring.                     D．Ordinary and encouraging.

2.In a “feast of conversations”, participants ______.

A．pair freely with anyone they like

B．have a guided talk for a set of period of time

C．ask questions they themselves would not answer

D．wear clothes reflecting multi-racial features.

3.In paragraph 6, “they would be ‘intimate’” is closest in meaning to “______”.

A．they would have physical contact           B．they would have in-depth talk

C．they would be close friends               D．they would exchange basic information

4.From the passage, we can conclude that what Zeldin does is ______.

A．an attempt to promote thinking interaction

B．one of the maddest activities ever conducted

C．a try to liberate people from old-fashioned ideas

D．an effort to give people a chance of talking freely

 

I was waiting for a phone call from my agent. He had left a message the night before, telling me that my show was to be cancelled. I called him several times, but each time his secretary told me that he was in a meeting and that he would call me later. So I waited and waited, but there was still no call. Three hours passing by, I became more and more impatient. I was certain that my agent didn’t care about my work, and he didn’t care about me. I was overcome with that thought. I started to shout at the phone, “Let me wait, will you? Who do you think you are?”

    At that time I didn’t realize my wife was looking on. Without showing her surprise, she rushed in, seized the phone, tore off the wires, and shouted at the phone, “Yeah! Who do you think you are? Bad telephone! Bad telephone!” And she swept it into the wastebasket．

    I stood watching her, speechless. What on earth… ?

    She stepped to the doorway and shouted at the rest of the house, “Now hear this! All objects in this room – if you do anything to upset my husband, out you go!”

    Then she turned to me, kissed me and said calmly, “Honey, you just have to learn how to take control. ” With that, she left the room．

    After watching a crazy woman rushing in and out, shouting at everything in sight, I noticed that something in my mood had changed. I was laughing. How could I have trouble with that phone? Her antics helped me realize I had been driven crazy by small things. Twenty minutes later my agent did call. I was able to listen to him and talk to him calmly．

We can infer from the passage that ________．

       A. the secretary didn’t care about the writer 

       B. the writer was bad-tempered

       C. the agent was not responsible for his own work

       D. the wife of the writer was not sensible

Why did the author shout at the telephone?

       A. He was angry with his agent．          

       B. He was mad at the telephone．

       C. He was impatient with the secretary．  

       D. He was anxious about his wife．

What did the author’s wife do after she heard his shouting?

       A. She was speechless．         

       B. She threw the phone away．  

       C. She shouted at him．         

       D. She called the agent in person and scolded him．

What made the author laugh?

A． His changeable feelings． B. His wife’s suggestion．

   C． His own behavior．      D. His wife’s sweet kiss．

What does the underlined word “antics” refer to?

   A． Smart words      B. Anxious feelings

   C． Surprising looks   D． Unusual actions

单词拼写（每小题1分，共10分）

1.That lovely cottage by the seaside has been in the         （拥有）of their family for  more than eighty years.                       

2.July 13,2001 saw a very bright night in Beijing that will never．              （交谈）from memory.

3.He give us an       （描述）of what happened.   

4.He is leading an        （独立的）life. He lives on his own.

5.There office is on the            （第九）floor.

6.         （相比较）with the service industry, foreign trade is more important.

7.Have you h ad any           （冒险的）experience? 

8.Your advice at present is       （有价值的）to me.     

9.On       （平均）,people who don’t smoke are healthier than people who do.

10.Young people usually have more    （能量）than older people.  

 

Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job's pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas;

     1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?

There are isolating（使孤立）jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.

2) How do you handle change?

Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don't happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.

3) Do you enjoy working with computers？

I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.

4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？

This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won't know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.

5) How do you like to get paid?

Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.

Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.

1.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Isolating jobs usually drive people mad.

B．Interactive jobs make people shy easily.

C．Extreme people tend to work with others.

D．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs.

2.What does the underlined sentence in paragraph one mean?

A. Before you select your job, you should assess your skills and match them with your position

B. There are more important things than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job.

C. Nothing is important than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job.

D  You should ignore your skills when you select job.

3.What is the missing word about a job search in the following chart?

A．Design.           B．Changes.          C．Cooperation.       D．Hobbies.

4.What is the best title for this passage?

A．Lifestyles and Job Pay                    B．Jobs and Environment

C．Job Skills and Abilities                    D．Personalities and Jobs