【基础商务英语（二）】

[大题] Section C: Blank Filling. Change the form where necessary. (1 point each, 10 points in total)

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【基础商务英语（二）】

[大题] Thanksgiving is the day on which Americans thank God for the many good things he has given them. It is a feast day   1   on the fourth Thursday in November, about he time most crops are harvested in North America. American families   2   on this day to give thanks to God, to eat, and to remember the first Thanksgiving, which   3   long ago.The pilgrims were a religious group who moved   4   England to America in the early seventeenth century. Their first year in America was very   5  . Many of the pilgrims died because they did not have enough food and the winter was very cold, and they were   6   to grow more than enough food. To thank God for their good year, they   7   a feast for all of the pilgrims. They also invited some of the Indians who had helped them learn to hunt and grow food. That was the   8   Thanksgiving.  Today, Thanksgiving is a family holiday. Family members sometimes   9   thousands of miles to be together for Thanksgiving. Traditionally, the women of the family cook a huge dinner of turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Everyone is expected to eat   10   much as possible.  

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【基础商务英语（二）】

[大题] Passage One  Reaching new peaks of popularity in North America is Iceberg Water, which is harvested from icebergs off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Arthur von Wiesenberger, who carries the title Water Master, is one of the few water critics in North America. As a boy, he spent time in the larger cities of Italy, France and Switzerland, where bottled water is consumed daily. Even then, he kept a water journal, noting the brands he liked best. “My dog could tell the difference between bottled and tap water,” He says.  But is plain tap water all that bad? Not at all. In fact, New York’s municipal water for more than a century was called the champagne of tap water and until recently considered among the best in the world in terms of both taste and purity. Similarly, a magazine in England found that tap water from the Thames River tasted better than several leading brands of bottled water that were 400 times more expensive.  Nevertheless, soft-drink companies view bottled water as the next battle-ground for market share—this despite the fact that over 25 percent of bottled water comes from tap water: PepsiCo’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani are both purified tap water rather than spring water.  As diners thirst for leading brands, bottlers and restaurateurs salivate (垂涎) over the profits. A restaurant’s typical mark-up on wine is 100 to 150 percent, whereas on bottled water it’s often 300 to 500 percent. But since water is much cheaper than wine, and many of the fancier brands aren’t available in stores, most diners don’t notice or care.  As a result, some restaurants are turning up the pressure to sell bottled water. According to an article in The Street Journal, some of the more shameless tactics include placing attractive bottles on the table for a visual sell, listing brands on the menu without prices, and pouring bottled water without even asking the diners if they want it.Regardless of how it’s sold, the popularity of bottled water taps into our desire for better health, our wish to appear cultivated, and even a longing for lost purity.

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【基础商务英语（二）】

[大题] Passage Two   As we have seen, the focus of medical care in our society has been shifting from curing disease to preventing disease—especially in terms of changing our many unhealthy behaviors, such as poor eating habits, smoking, and failure to exercise. The line of thought involved in this shift can be pursued further. Imagine a person who is about the right weight, but does not eat very nutritious (有营养的) foods, who feels OK but exercises only occasionally, who goes to work every day, but is not an outstanding worker, who drinks a few beers at home most nights but does not drive while drunk, and who has no chest pains or abnormal blood counts, but sleeps a lot and often feels tired. This person is not ill. He may not even be at risk for any particular disease. But we can imagine that this person could be a lot healthier.  The field of medicine has not traditionally distinguished between someone who is merely “not ill” and someone who is in excellent health and pays attention to the body’s special needs. Both types have simply been called “well.” In recent years, however, some health specialists have begun to apply the terms “well” and “wellness” only to those who are actively striving to maintain and improve their health. People who are well are concerned with nutrition and exercise, and they make a point of monitoring their body’s condition. Most important, perhaps, people who are well take active responsibility for all matters related to their health. Even people who have a physical disease or handicap (缺陷) may be“well,” in this new sense, if they make an effort to maintain the best possible health they can in the face of their physical limitations. “Wellness” may perhaps best be viewed not as a state that people can achieve, but as an ideal that people can strive for. People who are well are likely to be better able to resist disease and to fight disease when it strikes. And by focusing attention on healthy ways of living, the concept of wellness can have a beneficial impact on the ways in which people face the challenges of daily life.

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【基础商务英语（二）】

[大题] Passage Three   It was late in the afternoon, and I was putting the final touch on a piece of writing that I was feeling pretty good about. I wanted to save it, but my cursor had frozen. I tried to shut the computer down, and it seized up altogether. Unsure of what else to do, I yanked (用力猛拉) the battery out.  Unfortunately, Windows had been in the midst of a delicate and crucial undertaking. The next morning, when I turned my computer back on, it informed me that a file had been corrupted and Windows would not load. Then, it offered to repair itself by using the Windows Setup CD.  I opened the special drawer where I keep CDs. But no Windows CD in there. I was forced to call the computer company's Global Support Centre. My call was answered by a woman in some unnamed, far-off land. I find it annoying to make small talk with someone when I don't know what continent they're standing on. Suppose I were to comment on the beautiful weather we've been having when there was a monsoon at the other end of the phone? So I got right to the point.  "My computer is telling me a file is corrupted and it wants to fix itself, but I don't have the Windows Setup CD."  "So you're having a problem with your Windows Setup CD." She has apparently been dozing and, having come to just as the sentence ended, was attempting to cover for her inattention.  It quickly became clear that the woman was not a computer technician. Her job was to serve as a gatekeeper, a human shield for the technicians. Her sole duty, as far as I could tell, was to raise global stress levels.  To make me disappear, the woman gave me the phone number for Windows' creator, Microsoft. This is like giving someone the phone number for, I don't know, North America. Besides, the CD worked; I just didn't have it. No matter how many times I repeated my story, we came back to the same place. She was calm and resolutely polite.  When my voice hit a certain decibel (分贝), I was passed along, like a hot, irritable potato, to a technician.  "You don't have the Windows Setup CD, ma'am, because you don't need it," he explained cheerfully.  "Windows came preinstalled on your computer!"   "But I do need it."  "Yes, but you don't have it." We went on like this for a while. Finally, he offered to walk me through the use of a different CD, one that would erase my entire system. "Of course, you'd lose all your e-mail, your documents, your photos." It was like offering to drop a safe on my head to cure my headache. "You might be able to recover them, but it would be expensive." He sounded delighted. "And it's not covered by the warranty (产品保证书)!" The safe began to seem like a good idea, provided it was full.  I hung up the phone and drove my computer to a small, friendly repair place I'd heard about. A smart, helpful man dug out a Windows CD and told me it wouldn't be a problem. An hour later, he called to let me know it was ready. I thanked him, and we chatted about the weather, which was the same outside my window as it was outside his.

上传用户:fengjunyu 上传时间:2023年01月04日