Ⅰ.Supply the missing paragraph (共20分)
The following passage is incomplete with the concluding paragraph missing.Study the passage carefully and write the missing paragraph of about 100 words.Make sure that the tone and vocabulary you.use are in unity with the passage provided.
Manners Are Important
As one looks about,it becomes very easy to conclude that good manners seem to be a thing of the past.More and more people seem to be discourteous to one another,more indicative of a “survival of the fittest” attitude than of living in a civilized society.Although much of what was considered good manners at the turn of the last century may no longer be appropriate,common courtesy and acceptable behavior are still necessary to make life pleasant,especially as our cities become more and more crowded.Although common courtesy is the underlying framework,good manners are manifested in two distinct aresa,business and social relationships.
The world of business has become increasingly impersonal over the years.The fast developement of computers has removed the personal touch from many business dealings.It is not uncommon,when phoning a company,to get a recorded message telling us which number to press.When we finally do get a live person on the other end,he often seems uncaring.Good business sense,though,would dictate the importance of getting back to the personal touch.The speaker should identify himself by name to the caller and make every effort to be courteous and helpful.Above all,he should take great pains to assure the call is not disconnected.In addition,he should make certain that the caller is connected to his party and not kept waiting long while listening to canned music.Good manners will assure happy,loyal customers.
Good manners are,perhaps,most frequently associated with socialrelationships.
Unfortunately,here again they seem to be in decline.Giving up one's seat on a crowded bus to an elderly person,a pregnant woman,or an obviously tired person seems to be a thing of the past.People also seem to have forgotten how to behave as an audience.It is not uncommon to see people putting their feet up on the seats in front of them or talking loudly during a movie or play.Even restaurants are not immune from the lack of good manners.Young parents do not seem to care that their children are roaming throughout the restaurant or are crying and disturbing the other guests.These examples touch only the surface of the rapid decline of good manners.
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Ⅱ.Write an outline (共20 分)
Read the following passage carefully and compose a “topic outline” for it.
The Effects of Television on Children's Social Relations
TV presents the child with a distorted definition of reality.The child in the affluent suburb or the small mid-western town exists within his own limited reality.His experience with social problems or people of different races,religions,or nationalities is probably somewhat limited.As television exposes him to a diversity of people and ideas,it surely expands the boundaries of his reality.It is precisely because he now relies heavily on TV to define other realities for him that we must examine carefully what those images are.If they are inaccurate or distorted,then television's reality is potentially harmful.
TV distorts reality by selecting certain kinds of images and omitting others and by portraying people in a stereotyped way.It portrays some categories of people with beauty,power and importance and renders others weak,helpless or invisible.So serious is the relative invisibility of some groups on TV that Dr.George Gerbner of the Annenberg School of Communications contends,“If you're not on TV,you don't exist.”
The TV camera selects certain images to be examples,sometimes functioning like a magnifying glass held up to the worst in civilization instead of the best.When TV producers focus on violent ugliness,they lift it out and hold it up for all to see,making it impressively larger than life.A fist fight that occurs outside my window and is witnessed by only five people may be videotaped,broadcast and “witnessed” vicariously by millions of people ,thus multiplying the example set by the fist fighters.In the United States,most people have not witnessed murder,yet because of television most children have seen hundreds of thousands of violent deaths and therefore believe that the world is more violent than it actually is.
TV says,in effect:This is the way the world works.There are the rules.The images presented on TV tend to be exaggerated or glorified,and so believed and accepted as models to be copied.After TV heavily promoted Evel Knievel's attempt to “fly” his motorcycle over the Snake River,many children imitated his stunts with their bicycles on homemade ramps.And many landed in hospitals.
TV affects human relationships as well as behavior by influencing our feelings about ourselves and our expectations for ourselves and others.Too frequently stereotypes provide us with instant difinitions.The stereotype assigns to an individual characteristics associated with a group that may or may not be accurate.We tend to note a single feature of a person and fill in the details from a storehouse of stereotypes.
Via TV's stereotypes we see men as strong and active,women pretty and at home.All to frequently,minorities are cast in exaggerated portrayals and stereotyped roles,more as white male producers perceive them than the way minority persons perceive themselves.
Exposure to stereotyped presentations can easily influence viewers' behavior toward unfamiliar people.TV images,in fact,teach values and behaviors,especially to children who have little firsthand knowledge of the real world.To the extent that children are exposed to certain characters' portrayals and behaviors on TV,they may acquire or learn those behaviors and roles and eventually accept them as models for their own attitudes and actions.
Perhaps most serious are the effects of information distortions on the child's self-image.At some level we begin to judge our own meaning,dignity and worth in comparison with the TV characters who portray people like us.We should be fully aware that there inaccurate or distorted portrayal may be harmful to children's growth.
Ⅲ.Composition (共60分)
Teachers pay little attention to those school failures,assuming that academic failure means failure in everything.What do you think of this attitude?Write a short argumentative essay(about 300 words) explaining your view.