Question

We all know that the British people love their manners (禮儀). They are part of their national identity (特性), as well as having fish and chips and complaining about the weather. Recently I read online that they said “sorry” up to eight times a day.

After some research I have not been able to find any specific reasons why they are like this. I suppose, for centuries, manners, including how they behave at table and talk to other people have been one of the differences between the lower and upper classes and those manners show their social classes. Britain has traditionally been a quite conservative (保守的) country. There are many articles suggesting that their seemingly polite attitude of always saying “please” and “thank you” is quite false (錯誤的) because it is impossible for a person to always feel that he or she wants to thank someone or say “please”.

Maybe it is for this reason that people are going one of two ways: they are too polite and hold back their feelings or they are not polite at all and express their true feelings directly. Some British people are tired of pretending that they are always happy and having to please others. But sometimes because they feel they have to be polite, they are prevented from saying what they truly think.

(   )1. What don’t the British people often do?

       A. Eat fish and chips.  

       B. Have no quite good manners.

       C. Be polite to others.  

       D. Talk about the weather.

(   )2. What do the British people say up to eight times every day?

       A. Hello.                    B. Thank you.

       C. I don’t know.        D. Sorry.

(   )3. What does the writer think are the reasons why the British people are so polite?

       ① The upper classes should have good manners.

       ② They have learned much about politeness at school.

       ③ They like to hold back their true feelings.

       ④ They are not honest at all.

       A. ①②       B. ③④       C. ①③       D. ②④

(   )4. What does the underlined word “pretending” mean in Chinese?

       A. 打算       B. 假裝       C. 想象      D. 體驗

Answer 1

1B  2D  3C  4B