In the United States, it is important to be on time , or punctual , for an appointment , a class, a meeting, etc. However, this may not be true in all countries. An American professor discovered the difference while teaching a class in a Brazilian（巴西的） university. The two-hour class was scheduled to begin at 10 A.M. and end at 12. On the first day , when the professor arrived on time, no one was in the classroom. Many students came after 10:30 A.M. Two students came after 11 A.M. Although all the students greeted the professor as they arrived, few apologized(道歉)for their lateness．Were these students being rude? He decided to study the students’ behavior.
The professor talked to American and Brazilian students about lateness in both an informal and a formal situation：at a lunch with a friend and in a university class, respectively．He gave them an example and asked them how they would react, If they had a lunch appointment with a friend，the average American student defined lateness as 19 minutes after the agreed time，On the other hand．the average Brazilian student felt the friend was late after 33 minutes．
In an American university, students are expected to arrive at the appointed hour．In contrast, in Brazil，neither the teacher nor the students always arrive at the appointed hour．Classes not only begin at the scheduled time in the United States，but also end at the scheduled time．In the Brazilian class, only a few students left the class at 12：00；many remained past 12：30 to discuss the class and ask more questions．While arriving late may not be very important in Brazil , neither is staying late．
36. The word‘punctual’most probably means________.
A．1eaving soon after class      B．coming early
C．a(chǎn)rriving a few minutes late    D．being on time
37. Why did the professor study the Brazilian students’behavior?   
A．He felt puzzled at the students’ being late．  
B．He felt angry at the students' rudeness．
C．He wanted to make the students come on time later．
D．He wanted to collect data for one of his studies．
38.  It can be inferred from the professor’s study of lateness in the informal situation that____．
A．American students will become impatient if their friend is five minutes late
B．neither Brazilian nor American students like being late in social gatherings
C．being late in one culture may not be considered so in another culture
D．Brazilian students will not come thirty-three minutes after the agreed time
39.  From the last paragraph we know that in Brazil____.
A. it is important to arrive at the appointed time
B．it is rude to keep the professor staying after class
C．it is normal for students to leave during lectures
D．it is acceptable for professors to be late for class．  

Last week my youngest son and I visited my father at his new home in Tucson, Arizona. He moved there a few years ago, and I was eager to see his new place and meet his friends.
My earliest memories of my father are a tall, handsome, successful man devoted to his work and his family, but uncomfortable with his children. As a child I loved him. He seemed unhappy with me unless I got straight A’s and unhappy with my boyfriends if their fathers were not as “successful” as he was. Whenever I went out with him on weekends, I used to struggle to think up things to say, feeling on guard.
On the first day of my visit, we went out with one of my father’s friends for lunch at an outdoor café. We talked along that afternoon, did some shopping, ate on the street table, and laughed over my son’s funny facial expressions. Gone was my father’s critical air and strict rules. Who was this person I knew as my father, who seemed so friendly and interesting to be around? What had held him back before?
The next day dad pulled out his childhood pictures and told me quite a few stories about his own childhood. Although our times together became easier over the years, I never felt closer to him at that moment. After so many years, I’m at last seeing another side of my father. And in so doing, I’m delighted with my new friend. My dad, in his new home in Arizona, is back to me from where he was.
【小題1】Why did the author feel bitter about her father as a young adult?

第三部分:閱讀理解(共20小題,每小題2分,滿分40分)
閱讀下列短文,從每題所給的四個(gè)選項(xiàng)（A、B、C和D）中,選出最佳選項(xiàng)。
A
A lot of management training each year for Circle K Corporation, a national chain of convenience stores. Among the topics we address in our course is the retention（保護(hù)力） of quality employees-a real challenge to managers when you consider the pay scale（標(biāo)準(zhǔn)）in the service industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants（參加者）, “What has caused you to stay long enough to become a manager?” Some time back a new manager took the question and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, “It was a ＄19 baseball glove.”
Cynthia told the group that she originally took a Circle K clerk job as an interim（臨時(shí)的） position while she looked for something better. On her second or third day behind the counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year-old son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, and her first check would have to go for paying bills. Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check. When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small room in the back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was concerned and confused.
Patricia handed her a box. “I overheard you talking to your son yesterday,” she said, “and I know that it is hard to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can’t pay good people like you as much as we would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you are important to us.”
The thoughtfulness, empathy and love of this convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays. An important lesson for the price of a Little League baseball glove.
56．Among many of the problems in the service industry, what is talked about in this passage, is___
A．how to ensure his employees’ high pay
B．how to attract more customers
C．how to look carefully after the employees
D．how to keep the good employees from leaving
57．Although a new manager, Cynthia would do her job well in keeping quality employees because she________.
A．had mastered all the courses for the manager
B．had already formed good relationship with the employees
C．know the way how to deal with her employees
D．had her own personal experience
58．This passage shows us that to run a business well it is necessary for managers to let their employees know________
A．how much they can get for their job.
B．what good positions they can get later
C．they are very necessary to the business  
D．they are nice as well as useful
59.The story told in this passage tells us that employees care about____________   
A．only how large a pay they can get
B．love from the managing people rather than only money
C．if their children could be properly taken care of
D．what position they can be offered

Why do parents have such a difficult time to communicate openly and honestly with their teens? For this, there are many reasons but most of them stem from not being able to properly understand their teens. It is a dangerous gap because parents will have to communicate with their teens about a wide variety of issues during the most important years of their lives. Thus, parents must know how to communicate openly and honestly with their teens.
Here are a few tips to make communication easier between parents and teenagers.
1. Try not to talk down to your teens. Make them feel as if their views really matter, which not only helps your discussions with your teen but bring you closer to him.
2. Imagine what it would be like to be a teen. Try to remember some of the negative feelings you experienced as a teenager and apply it to your teen's situation.
3. Never make negative remarks to your teen about what she has said or done.
4. Remember how much courage it would have taken for your teen to come and talk to you about his personal issues. So listen respectfully.
5. Don't ignore your teen's feelings because it is usually a cry for help. For instance, if your teen is unusually angry, it may be time to spend a bit of quality time with your teen to determine what is wrong and where he is coming from.
It is, therefore, necessary for parents to strive to keep lines of communication open at all times with their teens. Try to remember what it was like to be a teenager and how vulnerable（脆弱的）you felt. Then you will be well on your way to help your teen communicate more openly and honestly.
【小題1】Why don't teens want to talk about their personal issues with their parents?

Have you thanked your grandma today? You might want to consider it. A recent study found that kids live longer when a grandmother takes part in their daily lives.
Most animals die soon after their childbearing years are over. Women, however, often live for many years after they stop having kids.
　To try to understand why, researchers from Finland looked at birth and death records of two communities from the 18th and 19th centuries, one in Finland and one in Canada. In these communities, 537 Finnish women and 3,290 Canadian women were grandmothers who had lived past the age of 50.
For every decade they lived beyond 50, the researchers found that the women ended up with an average of two extra grandkids. It didn’t matter what the differences in health or living conditions were between the two communities or from family to family.
Grandchildren were also more likely to live into adulthood if their grandmothers were alive when they were born. If their grandmothers were younger than 60 at the time, that was even better. The study also found that women had children 2 to 3 years earlier if their own mothers were still alive at that time than those whose mothers had died.
The researchers suggested that grandmothers have provided important assistance in raising their grandchildren for at least the past 200,000 years. As a result, they helped extend everyone’s lifespan.
So, don’t take your grandma for granted!
【小題1】How many women in the survey in the two communities were grandmothers who had lived past the age of 50?