An English-schoolboy would only ask his friend: "Wassa time, then" To his teacher he would be much more likely to speak in a more standardized accent and ask: "Excuse me, sir, may I have the correct time please" People are generally aware that the phrases and expressions they use are different from those of earlier generations; but they concede less that their own behavior also varies according to the situation in which they find themselves. Not only this, but in many cases, the way someone speak affects the response of the person to whom he is speaking in such a way that "modeling" is seen to occur. This is what Michael Argyle has called "response matching". Several studies have shown that the more one reveals about oneself in ordinary conversation, and the more intimate these details are, the more personal secrets the other person will let out. Response matching has, in fact, been noted between two speakers in a number of ways, including how long someone speaks, the length of pauses, speech rate and voice loudness. The correspondence between the length of reporters’ questions when interviewing President Bush, and the length of his replies has been shown to increase over the duration of his 2005-2007 news conferences. Argyle says this process may be one of imitation. Two American researchers, Jaffe and Feldstein, prefer to think of it as the speaker’s need for balance. Neither of these explanations seems particularly convincing. It may be that response matching can be more profitably considered as an unconscious reflection of speakers’ needs for social integration with one another. This process of modeling the other person’s speech in a conversation could also be termed speech convergence (聚合). It may only be one aspect of a much wider speech change. In other situations, speech divergence (分离) may occur when certain factors encourage a person to modify his speech away from the individual he is dealing with. For example, a retried general’s wife, renowned for her continuous snobbishness (势利), may return her vehicle to the local garage because of inadequate servicing, voicing her complaint in elaborately phrased, yet mechanically unsophisticated language, with a high soft-pitched voice. These superior airs and graces may simply make the mechanic reply with a flourish of almost incomprehensible technical terms, and in a louder, more deeply lowered voice than he would have used with a less angry customer. The example of the retired general’s wife and mechanic is mentioned in the text to show that ______.
A. wives of high ranked official are usually very pride to poor people
B. modeling is not the only way people respond in different situations
C. there is a distinct speech difference between rich people and the poor
D. the poor tend to pretend to be well-educated in front of the rich
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An English-schoolboy would only ask his friend: "Wassa time, then" To his teacher he would be much more likely to speak in a more standardized accent and ask: "Excuse me, sir, may I have the correct time please" People are generally aware that the phrases and expressions they use are different from those of earlier generations; but they concede less that their own behavior also varies according to the situation in which they find themselves. Not only this, but in many cases, the way someone speak affects the response of the person to whom he is speaking in such a way that "modeling" is seen to occur. This is what Michael Argyle has called "response matching". Several studies have shown that the more one reveals about oneself in ordinary conversation, and the more intimate these details are, the more personal secrets the other person will let out. Response matching has, in fact, been noted between two speakers in a number of ways, including how long someone speaks, the length of pauses, speech rate and voice loudness. The correspondence between the length of reporters’ questions when interviewing President Bush, and the length of his replies has been shown to increase over the duration of his 2005-2007 news conferences. Argyle says this process may be one of imitation. Two American researchers, Jaffe and Feldstein, prefer to think of it as the speaker’s need for balance. Neither of these explanations seems particularly convincing. It may be that response matching can be more profitably considered as an unconscious reflection of speakers’ needs for social integration with one another. This process of modeling the other person’s speech in a conversation could also be termed speech convergence (聚合). It may only be one aspect of a much wider speech change. In other situations, speech divergence (分离) may occur when certain factors encourage a person to modify his speech away from the individual he is dealing with. For example, a retried general’s wife, renowned for her continuous snobbishness (势利), may return her vehicle to the local garage because of inadequate servicing, voicing her complaint in elaborately phrased, yet mechanically unsophisticated language, with a high soft-pitched voice. These superior airs and graces may simply make the mechanic reply with a flourish of almost incomprehensible technical terms, and in a louder, more deeply lowered voice than he would have used with a less angry customer. According to the author, the correspondence between the lengths of reporter’s questions and Bush’s answers increased because speakers ______.
A. are trying to be accepted by others without even knowing it
B. have a strong demand for balance when they are speaking
C. always have an instinct to imitate the people they are talking to
D. themselves want to know each other well
Each year Universum, a Swedish consulting firm asks American MBA students where they would most like to work. The 2007 survey showed a few surprises in its top 50 companies named: Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems had fell, while old reliables such as General Electric, Coca-Cola and General Mills had jumped up the list. But the most-desired industry remains consulting, despite the beating it has taken since the end of the dotcom boom, and the top firm remains McKinsey. Perhaps the reason is: in recent years McKinsey has done as much as any company to provide MBA graduates with increasingly better and more profitable positions. The reason for this was the firm’s popularization of a concept known as "war for talent". It advocated finding the best and brightest and rewarding their innovations (创新) in proportion to "talent" instead of their performance or seniority (资格). But what is talent And how does a company measure its employees’ talent, especially when assigning them to new projects The "war for talent" recommends a careful assessment of the inner skills and characteristics ready for success but gives few clues as to what those inner skills might be, which might make the war standardless. For a company focused on quick growth, one shortcut could be young hires who had already been rewarded for their talent by receiving MBAs from well-respected schools. Thus as the idea of finding talented employees who could quickly learn the skills took off, so did the asking price of the star MBA graduates. Unfortunately, now the "war for talent" seems less of a brilliant idea. The economic downturn, bringing with it less competition for the available talent, also did its part to control in indulgent (宽容的) employers. Similarly, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer emphasized that cultivating a talent means not just hiring the most effective performers, but being able to deal quickly and firmly with the least effective C performers. But he adds that the C refers not to the person but to the individual’s performance in a given job. Some low-performing managers were A or B performers earlier in their careers—and may attain that level of performance again. MBA programs will remain attractive recruiting areas, but the MBA model itself has come under increasing criticism. Prof. Pfeffer, in a 2007 article found little evidence that an MBA had much effect on future salary or career. Future MBA students might need to provide more evidence of their talent to impress potential employers. A weak point of "war of talent" plan is that ______.
A. talents are something invisible and might be shown with time
B. talent is very hard to be defined or measured effectively
C. the talented people do not always have an MBA degree
D. different companies may rank the same person differently
An English-schoolboy would only ask his friend: "Wassa time, then" To his teacher he would be much more likely to speak in a more standardized accent and ask: "Excuse me, sir, may I have the correct time please" People are generally aware that the phrases and expressions they use are different from those of earlier generations; but they concede less that their own behavior also varies according to the situation in which they find themselves. Not only this, but in many cases, the way someone speak affects the response of the person to whom he is speaking in such a way that "modeling" is seen to occur. This is what Michael Argyle has called "response matching". Several studies have shown that the more one reveals about oneself in ordinary conversation, and the more intimate these details are, the more personal secrets the other person will let out. Response matching has, in fact, been noted between two speakers in a number of ways, including how long someone speaks, the length of pauses, speech rate and voice loudness. The correspondence between the length of reporters’ questions when interviewing President Bush, and the length of his replies has been shown to increase over the duration of his 2005-2007 news conferences. Argyle says this process may be one of imitation. Two American researchers, Jaffe and Feldstein, prefer to think of it as the speaker’s need for balance. Neither of these explanations seems particularly convincing. It may be that response matching can be more profitably considered as an unconscious reflection of speakers’ needs for social integration with one another. This process of modeling the other person’s speech in a conversation could also be termed speech convergence (聚合). It may only be one aspect of a much wider speech change. In other situations, speech divergence (分离) may occur when certain factors encourage a person to modify his speech away from the individual he is dealing with. For example, a retried general’s wife, renowned for her continuous snobbishness (势利), may return her vehicle to the local garage because of inadequate servicing, voicing her complaint in elaborately phrased, yet mechanically unsophisticated language, with a high soft-pitched voice. These superior airs and graces may simply make the mechanic reply with a flourish of almost incomprehensible technical terms, and in a louder, more deeply lowered voice than he would have used with a less angry customer. What can we learn about speech convergence from the passage
A. It means all of a much wider speech change.
B. It only happens during the interviews.
C. It means to follow the other’s speaking style during conversations.
D. It was first concluded by Argyle after his interview with Bush.
Questions 11 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
A. She was not able to manage the project well.
B. She had managed to recover from the shock.
C. She was not sure about the mystery in the project.
D. She wasn’t sure how she could finish it so early.