Everybody loathes it, but everybody does it A recent poll showed that 20% of Americans hate the practice. It seems so arbitrary, after all. Why does a barman get a tip, but not a doctor who saves lives In America alone, tipping is now a $ 16 billion-a-year industry. Consumers acting rationally ought not to pay more than they have to for a given service. Tips should not exist. So why do they The conventional wisdom is that tips both reward the efforts of good service and reduce uncomfortable feelings of inequality. The better the service, the bigger the tip. Such explanations no doubt explain the purported origin of tipping--in the 16th century, boxes in English taverns carried the phrase "To Insure Promptitude" (later just "TIP") . But according to new research from Cornell University, tipping no longer serves any useful function. The paper analyses data from 2, 327 groups dining at 20 different restaurants. The correlation between larger tips and better service was very weak: only a tiny part of the variability in the size of the tip had anything to do with the quality of service. Customers who rated a meal as "excellent" still tipped anywhere between 8% and 17% of the meal price. Tipping is better explained by culture than by economics. In America, the custom has become institutionalized: it is regarded as part of the accepted cost of a service. In a New York restaurant, failing to tip at least 15% could well mean abuse from the waiter. Hairdressers can expect to get 15-20%, the man who delivers your groceries$2. In Europe, tipping is less common; in many restaurants, discretionary tipping is being replaced by a standard service charge. In many Asian countries, tipping has never really caught on at all. How to account for these national differences Look no further than psychology. According to Michael Lynn, the Cornell paper’s co-author, countries in which people are more extrovert, sociable or neurotic tend to tip more. Tipping relieves anxiety about being served by strangers. And, says Mr. Lynn, "In America, where people are outgoing and expressive, tipping is about social approval, ff you tip badly, people think less of you. Tipping well is a chance to show off." Icelanders, by contrast, do not usually tip-a measure of their introversion, no doubt. While such explanations may be crude, the hard truth seems to be that tipping does not work. It does not benefit the customer. Nor, in the case of restaurants, does it actually stimulate the waiter, or help the restaurant manager to monitor and assess his staff. Service people should "just be paid a decent wage" which may actually make economic sense. We can get the information from the article that_______.
A. tipping is very popular in European countries
B. in Asian countries tipping never existed
C. tipping is more popular in America than in Europe
D. tipping is popular in America because the Americans are much richer
Everything seemed to have become a weapon of war. Our enemies had (1) the most familiar objects (2) us, turned shaving kits into holsters and airplanes (3) missiles and soccer coaches and newlyweds into involuntary suicide bombers. So it was (4) the President and his generals to plot the response.That is because we are (5) one enemy but two: one unseen, the other inside. Terror on this scale (6) to wreck the way we live our lives-make us flinch when a siren sounds, (7) when a door slams and think twice before deciding (8) we really have to take a plane. If we falter, they win, (9) they never plant another bomb. So after the early helplessness, what can I do I’ve already given blood-people started to realize that (10) they could do was exactly, as precisely as possible, (11) they would have done if all this (12) .That was the spirit (13) in New York and Washington and all across the country, faith and fear and resolve in a tight braid. Because the killers who hate us did the (14) , nothing is unthinkable now. A plume of grill smoke venting from a Manhattan steak house (15) the evacuation of midtown office towers. After the Pentagon (16) , generals called their families and told them (17) the water, it could be poisoned. Sales of guns and gas masks spiked. The National Football League (18) its games for the first time ever; bomb scares emptied 90 sites on Thursday in New York City (19) . People wore sneakers with their suits (20) they had to fly fast down the stairs. Read the following text Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.4()
A. from
B. for
C. by
D. up to