M: That's all right. We won't press you for immediate payment. Send us your check later on when you have money.
Q: What does the woman ask for?
(12)
A.Immediate payment.
B.Deferred payment.
C.Invoice.
D.US $1,000.
I have devoted four weekends to writing papers and now I feel I () a rest.
A.deserve
B.preserve
C.conceive
D.receive
A. .
B.prepared
C.ready
D.favorable
E.available
One day when I was about twelve years old, it occurred to me to wonder about the phenomenon of laughter. At first I thought it is easy enough to see what I laugh at and why I am amused, but why at such times do I open my mouth and exhale in jerking gasps and wrinkle up my eyes and throw back my head and halloo like an animal? Why do I not instead rap four times on the top of my head or whistle or whirl about?
That was over twenty years ago and I am still wondering, except that I now no longer even take my first assumption for granted, I no longer clearly understand why I laugh at what amuses me nor why things are amusing. I have illustrious company in my confusion, of course, Many of the great minds of history have brought their power of concentration to bear on the mystery of humour, and, to date, their conclusions are so contradictory and ephemeral that they cannot possibly be classified as scientific.
Many definitions of the comic are incomplete and many are simply rewording of things we already know. Aristotle, for example, defined the ridiculous as that which is incongruous but represents neither **er nor pain. But that seems to me to be a most inadequate sort of observation, for of at this minute I insert here the word rutabagas, I have introduced something in congruous, something not funny. Of course, it must be admitted that Aristotle did not claim that every painless in congruity is ridiculous but as soon as we have gone as far as this admission, we begin to see that we have come to grips with a ghost when we think have it pinned, it suddenly appears behind us, mocking us.
An all-embracing definition of humour has been attempted by many philosophers, but no definition, no formula had ever been devised that is entirely satisfactory. Aristotle's definition has come to be known loosely as the "disappointment" theory, or the "frustrated expectation", but he also, discussed another theory borrowed in part from Plato which states that the pleasure we derive in laughing is an enjoyment of the misfortune of others, due to a momentary feeling of superiority or gratified vanity in appreciation of the fact that we ourselves are not in the observed predicament.
第36题:Which of the following can be inferred from the first paragraph?
[A] People don't like to be considered as one with no sense of humour.
[B] People will give you a satisfactory answer to what humour is.
[C] People would like to be a liar or a coward.
[D] People can make light of other's comment on their sense of humour.
I have four letters to write today and I have finished_________.
A.ones
B.the three
C.three
D./
-___
A.I'd like to, but I am not sure I have time.
B.Oh, come on!
C.This Friday evening?
-We are going to have a dancing party tonight. Would you like to join us? -().
A: I'm afraid not. Because I have an appointment with my dentist tonight
B: Of course not. I have no idea.
C: No, I can't
D: That's all set
A.didn't need to worry
B.mustn't have worried
C.needn't have worried
D.couldn't have worried
Speaker A: Excuse me. Can you take pictures for us, please?
Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry. I have to go.
Speaker A:__________
A. That's OK.
B. Thank you.
C. Yes, please.
D. Don't worry.
Another example of the world appearing to slow down is when you are hanging on the phone waiting for someone to pick up at the other end. If your attention wanders while you're waiting, then suddenly switches back,you will probably hear what seems like a longer than usual silence before hearing the dialling tone again. For you, time will have momentarily slowed.
To see how our perception of time changes when something new happens, Vincent Walsh and his colleagues put headphones on volunteers and played eight beeps to their right ears. The gap between each beep was exactly i second, except for the gap between the fourth and fifth beeps, which the scientists could make shorter or longer. They altered the length of this gap until the volunteers estimated it was the same length as the other gaps. The researchers found that, on average, people judge a second slightly short, at 955 milliseconds.
In the second part of the experiment, the first four beeps were played to the subjects' right ear, but the other four were then played to their left. Again, the volunteers were asked to estimate when the gap between the fourth and fifth beeps was the same as the others. This time they judged a second to be even shorter at 825 milliseconds long.
Perceiving a second to be much shorter than it is makes you feel as though the world has gone into slow motion, since less happens in that slice of time. Walsh thinks the effect could have evolved to give us a fraction more time to react to potentially threatening events.
Last year, Kielan Yarrow, a British psychologist found a similar effect with vision. When you glance at a clock, the first second will seem longer than it really is.
Yarrow's results showed that time appeared to slow down by a similar amount as Walsh found. Previous studies have shown that cooling the body slows down our perception of time while warming it up has the opposite effect.
After you noticed a car hurtling towards you, you might feel that ______.
A.the world around you had slowed down
B.something bad was going to happen
C.life had suddenly become meaningless
D.people's life was so fragile