2. 外语
  3. Here are two elements in life that Americans do save carefully: time and labor. Americans are " slaves to nothing but the cl

Here are two elements in life that Americans do save carefully: time and labor. Americans are " slaves to nothing but the cl

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问题     Here are two elements in life that Americans do save carefully: time and labor.
    Americans are " slaves to nothing but the clock" , it has been said. Time is treated as if it were an almost tangible entry. In their language, there are words associated with it; time can be budgeted, saved, wasted, stolen, killed, and cut. Americans also charge for time. It is a precious commodity to them. Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime. Once the sands have run out of a person’s hourglass, they cannot be replaced. They want every minute to count.
    Since people value time highly, they hate someone else " wasting" it beyond a certain courtesy point. This affects the matter of patience. In the American system of values, patience is not a high priority. Many of them have what might be called "a short fuse". They begin to splutter and move restlessly about if they feel time is slipping away without some return — be this in terms of pleasure, work value or rest.
    Normally Americans do not assess their visitors in relaxed surroundings over prolonged small talk; much less do they take out for dinner, while they develop a pre-business sense of trust and rapport. Rapport to most of them is less important than performance. They seek out credentials of past performance rather than evaluating a business colleague through social manners. Since they generally assess and probe professionally rather than socially, they start talking business very quickly.
    Most Americans live in time segments by engagement calendars. These calendars may be divided into intervals as short as fifteen minutes. They often "give" a person two or three(or more)segments of their calendar, but in the business world they almost always have other appointments following hard on the heels of whatever they are doing. Time is therefore always ticking in their inner ear.
Which might be the best title of the passage?
选项 A、The Thing Americans Do Save Time
B、Time in Americans’ Eyes
C、Americans’ Way to Save Time
D、Time: A Precious Commodity to Americans
答案B
解析 主旨题。原文主要讲述美国人的时间观念。故答案为B。
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