2026年安徽《学位英语》考前点题卷一

In social life, time plays a very important part. In the United States, guests tend to feel they are not highly regarded if the invitation to a dinner party is extended only three or four days before the party date. __31__ this is not true in all countries. In other areas of the world, it may be considered foolish to make an appointment too far __32__ because plans which are made for a date more than a week away tend to be forgotten.The __33__ of time differ in different parts of the world. __34__, misunderstandings arise between people from cultures that treat time differently. Promptness is much __35__ in American life, for example. If people are not prompt, they may be regarded as impolite or not fully __36__. In the U. S.，when equals meet，a person who is five minutes late is __37__ to make a short apology. If he is less than five minutes late, he will say a few words of explanation, though perhaps he will not __38__ the sentence. To Americans, forty minutes of waiting is the beginning of the “insult period”. No matter __39__ is said in apology, there is little that can remove the destruction done by an hour’s wait. __40__ in some other countries, a forty minute waiting period was not unusual.

Passage 1
Many older Americans spend their final years in a nursing home or assisted living center. These places provide services that help older adults with activities they can no longer do on their own. However, most people say they would like to remain in their own homes. Now, there are nonprofit groups that help them do that.Philip Smith is ninety-one years old and lives with his wife in an old house in Seattle, Washington. And he wants to keep it that way. He always says:" As far as I'm concerned, I would not like to leave this place. Living in a group situation is something I couldn’t tolerate. I'd kill myself before I had to do that.”
Mr. Smith says now he and his wife can take good care of themselves in their two-level house. But he and his wife know they will soon need help with simple housework. Work like Changing a light bulb that hangs at the top of the stairs. In the past, an older American would ask one of their children or a neighborhood teenager to change the light bulb. But here, those young helpers have grown up and gone. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have three children, but they all live in other states. So they are considering joining a virtual village. "This is a local group of volunteers and service providers that help older adults. They might help these adults with anything from transportation to small home repairs and dog walking.The virtual village idea was first developed about ten years ago in Boston, Massachusetts. The idea has spread to an unofficial network of villages around the country. One hundred fifty are currently in development.

Passage 2
Several fishermen in Maine recently completed a study program at the country's first ever “Cod(金枪鱼) School.” It trains fishermen who usually earn a living fishing in the ocean to be fish farmers. The program is aimed at helping commercial fishers to find a new way to carry out their trade.On a recent morning, a fishing boat left, but the men on the boat were not going fishing, they were going farming. They are going to move the cages and sorting codfish. About one and a half kilometers out to sea, the boat finds eight circular pens. A rubber tube encloses each one. The pens are covered with netting material to keep out seabirds. Inside each of the fifty-meter wide areas are up to fifty thousand cod. Most of these fish will be served on dinner tables around the world.The program will teach the students how to feed the fish and not to over-feed the fish. It means that they should give them enough feed, and not waste any feed and make it as efficient as possible.The fish-farmers in training take turns throwing special fish food into the pen. Air bubbles appear as thousands of cod come up to feed. They can be seen from the boat with an underwater camera.Bill Thompson is one of the Cod School's four students. He says the program has showed him that fish-farming is a wise choice. He said: “Even if the wild stocks came back to their fullest capacity they still wouldn't feed the world. So this is the way of the future. And it's possible for a family to run a business also.”

Passage 3
All friendships require a certain amount of chemistry, but when two people of the opposite sex become friends, sometimes those friendly feelings can start to resemble something more like sexual tension.Male-female friendships can be an emotional minefield of hidden desires. Does this mean you secretly want to jump into bed with all of your friends? Of course not. But do you ever wonder how many of them might be interested if the opportunity presented itself? Maybe you and your platonic(柏拉图式的) friendship are just a bad breakup and a bottle of wine away from crossing that boundary and hooking up(结合).So can two people of the opposite sex ever really be “just friends?” The Hollywood answer to this age-old question is a decisive HELL NO. On screen, male-female friendships always turn into something more. Harry and Sally, Chandler and Monica, Jim and Pam... do reed to go on? Even the characters in Just Friends wind up becoming much more than the film’s definitive title suggests. Cinematic stories dictate that when reasonably attractive men and women befriend one another, they are always on the road to romance, whether they realize it or not.But how much truth is there to this friendship as foreplay (性爱前奏）theory? Not a whole lot. Real life isn’t a romantic comedy. Men and women go to school together, work together and hang out in plenty of platonic settings without falling hopelessly in love with one another.Last year, a close female friend of mine moved in with a new male roommate. My immediate reaction was, “You two are definitely going to sleep together.” It seemed to me that a single man and woman living under the same roof would inevitably end up doing it. Much to my surprise, the roommate romance never happened. Almost one year later, the two of them have never even come close to seeing each other naked. Instead, their way of life has come to resemble a sexless marriage. They cook for each other, argue over domestic chores and insist that they never, ever think about each other “that way.”