The Thousand and one nights is probably one of the most famous books in the world. It is a collection of stories first told by travelers from Persia, Arabia, India and China between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. In later years professional storytellers also told the stories in coffee houses in Turkey, Egypt and many other countries. The Thousand and one nights contains well-known stories like Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, so people often think they are just for children – but they were originally for adults.
Shahrazad’s story
There was once an Indian King called Shahriyar. One day King Shahriyar found his wife with another man so he killed her and her lover. After that the King married a different woman everyday and killed her the next morning before she could stop loving him. This continued for three years.
Shahrazad was the clever and beautiful daughter of the King’s adviser. When her father told her what was happening, she decided to marry the King. Shahrazad’s father tried to stop her because he knew she was going to die. But Shahrazad had a plan to save herself and all the women in the kingdom. The King and Shahrazad got married a few days later.
After the wedding, while the King was drinking with his friends, Shahrazad went to find her sister. ‘I need your help,’ said Shahrazad. ‘Come to the palace this evening and ask me to tell you a story’.
So that night, Shahrazad was getting ready for bed when her sister came to visit her. She began telling her sister a story called The Fisherman and the Genie. While she was telling the story, the King came into the room. He started listening to her story too, and became more and more interested.
Shahrazad continued telling the story all night, but she stopped just before the end and said, ‘The morning’s here, husband. Am I going to die now?’. ‘No, no’, said the King. ‘Tell me the end of the story’. ‘I’ll tell you this evening, but not before’, said Shahrazad with a smile.
That night Shahrazad finished the story – and then immediately began another. This continued night after night. The King never heard the end of a story until the next evening. He couldn’t kill his wife because he always wanted to know how each story ended.
As time passed, the King fell in love with Shahrazad. He knew he could never kill her because he couldn’t live without her and her stories. To show Shahrazad he really loved her, the King married her again. The stories Shahrazad told the King became the stories of The Thousand and one nights.
Are these following sentences true (T) or false (F)
......[T] The King killed his first wife.
......[F] He was married to his next wife for three years.
......[F] Shahrazad worked for the King.
......[T] Shahrazad’s father didn’t want her to marry the King.
In almost all developing countries, the lack of adequate supplies of cheap, convenient and reliable fuel is a major problem. Rural communities depend largely on kerosene, wood and dung for their cooking and lighting needs. But kerosene is now priced out of reach of many people and wood, except in heavily forested areas, is in short supply. The search for firewood occupies a large part of the working day and has resulted in widespread deforestation.
Dung is in constant supply wherever there are farm animals and, when dried, it is convenient to store and use. But burning dung destroys its value as fertilizer, thus depriving the soil of a much needed source of humus and nitrogen.
Rural areas of developing countries are also plagues by a lack of adequate sanitation. Improper waste disposal spreads disease, contaminates water sources and provides breeding ground for disease-carrying insects.
The problem of improving environmental hygiene, conserving resources and finding alternative sources of fuel may be unrelated. Their solutions, however, are not, as many countries experimenting with biogas technology are discovering. Biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, is produced by the fermentation of organic matter. The process of anaerobic fermentation is a natural one, occurring whenever living matter decomposes. By containing the matter – and the process – in a digester or biogas plant, the combustible gas can be trapped and used as fuel for household lighting and cooking. The digested slurry that remains can be used on the land as a soil conditioner and fertilizer.
Biogas plants have attracted much interest in recent years and they are in use in several Asian countries: 38,000 are reported in rural area of India, 27,000 in Korea and more than 80,000 in China. In most countries, the value of the gas has been the prime factor leading to their adoption: 70 percent of India’s plants, for instance, were built during the energy and fertilizer crisis of 1975-76 – although their use in that country dates back to 1951. similarly in Thailand and Korea, biogas is being investigated as an alternative to costly charcoal and to save compost materials form being burned.
In Japan and China, reducing pollution from animal wastes has been an important factor. Privies, hen houses and pigpens are built in proximity to the fermentation chamber in China. Examinations of the digested slurry have shown that the total number of parasite eggs was reduced by 93.6 per cent, hookworms by 99 per cent and no schistosome flukes were found.
The greatest benefits from biogas systems, however, are probably to be derived from the manorial value of the slurry, although it is not widely used outside of India and China. Vegetable farmers near Calcutta found that the digested slurry produced bigger and better tasting peas than did other fertilizers and the weight of root vegetables increased by nearly 300 per cent.
According to the reading passage, are the statements T (True) or F (False)? 1. ......[T] Biogas is the answer for the lack of cheap, convenient and reliable fuel.
2. ......[F] The production of biogas by fermentation of animals and vegetables wastes is a technology used in developed countries.
3. ......[F] Family –sized biogas plants first came into widespread used in India in the 1940s.
4. ......[F] There are less and less biogas plants in the world nowadays.
5. ......[T] Biogas is for domestic use.
6. ......[T] The system is economically sound, in addition to other benefits such as a cleaner, healthier environment.
A recruitment firm gives this advice to new workers:
It is important to ...... time in your relationships with others at ....... Get to know the people who work near you: ...... yourself to them and tell them something about yourself. If people ask for your help, always ...... positively. Don’t ...... emails or phone calls just because you are busy. If you make a mistake, it is better to ...... it and then apologise. When things go wrong, stay calm and ...... shouting and using bad language. Remember good ...... help to ...... your working ......, and you will find you can enjoy your work more.
Etiquette is the name we give to the rules for being polite in a social group. Business etiquette is important for people who often have to make new contacts and build relationships in their work. Politeness can also help to improve the working environment for people in the same office. Some cultures and situations are formal, which means that we have to follow rules; other cultures and situations are more informal.
Text 2 Office workers “admit being rude”
Most office workers say they are rude or bad-mannered at work. Two out of three workers regularly arrive late for meetings, most ignore emails and three out of four use bad language. In a survey of 1,000 workers, two-thirds say that pressure of work is the reason for bad manners.
Other common examples of bad office etiquette include ignoring colleagues and answering mobile phone calls during meetings. Using mobile phones in meetings is impolite and distracts others, research by the University of Surrey shows. If you respond to call when speaking to somebody, it means that the phone call is more important than the person, the survey said. If you answer a call during a meeting, it could mean that the meeting is not important.
Mr Jacobs, managing director of Office Angels, a recruitment firm say it is easy for people to forget their manners in the working environment, which is often very informal and very busy. Workers can forget proper etiquette such as introducing people at meetings, and this is often bad for working relationships.
Psychologist Dr Colin Gill believes that people are not as polite as they were twenty years ago. He said: ‘Courtesy is no longer something that is so much respected in our society.’ People think it is ‘stuffy to be polite or formal.’
Now some organisations are actually investing money in training their junior managers to be polite. Office Angels is encouraging people to arrive on time for meetings, turn off mobile phones and avoid bad manners at work is such a simple thing to do,’ Mr Jacobs says, ‘ and it can have a dramatic impact on improving your working environment and your relationships with others.’
The aim of the texts is to …………………………………….
A. reflect the fact of officer’s bad manners at work with illustrations
B. reflect the fact of officer’s good manners at work with illustrations
Listen to six short conversations. How does the second person reply in each situation? Predict the meanings of their replies by choose the correct description in italics.
1. John points out a mistake. Jane ...... for it.(apologizes/doesn't apologise)
2. Jack invites Barbara to dinner. Barbara ...... the invitation. (accepts/refuses)
3. John introduces Caroline Day to Barbara. Barbara ...... her. (knows/ doesn’t know)
4. Jack asks if he is allowed to park in front of the office. Jane says that he ....... (can/can't)
5. Barbara gives Jane a gift. Jane ...... it. (likes/doesn’t like)
6. Jack helped John to arrange his travel. It ...... a problem for Jack. (was/wasn't)
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