English Conversation

Leader: Mandi Ashmore

english@ iwc-­lausanne. org

We meet on Mondays at 14：30 at the IWC clubhouse. We chat for about an hour and discuss everything. Mandi asks “students” to contact her on Monday to confirm the class as sometimes she needs to cancel for various reasons or occasionally she may choose to hold the class at a different venue(举办地点) or at an earlier time for us to be able to have lunch together.

French Conversation, Advanced Beginner

Leader: Marielle Sulmoni

frenchconvo@ iwc-lausanne. org

I'm French (born in Bordeaux) and Swiss by marriage. I hold an advanced beginners' French conversation class on Tuesday afternoons from 14：30 ­16：00. We meet weekly at the clubhouse in a friendly atmosphere. I hope to help you use your knowledge of French, allowing you to speak with no fear of making mistakes, which in time will become fewer and fewer.

French Language Lab, Beginner

Leader: Maija Remlinger

frenchlab@ iwc-­lausanne. org

The group meets on Thursday afternoons from 15：00－16：30 at the clubhouse. The first half of the class is devoted to reading out loud from the book “Easy French Reader”, working on pronunciation and phrasing. During the second half, we listen to audio recordings from “New French with Ease” and work on oral comprehension.

French Conversation, Advanced

Leader: Juliette Brull

french@ iwc­-lausanne, org

We meet every Tuesday at the IWC clubhouse from 9：30－11：00. Most of our time is devoted to very lively discussions about current events and various topics. We also read a book written by a French author and sometimes we see a French movie.

21. Why are you advised to contact Mandi?

A. To check the arrangement.   B. To exchange ideas.

C. To decide the topics.        D. To ask for leave.

22. Which of the clubs focuses mainly on the basic knowledge of language?

A. English Conversation.                B. French Conversation, Advanced .

C. French Language Lab, Beginner.       D. French Conversation, Advanced Beginner.

23. Who will you get in touch with if you like watching French films?

A. Mandy Ashmore   B. Marielle Sulmoni   C. Maija Remlinger   D. Juliette Brull

For a long time, the traditional method of identifying liars was to watch their body language, including facial expressions.

What if the person appears to be nervous? Is the person unable to look me in the eye? Is he or she look around the room? What about other nervous movements, such as fidgeting（坐立不安）or shifting from side to side? Many people—from parents to police officers and airport security personnel—depend on this method. But does a person’s body and face reveal the truth? Not according to a new study.

Talking, it seems, is the best way to smoke out a liar. That is what researchers in the United Kingdom found out recently. Their investigation took place at one place where lying can get you into big trouble—an airport.

The researchers asked volunteers to pretend they were real passengers and then lie to airport security agents. Some of the agents used spoke conversation-based methods to question these make-believe passengers. Others depended instead on the person’s body language, like lack of eye contact and showing signs of nervousness. The agents talking with the passengers were 20 times more likely to catch the liars. The study found that these conversation-based techniques can help you recognize when a person is lying to you. Like many methods, this conversation method has a name. It is called Controlled Cognitive Engagement or CCE, for short.

The British government partly financed this study. The American Psychological (APA) published the findings. Body language cannot be trusted. Using body language and facial expressions to catch someone in a lie is really hard. And it only works, seemingly, by chance.

Thomas Ormerod is the head of the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex in England. On the APA website, he reported that the “suspicious-signs method”—or using body language—“almost completely fails” in finding lies.

24．What are the questions in Paragraph 2 intended to do?

A. Show traditional ways to recognize a liar.       B. Launch a survey among readers.

C. Show the writer’s puzzlement.               D. Invite the readers to think twice.

25．What should volunteers in the investigation do?

A. Answer questions only using words.            B. Pretend to be airport security agents.  C. Act as passengers as researchers required.   D. Communicate with researchers by talking.

26．Which would be the best way to find out a liar according to the study?

A. Looking him in the eye.

B. Asking open-ended questions.

C. Making use of body language.

D. Observing his facial expression.

27．What will the author continue to talk about based on the passage?

A. Misunderstandings of catching a liar.      B. The “suspicious-signs” method.   

C. How the CCE method works.     D. The new concept of CCE.

Living near the beach may come with an extra perk (利益): better health. A new study analyzed information from more than 48 million people in England and found that the nearer they lived to the coast, the more likely people were to report good health within the past year.

Living near the coast may be associated with better health because the seaside environment reduces stress, the researchers said. They pointed to another British study that found that people who took trips to the coast experienced more feelings of calmness and relaxation than those who visited urban parks or the countryside.

The difference from living near the coast was relatively small. But a small effect, when applied to an entire population can have a substantial impact on public health ,said study researcher Ben Wheeler of Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Exeter, England.

However, it’s too soon to advise people to hit the beach to improve health, Wheeler said. The study only found an association, not a cause-effect link, and it’s possible that other factors could explain the results. For instance, it could be that people who are wealthier, and therefore healthier, are more able to move to desired locations such as the coast, Wheeler said, a phenomenon known as the migrant effect. But the study did find that the association between coastal living and better health was strongest for those living in the poorest areas, which perhaps indicates that wealth cannot explain the results, Wheeler said.

Because the study looked at only England—an island country in which everyone lives within 72 miles of the coast—it’s not clear whether the findings would apply to other populations. Far from England, a health expert not involved in the study said that while the British research certainly doesn’t prove that people’s health and the place they live are linked, it’s possible that proximity to the seas does something for our bodies.

If future studies confirm the results, the next step would be to find out it is what coastal environments that can benefit health. Wheeler said it may then be possible to bring those benefits to people living in other areas, through virtual environments, for instance.

28. We can conclude from the passage that ______.

  A. people are encouraged to move to the coast

  B. people living near the sea may be healthier

  C. people pay increasingly attention to health

  D. people are worried about residential environment

29. According to the researchers, living near the sea ______.

  A. doesn’t nearly affect the British population

  B. can cure some difficult diseases in a way

  C. can help get over one’s stress

  D. means freeing from sadness or troubles

30. What Ben Wheeler said means ______.

  A. the British public health is decreasing

  B. concrete evidence favors life near the sea

  C. wealthier people are likely to be healthier

  D. exact reasons are proposed for further research

31. What does the underlined word “proximity” in the passage mean?

  A. being close B. being distant C. being similar D. being opposite

With my hands and knees on the floor of the airplane, I was searching for an old lady’s missing hearing aid during the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. It occurred to me that this may not be the most dignified posture for a Buddhist nun(尼姑).
    I had seen the old lady from the seat in front of me as she walked up and down the passage with a flashlight. I asked a few times what was wrong, but she didn’t answer at first —– she couldn’t hear me. She was wearing a woolen coat. Judging from her accent, she came from Eastern Europe.
    Do you know how much hearing aids cost? Thousands, especially for the new tiny hidden-in-the-ear type she described. It takes a long time for an appointment to make a new one, and many doctor visits to get the thing adjusted right. Therefore, my dignity seemed less important than finding that hearing aid. But how does one find a tiny black object in a shadowy jet cabin（机舱）
    The lady wasn’t even sure where or when she had lost it. At one point, a couple of flight attendants did a random search around the lady’s seat; I wasn’t impressed. They left suggesting that she search the seat of her previous flight! My flashlight turned up all kinds of small objects, bits of plastic, broken pieces of headphones.
    The old lady said that she gave up. Yet I couldn’t. After we landed, as passengers streamed past us, I insisted that the lady move aside while awaiting her wheelchair. Then I got into a real down and dirty search among the dust under her seat and on the floor.
    Look! A little peanut-sized shiny black object caught the light of my flashlight in a floor crack near her seat.
    What a rush. “I found it!”
    With great astonishment and gratitude, the old lady responded, “I haven’t the words to express my thanks!”

32. Why did the author put her hands and knees on the floor?
A. She is a religious Buddhist nun.
B. She fell down from her seat.
C. She helped the old lady look for her hearing aid.
D. She wanted to stand out among the passengers.

33. What do we know about the old lady?
A. She ignored the author’s question on purpose.
B. She is an American.
C. She lost her hearing aid by accident.
D. It was not difficult for her to get the hearing aid at all.

34. Where was the hearing aid found?
A. On the previous flight.
B. Close to the old lady’ seat.
C. On the wheelchair.
D. In another jet cabin.

35. According to the last two paragraphs, what is the old lady’s attitude towards the author?
A. Respectful. B. Doubtful. C. Supportive. D. Grateful.

Here are some tips that will help you get rid of anxiety over being phoneless or reduce your risk of phone addiction.

Disable the Internet connection. Take up your courage to disable the Internet connection on your smartphone.   36    Needless to say, you will save o lot of cash on it.

Find your passion.  37   Find your dream job and you will leave your “best friend” at least for a while. If you have nothing to do at home, try a new hobby that will distract you from all those apps and social media.

Purchase an ordinary phone. No smartphones. No iphones. Remember those times when we used phones in emergency situations only or when we wanted to invite someone to a party.  38 

Don’t let the fear control you.   39   Claim your joy. I can only speak for myself here, but I think that a smartphone is one of the worst inventions. It’s useful and helpful at times, but it has ruined many happy lives and relationships. That’s because we allow our phones to control us.

  40   The fear of being phoneless is a serious problem. It’s like drug or cigarette addiction. If you want to change your life, sell your expensive smartphone, buy an ordinary one, and become a sociable person. There are so many wonderful people that can bring joy into our life. Chatting online is great, but chatting in real life is best.

A.     Free your mind.

B.     Choose other electronic devices.

C.     Keep your mind sharp and alert.

D.     Beat your social butterfly wings.

E.     Those who love their jobs never feel exhausted and bored.

F.     Thus, you’ll spend less time with your phone and more time in real life.

G.     I bet some of you remember times when few people had a phone at home.