Working or learning in a foreign country can be a difficult experience, both professionally and personally, due to the cultural shock.

The hardest part of working abroad isn’t to find a place to stay or learn the language but to overcome the cultural shock. The anthropologist (人类学家) Kalvero Oberg first put forward the term “culture shock”. He reported that it was caused by the “anxiety” that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of communication while living and working in another culture.

These things are part of daily life, and include gestures, facial expressions and customs. When we enter a new culture, these signs are usually so different that they’re no longer comprehensible (可理解的) to us. “When an individual enters a strange culture”, wrote Oberg, “all or most of these familiar signs are eliminated. He or she is like a fish out of water, however broad-minded he or she may be.”

This is what happened to Lara, a young IT consultant from America who began to work in southern Europe last year. Three weeks after arriving in Europe, she sent a desperate e-mail begging to return home. “The people are so rude,” she wrote. “They eat at strange hours and I’m starting to feel appetizing to local food. I can’t get anything done because their way of doing business is so efficient. I just want to be home.”

What Lara and other IT consultants meet on their work abroad is a culture shock. While we can’t prevent it from happening, we can still take steps to weaken its effects.

【小题1】What is the most challenging for a worker living abroad for the first time?

A．Learning the new language.

B．Finding a place to stay.

C．Adapting to the new culture.

D．Earning a high income.

【小题2】Which of the following best explains the underlined word “eliminated”?

A．Removed.

B．Accepted.

C．Questioned.

D．Challenged.

【小题3】What does Lara’s oversea experience mainly tell us?

A．Life abroad is always in a mess.

B．Colleagues abroad aren’t easy-going.

C．Working abroad isn’t a wise choice.

D．Culture acceptance matters much for a foreigner.

【小题4】What might follow the end of the passage?

A．Measures taken to further understand culture shock.

B．Measures taken to explore the causes of culture shock.

C．Measures taken to reduce the influences of culture shock.

D．Measures taken to rid the influences of culture shock.