considered, competent, interaction, assess, consequently, results, exploring, precious, acute, count, rush, exchanges, resent, conduct, devices, We, Americans, believe no one stands still. This attitude ____in a nation of people committed to researching, experimenting and_____. Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully. We are slaves to nothing but clock. It is a______ resource. Many people have a rather _____sense of the shortness of each lifetime. We want every minute_____. A foreigner ’ s first impression of the US is likely to be that everyone is in a______. You will miss smiles, brief conversations and small______ with strangers. This is because people value time highly, and they ______someone else wasting it. Many new arrivals will miss the opening exchanges of a business call and the ritual______ with a cup of tea that may be a convention in their own country. We ______our visitors professionally rather than socially. We start talking business quickly. Time is always ticking in our inner ear._______, we work hard at the task of saving time. We communicate rapidly through electronic _______instead of face-to-face conversation. Our country is a telephone country. Almost everyone uses the telephone to _____business, to chat with friends and the like. Some new arrival ______it impolite to work too quickly. Assignments are, consequently, given added weight by the passage of time. In the US, however, it is taken as a sign of skillfulness or being _______to solve a problem.