There are two types of people in the world. Although they have equal degree of health and wealth and other comforts of life, one becomes happy and the other becomes unhappy. This arises from the different ways in which they consider things, persons, events and the resulting effects upon their minds.
People who are to be happy fix their attention on the convenience of things: the pleasant parts of conversation, the well prepared dishes, the goodness of the wine and the fine weather. They enjoy all the cheerful things. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the opposite things. Therefore, they are continually dissatisfied. By their remarks, they sour the pleasure of society, offend(hurt) many people, and make themselves disagreeable everywhere. If this turn of mind was founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied. The intention of criticizing(批评) and being disliked is perhaps taken up by imitation(模仿). It grows into a habit, unknown to its possessors. The habit may be strong, but it may be cured when those who have it realize its bad effects on their interests and tastes. I hope this little warning may be of service to them, and help them change this habit.
Although in fact it is chiefly an act of the imagination, it has serious results in life since it brings on deep sorrow and bad luck. Those people offend many others; nobody loves them, and no one treats them with more than the most common politeness and respect. This frequently puts them in bad temper and draws them into arguments. If they aim at getting some advantages in social position or fortune, nobody wishes them success. Nor will anyone start a step or speak a word to favor their hopes. If they bring on themselves public objections, no one will defend or excuse them, and many will join to criticize their wrongdoings. These should change this bad habit and be pleased with what is pleasing, without worrying needlessly about themselves and others. If they do not, it will be good for others to avoid any contact(接触) with them. Otherwise, it can be disagreeable and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one becomes mixed up in their quarrels. People who are unhappy _______.
A.always consider things differently from others |
B.usually are affected by the results of certain things |
C.usually misunderstand what others think or say |
D.always discover the unpleasant side of certain things |
The phrase “sour the pleasure of society” most nearly means “_______”.
A.have a good taste with social life | B.make others unhappy |
C.tend so scold others openly | D.enjoy the pleasure of life |
We can conclude from the passage that _______.
A.we should pity all such unhappy people |
B.such unhappy people are dangerous to social life |
C.people can get rid of the habit of unhappiness |
D.unhappy people can not understand happy persons |
If such unhappy persons insist on keeping the habit, the author suggests that people should _______.
A.prevent any communication with them |
B.show no respect and politeness to them |
C.persuade them to recognize the bad effects |
D.quarrel with them until they realize the mistakes |
In this passage, the writer mainly _______.
A.describes two types of people |
B.laughs at the unhappy people |
C.suggests the unhappy people should get rid of the habits of unhappiness |
D.tells people how to be happy in life |
All over my garden I’ve planted nothing but roses, sweet and — if looked at far away — bright with color like sunset clouds, I’d be very happy if anyone of my visiting friends should desire to pick and take some for their homes. I trust that any friend of mine carrying the rose would disappear into the distance feeling that his emotions had been rekindled (重燃).
A close friend came for a visit the other day. I know her to be a lover of flowers and plants. And for that reason I told her at her departure that she should pick a bunch of roses to grace her bedroom. I promised that the smell of the roses would be wafted f
ar, far away.
That girl friend of mine, tiptoeing into the garden in high spirits, smelt here and there, but in the end she didn’t pick a single rose. I said there were so many of them that she would pick as many as she’d like to; I told her that I was not a flower farmer and didn’t make a living out of them. Saying so I raised the scissors for the sacrifice of the flowers, but she stopped me, crying no, no, no!
To cut such beautiful roses would hurt one, she said. With her hands seizing at my sleeves, she told me that by no means should they be cut. Roses are the smiling face of the earth, and who could be so iron-hearted as to destroy a smile so charming?
My mind was thoroughly shocked: the ugly earth, the rough earth, the plain earth—it is for the reason of that smile that it wins the care and pity of people The underlined word “wafted” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to “__________”.
A.moved | B.lost | C.destroyed | D.felt |
The writer plants nothing but roses in her garden probably because __________.
A.she can make money out of them |
B.her friends like them |
C.she enjoys the roses very much |
D.the roses can rekindle her friends’ emotions |
Why did the writer’s close friend refuse to pick a single rose?
A.Because the roses were not beautiful |
B.Because she did not like this kind of roses |
C.Because the writer did not want to give her any |
D.Because she loved the roses very much |
What would be the best title for the passage?
A.A lovely rose garden. | B.The smiling face of the earth |
C.The pity of people to the roses. | D.A lover of flowers |
Throughout the history of the arts, the nature of creativity has remained constant to artists. No matter what objects they select, artists are to bring forth new forces and forms that cause change—to find poetry where no one has ever seen or experienced it before.
Landscape(风景) is another unchanging element of art. It can be found from ancient times through the 17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists and impressionists. In the 1970s Alfred Leslie, one of the new American realists, continued this practice. Leslie sought out the same place where Thomas Cole, a romanticist, had produced paintings of the same scene a century and a half before. Unlike Cole who insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace in nature, Leslie paints what he actually sees. In his paintings, there is no particular change in emotion, and he includes ordinary things like the highway in the background. He also takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography(摄影术) to help both the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom.
Besides, all art begs the age-old question: What is real? Each generation of artists has shown their understanding of reality in one form or another. The impressionists saw reality in brief emotional effects, the realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes, and the Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic drawings of the animals in the ancient forests. To sum up, understanding reality is a necessary struggle for artists of all periods.
Over thousands of years the function of the arts has remained relatively constant. Past or present, Eastern or Western, the arts are a basic part of our immediate experience. Many and different are the faces of art, and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings. Leslie's paintings are extraordinary because_______ .
A.they are close in style to works in ancient times |
B.they look like works by 19th-century painters |
C.they draw attention to common things in life |
D.they depend heavily on color photography |
What is the author's opinion of artistic reality?
A.It will not be found in future works of art. |
B.It does not have a long-lasting standard. |
C.It is expressed in a fixed artistic form. |
D.It is lacking in modern works of art. |
What does the author suggest about the arts in the last paragraph?
A.They express people's curiosity about the past. |
B.They make people interested in everyday experience. |
C.They are considered important for variety in form. |
D.They are regarded as a mirror of the human situation. |
Dear all,
Please read Professor Hume's email about his next lecture on Rosa Parks.
Susan Miller
Secretary
***************************************
Dear Susan,
Please forward this message to students of my history class.
Besides the life story of Rosa Parks in the textbook, the students are also required to read the passage below and some related stories that can be borrowed from the school library.
Ted Hume
The early experiences of Rosa Parks(1913-2005), long known as the “mother of the civil rights movement, ”were not different from those of many African-Americans at that time. The black woman, however, turned the course of American history in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. “By sitting down, ”remarked John Lewis, “she was standing up for all Americans. ”
Among the numerous awards Parks received in her life were the Presidential Medal of Freedom(1996)and the Congressional Gold Medal(1999).
Parks died on Oct. 24, 2005. At St. Paul A. M. E. Church in Montgomery, a large crowd including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice celebrated her life. Rice said she and others, who grew up when the political activities of Parks held public attention, might not have realized her impact(影响)on their lives, “but I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here as Secretary of State. ”
After her casket(灵柩)was placed at the Capitol, U. S. President Bush, members of Congress and ordinary Americans paid their respects. In American history Parks is the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol, a very high regard usually reserved for Presidents of the United States. What is the main purpose of Susan’s email?
A.To make arrangements for Professor Hume's class. | B.To introduce to the students Rosa Parks. |
C.To help the students organize a lecture. | D.To answer Professor Hume's last email. |
What does the underlined word “forward” mean?
A.Explain. | B.Send. | C.Take. | D.Read. |
The political impact of Rosa Parks lies in the fact that she .
A.helped Condoleezza Rice achieve political success |
B.joined the civil rights movement at a young age |
C.made racial equality a common value in American society |
D.set a good example in her early life for other black Americans |
How was Rosa Parks treated after her death?
A.She was named “mother of the civil rights movement. ” |
B.She was received by President Bush at the Capitol. |
C.She was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. |
D.She was honored to lie in state at the Capitol. |
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image (印象) of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seen to be about their families,” said one member of the research team. “They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds: they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends.” My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall. “I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenager rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, “Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in out social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.” What is the popular images of teenagers today?
A.They worry about school | B.They dislike living with their parents |
C.They have to be locked in to avoid troubles | D.They quarrel a lot with other family members |
The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ___
A.share family responsibility | B.cause trouble in their families |
C.go boating with their family | D.make family decisions |
Compared with parents of 30 years age, today’s parents___.
A.go to clubs more often with their children | B.are much stricter with their children |
C.care less about their children’s life | D.give their children more freedom |
According to the author, teenage rebellion____.
A.may be a false belief | B.is common nowadays |
C.existed only in the 1960s | D.resulted from changes in families |
You're in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater. You listen to their conversation:
“I can't believe it--a Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find. Isn't it beautiful? And it's a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome. ”
They leave and you go over to see this incredible sweater. It's nice and the price is right. You've never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish. They must know. So, you buy it. You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency. They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo Bertolla clothes.
Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating. If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too. This is the secret of undercover marketing. Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising. This is particularly true of the MTV generation----consumers between the age of 18 and 34. It is a golden group. They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to “perform” in bars and other places where young adults go. Some people might call this practice deceptive(骗人的), but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative. “Look at traditional advertising. Its effectiveness is decreasing. ”
However, one might ask what exactly is “real” about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Advertising executives would say it's no less real than an ad. The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something. You don' t know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance. The two attractive young women were talking so that they could ________.
A.get the sweater at a lower price | B.be heard by people around |
C.be admired by other shoppers | D.decide on buying the sweater |
Lorenzo Bertolla is __________.
A.a very popular male singer | B.an advertising agency |
C.a clothing company in Rome | D.the brand name of a sweater |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A.The two girls are in fact employed by the Lorenzo Bertolla Company. |
B.The MTV generation tend to be more easily influenced by ads. |
C.Traditional advertising is becoming less effective because it's too direct. |
D.Undercover marketing will surely be banned soon by the government. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A.Two Attractive Shoppers | B.Lorenzo Bertolla Sweaters |
C.Ways of Advertising | D.Undercover Marketing |