Jeanne Calment, a French woman, became a record breaker on 17 October, 1995, when at the age of 120 years and 238 days, she became the longest-lived human being on record. A Japanese man died in 1986 at the age of 120 years and 237 days.
Jeanne Calment lives in a small old people’s home in the south of France; her husband, her only child and her grandson have all died. She is nearly blind and deaf and is always in a wheelchair, but her doctor describes her as being more like a 90-year-old woman in good health than someone of 120. She still has a lively sense of humor. When asked on her 120th birthday what she expected of the future, she replied: A very short one. She also remarked that she thought the good Lord had forgotten all about her.
So what is the key to a long life? According to some doctors, diet, exercise and no smoking are the three important factors. Jeanne Calment has followed two of the tips. She has always eaten a healthy diet, and she used to do exercise every day until she broke her leg at the age of 115. However, until recently she drank two glasses of strong red wine a day, and she does smoke (now only a little). Besides, Jeanne Calment might have got very good genes from her parents. Her father lived to the age of 94 and her mother to 86.
A local lawyer bought her house when she was 80 under an agreement that he would pay her some money every year until her death. It must have seemed a good move at the time, but so far the lawyer has paid her at least three times the value of the house. Every year on her birthday, Jeanne Calment sends him a card saying: Sorry, I’m still alive!How does Jeanne Calment feel about her old age?
A．She is miserable and unhappy. |
B．She is cheerful and humorous. |
| C．She would like to live much younger. | D．She feels she is going to die very soon. |
We can owe her good health and long life to _______.
| A．smoking only a little every day |
| B．her giving up smoking and drinking |
| C．drinking two glasses of strong red wine every day |
| D．the good genes from her parents, a healthy diet and some exercise |
Which of the following word could best replace the word “move” in the fourth paragraph?
| A．deal | B．trick | C．march | D．sport |
Why does Jeanne Calment say “Sorry, I’m still alive” to the lawyer every year on her birthday?
| A．Because she had an agreement at 80 with the lawyer which was to her advantage. |
| B．Because she has asked the lawyer to pay her more rent than they first agreed. |
| C．Because the lawyer has paid her much more money than the value of the house. |
| D．Because the house she sold to the lawyer is worth the money he has already paid. |
One day my uncle had been riding a horse in rain when he reached a small restaurant. Wet and coldly, and he wanted to warm himself very much. However, the restaurant was too crowded with people that he could not get near the fire. “Taking some fish to my horse!” he called out to the waiter. “Sorry, sir. But a horse didn’t eat fish!” the waiter answered. “Never mind, just do as I tell you,” my uncle said. The crowd of people felt surprising at the strange order. To see a horse eat fish, all of whom ran out. Having the whole room to himself, my uncle sat down besides the fire and began warm himself.
“People are ruder today because they are rushed and more ‘time poor’ than ever before,” says Patsy Rowe, “ Manners have fallen off the radar(雷达).” Due to our strong attraction to electronic equipment it is a wonder more people don’t wake up each morning and greet the singing birds with a complaint（抱怨）about the noise. Here are some examples of rudeness.
Some people prefer to do almost everything over the Internet. To them, dealing with an actual human is like an evolutionary step backward. It feels very slow because humans don’t work at 4G speeds. When you have dinner with friends, you will often notice someone paying more attention to his mobile phone. We have programmed ourselves to think that every new message brings life-changing news, so taking calls and checking our texts are more important than talking to the people we are with. What is worse, some people even tend to send anonymous（匿名的） rude messages by email.
However, rudeness is never acceptable. Don’t assume it is OK to be rude if the person you’re in touch with won’t recognize you. If you have something awful to say, have the courage to face the person and say it, write a letter or email and sign it, or forget it. Upsetting people with unsigned messages is cruel and disgusting.
We shouldn′t blame technology for our shortcomings. Technology is here to help us, but we should not allow it to take over our lives. An important step is acknowledging our shortcomings. People spend a lot of time pointing out bad manners but it would be even more helpful if we′d publicly acknowledge good manners when we see them. What can be infer from the underlined sentence in Paragraph 1?
| A．People can tell good from bad behavior. |
| B．Radar is able to observe human behavior. |
| C．Radar can be used to predict human behavior. |
| D．People care little about their behavior. |
Some people are less willing to deal with humans because _______.
| A．they are growing too independent |
| B．they are becoming less patient |
| C．they have to handle many important messages |
| D．they have to follow an evolutionary step backward. |
The author thinks sending unsigned awful messages is _______.
| A．ridiculous | B．acceptable |
| C．disgusting | D．reasonable |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Technology will take over lives one day. |
| B．Technology can never be blamed |
| C．We should keep pointing out mistakes. |
| D．We should applaud good behavior. |
Some people think that success is only for those with talent or those who grow up in the right family, and others believe that success mostly comes down to luck. I’m not going to say luck, talent, and circumstances don’t come into play because they do. Some people are born into the right family while others are born with great intelligence, and that’s just the reality of how life is.
However, to succeed in life, one first needs to set a goal and then gradually make it more practical. And, in addition to that, in order to get really good at something, one needs to spend at least 10,000 hours studying and practicing. To become great at certain things, it’ll require even more time, time that most people won’t put in.
This is a big reason why many successful people advise you to do something you love. If you don’t enjoy what you do, it is going to feel like unbearable pain and will likely make you quit well before you ever become good at it.
When you see people exhibiting some great skills or having achieved great success, you know that they have put in a huge part of their life to get there at a huge cost. It’s sometimes easy to think they got lucky or they were born with some rare talent, but thinking that way does you no good, and there’s a huge chance that you’re wrong anyway.
Whatever you do, if you want to become great at it, you need to work day in and day out, almost to the point of addiction, and over a long period of time. If you’re not willing to put in the time and work, don’t expect to receive any rewards. Consistent, hard work won’t guarantee you the level of success you may want, but it will guarantee that you will become really good at whatever it is you put all that work into.Paragraph 1 mainly talks about ________.
| A．the standards of success | B．the meaning of success |
| C．the reasons for success | D．the importance of success |
In Paragraph 2, the underlined word “that” refers to ______.
| A．setting a practical goal | B．being good at something |
| C．putting in more time | D．succeeding in life |
What is the main theme of the passage?
| A．Having a goal is vital to success. |
| B．Being good is different from being great. |
| C．One cannot succeed without time and practice. |
| D．Luck, talent and family help to achieve success. |
One day, when I was working as a psychologist in England，an adolescent boy showed up in my office. It was David. He kept walking up and down restlessly, his face pale, and his hands shaking slightly. His head teacher had referred him to me. "This boy has lost his family," he wrote. "He is understandably very sad and refuses to talk to others, and I'm very worried about him. Can you help?”
I looked at David and showed him to a chair. How could I help him? There are problems psychology doesn’t have the answer to, and which no words can describe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is to listen openly and sympathetically.
The first two times we met, David didn't say a word. He sat there, only looking up to look at the children's drawings on the wall behind me. I suggested we play a game of chess. He nodded. After that he played chess with me every Wednesday afternoon一in complete silence and without looking at me. It's not easy to cheat in chess, but I admit I made sure David won once or twice.
Usually, he arrived earlier than agreed, took the chess board and pieces from the shelf and began setting them up before I even got a chance to sit down. It seemed as if he enjoyed my company. But why did he never look at me?
"Perhaps he simply needs someone to share his pain with," I thought. "Perhaps he senses that I respect his suffering.”Some months later, when we were playing chess, he looked up at me suddenly.
"It’s your turn," he said.
After that day, David started talking. He got friends in school and joined a bicycle club. He wrote to me a few times about his biking with some friends, and about his plan to get into university. Now he had really started to live his own life.
Maybe I gave David something. But I also learned that one一without any words一can reach out to another person. All it takes is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly touch, and an ear that listens. When he first met the author, David.
| A．looked a little nervous | B．walked energetically |
| C．felt a little excited | D．showed up with his teacher |
As a psychologist, the author.
| A．was able to describe David's problem |
| B．was skeptical about psychology |
| C．was ready to listen to David |
| D．was sure of handling David's problem |
David enjoyed being with the author because he________.
| A．wanted to ask the author for advice |
| B．beat the author many times in the chess game |
| C．liked the children’s drawings in the office |
| D．need to share sorrow with the author |
Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library，a row of green bikes sits parked in a special stand．Each bike is designed with the logo“Nice Ride”—the name of the city’s bike-share program.
Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow．To rent a bike，you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station．Members can rent one of 1,200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city．People use the Nice Ride bikes to go to work，to go out on business，or just to enjoy the city’s many bike paths．
The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving．Rising gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets， pump air into flat tires，and hit the road．
Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise，but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air．Carbon dioxide，a greenhouse gas linked to climate change，is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tallpipe．
Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London，Paris，Barcelona，and Melbourne，Australia．The largest program-with 70,000 bikes-is in Wuhan，China.
To make roads friendlier to non-motorists，the U．S．Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years．The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called green ways．If one wants to use the bike，it's a must to __________．
| A．give away a bicycle | B．know Nice Ride well |
| C．pay the cost in advance | D．get a membership card |
Which of the following can people do with the bikes?
| A．Earn a living． | B．Enjoy bikeways． |
| C．Compete in a race． | D．Rent them out to others． |
Paragraph 4 is mainly about _____________．
| A．benefits of biking | B．pollution caused by cars |
| C．methods to use the bikes | D．ways to reduce pollution |
Which of the following is true of Nice Ride?
| A．It will take the place of taxi companies． |
| B．China has better public bike systems． |
| C．It attracts more people to choose biking． |
| D．The government lacks money to support it. |
The author's purpose in writing this text is to ______________．
| A．spread bike-share programs |
| B．seek advice for Nice Ride |
| C．compare Nice Ride with libraries |
| D．introduce the public bike system |