IT’S over – millions of Senior 3 students across the country have finished their last exams. But in two years, it’ll be your turn in the examination room. How can you spend the time you have left to best effect? Read these thoughts from new graduates to get some pointers.
Cao A’min, 18
Xuanhua No 1 High School, Hebei
Study: Keeping pace (步伐) with teachers is a good way to study. Teachers are experienced and their plans are systematic (系统的). But remember to work in a way that suits you. It’s also important to learn from past mistakes. Keep a notebook to make a record of the mistakes you make – it’ll help you avoid making the same ones later.
Zhang Zilu, 17
Xinyu No 1 High School, Jiangxi
Friendship: This time of life may be hard, but you’re not alone. You may be busy studying, but you can show you care by calling your friends or sending a short message. Don’t let your friendships die. Some boys and girls in my class were in love, but I’d advise against a relationship at this stage.
Zhan Yu, 17
Huanggang High School, Hubei
Health: It’s as important to live well as it is to study well, I think. I went to bed no later than 11:30 pm. It put me in the right mood for the next day. I didn’t follow a special diet (饮食), but I did make sure I ate a nutritious (有营养的) breakfast each day.
Ju Shuntian, 18
Yantai Economic and Technological Development Zone Senior High School, Shandong
Relaxation: The person who plays well, studies well. Having a lot of schoolwork doesn’t mean having to give up on every other activity. I played basketball or took a walk to relax when I felt tired. Time out is not a waste of time but helps you study more efficiently (高效地).
Zhang Qingzhou, 17
Dongtai High School, Jiangsu
Options: Besides taking the big exam, you have other choices for college. I took the independent enrollment (自主招生) exam held by Peking University and some other students even prepared to study abroad. Pay attention to any relevant information you can find, whether it’s from school, the news media or another source (来源).Who is the passage mainly written for?
| A．teachers |
| B．senior students |
| C．junior students |
| D．parents |
This passage shows students some aspects of proper arrangement except ________.
| A．Study | B．Friendship | C．Health | D．Sports |
What’s Zhang Zilu’s attitude to students’ love happening in senior life?
| A．Approval |
| B．Rejective |
| C．Neutral |
| D．Not mentioned |
If you’d like to take the independent enrollment, what should you do?
| A．Do morning exercises every day |
| B．Go to bed later than11:30 |
| C．Pay attention to any relevant information |
| D．Call your friends or send short message |
Every kid wishes to be an adult. Do you remember playing houses as a child pretending to be a grownup like your parents? Did you imagine you were a doctor, a soldier or a teacher? At that time, anything seemed more exciting than young.
But now as grownups, some adults find they cannot leave childhood behind. They become “kidults”(kid+adult). Being a kidult has become a lifestyle choice among young people across Asia. Some kidults collect toys they once played with. Hello Kitty, Garfield, and Snoopy have many adult fans around the world. It is not unusual to see a 20something woman with a big, Garfieldshaped cushion on her sofa or a Hello Kitty mobile phone accessory(饰物). Other kidults still enjoy children’s stories and fairy tales. For example, even an edition of the Harry Potter novels with an adult cover came out in Britain. That way, no one else on the subway will know that an adult is actually reading a children’s book!
“Kidults can be like vitamins to society. Adults who value their childhood and hold on to pure, childlike emotion may be needed in such a rough and dry society,” said a professor in a Korean University. He added that kidult culture might fill the generation gap between adults and kids. It could give children and their parents books, movies, and cartoon shows to enjoy together.
Tim Greenhalgh, a professor in London explained that some kidults just refuse to grow up. They cling to(舍不得放弃) childhood because life in a busy and stressful city frightens them. Kidults would like to forget their age and openly show their fear of society and adulthood.
“So, they look for an escape from increasingly complex and stressful life that are hard to deal with,” Greenhalgh said.We can learn from the passage that kidults are________.
| A．children who can’t wait to grow up |
| B．grownups who hold on to childlike emotion |
| C．people who enjoy playing sports |
| D．young people who pretended to be grownups when young |
According to the passage, kidults would like to do the following except________.
| A．buy Hello Kitty mobile phone accessories |
| B．read a children’s book on the subway |
| C．work in a busy and stressful city |
| D．collect toys they once played with |
In the opinion of the Professor in a Korean University, kidults are________.
| A．immature (不成熟) and weak |
| B．necessary to our society |
| C．looked down upon |
| D．getting more and more |
The main reason of the kidult culture lies in that________.
| A．some companies are taking advantage of it |
| B．modern life is stressful and hard |
| C．some people like to stay young and energetic |
| D．some people wish to bridge the generation gap |
Happiness pays off, studies show.
Psychologists seeking the real secrets of happiness report that very happy people tend to be more extroverted and agreeable than less happy people.
“Our findings suggest that very happy people have rich and satisfying social relationships and spend little time alone compared to average people,” write psychologists Ed Diener and Martin E. P. Seligman in the journal Psychological Science.
Solid social relationships do not promise happiness, but they are an important contributing factor. The very happy people whom the authors studied all said they had good quality social relationships. However, the authors write, there is no single key to high happiness. “High happiness seems to be like beautiful symphonic music--including many instruments, without any one being enough for the beautiful quality.”
Diener regards happiness as “subjective (主观的) wellbeing”--in other words, the person evaluates his or her own quality of life. The question to ask is, “Is my life going well, according to the standards I choose to use?” If the answer is “yes”, then that person is judged to be happy.
Because people evaluate their lives based on happiness, subjective wellbeing is very important. Though necessary, it is not enough for having a good life. “Subjective wellbeing seems quite necessary for the ‘good society’, although it is not enough for that society because there are other things we also value and would want in such a place.” says Diener.
Can subjective wellbeing be measured scientificall? Diener points out three parts contributing to happiness: pleasant emotions and moods, lack of negative emotions and moods, and satisfaction judgment, to which other factors including cheerfulness and feelings of fulfillment may be added.
There is no magic formula for happiness. Diener suggests steps you can take to ensure you are as happy as you can be. Surrounding yourself with good friends and family--people who care about you and whom you care about--is a start. Joining in activities you enjoy and value is also important; whether it’s work or play, keeping busy in an environment enjoyable to you will contribute much to your subjective wellbeing. In addition, a healthy outlook is necessary.The underlined word “extroverted” probably means________.
| A．pleasant and social | B．hardworking and active |
| C．careful and shy | D．warmhearted and helpful |
Happiness and symphonic music are common in that________.
| A．they are both something beautiful |
| B．they both make people feel pleased |
| C．they both depend on more than one factor |
| D．they are both hard to achieve |
According to Diener, a person can be judged to be happy when he________.
| A．has rich and satisfying social relationships |
| B．spends more time with other people |
| C．joins in a lot of activities he enjoys and keeps himself optimistic |
| D．thinks his life is going well according to his own standards |
Which of the following does NOT belong to factors contributing to happiness?
| A．Pleasant moods. |
| B．Negative emotions. |
| C．Satisfaction judgment. |
| D．Feelings of fulfillment. |
What is it that makes people laugh? More than two thousand years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined (定义) jokes as the pleasure that results from a feeling of triumph by showing we’re better than someone else in a certain way. According to Aristotle and many other philosophers, all jokes depend mainly on showing inferiority in another person or group of persons--that is, putting it clearly, on showing that they are worse off than ourselves. Jokes raise our good opinion of ourselves at someone else’s expense.
Showing how much better than other people we are is only one reason we like jokes. Someone may also use a joke to express their anger or their cruelty or any other kind of action that is not acceptable to us. We feel free to laugh when we hear about someone sliding on a banana skin. The joke lets us express those attitudes which are usually unacceptable to society. This is probably the reason why some of the jokes, especially those involving cruelty, are so popular with certain people.
Besides, all jokes depend on our enjoyment of laughing at something that is strange and out of place because it’s different from things which are happening around it. The same situation can be either sad or pleasant, depending entirely on how strange and out of place it is. If a girl in a bathing suit falls into a swimming pool, we don’t laugh because nothing unusual has happened. But if a man in a smart suit falls in, the situation is at once unusual in a pleasant way and we laugh. A good joketeller will always try to build up a situation in which one thing is expected until something unexpected suddenly happens, and so we laugh.According to Aristotle, all jokes depend mainly on________.
| A．showing inferiority in another person or group |
| B．resulting in a sense of success |
| C．having a good opinion of other people |
| D．making people laugh unexpectedly |
What’s the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．Showing we are better than other people is the only one reason we like jokes. |
| B．When people are angry, they would like to hear jokes. |
| C．People who like jokes are usually cruel. |
| D．To express those attitudes usually unacceptable to society is one of the reasons we like jokes. |
What will a good joketeller always try to do?
| A．Make a sad situation into a pleasant one. |
| B．Make different things happen at the same time. |
| C．Make an unexpected thing happen in an expected situation. |
| D．Make people laugh at something unusual and out of place. |
Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to “think and concentrate.” Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests.
In the first test, each subject (试验对象) sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and nonsmokers performed equally well.
The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster， but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived smokers.
In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.
The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details.
“As our tests became more complex.” Sums up Spilich, “non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins” He predicts, “smokers might perform adequately at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity.”The purpose of George Spilich’s experiments is _______.
| A．to test whether smoking has a positive effect on the mental capacity of smokers |
| B．to show how smoking damages people’s mental capacity |
| C．to prove that smoking affects people’s regular performance |
| D．to find out whether smoking helps people’s short-term memory |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Active smokers in general performed better than deprived smokers. |
| B．Active smokers responded more quickly than the other subjects. |
| C．Non-smokers were not better than other subjects in performing simple tasks. |
| D．Deprived smokers gave the slowest responses to the various tasks. |
We can infer from the last paragraph that _______.
| A．smokers should not expect to become airline pilots |
| B．smoking in emergency cases causes mental illness |
| C．no airline pilots smoke during flights |
| D．smokers may prove unequal to handing emergency cases |
Don’t talk to me; I’m busy with my iPhone
Riding a London subway, a person from China will notice one major difference: in London, people do not look at each other. In fact, eye contact is avoided at all times. That’s not rudeness—people are just too busy to bother looking.
Busy doing what, you ask? Well, they’re certainly not using the time for a moment of quiet reflection, nor are they reading a book. New technology has replaced quiet habits. Today the only acceptable form of book on the London underground is an e-book.
Apple must earn a fortune from London commuters（乘车上下班的人）. Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, over 40,000—yes, that’s 40,000—“apps”（programs downloaded for the iPhone）have been designed.
Commuters love them because they are the perfect time-fillers. One “app”, called iShoot, is a game that features tanks（坦克）. Another one, Tube Exits, tells passengers where to sit on the train to be closest to the exit of their destination. ISteam clouds the iPhone screen when you breathe into the microphone. You can then write in the “ steam” on your phone screen.
For those without an iPhone, another Apple product, the iPod, may be another choice. It’s not just teenagers who “plug in” to their music—iPods are a popular way to pass the time for all ages.
And if games, e-books and music aren’t enough to keep you occupied, then perhaps you would prefer a film. The development of palm DVD technology means many commuters watch their favorite TV show or film on the way to work. With all this entertainments, it’s amazing that people still remember to get off the train.People in London do not make eye contact on the subway because ______.
| A．they are busy reading books |
| B．they are not very polite |
| C．they are busy playing with their electronic equipment |
| D．thinking about their private things |
Those who like war games can download _____ to their iPhones.
| A．Tube Exits | B．iPod |
| C．ISteam | D．iShoot |
The underlined word “occupied” in the last paragraph probably means _____.
| A．delighted | B．amused |
| C．controlled | D．busy |
The article tells us that _____.
| A．London commuters are unfriendly to strangers |
| B．technology is changing the way London commuters spend their traveling time. |
| C．with all the new time-fillers, London commuters often forget to get off the train. |
| D．Apple has earned a lot of money from selling 40,000 iPhones |