You wake up in the morning, the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then the telephone rings, you say hello, and the drama starts. The person on the other end has a depressing tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to. You are still in a wonderful mood? Impossible!
Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness. It may not change what you think, but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time.
Life brings ups and downs, but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer. They only feel glad when they make others feel bad. No wonder they can hardly win others’ pity or respect.
When you communicate with positive people, your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted. When the dagger（匕首） of a negative person is put in you, you feel the heavy feeling that all in all, brings you down.
Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people. This could be a co-worker, or a relative. In this case, say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person, but all this is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that.
Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized. The negative words of another at the start of the day can cling to（附着） you throughout the rest of your day, which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness. Life is too short to feel negative. Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible. The purpose of the first paragraph is to __________.
| A．make a comparison | B．offer an evidence |
| C．introduce a topic | D．describe a daily scene |
How can negative people have effect on us?
| A．By changing our ways of thinking |
| B．By telling us the nature of life |
| C．By influencing our emotion |
| D．By comparing their attitudes to life with ours |
Some negative people base their happiness on __________.
| A．other people’s respect for them |
| B．other people’s pity for them |
| C．building up a positive attitude |
| D．making other people unhappy |
According to the passage, to reduce negative people’s influence on us, we are advised to __________.
| A．show our dissatisfaction to negative people |
| B．communicate with negative people as little as possible |
| C．change negative people’s attitudes to life |
| D．make negative people feel ashamed of themselves |
What are American high schools like? Well, I’m happy to tell you what I know.
When I started school here, it had already been a week since the school opened. At this school, freshmen usually go on a trip for about three days at the beginning of school. Unfortunately I missed that wonderful trip, which would have been the best time to get to know my classmates. I was really sad. I wished I’d known about it earlier.
Despite the disappointment, however, I gradually adapted to my new life and school.
There is a space in the basement of the teaching building where students chat and meet each other. As we do not always have the same classrooms and classmates, the school wants us to get to know each other there. Students usually come to school early, sit in that space and have fun. Around the space, there are many lockers for students to leave their books in, so that students do not have to carry a heavy schoolbag everywhere.
It really surprises me that we have almost no textbooks. We only have textbooks for World History and Algebra 2 and they are big and heavy, like bricks. For other classes, we only need binders (活页夹) with paper in them. Without textbooks, students learn things freely and actively. For example, my humanities teacher just teaches us what is in her mind at the time. We never know what we will learn.
Another difference between American schools and Chinese schools is that American schools care about students’ morality more than their academic studies. For example, if you do not finish your homework, you will just be asked to do it later, but if you cheat or lie, you will get a warning or even be kicked out.
I think that most students here are good at schoolwork as well, but compared to Chinese students, they can make learning a more joyful experience. I think we should take the good points from our two different kinds of education to perfect our approach to studying. What was the writer sad for?
| A．He was late for school. |
| B．He missed the trip at the beginning of school. |
| C．He didn’t know anyone. |
| D．American students looked down upon him. |
Why do students go to the basement of the teaching building?
| A．To attend class. | B．To share a classroom. |
| C．To have fun. | D．To meet teachers. |
How do teachers in the US teach the students?
| A．However they want to. |
| B．They use bricks. |
| C．Some use textbooks; some teach freely. |
| D．They always teach as required. |
According to the passage, in American high schools, ________.
| A．you are likely to be kicked out if you cheat |
| B．you’ll be punished if you do not finish your homework |
| C．students are better at school work than Chinese students |
| D．students care much about the grades they get |
The new high-speed railway line between Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur self-governing region, and Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, has cut train travel time by half to less than 12 hours.
The dramatic improvement will benefit many families planning reunions for Spring Festival.
"For the first time, I feel home is not that far away after all," said Liang Shaofu as he boarded a high-speed train in Urumqi with six members of his family.
The 35-year-old left Lanzhou to set up a dry fruit business in Xinjiang eight years ago, and he has now settled in Urumqi.
The 1,776-km line, which passes through Qinghai province and is the country's first high-speed railway to be built in a high-altitude region, came into service on Dec 26.
"We normally drive home for Spring Festival to avoid the difficulties of buying seven train tickets for the whole family during the peak season," Liang said. "Driving can be very tiring and dangerous sometimes, so one year we even decided not to go back to Lanzhou simply to avoid the trip.
More than 600,000 passengers traveled on the line during its first month, and the Urumqi Railway Bureau said the introduction of high-speed services will ease transport pressure during the Spring Festival peak season.
The existing usual railway line could no longer support Xinjiang's development. All passenger trains will gradually shift to the new link, leaving the old one to be used for goods. As a result, Xinjiang's annual goods ability could reach 200 million metric tons from the current 70 million.
The line passes through areas that experience high winds, and it also crosses parts of the deserted Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the bone-dry sands of the Gobi Desert.
The project could help China to promote its high-speed railway technology abroad, said Ma Xizhang, director of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway project's management department in Xinjiang.How long did it take to go from Urumqi to Lanzhou by the usual train before?
| A．about 12 hours. | B．About 6 hours. |
| C．About 18 hours. | D．About 24 hours. |
What’s the main advantage of the new high-speed railway?
| A．It takes more time to go to Urumqi to Lanzhou. |
| B．It will be more convenient for people all over the country to Xinjiang. |
| C．All the people in Lanzhou can return home on festivals. |
| D．It helps to improve Xinjiang’s development. |
From the passage we can learn _______.
| A．Xinjiang’s annual goods ability can increase nearly four times |
| B．the new railway technology may help more railway lines to be built abroad |
| C．the high-speed railway lines can’t be built across the bone-dry sands |
| D．the old railway lines can only carry goods now |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．The new high-speed railway line is good for all people to go home. |
| B．The new high-speed railway line benefits businessmen to carry goods. |
| C．Taking the new train is safer than driving home from Urumqi to Lanzhou. |
| D．Businessmen seldom went home for Spring Festival before. |
Every Wednesday, I go to Cantata Adult Life Services, a local retirement community in Brookfield, Illinois, US, with my classmates to do community service.
After my very first visit to Cantata, my life changed forever. That may sound a bit dramatic, but volunteering with the elderly has changed my views on life.
Our visits last about an hour, and we bring 25-30 students every time. We play board games and cards with the residents while we’re there.
You can watch all the movies and TV shows you want about “life back then”, but nothing compares to talking to the people who were actually there. Just hearing their stories has touched me in a way I never thought possible.
Whether it was talking to 98-year-old “Hurricane Hilda” about her glory days as a roller skater or chatting with Lou about the times she danced with a famous actor, I was completely attracted by every single memory the residents wanted to share with me.
Even the residents who don’t have amazing memories make the experience satisfying . I remember visiting Mrs Robinson. She couldn’t recall much about her past, but she told me she’d never forget how kind I wasjust to listen to her “rambling (漫谈)”. It made me realize that it’s the little things that make life worth living. That’s something I won’t forget anytime soon.
If there’s one thing I’ve realized in my three years of visiting Cantata, it’s that presence –just being there –means more than anything to many of the residents. And despite how busy our lives are, there’s always time to make someone’s day.
For me, it feels great to be a source of happiness, a smile on a bad day or a listening ear for old memories. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.It’s easy to feel like you don’t have anything in common with the elderly –especially when you’re a teenager. But that’s not true at all.
I hate to be overly clichéd (陈词滥调的) here, but age really is just a number. As young adults, it’s important for us to realize this sooner rather than later. We can learn a lot from the elderly, and they can often benefit from teenagers too.What do the volunteers do according to the passage?
| A．They share everything with the residents. |
| B．They play board games and cards with the residents. |
| C．They watch the residents play games. |
| D．They buy gifts for the residents. |
According to the writer, what is the most important thing that volunteers can do for the elderly?
| A．Playing with them. | B．Benefiting from them. |
| C．Helping them. | D．Being there with them. |
What does the writer want to tell us by writing this passage ?
| A．We don’t have anything in common with the elderly. |
| B．Age is just a number. |
| C．It is important to help the elderly. |
| D．Young adults and the elderly can benefit from each other. |
We’ve been covering standing desks for a long time now because experts agree that sitting all day is killing us. We want to be productive while also keeping our bodies healthy. Over the years, there have been several solutions to this from fixed standing desks to adjustable ones, portable desks to ones that change into shelves.
However, the most high tech and elegant solution has to be this new smart desk called The Stir Kinetic Desk. The desk learns your daily behaviors and moves between a sitting and standing height regularly throughout the day to keep you moving without interrupting your work flow.
You can program specific sitting and standing intervals or let the desk set the schedule. If you tend to sit while returning emails in the morning, but always want to stand during that afternoon conference call, the desk will learn those regular habits and adjust the schedule to fit them. Of course, the desk can always be manually lowered or raised by using the touch screen on the lower left comer of the desk.
When switching positions, the desk gently dips and rises to let you know that a change is coming up. If you’re not ready to switch positions at that time, you can tap the touchscreen to stay sitting or standing for a while longer.
The built-in touchscreen also keeps track of your daily sitting and standing times and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. You can even set goals for how long or often you want to stand. The desk also works with fitness devices like the FitBit to track your movements.
All of that smart tech doesn’t come cheap though. The M1 desk, which is the everyday model, runs a steep $2,990, while the more executive model with added features, the F1, goes for$4,190.
While expensive, it’s worth thinking of how much time we spend at our desks. Much like a good mattress(床垫), a good desk that works with you is worth the investment. Hopefully in a few years these smart, integrated desks will be more common and less expensive.
The Stir Kinetic Desk has been designed to_______.
| A．help users with their work |
| B．keep users moving all the time |
| C．get users to exercise while working |
| D．remind users of their working schedule |
Which is the feature of the touchscreen of the desk?
| A．It can tell users when to change positions. |
| B．It can track users’ changes of positions. |
| C．It can keep users in a fixed position. |
| D．It can detect users’ health condition. |
Which of the following can best describe the desk?
| A．Productive but challenging. |
| B．Convenient but unaffordable. |
| C．Complex and impractical. |
| D．Multi-functional and intelligent. |
What does the author intend to tell us in the last paragraph?
| A．To spend money on such a desk is rewarding. |
| B．We should get such a desk as soon as possible. |
| C．It won’t be long before the desk is widely used. |
| D．Desks play a very important role in our daily life. |
The world’s richest man might seem to have it all, but Bill Gates has one regret. The self-made billionaire said he felt stupid for not knowing any foreign languages.
Speaking in his third Ask Me Anything question-and-answer session for online forum Reddit(红迪网), the Microsoft founder said that he wished he spoke French, Arabic or Chinese.
He said: “I took Latin and Greek in high school and got A’s and I guess it helps my vocabulary. I keep hoping to get time to study one of these—probably French because it is the easiest. I did Duolingo for a while but didn’t keep it up.”
Gates, who is worth $79.3 billion, praised Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for surprising an audience in Beijing when he spoke fluent Chinese. “Mark Zuckerberg amazingly leamed Chinese and did a Q&A with Chinese students—unbelievable, isn’t it?” he said.
This isn’t the first time for Gates to admit his regret over language. He also showed his habits at home and personal insights.
Last February, Gates said he likes to do the dishes himself—to his own special standards every night and also told the interviewer that his wife, Melinda, would likely want Samuel L. Jackson to play her husband in a biopic(传记片).
He also admitted that he would pick up a $100 bill if he found it on the street.
As he took the top spot on Forbes(福布斯)28th Annual Billionaires list last year for the fourth time, he said he is pretty basic when it comes to so ending on clothes and food, but that he enjoys investing in shoes and racquets(球拍)when he plays tennis.
When asked a life lesson he had to learn the hard way, the billionaire said staying up too late is a habit he is still trying to break. “Don’t stay up too late even if the book is really exciting. You will regret it in the morning. Pam still working on this problem,” he said. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．An Interview with Bill Gates |
| B．How Bill Gates Succeeded |
| C．Bill Gates’ Regret |
| D．The Richest Billionaire |
The underlined part in Paragraph 8 may actually mean that_____.
| A．it is important to lay a good foundation of life |
| B．food and clothing are basic needs for people’s life |
| C．he doesn’t spend much money on food and clothes |
| D．he never cares about buying food and clothing |
What advice did Bill Gates give?
| A．Avoid staying up too late. |
| B．Be a good language learner. |
| C．Do the dishes yourself at home. |
| D．Pick up the $100 bills in the streets. |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Bill Gates is also the founder of Facebook |
| B．Bill Gates topped the list of Forbes 28 times. |
| C．Bill Gates was good at learning languages in high schoo1. |
| D．Bill Gates’ wife wants Samuel to play a game with Gates. |