To a large degree, the measure of our peace of mind is determined by how much we are able to live in the present moment. In spite of what happened yesterday or last year, and what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is where you are—always!
Without question, many of us have mastered the sensitive art of spending much of our lives worrying about a variety of things—all at once. We allow past problems and future concerns to control our present moments, so much that we end up anxious, discouraged, depressed, and hopeless. On the other hand, we also put off our satisfaction, and put off what we should think of first, and our happiness, often convincing ourselves that "someday" will be better than today. Unfortunately, the same mental power that tells us to look toward the future will only repeat themselves so that "someday" never actually arrives. John Lennon once said, "Life is what's happening while we're busy making other plans." When we are busy making other plans, our children are busy growing up, the people we love are moving away and dying, our bodies are getting out of shape, and our dreams are slipping away. In short, we miss our life.
Many people live as if life were dress rehearsal (彩排) for someday in the future. It isn't. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. When our attention is in the present moment, we push fear from our minds. Fear is the concern over events that might happen in the future—we won't have enough money, our children will get into trouble, we will get old and die, whatever.
To fight against fear, the best method is to learn to bring your attention back to the present. Mark Twain said, "I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. I don't think I can say it any better. Practice keeping yourattention on here, and now. Your efforts will pay off sooner or later."If a person is able to enjoy the present moment, then he __________.
| A．is out of mind |
| B．is in peace of mind |
| C．has forgotten his past |
| D．will ignore his future |
In the writer's eyes, "fear" is the __________.
| A．concern over past problems |
| B．attention on the present. |
| C．worry about what might happen in the future |
| D．anxiety about dress rehearsal |
By using what John Lennon said, the writer intends to __________.
| A．advise people to fix their attention on the present life |
| B．remind people to make good plans for their future |
| C．warn people that their children are growing up |
| D．remind people that their bodies are out of shape |
According to the writer, now is __________.
| A．the only time for us to get rid of what happened yesterday |
| B．the first time for us to look forward to our future |
| C．the only time we have and can control |
| D．the busy time we can make good preparations for the future |
High-quality customer service is preached(宣扬) by many, but actually keeping customers happy is easier said than done.
Shoppers seldom complain to the manager or owner of retail store, but instead will alert their friends, relatives, co-workers, strangers and anyone who will listen.
Store managers are often the last to hear complaints, and often find out only when their regular customers decide to frequent their competitors, according to a study jointly conducted by Verde group and Wharton school.
“Storytelling hurts retailers and entertains consumers.” Said Paula Courtney, president of the Verde group. “The store loses the customer, but the shopper must also find a replacement.”
On average, every unhappy customer will complain to at least four other, and will no longer visit the specific store for every dissatisfied customer, a store will lose up to three more due to negative reviews. The resulting “snowball effect” can be disastrous to retailers.
According to the research, shoppers who purchased clothing encountered the most problems. Ranked second and third were grocery and electronics customers.
The most common complaints include filled parking lots, cluttered(塞满了的) shelves, overloaded racks, out-of-stock items, long check-out lines, and rude salespeople.
During peak shopping hours, some retailers solved the parking problems by getting moonlighting local police to work as parking attendants. Some hired flag wavers to direct customers to empty peaking spaces. This guidance got rid of the need for customers to circle the parking lot endlessly, and avoided confrontation between those eyeing the same parking space.
Retailers can relieve the headaches by redesigning store layouts, pre-stocking sales items, hiring speedy and experienced cashiers, and having sales representatives on hand to answer questions. Most importantly, salespeople should be diplomatic and polite with angry customers.
“Retailers who’re responsive and friendly are more likely to smooth over issues than those who aren’t so friendly.” Said professor Stephen Hoch. “Maybe something as simple as a greeter at the store entrance would help.”
Customers can also improve future shopping experiences by filing complaints to the retailer, instead of complaining to the rest of the world. Retailers are hard-pressed to improve when they have no idea what is wrong.Why are store managers often the last to hear complaints?
| A．Few customers believe the service will be improved. |
| B．Customers would rather relate their unhappy experiences to people around them. |
| C．Customers have no easy access to store managers. |
| D．Most customers won’t bother to complain even if they have had unhappy experiences. |
Shop owners often hire moonlighting police as parking attendants so that shoppers .
| A．can find their cars easily after shopping | B．won’t have trouble parking their cars |
| C．can stay longer browsing in the store | D．won’t have any worries about security |
What contributes most to smoothing over issues with customers?
| A．Design of the store layout. | B．Hiring of efficient employees. |
| C．Manners of the salespeople. | D．Huge supply of goods for sale. |
To achieve better shopping experiences, customers are advised to .
| A．voice their dissatisfaction to store managers directly |
| B．shop around and make comparisons between stores |
| C．settle their disputes with stores in a diplomatic way |
| D．put pressure on stores to improve their service |
In our culture, the sources of what we call a sense of “mastery”— feeling important and worthwhile — and the sources of what we call a sense of “pleasure”— finding life enjoyable — are not always the same．Women often are told “You can’t have it all.” Sometimes what the speaker really is saying is: “You choose a career, so you can’t expect to have closer relationships or a happy family life.” or “You have a wonderful husband and children — what’s all this about wanting a career?” But women need to understand and develop both aspects of well-being, if they are to feel good about themselves.
Our study shows that, for women, well-being has two aspects．One is mastery, which includes self-respect, a sense of control over your life, and low levels of anxiety and depression．Mastery is closely related to the “doing” side of life, to work and activity．Pleasure is the other aspect, and it is made up of happiness, satisfaction and optimism．It is tied more closely to the “feeling” side of life．The two are independent of each other．A woman could be high in mastery and low in pleasure, and vice versa（反之亦然）．For example, a woman who has a good job, but whose mother has just died, might be feeling very good about herself and in control of her work life, but the pleasure side could be damaged for a time.
The concepts of mastery and pleasure can help us identify the sources of well-being for women, and correct past mistakes．In the past, women were encouraged to look only at the feeling side of life as the source of all well-being．But we know that both mastery and pleasure are important．And mastery seems to be achieved largely through work．In our study, all the groups of employed women were valued significantly higher in mastery than women who were not employed.
A woman’s well-being is developed when she takes on multiple roles．At least by middle adulthood, the women who were involved in a combination of roles — marriages, motherhood, and employment — were the highest in well-being, in spite of warnings about stress and strain.It can be inferred from the first paragraph that ________.
| A．for women, a sense of “mastery” is more important than a sense of “pleasure” |
| B．for women, a sense of “pleasure” is more important than a sense of “mastery” |
| C．women can’t have a sense of “mastery” and a sense of “pleasure” at the same time |
| D．a sense of “mastery” and a sense of “pleasure” are both necessary to women |
The author’s attitude towards women having a career is________.
| A．negative | B．positive |
| C．indifferent | D．realistic |
One can conclude from the passage that if a woman takes on several social roles, ________.
| A．it will be easier for her to overcome stress and strain |
| B．she will be more successful in her career |
| C．her chances of getting promoted will be greater |
| D．her life will be richer and more meaningful |
Which of the following can be considered as a source of “pleasure” for women?
| A．Family life | B．Multiple roles in society |
| C．Regular employment | D．Freedom from anxiety |
More than 1.5 billion people around the world live without electricity. Finding better ways to bring light to the poor is the goal of researchers like Professor Irvine. In the late 1990s, he was working in Nepal when his return flight was canceled. A delay gave him time to take a fourteen-day hiking trip in the Himalayas.
One day he looked in the window of a school and noticed how dark it was. This is a common problem for millions of children around the world. Many families use kerosene oil (煤油) lamps. There are many problems with these lamps. They produce only a small amount of light. They are dangerous to breathe. And they are a big fire danger, causing many injuries and deaths each year. Kerosene costs less than other forms of lighting, but it is still costly in poor countries. Professor Irvine says many people spend over 100 dollars a year on the fuel.
When he returned to Canada, he began researching ways to provide safe and clean lighting. He began experimenting with light-emitting diodes (发光二极管), LEDs, at his lab. As a professor of renewable energy, he already knew about the technology. Light-emitting diodes are small glass lamps that use much less electricity than traditional bulbs (灯泡) and last much longer. He used a one-watt bright white LED made in Japan. He found it on the Internet and connected it to a bicycle-powered generator (发电机). He remembers thinking it was so bright that a child could read by the light of a single diode.
In 2000, after much research and many experiments, he returned to Nepal to put the systems into homes. Now the homes of 25,000 people in 51 countries have been equipped with it. “The one-time cost of our system which basically lives forever, as well as the solar panel — is less than one hundred dollars. So, one year of kerosene would pay for a solid-state lighting system,” he said. Now his aim is to develop a lower-cost lighting system. In January, Irvine is leaving the University of Calgary. He has also decided to start his own company in India.We can learn from the second paragraph that kerosene oil lamps ______.
| A．cost more than other forms of lighting |
| B．have damaged children’s eyesight |
| C．have wasted only a little fuel |
| D．have a lot of disadvantages |
Irvine connected a white LED to a bicycle-powered generator to prove ______.
| A．whether it can work without electricity |
| B．whether it can work well with less electricity |
| C．whether it can last longer than a generator |
| D．whether it is brighter than a traditional bulb |
We can learn from the text that Irvine ______.
| A．likes India rather than Nepal |
| B．is good at making new kinds of bulbs |
| C．is giving up his job in the university |
| D．is to earn much money from his company |
Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of coffee. And when you’re doing your holiday shopping online, make sure you’re holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical sensation of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise decisions—those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.
Psychologists have known that one person’s perception (知觉) of another’s “warmth” is a powerful determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either “warm” or “cold” is a primary consideration, even trumping (打败) evidence that a “cold” person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies’ conceptual sense of the world around them is shaped by physical sensations, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in 1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth “mother” rather than one made of wire, even when the wire “mother” carried a food bottle. Harlow’s work and later studies have led psychologists to stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults with normal social skills.
Feelings of “warmth” and “coldness” in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as “warm” or “cold” is common to many cultures, and studies have found those perceptions influence judgment in dozens of countries.
To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh conducted an experiment which involved 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study’s hypotheses (假定), handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out a short information form. The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the personality of “Person A” based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink.
“We are grounded in our physical experiences even when we think abstractly,” says Bargh. In Bargh’s experiment, the students were asked to _______.
| A．evaluate someone’s personality |
| B．write down their hypotheses |
| C．fill out a personal information form |
| D．hold coffee and cold drink alternatively |
We can infer from the passage that _______.
| A．abstract thinking does not come from physical experiences |
| B．feelings of warmth and coldness are studied worldwide |
| C．physical temperature affects how we see others |
| D．capable persons are often cold to others |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Drinking for Better Social Relationships |
| B．Experiments of Personality Evaluation |
| C．Developing Better Drinking Habits |
| D．Physical Sensations and Emotions |
The flag, the most common symbol of a nation in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. With a clear symbolic meaning, the flag in the traditional form is still used today to mark buildings, ships and other vehicles related to a country.
The national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact. It is, rather, the product of thousands of years’ development. Historians believe that it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to show wind direction.
Early human beings used very fragile houses and boats. Often strong winds would tear roofs from houses or cause high waves that endangered travelers. People’s food supplies were similarly vulnerable. Even after they had learned how to plant grains, they still needed help from nature to ensure good harvests. Therefore they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.
Using a simple piece of cloth tied to the top of a post to tell the direction of the wind was more dependable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire. The connection of the flag with heavenly power was therefore reasonable. Early human societies began to fix long pieces of cloth to the tops of totems (图腾) before carrying them into battle. They believed that the power of the wind would be added to the good wishes of the gods and ancestors represented by the totems themselves.
These flags developed very slowly into modern flags. The first known flag of a nation or a ruler was unmarked: The king of China around 1,000 B.C. was known to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice might have been learned from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to Europe, where it met up with the other ancestor of the national flag. The underlined word “ vulnerable” in paragraph 3 means _______.
| A．easy to damage | B．likely to be protected |
| C．impossible to make sure of | D．difficult to find |
The earliest flags were connected with heavenly power because they _______.
| A．could tell wind direction | B．could bring good luck to fighters |
| C．were believed to stand for natural forces | D．were handed down by the ancestors |
What does the author know of the first national flag?
| A．He knows when it was sent to Europe. | B．He doubts where it started. |
| C．He thinks it came from China. | D．He believes it was made in Egypt. |
What will the author most probably talk about next?
| A．The role of China in the spread of the national flag. |
| B．The importance of modern flags. |
| C．The use of modern flags in Europe. |
| D．The second ancestor of the national flag. |