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    I love to watch my father paint. Or really, I love to hear him talk while he _________ on the layers of a landscape. Mostly the things he talked about floated around me, but _________ something would happen and I would _________ exactly what he had meant. “A painting is _________ than the sum of its parts,” he would tell me, and then go on to explain how putting unnoticeable divisions together _________ magic. I understood what he was saying, but I never _________ what he was saying until one day when was up in the sycamore tree.

My mom told me that it was the biggest tree she’d seen and had been at the top of the hill forever. I had always played in the tree, but I didn’t become a serious _________ until the fifth grade, when I went up to _________ a kite that was stuck in its branches. It was a long way up, and when managed to have the kite free, I was miles off the ___________ I needed a minute to rest and ________________ before starting down. So ________________ looking at the ground below me, which made me ________________ and weak in the knees, I held on ________________ and looked out. Out across the rooftops.

That was when the fear of being up so high began to ________________, and in its place came the most ________________ feeling that I was flying above the earth and sailing among the clouds. Then I began to ________________how wonderful the gentle wind smelled. It smelled like sunshine. Like sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain! I couldn’t stop ________________ it in, filling my lungs again and again with the sweetest smell I’d ever known. It was on a day like that when my father’s notion of the whole being more than the sum of its parts moved from my head to my ________________. The ________________ from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined. It was ________________.

1.A.writes B.brushes C.composes D.draws

2.A.once in a while B.sooner or later C.without exception D.little by little

3.A.forget B.abandon C.grasp D.indicate

4.A.broader B.more C.bigger D.richer

5.A.ends up with B.results from C.carries out D.appeals to

6.A.questioned B.appreciated C.earned D.felt

7.A.learner B.climber C.painter D.explorer

8.A.fasten B.rescue C.fly D.paint

9.A.landscape B.tree C.branches D.ground

10.A.adapt B.entertain C.recover D.reflect

11.A.in case of B.in addition to C.owing to D.instead of

12.A.dizzy B.thrilled C.astonished D.satisfied

13.A.narrowly B.firmly C.vertically D.stubbornly

14.A.form B.deepen C.lift D.move

15.A.confusing B.frightening C.amazing D.curious

16.A.remember B.notice C.wonder D.accept

17.A.inviting B.pulling C.feeling D.breathing

18.A.heart B.eye C.toes D.chest

19.A.journey B.sighting C.view D.range

20.A.impressive B.complicated C.beautiful D.magic

Four ways the increasingly mobile workforce is transforming office design

As more and more office employees start working from home full-time or only come into work on certain days of the week, it no longer makes sense for employers to keep the office in the old fashion.1. So, be ready to say goodbye to the days of cubicles (隔间) and fixed desk stations and welcome the following changes in modern offices.

Including more resting spaces and leisure areas

While some people tend to work more productively in traditional desk-and-chair environment, others feel better when they’re working from a sofa or bean-bag chair. 2. These could range from joined tables for those who want to work in a more relaxed manner and socialize with co-workers, to sound-proof spaces for those who prefer to work alone or in silence.

3.

Traditional board rooms and conference rooms with tables big enough to host 20 people also fall victim to the remote workforce movement. In the new mobile climate, many employees are starting to come into the physical office merely for face-to-face meetings with co-workers or to bring in clients for presentations. This means that employees are specifically coming into the office for access to these meeting rooms, so these rooms should be sized accordingly.

Using high-tech methods that narrow the gap between office and home

4. To do this, some offices are using VoIP phones, which make phone calls through the internet rather than regular landlines, to help employees around the world appear as though they’re calling from the office.

Creating smaller carbon footprint

There are huge benefits, both financially and environmentally, to offices employing more mote workers. Fewer people in the office equal less needed space. 5. For employees, the ability to work remotely means an erased commute, which in turn will reduce air pollution and help create a smaller carbon footprint.

A. Building smaller conference rooms.

B. Providing more places for face-to-face communication.

C. In this way, employees can find the spot that best suits them on a given day.

D. Instead, offices are transforming in order to better serve employees floating in and out.

E. Huge amount of money can be saved for employers by using less energy and water, lowering their utility bills.

F. That’s why offices are creating a new mixture of furniture zones that offer both relaxing and traditional seating options.

G. With more employees working from home, it’s critical to have the proper technology to connect people together easily.

    Up until a few decades ago, our expectation of the future were largely positive. Science and technology would cure all the ills of humanity, leading to lives of satisfaction and opportunity for all.

Now the utopia (乌托邦) has grown unfashionable, as we have gained deeper appreciation of the range of threats facing us, from natural disasters to deadly flu to climate change. You might even be tempted to assume that human beings have little future to look forward to.

But such negative attitude doesn’t make sense. The fossil record shows that many species have existed for millions of years- so why shouldn’t we? Take broader look at our species’ place in the universe, and it becomes clear that we have an excellent chance of surviving for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years.

So what does our deep future hold? Perhaps it may be easier to think about the question in long time periods than about the more immediate future. The potential evolution of today’s technology, and its social consequences, is astonishingly complicated, and it’s’ perhaps best left to science fiction writers and futurologists (未来学家) to explore the many possibilities we can merely imagine. That’s one reason why we have launched Arc, a new publication dedicated to the near future.

But take a longer view and there is a surprising amount that we can say with considerable assurance. As so often, the past holds the key to the future: we have now identified enough of the long-term patterns shaping the history of the planet, and our species, to make evidence-based forecasts about the situations in which our future generations will find themselves.

This makes the negative predictions of our future seem more likely to be temporary and unreliable. To be sure, the future is not all rosy. But we are now knowledgeable enough to reduce many of the risks that threatened the existence of earlier humans, and to prevent the lot of those to come.

1.What used to inspire our expectation of the future?

A.Our desire for lives of satisfaction.

B.Our faith in science and technology.

C.Our awareness of potential risks.

D.Our belief in equal opportunity.

2.Which of the following is true according to Paragraph 4?

A.Are limits the range of futurological studies.

B.Technology offers solutions to social problem.

C.The interest in science fiction is on the rise.

D.Our near future is comparatively hard to predict.

    Children with attention problems in early childhood were 40% less likely to graduate from high school, says a new study from Duke University.

The study included 386 kindergarteners from schools in the Fast Track Project, a multi-site clinical trial in the U.S. that in 1991 began tracking how children developed across their lives. With this study, researchers examined early academic attention and socio-emotional skills and how each contributed to academic success into young adulthood. They found that early attention skills were the most consistent predictor of academic success, and that likability by peers (同龄人) also had a modest effect on academic performance.

By fifth grade, children with early attention difficulties had lower grades and reading achievement scores than their peers. As fifth-graders, children with early attention problems obtained average reading scores at least 3% lower and grades at least 8% lower than those of their peers. This was after controlling for IQ, socio-economic status and academic skills at school entry.

Although these may not seem like large effects, the impact of early attention problems continued throughout the children’s academic careers. Lower reading achievement scores and grades in fifth grade contributed to reduced grades in middle school, thus contributing to a 40% lower high school graduation rate.

Social acceptance by peers in early childhood also predicted grades in fifth grade. Children not as liked by their first-grade peers had slightly lower grades in fifth grade, while those with higher social acceptance had higher grades.

“This study shows the importance of so-called non-cognitive’ or soft skills in contributing to children’s positive peer relationships, which, in turn contribute to their academic success,” said Kenneth Dodge, director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy.

The results highlight the need to develop effective early interventions (干预) to help those with attention problems stay on track academically and for educators to encourage positive peer relationships, the researchers said.

“We’re learning that student success requires a more comprehensive approach, one that includes not only academic skills but also social, self-regulatory and attention skills,” Dodge said. “If we ignore any of these areas, the child’s development struggles. If we attend to these areas, a child’s success may strengthen itself with positive feedback.”

1.What is the focus of the new study from Duke University?

A.The contributors to children’s early attention.

B.The predictors of children’s academic success.

C.The factors that affect children’s emotional well-being.

D.The factors that determine children’s development of social skills.

2.What do we learn from the findings of the Duke study?

A.Modest students are generally more attentive than their peers.

B.There are more children with attention difficulties than previously thought.

C.Attention problem accounts for most academic failures.

D.Children with worse attention skills are less likely to succeed academically.

3.What does the Duke study find about children better accepted by peers?

A.They do better academically. B.They are teachers’ favorites.

C.They are easy to get on with. D.They care less about grades.

4.What can we conclude from the Duke study?

A.Children’s success is related to their learning environment.

B.School curriculum should cover a greater variety of subjects.

C.Social skills are playing a key role in children’s development.

D.An all-round approach should be adopted in school education.

    There it was. A test of will power. I’m on a special diet with foods carefully selected for balanced nutrition and caloric value. A piece of cheese cake is not an option. So here was my dilemma: Should I not eat the cheese cake, feel dissatisfied and take out my frustration on the annoyingly skinny physical instructor at the gym? Or should I eat the cheese cake and work off the calories?

The latter seemed like a win-win solution. Not only would I get to enjoy the cheese cake, but I’d get an exercise session. And then it hit me: a delicate plan to use my cheese cake as an exercise incentive. I plated a thin slice of cheese cake and carefully walked it up the stairs and set it on my bedside table with a small fork. I put on my exercise outfit and went downstairs.

The appeal of the cheese cake got stronger so I launched my plan: I would run up and down the stairs and then back up again. My reward: one small bite of cheese cake. If I wanted another, I’d have to run down and up and down and up again. Off I went. Ah, creamy vanilla goodness without guilt. I wanted another bite so I quickly sprinted through another stair climbing run.

Admittedly, it is harder to enjoy the creaminess of the cheese cake when my tongue was dry from over-breathing. I placed a bottle of water next to the cake.

Down and up and down and up again. When I struggled over to the cheese cake, my hand bypassed the plate and went for the water instead. I didn’t want the cake any more. I wanted all this sweat and effort to do more than cancel the calories from cheese cake. I was exhausted and sure the cheese cake tasted fine but just not good enough to make me run up and down the stairs one more time.

My plan worked. Now, any time I felt tempted to indulge in a former favorite, I remembered my stairs trick.

1.What can we infer about the author from paragraph 1?

A.She has weak will power.

B.She is bad-tempered and very critical.

C.She needs assistance with making the choice.

D.She hesitated over eating something against her diet.

2.What does the underlined word “incentive” in paragraph 2 mean?

A.Motivation. B.Excuse.

C.Substitute. D.Companion.

3.What do we learn about the author’s plan?

A.It involved much energy consumption.

B.It rid the cake of the pleasant taste.

C.It changed the author’s preference for food.

D.It was exhausting and caused suffering.

4.What may be the best title for the passage?

A.A costly dilemma.

B.An evil cheese cake.

C.A trick that worked.

D.A sweating experience.