Happiness begins from appreciation
If you are feeling that life just cannot be any worse for you, it can be challenging to think positive. When stressed, depressed, upset or otherwise in a negative state of mind because you are aware that misfortune keeps occurring, it is important to shift those negative thoughts to something positive. 1.
It is often very hard to think positive when so many things are negative, but be sure that someone, somewhere is worse off than you. 2. If you start with one small, positive thing and appreciate it during the course of your day, you will begin to move into a more positive situation and people will start showing up in your life. With appreciation, you will find that over time, you will change your outlook and choose to be happy, regardless of the events around you. 3.
● Begin and end each day with a “Thank you for this wonderful, glorious day!”
● When you see the rise of gas prices, say “I am so glad to have a vehicle in which to get around.”
● When your boss is too hard on you, say “I am grateful for my job as I know that many don’t have one.”
● If you are having health problems, be grateful for what does work: “I really do appreciate it that my eyes see, my ears hear, my mouth tastes, my legs walk, my arms lift and my mind thinks and everything else works.”
● Write down what you’re grateful for each day. In moments when you’re feeling really down, read loud what you wrote previously. 4. If you practice this regularly, you will find your list getting longer and longer.
The key is to move yourself into a positive thought and keep it there long enough to make it a moment of appreciation. 5.
A. This will certainly help uplift your spirits.
B. If not, you will only attract more misfortune.
C. It is of great importance to learn to be grateful.
D. The more you appreciate, the happier you’ll be.
E. If you have made some achievements in your career.
F. Here are a few common examples for you to practice.
G. You can choose to think differently by beginning with the smallest of steps.
Myth was born in childhood of human being. It is a product of ancient imagination, which can conquer nature, dominate nature and make the power of nature have its own image. It is a cultural phenomenon in civilized society.
China and Greece are birthplaces of Orient and Western civilizations. Prime Minister Constantine Caramanlis of Greece once pointed out: '' The civilization of China brought light to the Far East and the whole of Asia, as Greece thought, the cornerstone of European civilization, brought light to the West. '' However, for some reasons, there are many differences between Chinese and Greek myth, which show their own unique national spirits and moral principles.
The ancestors of Chinese nation lived on land before one million and seven hundred thousand years. After long uncivilized times, ancient Chinese gradually created civilization. In prehistory, ancient Chinese lived and struggled. Most ancestors’ achievements of tribes have been passed down orally. This is old myth. According to some archaeological materials, single myth, which has the meaning of totem(图腾), had appeared in the Late Palaeolithic Age. As the mental belief, totem is the holiest and the most beautiful symbol in ancient tribes’ mind. It is their aesthetic conception(审美观). On the contrary, the history of Greece is shorter, and Greek myth produced later than Chinese myth. It produced in about eleventh century BC, and it was far from the age of totem worship. That was the Age of Heroes. Human wisdom had been more and more important and totem worship had tended to disappear. So ancient Greeks thought that human being was the most beautiful in the world. They gave their deities(神灵) the most beautiful images. Those are images of human beings.
China lies in an isolated pocket in East Asia, surrounded by impassable mountains, deserts, seas and valleys. This environment develops a continental culture where people are only looking inward, a farming culture centers on soil, discouraging any adventurous seefaring people. In addition, Chinese myth produced in the Yellow River and the Yangtze River Valley. In both zones, the volume of rain is abundant all the year round. Because the soil is fertile and the resources are rich, both areas are suitable for agriculture. It became the typical continental agriculture. They would not like to take their own lives to struggle with terrifying waves, but would rather work hard in gentle land. Just the ancient Chinese who lived in this continent created this unique myth, ancient Chinese myth.
Contrary to China, Greece is a poor country, barren and dry. Unlike the rich river valleys Yellow River and Yangtze River, its rivers are too small to be navigable, and they dry up in the heat of the mostly rainless summers. The Greek landscape is dominated by high mountains, which occupy about three quarters of the land. As rich land was limited in Greece, to survive, ancient Greeks had to look outward. Sea is the greatest Greek natural resource. It plays a central role in the life of Greeks. The Chinese seas don’t look navigable, but the Greek seas look like swimming pools. The Chinese sailor, if he happens to be, sails for days without any land in sight. In fact, he can easily get drowned before he has a chance to get anywhere. The Greek sailor, who is always fortunate, can spot islands in all directions on clear days. With these steppingstones, he can reach any part of the Mediterranean to trade, to stay, to conquer and to colonize. They like to learn advanced technique and cultures from other countries. This provided living space for independence of Greek myth. Frankly speaking, marine civilization created the great Greek myth.
1.What is the passage mainly about?
A.The differences between Chinese and Greek myth.
B.The definition of myths and why they came into existence.
C.The reasons for the differences between Chinese and Greek myth.
D.The factors resulting in Chinese myth being more advanced than Greek myth.
2.What can we know about the author according to what he writes in this passage?
A.He has a strong affection for his country’s civilizations.
B.He holds a positive attitude towards the study of myth.
C.He agrees with Constantine in terms of Greek myth.
D.He presents his main point of view in an objective tone.
3.What can we infer from the 3rd paragraph?
A.Chinese myth came into being 1.7 million years earlier than Greek myth.
B.The appearance of totem marked the birth of Chinese civilization.
C.Deities in Greek myth are wiser and more beautiful than Chinese ones.
D.The time when the myth produced has great influence on its images.
4.The author writes the 4th and 5th paragraphs mainly to _______.
A.display the geographical differences between China and Greece
B.compare the agriculture civilization and the marine civilization
C.show how environment causes the differences of the two myths
D.reveal why Chinese are more conservative than western people
5.What does the underlined word ''marine'' in the last sentence probably mean?
A.of advanced level B.of or relating to the sea
C.independent of anything D.willing to make adventures
6.The differences mainly talked about in the passage between Chinese and Greek myths are ______.
a. aesthetic conception
b.surviving skills
c.independent spirits
d.adventurous spirits
e.forming process
A.ace B.bcd
C.ade D.abd
It is that time of the year again. Up and down the country, thousands of students stay in the library, attempting to cram(死记硬背)the information necessary to get through finals. I am one of them — a Cambridge finalist, attempting to deal with the Oxbridge stress in the only way I know: caffeine hits and reclusion(遁生活) Whether you love or hate Oxbridge, the fact that these two universities provide unique learning environments is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, students have access to some of the best education in the world; on the other hand, the pressure that comes with this can prove damaging to them and can't be swept under the carpet for they have to face it eventually.
Many Cambridge students find themselves trapped in a pressure of expectation, whether this comes from their supervisors or tutors, their director of studies or even from themselves. The drive towards achievement is either the key to success or to possible serious personal issues, as Mark Phippen, head of the University of Cambridge's Counseling Service said, ''There are plenty of perfectionists in Cambridge, but it can work two ways: it can push them to accomplish and to achieve, or it can get out of hand, disabling them. ''
Many students say that they can’t handle it any more while working in certain libraries which are filled with other students hard at work. The competition and paranoia(疑)are more common than what we realize or question: you can feel as if you are being judged for how much time you spend on Facebook or YouTube, or how little time you spend reading.
Too many students feel almost frustrated by the pressure to achieve but feel unable to speak about it. As everyone seems to be coping, they must also pretend to cope too. The only thing students have: tutors and supervisors regularly encourage students to avoid extracurricular activities, urging them to focus on their studies to such an extent that many find it hard to handle it. One current Cambridge tutor has been known for checking up on the activities of students involved in extracurricular theatre by searching for them on the camdram.net website, which details who is involved in certain plays each term — just in case it affects the student’s work output.
Problems arise when the pressure produces mental health issues. Problems have been brought to attention in articles primarily from Oxford's Cherwell and Cambridge's The Tab. The attention has made the Cambridge University Student Union set up Students Deserve Better — a campaign to handle complaints about supervisors and tutors lacking the ability to provide proper spiritual support. ''When I told my supervisor about my problems with anxiety and therefore about my worries surrounding the workload she was suggesting, she said that I would probably feel less anxious once the work was done, '' a finalist student called Jane said. ''It shouldn't be an accepted response in one of the world's best universities. Their responses only worsened any feelings I had concerning my final year. ''
Phippen said, ''At this point the exams seem like the most important thing in the world. However, two years down the line you’ll realize that the exams you did at university aren't very important at all, as what then becomes more important is what you have done within those two years afterwards. Finalist exams can become depressing for students studying at any university. All you must remember is that you are not alone and you are good enough, and that a few years down the line, your ability to recount the plots of Euripides' nineteen plays will no longer matter. So why worry? ''
1.The underlined part ''be swept under the carpet'' in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ''______''.
A.be covered up B.be dealt with
C.be given up D.be figured out
2.What's Mark Phippen's attitude towards the pressure put on the students at Oxbridge?
A.Critical. B.Doubtful.
C.Objective. D.Ambiguous.
3.What can we know from Paragraph 4?
A.Extracurricular activities fail to appeal to most students.
B.Some tutors and supervisors push their students too hard.
C.There is a lack of communication between students and their supervisors.
D.Some students don't speak about the pressure because they think they can handle it.
4.What Jane said in Paragraph 5 suggests that she ______ .
A.didn't get her problems across to her supervisor
B.had expected better spiritual guidance from her tutors
C.was dissatisfied with her supervisor's delayed responses
D.was glad that Students Deserve Better was set up to help students like her
5.Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?
A.Oxbridge pressure: the key to students' achievements
B.Oxbridge finals: the toughest exams in the country
C.Oxbridge graduates: the strongest competitors in the job market
D.Oxbridge success: the result of teacher-student interaction
Cooperation at work is generally seen as a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work with a wide variety of people was what managers wanted most. But managers always have to balance the benefits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “groupthink” when critics are reluctant to point out a plan’s drawbacks for fear of being kept out of the group. The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were reluctant to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.
Modern communication methods mean that cooperation is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that improve, or lower performance? A new study by three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (designing the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other’s views only intermittently.
The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the premier solution more often than the constant cooperators but had a poorer average result. The intermittent cooperators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution. When it comes to ideal generation, giving people a bit of space to a solution seems to be a good idea. Occasional cooperation can be a big help: most people have benefited from a colleague’s brainwave or (just as often) wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.
Further clues come from a book, Superminds, by Thomas Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says that three factors determine the collective intelligence of cooperating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better); and the cooperation of women in the group (the higher, the better). Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others.
In short, cooperation may be a useful tool but it doesn’t work in every situation.
1.The author cites the example of The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in paragraph 1 to _______.
A.prove that team players are skilled at communication
B.show that teamwork cannot always be beneficial
C.prove that critics are unwilling to challenge anybody
D.show the danger of groupthink is not very serious
2.The underlined phrase “the intermittent cooperators” in paragraph 3 refers to _______.
A.those who do not cooperate but reach the best solution
B.those who are seldom informed of other’s views
C.those who cooperate with others occasionally
D.the constant cooperators with a poor average result
3.Which of the following factors makes a team cooperate better?
A.Group members cooperating all the time.
B.Group members in a good emotional state.
C.Equal distribution of men and women.
D.Equal participation in the communication.
4.Which can be the best title of the passage?
A.When Teamwork Works B.What Teamwork Is About
C.How Teamwork Operates D.A Useful Tool: Cooperation
On a recent sunny, dry fall morning, I found the last outdoor table at my favorite café. Reading ______ I nibbled my breakfast, I was enjoying the feeling of the cool breeze and the warm sun when a table next to me ______. A woman who had been standing nearby, ______ waiting for a seat, stepped toward the table. But from the other ______, straight from the parking lot, came a man who got to the table first.
The woman, with a ______ on her face, explained that she’d been ______ that table for several minutes and had been on her way over. The man, also smiling but ______, told her she was out of ______; he had happened upon the table first. “You snooze(不注意), you lose!” he said cheerfully.
She stood off to the side, clearly disappointed, and ______ her friend with the frustrating news. I sat at my table, ______ the scene, when suddenly it occurred to me—I had a(n) ______ here to be kind.
I stood up and ______ her over to my table. Quietly, I told her I had seen what had happened, and I was happy to give her my table. I was only going to be there a few more minutes ______, so I was happy for her and her friend to have the ______.
“But where will you sit?” she asked. I was almost done eating, I said, and I would find a seat at the counter ______. She thanked me and beamed(堆满笑容) as she ______ for her friend to sit down.
Thinking about it as I finished up, I realized that whether or not the woman had fair ______ to the table was unimportant. The emotion of the situation—the look of hurt on her face—had ______ me, and I had the ability to do something about it.
That isn’t always the case with every feeling, situation, or injustice we ______ unexpectedly in our days. But as the early 20th century writer Orison Swett Marden once said, “Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. ______ common occasions and make them great.”
I just hope that woman’s morning at the café was great. I know mine was.
1.A.till B.after C.as D.before
2.A.closed up B.opened up C.looked up D.showed up
3.A.hesitantly B.clearly C.seemingly D.steadily
4.A.entrance B.angle C.gate D.direction
5.A.smile B.shock C.glare D.gaze
6.A.monitoring B.watching C.minding D.wandering
7.A.firm B.impatient C.elegant D.reluctant
8.A.order B.luck C.shape D.place
9.A.served B.compared C.loaded D.greeted
10.A.taking down B.taking up C.taking in D.taking over
11.A.scene B.opportunity C.access D.passion
12.A.followed B.guided C.signaled D.rushed
13.A.anyway B.someway C.somewhere D.anywhere
14.A.floor B.spot C.moment D.kindness
15.A.downstairs B.upstairs C.outside D.inside
16.A.gestured B.headed C.waited D.sent
17.A.passage B.claim C.approach D.admission
18.A.shamed B.surprised C.struck D.scared
19.A.repeat B.hate C.tolerate D.meet
20.A.Mark B.Hold C.Celebrate D.Seize
I can’t get my car _____ on cold mornings, so I have to try ______ the radiator with some hot water.
A.run; to fill B.running; filling
C.running; to fill D.ran; filling
