In January 2018, I was commuting (通勤) from Brooklyn to New Jersey. I have two little kids and a busy business, so a quiet train ride felt like a mini ______. Yet I found myself spending that ______ time scrolling through my social media feeds. One day, I ______ my phone and started writing thank-you notes to people who had ______ to a fund I had organized.
When I got off the train that day, I was in a noticeably better ______. The next day, I wrote more thank-yous — and felt the same. When I finished writing the notes, I ______ them up. There were 31 — one for every day of the year so far. Something ______. What if I kept it up?
I decided to write one thank-you note for every day of that year. I had no shortage of people I was ______ for. So I picked out a different ______ for each month. January was charity — and, thankfully, I had already completed that ______.
February would be ______ to neighbors, and I thought of a dozen names right away. I remembered when the owners of our local bookstore let me and my five-year-old son, Henry, in before the store opened. I ______ when our 14-year-old babysitter ______ a bag of old board games for our kids to play.
Writing the notes wasn’t all that ______: Each was two or three sentences long, taking just a few minutes to ______. I focused on the person I was writing to and what I wanted to say, and the words came fairly easily. That focus felt ______. It was good for my brain, which had been trained to ______ from this feed to that e-mail.
While writing the notes, I eventually realized why this task was the perfect antidote (解药) to my social ______. What was I actually doing when I scrolled through Facebook? More often than not, I was ______ other people’s lives — their beach vacations, their organized kitchens. Writing thank-you notes was an act of noticing and ______ my own life.
1.A.trip B.adventure C.vacation D.celebration
2.A.lonely B.precious C.boring D.tiring
3.A.picked up B.brought out C.put up D.put down
4.A.contributed B.offered C.led D.expanded
5.A.mood B.situation C.position D.harmony
6.A.folded B.arranged C.piled D.counted
7.A.happened B.clicked C.appeared D.presented
8.A.thoughtful B.awful C.grateful D.respectful
9.A.theme B.topic C.object D.range
10.A.cause B.assignment C.goal D.contract
11.A.written B.provided C.celebrated D.devoted
12.A.reminded B.recalled C.recognized D.reflected
13.A.dropped off B.took off C.set off D.put off
14.A.tiring B.boring C.breath-taking D.time-consuming
15.A.form B.compose C.accumulate D.type
16.A.exhausting B.desperate C.refreshing D.independent
17.A.work B.lock C.fasten D.wander
18.A.feeds B.media C.activities D.participations
19.A.observing B.admiring C.following D.sharing
20.A.lengthening B.purifying C.honoring D.varying
Five Health Facts Your Doctor Wants You to Know
1. Cold weather makes you sick.
Myth! Germs (病菌) are the only thing that can make you sick. You can go out in the freezing cold with wet hair, and if there aren’t any germs around, you'll stay sniffle-free. But there is a correlation:1.
2. You shouldn’t ice a burn.
Truth! Most skin damage from a burn comes from the inflammatory (发炎) response, and ice can damage cells and make it worse. 2. Then wash with mild soap and apply an antibiotic (抗生素) ointment.
3. Antiperspirants (止汗剂) cause cancer.
Myth! Antiperspirants temporarily keep sweat from escaping, and some scientists have suggested that letting it build up in the ducts could cause tumors(肿瘤). 3. And the largest study to date on the subject has found no link between cancer and antiperspirants.
4.4.
Truth! A 2017 study found that when bystanders gave CPR to people in cardiac arrest (心脏停搏), survival rates were higher when they employed uninterrupted chest compressions rather than pausing for rescue breaths.
5. Eating too much sugar will give you diabetes.
Myth! Sweet foods don’t directly lead to chronically (慢性地) high blood sugar. But they can contribute to obesity, which is a risk factor for diabetes. 5.
A.Germs are active if you have a cold.
B.But research hasn’t confirmed that theory.
C.CPR doesn’t require mouth-to-mouth breathing.
D.Therefore, it’s inappropriate to deal with the burn with ice.
E.Instead, first immerse the burn in cool water for about five minutes.
F.So keeping a well-balanced diet and limiting treats is still the right idea.
G.The germs that cause the common cold grow energetically in low temperatures.
We all experience “oh crap” moments. Running into the person you canceled a date with — while you’re on another date. Realizing you hit “reply all”on an e-mail that you’d do anything to have back. Whatever the situation, the first thing you probably do is freak out. Everybody does.
While many of us think that we’re cool in a crisis, science tells us that we seldom are. At the moment we need to be keenly aware of our surroundings, our attention can tunnel in on the scariest thing in the scene, leaving us unaware of the other sights, sounds, and even smells around us. Armed robbers go unidentified because witnesses remember little more than the guns. Our ability to remember the things we do notice also becomes compromised; we can be told something, and two seconds later we’ll forget. And we jump to conclusions. When we’re freaked out, we’re anything but at our best.
These normal human reactions can be reversed. Once you calm down, you’ll face the most routinely ignored challenge of any crisis situation — identifying what the crisis is really about. We tend to misdiagnose problems because we don’t practice for them. Do the thinking ahead of time so you can just find the solution when it’s showtime. This is why flight attendants suggest you find the closest exit before you depart — so you don’t have to go exit shopping after the plane has caught fire or is sinking into a river.
Performing in a crisis is becoming more important for all of us, for two reasons. Back in the good old days, the reliability of most anything we used or did was far less than it is today. Now think about what happens to our preparedness as the possibility of something bad happening shrinks. Unless we practice what hardly ever happens, our ability to respond when it does happen tends to slip away. Reliability can kill you. Also, the systems we use today are more complex. There are seldom moving parts in plain view that allow us to see when things are about to go wrong. When complex systems lack transparency (透明度,显而易见), serious situations can “come out of nowhere.” We should all learn to breathe, recognize the situation, and carry out the plan that we were smart enough to prepare well in advance.
1.What does the underlined phrase “freak out” mean?
A.Be at one’s best. B.Calm down gradually.
C.Run away immediately. D.Panic or be scared.
2.Why do armed robbers go unidentified?
A.Because the witnesses jump to conclusions.
B.Because the witnesses focus on their scariest thing.
C.Because the witnesses forget what they have been told.
D.Because the witnesses are keenly aware of the surroundings.
3.Why is it more important for us to perform in a crisis today?
A.Because of less reliability and less complexity.
B.Because of more reliability and more complexity.
C.Because of worse transparency and less preparedness.
D.Because of better transparency and more preparedness.
4.What would the passage suggest doing in case a fire breaks out?
A.Taking a deep breath and dialing 119.
B.Staying cool and ignoring the challenge.
C.Calming down and remembering the situation.
D.Performing escaping and rescuing beforehand.
Hey, man,
Good to hear from you again. Your e-mail came in just as I was chatting with another friend, Jeff. I wish I had better advice.
You know, after I left the Shenandoah Valley, my next job was in Rocky Mount. The two other sportswriters on staff, Travis and Jeff, were in their mid-20s too. Honestly, we’d come to Rocky Mount to leave Rocky Mount. We complained about our shop and envied the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer. What resources they had! Writers who covered only one team didn’t have to lay out pages. Talk about living the dream. If we could just get to one of those places! Then we could go somewhere else!
Travis, Jeff, and I bonded over our desire to part ways. We ate dinner together and went out to cover our games and came back to help send the final pages to the printer. On the best nights, we’d grab the news editors and play Wiffle ball, laughing and joking until almost sunrise.
We all left there within a year, as intended. Jeff became one of the most well-known NASCAR writers in the country, with almost 200,000 Twitter followers. Now he’s got his own media company that’s doing quite well. In 2017, Jeff and I went to a Charlotte Knights game, and Jeff said something about Rocky Mount that I won’t forget. “I didn’t appreciate it then, but honestly, when I look back, it’s probably the best time I’ve ever had in my career.”
Maybe success isn’t measured in achievements, or “being happy with who you are”. Goals and personal peace are selfish markers, and I don’t mean to imply selfishness is a bad thing, not at all. Selfishness is the axis of humankind, from cavemen to astronauts to saints on earth. Individual accomplishments bring worldwide accomplishments. But all of the accomplishments may not leave you feeling successful, right?
The point is, maybe success is a smaller calculation, something more like what Jeff hinted at. Maybe success is having the wherewithal (所需的物资) to be grateful at the precise moment you have something to be grateful for.
Thank you for writing, old friend.
Mike
1.When Mike went to the Rocky Mount, ________.
A.he appreciated life there.
B.he lived the dream there.
C.he intended to land a better job elsewhere.
D.he got a job with all resources he longed for there.
2.What did Mike do in Rocky Mount?
A.A printer. B.A reporter.
C.A player. D.An editor.
3.Which of the following is true?
A.Mike believes selfishness is part of human nature.
B.We feel happy when we are calculating small numbers.
C.Mike disagrees with Jeff’s comment on their life in Rocky Mount.
D.Individual accomplishments are unrelated to worldwide accomplishments.
4.Mike is giving advice on ______.
A.what happiness is B.what success is
C.how to achieve more D.how to land a better job
They may seem like ordinary people by day but in their spare time, these office, shop and school workers bring history to life. During the week they work in shops, offices, clinics and schools, but at weekends they transform into Vikings, Romans and Medieval peasants. The world of re-enactment (重演) is booming with more and more men and women taking up the hobby of travelling to bygone times.
Factory manager of a busy printers, Brett Freeman, 46, from Nottingham, changes into “Padmore,” a Victorian street-seller selling stationery (文具).
Already a veteran (老兵) of military re-enactments, Brett joined the “Ragged Victorians” when middle-age kicked in. “I was too old to portray a soldier but I wanted to get back into the hobby and the Ragged Victorians looked the best in terms of being genuine.”
At his first event, group members gave him “loaner gear” and a year to research his character. His teeth blackened with theatrical stain, in top hat and floppy coat, Brett looks every bit his Victorian image.
Seeking inspiration, Brett dipped into the works of Victorian journalist, Henry Mayhew, who wrote about the working people of London.
“My character is inspired by the description of a stationer in Mayhew’s London Labour and London Poor. I mixed that up with my own background in print, and local historical sources to create street stationer, Padmore, which is the name of my Victorian great-great grandfather.”
“Getting into kit (装备) helps immensely and once you are in the public area you try to remain in character wherever possible.” For extra authenticity, Brett combines his language with Victorian selling patter (顺口溜), replacing the word “envelope” with “hangflups.”
“Re-enacting is great fun, but we’re always glad of a hot shower and a comfortable bed at the end of the weekend,” says Brett. “Normal life can seem very dull after a particularly good weekend. It would be wonderful to go back in time for a visit, but studying the period as I have done, makes you realise just how hard life was for our ancestors.”
1.Why does Brett choose to be a Victorian street-seller?
A.He has already played a veteran.
B.Portraying a soldier no longer fit him.
C.He is a manager of a busy printers.
D.His blackened teeth make it real.
2.What does the underlined phrase “loaner gear” in paragraph 4 mean?
A.Stage costume lent to him. B.Money paid on loan.
C.Adequate time. D.An assistant.
3.Which of the following words can best describe Brett?
A.Brave and careful. B.Kind and positive.
C.Humorous and caring. D.Serious and devoted.
4.Where can you probably find the above passage?
A.In a research report. B.In a magazine.
C.In a travel brochure. D.In an advertisement.
A study by the Institute for Employment Studies found that learners reported higher life enjoyment and greater confidence. The following apps will help you to learn something new…
Quizlet
Whether you’re learning gardening knowledge and cooking techniques, or getting to grasp your favourite literature classics, the online learning platform, Quizlet, gives you access to over 300 million different study sets on almost any subject you can imagine — for free. Whether you are learning a skill yourself or helping your grandchild revise their school work, Quizlet is a great study platform for mastering any subject.
Babbel
As well as being a great skill to show off on holiday, learning a new language can have profound effects on the way you approach problem-solving and might even give you a hand in your career. Not only does speaking a little of the local language give you a great sense of accomplishment, studying a language sparks a strong desire to travel, too.
Blinkist
Blinkist is the perfect app to assist you this summer, providing the key highlights from non-fiction books in both audio and text form. Whether you want to start a new business, improve your management skills, or achieve a better work/life balance, micro-learning app Blinkist takes key ideas from non-fiction texts and summarize them into easy-to-consume 15-minute digests.
Remente
Whether the aim is to improve mental wellbeing, mindfulness, stress management or personal or professional relationships, Remente guides a user through every step in order to make their goals a reality. It does this through breaking down your overall aim into daily goals, making large tasks, manageable and keeping you on track.
1.Which app favors senior citizens?
A.Babbel. B.Quizlet.
C.Blinkist. D.Remente.
2.What is special about Blinkist?
A.It provides key non-fiction books.
B.It improves your micro-learning ability.
C.It offers shortened non-fiction books.
D.It improves your management skills.
3.If you’re stressed with your new business, you can choose _____?
A.Babbel & Quizlet B.Remente & Quizlet
C.Blinkist & Babbel D.Blinkist & Remente
