Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self- respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized as "honor" help you create this life of good feelings.
Here's an example to show how honorable actions create happiness.
Say a store clerk fails to charge us for an item. If we keep silent, and profit from the clerk's mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky excitement. Later we might tell our family or friends about our good fortune. On the other hand, if we tell the clerk about the uncharged item, the clerk would be grateful and thank us for our honesty. We would leave the store with a quiet sense of honor that we might never share with another soul.
Then, what is it to do with our sense of happiness?
In the first case, where we don't tell the clerk, a couple of things would happen. Deep down inside we would know ourselves as a type of thief. In the process, we would lose some peace of mind and self-respect. We would also demonstrate that we cannot be trusted, since we advertise our dishonor by telling our family and friends. We damage our own reputations by telling others. In contrast, bringing the error to the clerk's attention causes different things to happen. Immediately the clerk knows us to be honorable. Upon leaving the store, we feel honorable and our self-respect is increased. Whenever we take honorable action we gain the deep internal rewards of goodness and a sense of nobility.
There is a beautiful positive cycle that is created by living a life of honorable actions. Honorable thoughts lead to honorable actions. Honorable actions lead us to a happier existence. And it's easy to think and act honorably again when we're happy. While the positive cycle can be difficult to start, once it's started, it's easy to continue. Keeping on doing good deeds brings us peace of mind, which is important for our happiness.
1.According to the passage, the positive action in the example contributes to our ________.
|
A．self-respect |
B．financial rewards |
|
C．advertising ability |
D．friendly relationship |
2.The phrase "bringing the error to the clerk's attention" (in Para.5) means ________.
|
A．telling the truth to the clerk |
|
B．offering advice to the clerk |
|
C．asking the clerk to be more responsible |
|
D．reminding the clerk of the charged item |
3.How will we feel if we let the clerk know her mistake?
|
A．We'll be very excited. |
|
B．We'll feel unfortunate. |
|
C．We'll have a sense of honor. |
|
D．We'll feel sorry for the clerk. |
4.Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?
|
A．How to Live Truthfully |
|
B．Importance of Peacefulness |
|
C．Ways of Gaining Self-respect |
|
D．Happiness through Honorable Actions |
How should one invest a sum of money in inflation (通货膨胀)? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.
I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves."
Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings.
However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour- glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past.
Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in an antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?
1.According to the passage, collecting antique clocks ________.
|
A．can hardly keep the value of your savings |
|
B．will cost much of your savings |
|
C．may increase your wealth |
|
D．needs your bravery |
2.By quoting (引用) the remark of a being from another planet, the author intends to ________.
|
A．suggest human beings are controlled by a clock |
|
B．describe why clocks can rule the planet Earth |
|
C．tell readers what clocks look like |
|
D．compare clocks to human beings |
3.Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to measure the time?
|
A．Counting the beating of one's own heart. |
|
B．Making use of candles, sand and water. |
|
C．Observing shadows cast by the sun. |
|
D．Keeping slaves busy day and night. |
4.The purpose of the passage is ________.
|
A．to introduce the culture of antique clocks |
|
B．to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks |
|
C．to compare different ways to make a future profit |
|
D．to explain convenient and reliable ways of telling time |
Everyone is at it, even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn’t done an eBay deal. So, I decided to try my hand at online auction (网上拍卖).
Buying for beginners: Sign up on www. ebay. co. uk. Most items（e.g. tables, computers, and books）ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with “ Buy It Now ” and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away.
If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids（出价）for you. The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days and when they finish you get an email telling you whether you have won the item.
How to pay: Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a check or postal orders. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card (信用卡).
Selling made simple: If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item. I followed my friends’ advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starting on a Thursday. This way buyers had two weekends to bid.
The big things in life: It’s easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collected or sent by delivery men. Check the ways of delivery before you bid.
1.What is the passage mainly about?
|
A．How to make payment online. |
|
B．Ways of using delivery online. |
|
C．Advantages of an online-auction system. |
|
D．How to use an online-auction system. |
2.After bidding for an item, a buyer __________.
|
A．will get what he wants in ten days |
|
B．should make payment immediately |
|
C．has chances to make higher bids |
|
D．may check its picture and description |
3.The easiest way of making payment mentioned in the passage is __________.
|
A．through an online payment system |
|
B．through a local banking system |
|
C．by sending the money to the seller |
|
D．by paying the deliveryman directly |
Brownie and Spotty were neighbor dogs who met every day to play together. Like pairs of dogs you can find in any neighborhood, these two loved each other and played together so often that they had worn a path through the grass of the field between their houses.
One evening, Brownie’s family noticed that Brownie hadn’t returned home. They went looking for him with no success. Brownie didn’t show up the next day, and, although they made their efforts to find him, by the next week he was still missing, Curiously, Spotty showed up at Brownie’s house alone, barking and jumping. Busy with their own lives, they paid no attention to the nervous little neighbor dog.
Finally, one morning Spotty refused to take “no” for an answer. Ted, Brownie’s owner, was continuously disturbed by the angry, determined little dog. Spotty followed Ted about, barking all the time, then rushing toward a nearby empty lot and back, as if to say, “Follow me! It’s urgent!”
Eventually, Ted followed Spotty across the empty lot as Spotty stopped to race back and barked encouragingly. The little dog led the man to a deserted spot a half mile from the house. There Ted found his beloved Brownie alive, one of his legs crushed in a steel trap (圈套). Frightened, Ted now wished he had taken Spotty’s earlier appeals seriously.
Then Ted noticed something. Spotty had done something else besides leading Brownie’s human owner to his trapped friend. In a circle around the injured dog, Ted found some food remains of every meal. Brownie had been fed that week! Spotty had been visiting Brownie regularly, in the hope of keeping his friend alive. Spotty had actually stayed with Brownie to protect him from hunger and other dangers, and keep his spirits up.
Brownie’s leg was carefully treated and he soon got well again. For many years thereafter the two families watched the faithful friends chasing each other down that well-worn path between their houses.
1.At the very beginning, Ted paid little attention to Spotty because __________.
|
A．he was not free at the moment |
|
B．he was sure Brownie would be OK |
|
C．he didn’t like Spotty at all |
|
D．his missing dog made him sad |
2.After Ted was brought where Brownie was trapped, he ___________.
|
A．managed to free his dog at once |
|
B．was very thankful to Spotty |
|
C．regretted not following Spotty earlier |
|
D．was angry with the trap-maker |
3.The BEST title for this passage might be____________?
|
A．Dogs in Love |
B．A Friend in Need |
|
C．Human and dogs |
D．Dogs Are Communicative |
4.We can infer from the passage that ___________.
|
A．humans and animals depend on each other for comfort |
|
B．It’s not right to hunt for animals in any neighborhood |
|
C．Ted has to take better care of his beloved dog later on |
|
D．Brownie would have died without Spotty’s timely help |
In the clinic, I asked if Michael could be retested, so the specialist tested him again. To my ___1___, it was the same score.
Later that evening, I ___2___ told Frank what I had learned that day. After talking it over, we agree that we knew our ___3___ much better than an IQ test. We ___4___ that Michael’s score must have been a ___5___ and we should treat him ___6___ as usual.
We moved to Indiana in 1962, and Michael studied at Concordia High School in the same year. He got ___7___ grades in the school, especially ___8___ biology and chemistry, which was a great comfort.
Michael ___9___ Indiana University in 1965 as a pre-medical student, soon afterwards, his teachers permitted him to take more courses than ___10___. In 1968, he was accepted by the School of Medicine, Yale University.
On graduation day in 1972, Frank and I ___11___ the ceremony at Yale. After the ceremony, we told Michael about the ___12___ IQ score he got when he was six. Since that day, Michael sometimes would look at us and say ___13___, “My dear mom and dad never told me that I couldn’t be a doctor, not until after I graduated from medical school!” It is his special way of thanking us for the ___14___ we had in him.
Interestingly, Michael then ___15___ another IQ test. We went to the same clinic where he had __16___ the test eighteen years before. This time Michael scored 126, an increase of 36 points. A result like that was supposed to be ___17___.
Children often do as ___18___ as what adults, particularly parents and teachers, ___19___ of them. That is, tell a child he is “ ___20___”, and he may play the role of a foolish child.
|
1. |
|
|
2. |
|
|
3. |
|
|
4. |
|
5.A. joke B. mistake C. warning D wonder
|
6. |
|
|
7. |
|
|
8. |
|
|
9. |
|
|
10. |
|
|
11. |
|
|
12. |
|
|
13. |
|
|
14. |
|
|
15. |
|
|
16. |
|
|
17. |
|
|
18. |
|
|
19. |
|
|
20. |
|
- Mum, I failed to catch the train.
- If you __________ at the station ten minutes earlier, you could have caught it.
|
A．arrived |
B．had arrived |
C．would arrive |
D．were to arrive |
