The Happiest Cities On Earth
If you’re looking for a cheery destination for your next vacation, consider these four spots and get ready to take notes on how to really live the good life.
Singapore
With one of the highest population densities（密度）in the world and residents known for being workaholics, it’s hard to imagine the city-state of Singapore having one of the happiest populations on earth. And yet in a recent survey, 95% of them said they were either very happy or quite happy.
They give their city high marks for cleanliness and safety—subways are pristine (洁净的) and unfailingly arrive on time, and police are seen as helpful and good at their jobs. What’s more, they feel they can count on their neighbours—all 5.1 million of them.
Arhus, Denmark
The residents of Arhus cheerfully part with 68% of their income in taxes, knowing that in return they will be guaranteed free healthcare, free daycare, and a top-notch (第一流的) education for their children.
An energetic city of 300,000 with a lively cultural scene and a diverse number of religions represented, the sense of equality (the range in incomes is narrow), as well as easy access to the nearby sea and surrounding countryside, make Arhus seem more like a small town.
San Luis Obispo, CA
According to a 2008 Gallup-Healthways study, people who live in San Luis Obispo are more likely than residents of other U.S. cities to smile and experience joy and are less likely to experience pain or depression. About 64,000 of the 260,000 people in the greater metropolitan area (都市区), located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, volunteer at over 11,000 non-profit organizations.
Few journeys to work are longer than 10 minutes (one reason its members rank in the upper third for job satisfaction), so “it’s easy to be involved,” resident Pierre Rademaker said. Business signs are unobtrusive (不显眼的) by law, fewer than 11% of residents smoke—the lower rate in the U.S.—there are lots of bike lanes, and the city’s plaza draws crowds of people for free concerts on summer Fridays. What’s not to love?
Monterrey, Mexico
The people of Monterrey don’t enjoy high household incomes or access to good healthcare. Instead, there’s a profound sense of gratitude for the new political freedom enjoyed since the oppressive Institutional Revolutionary Party lost power in 2000—the first time in nearly a century—as well as an emphasis on social life over work.
Another reason Monterrey residents may be so happy is their faith in God and family, and their ability to tough it out through bad times.
“We laugh at sickness, poverty and even death,” says Basanez, a political scientist who lives in Monterrey. “We even have a holiday to celebrate death. November 2, the Day of the Dead, is one of the biggest holidays of the year.”
1.According to the passage, what do the residents in the four cities have in common?
A. All the residents can make great fortunes by working hard.
B. The residents there are mostly educators.
C. All the residents enjoy enough material wealth.
D. The majority of the residents are satisfied with their current life.
2.According to the passage, we can infer that _______.
A. the people of Singapore expect their neighbours to come to their help when necessary
B. the people of Monterrey even observe one’s death on a special day of a year
C. the residents of Arhus happily pay 68% of their income for their children’s education fee
D. the people who live in San Luis Obispo have job satisfaction because they can enjoy good working conditions
3.According to the passage which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A. The people of Monterrey didn’t enjoy political freedom until 2000.
B. The residents in Singapore feel happy because of its low population density.
C. The people of San Luis Obispo can enjoy free concerts in summer.
D. Arhus is handy to the seaside and countryside.
4.What can we learn from the underlined part “the sense of equality”?
A. The residents of Arhus have no racial discrimination.
B. Arhus is considered as a family sharing everything with each other.
C. There is no wide gap between the rich and the poor in Arhus.
D. The residents of Arhus can depend on their neighbours to help.
People who averaged fewer than seven hours of sleep per night in the weeks before being exposed to the cold virus were nearly three times as likely to get sick as those who averaged eight hours or more, a new study found.
Researchers used frequent telephone interviews to track the sleep habits of more than 150 men and women aged 21 to 55 over the last few weeks. Then they exposed the subjects to the virus, quarantined (检疫隔离) them for five days and kept track of who got sick.
Besides sleeping more, sleeping better also seemed to help the body fight illness: Patients who fared better on a measure known as “sleep efficiency”—the percentage of time in bed that you’re actually sleeping—were also less likely to get sick.
The results held true even after researchers adjusted for elements such as body-mass index, age, sex, smoking and pre-existing antibodies (抗体) to the virus.
The researchers aren’t exactly sure why sleeping better makes you less likely to develop a cold. But they do try to give an answer: “Sleep disturbance influences the regulation of symptom mediators (调节因子) that are released in response to infection.” In plain English, maybe tossing and turning when you’re infected with the cold virus contributes to the symptoms that define a cold.
The researchers were based at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Virginia, and the study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
1. According to the passage, what does the underlined word “subjects” mean in paragraph 2?
A. areas of knowledge in a school
B. people being studied in an experiment
C. research topics
D. animals being tested
2.It is shown in the passage that _______.
A. the researchers obtain information about the sleep habits by frequent interviews
B. the researchers do their research in the National Institutes of Health
C. people hope to avoid being infected with a cold by sleeping as much as possible
D. sleeping more and better helps regulate the symptom mediators
3.What’s the best title of the passage?
A. The Relationship Between Virus and Cold
B. How to Sleep Well
C. Good Sleep Helps Fight a Cold
D. The More the Sleep, the Better Your Body
Last Sunday I made a visit to some new neighbors down the block. No specific in mind, just an opportunity to sit at the kitchen table, have some tea and chat. As I did so, it occurred to me how rare the Sunday visit has become.
When I was a kid in New Jersey of the 1960s, Sunday visits were routine. Most stores were closed, almost nobody worked, and the highways, as a result, were not desperate steeplechases(障碍赛跑) they have become today. My family normally traveled eight city blocks to the home of my grandmother, where adults would sit on the front porch and chat while we children played hide-and-seek.
The Sunday visit was something to desire strongly. It was the repetition to church, our reward for an hour of devotion, an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Dad was not at work, we were not in school, and there was no housework that couldn’t wait until Monday. Sunday was, indeed, different from the other days of the week, because everyone seemed to be on the same schedule, which means that there was one day when everyone seemed to have time for everybody else.
Sunday as a day of rest is, or was, so deeply rooted in the culture that it’s surprising to find that, in a short span of time, it has almost entirely lost this association. In my childhood, it was assumed that everyone would either be home or visiting someone else’s home on Sunday. But now the question is, “What do you plan to DO this Sunday?” The answer can range from going to the mall, to participating in a road race, to Montreal for lunch. If one were to respond, “I’m making a Sunday visit to family,” such an answer would feel strange, which sounds like an echo from another era.
I suppose I should be grateful to live in Maine, a state of small towns, abundant land and tight relationships. Even though folks work as hard here as they do anywhere else, the state’s powerfully rural feature still keeps at least remnants(残余部分) of the moral of yesterday’s America, where people had to depend on one another in the face of economic vagaries(反复无常的情况) and a challenging environment.
1.The writer’s general impression of the Sunday in the past was a day when＿＿.
A. everyone was paying a visit to some relatives far away
B. everyone seemed to be free for others
C. Dad was not at work while Mom was busy cleaning the house
D. nearly every adult would go to church and children weren’t at school
2.In the fourth paragraph, the writer compares the response “I’m making a Sunday visit to family” to an echo from another era because_____.
A. people nowadays prefer staying at home on Sunday
B. such answers are rarely heard in our modern society
C. people in the city dislike being disturbed on Sunday
D. visiting someone on Sunday was routine in the past
3.From the last paragraph we may infer that_____.
A. people in Maine suffer more from economic depression and the changed environment
B. people in Maine have abandoned their tradition and lived an absolutely new life
C. land in Maine is short, thus the relationship between people is tense
D. people in Maine tend to help each other out of necessity
4.What’s the main idea of the passage?
A. Doing many activities on Sunday is beneficial.
B. We should often travel a long distance to visit some friends and relatives.
C. Nowadays, Sunday has almost lost its association as a day of rest.
D. We should abandon some old tradition.
Sometimes a part of us must die before another part can come to life. Even though this is a and necessary stage of our growth, it is often painful or if we don’t realize what’s happening. In fact, confusion is often the that tells us a change is taking place within us. These changes happen throughout the lives of all humans, as we move from babyhood to to teenage years and beyond. With each change from one to another, we find ourselves goodbye to an old friend, the identity (个性，身份) that we in order to move through that particular time.
Sometimes we shape these identities in relationships or jobs, and when we change, those areas of our life become . Usually, if we take the time to look into the changing surface of things, we will find that a change is taking place us. For example, we may go through one whole part of our lives creating a protective shell around ourselves we need it in defense of ourselves. One day, , we may find ourselves feeling limited and bored, wanting to move outside the we used to need; the new part of ourselves cannot be born within the of the shell our old self needed.
We may feel a strange of excitement and sadness as we say goodbye to a part of ourselves that is and make way for a whole new identity to in its place. We may find inspiration in working and studying when we think of the image of an animal who sheds (蜕毛；蜕皮) in order to way for new skin, fur, or feathers to . For example, keeping a piece of snake skin, or some other symbols of change, can us that death and rebirth are simply nature’s way of growing. We can give in to this process, letting go of our past self with great love and gratitude, and the new with an open mind and heart, ready for our next stage of life.
1.A. natural B. dusty C. humorous D. rare
2.A. moving B. confusing C. tiring D. scared
3.A. report B. notice C. sign D. idea
4.A. brotherhood B. neighborhood C. adulthood D. childhood
5.A. animal B. people C. school D. stage
6.A. saying B. speaking C. telling D. reading
7.A. showed B. left C. shaped D. realized
8.A. influenced B. remained C. defended D. directed
9.A. of B. within C. for D. between
10.A. although B. while C. until D. because
11.A. moreover B. therefore C. however D. so
12.A. area B. shelter C. room D. space
13.A. limits B. contents C. connection D. requirement
14.A. influence B. mixture C. appearance D. relation
15.A. dying B. coming C. escaping D. running
16.A. come back B. come down C. come out D. come across
17.A. become B. reach C. name D. make
18.A. appear B. disappear C. go D. exist
19.A. convince B. remind C. warn D. tell
20.A. hoping B. imaging C. welcoming D. supplying
---Currently it is difficult to find a good job in the fierce job-hunting market.
---_____. But highly-qualified graduates are always in great demand.
A. I hope so B. That’s all right
C. No kidding D. That sounds reasonable
The first decade of the 21st century _____ the breathtaking and non-stop development of China.
A. witnesses B. witnessed C. will witness D. had witnessed
