Why I’ve taken a break from holidays
It is now close to four years since I last took a holiday. This is because I have come to the conclusion, over the course of my adult life, that I am not very good at it. You might think this sounds like saying you’re not very good at drinking tea or listening to music. What could possibly be difficult about the natural act of putting your working life on hold for a couple of weeks and going somewhere warm to do nothing?
I was a model holidaymaker as a kid. However, the problems started during my twenties. A trip to the south of France was ended after just two days, mainly because I had an urge to check my e-mails. Similarly, my honeymoon was cut short by 48 hours—not because my wife and I weren’t enjoying ourselves, but because we were missing our cats.
So what is my problem? On the surface, I’m probably a bit of a homebody. And I just find the pressure of being on holiday too severe: it always feels like having a gun held to my head and being forced to have fun. Somehow, packing a list of possessions and meeting a scheduled flight has none of the excitement of suddenly deciding to take a day off and driving somewhere for the fun of it.
Thankfully, I’m not alone. This summer, most of my friends have decided not to have a break. And a recent survey (调查) proved the downside of holidays, with the results showing that nearly two thirds of people found that the calming effects of a holiday wore off within 24 hours, as stress levels returned to normal. And this year The Idler magazine published its Book of Awful Holidays. Here you will find a list of the five most ecologically-damaging vacations it’s possible to take, along with 50 painful holiday experiences voted for on The Idler website.
What interests me is what the concept of a “holiday” says about our lives. For me, the point of living is to have a life you enjoy for 52 weeks a year. The more I like my life and the better I structure it, the less I want to go away. Maybe I’m an unusual person for not liking holidays, but I just feel the time when I’m not working is too valuable to waste on them.
1.The events the author describes in the second paragraph show ________.
A. how hard he has tried to enjoy holidays
B. how badly he behaves when he is on holiday
C. his lack of enthusiasm for being on holiday
D. his fear of something bad when he is on holiday
2.What does the author think of holidays?
A. They are often well organized in order to please other people.
B. He feels embarrassed when other people are having fun but he isn’t.
C. He tends to be made responsible for too much of the organization of them.
D. They are less enjoyable than breaks that have not been planned in advance.
3.The underlined word “downside” in the fourth paragraph probably means ________.
A. absenceB. damageC. disadvantageD. conflict
4.What is the author’s attitude towards “taking a holiday”?
A. Disapproving.B. Supportive.C. Neutral.D. Unconcerned.
Most of us have gone away from “mad men” in the street, only to realize that they are in fact using a Bluetooth headset. Now a new University of Pennsylvania study shows that muttering can actually help people find lost objects—in other words, saying the name of an object helps you find it more quickly.
Previous work has suggested that speaking aloud while performing step-by-step tasks, like tying shoelaces (鞋带), can help kids guide their behavior and let them focus on the job in hand. However, scientists were not sure if speaking aloud when performing tasks could help adults in the same way, especially when looking for particular objects. Professor Gary Lupan and Daniel Swingley, writing for the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, carried out some experiments. They hoped to give the fact that next time you lose your keys, muttering “keys, keys, keys” can in fact help you find them.
Inspired by viewing people muttering to themselves as they try to find things like peanut butter in a supermarket, the researchers conducted two experiments to see if this actually worked. In the first, participants were shown 20 pictures of various objects and were asked to find a certain one, with some seeing a text label (标签) telling them what they were looking for. These participants were then asked to search for the object again while saying the word to themselves, with results showing that saying it aloud helped people find the object more quickly.
The second experiment saw participants performing a shopping task, where they were shown photographs of items (物品) commonly found on supermarket shelves. They were asked to find all examples of a particular item, so if they were asked for apples they had to find all the bags of apples, as quickly as possible. The researchers found that there was also an advantage in saying the name of the product aloud when they were searching for something familiar.
The University of Pennsylvania study shows that muttering can actually help people reach the target object—in other words, muttering to oneself helps to focus the mind on something. It works more effectively than seeing a written description. Repeating the word over and over again helps even more.
1.The second paragraph tells us that ________.
A. muttering helps people to control their behavior
B. muttering has the same effect on both kids and adults
C. it is really hard to carry out the experiments on adults
D. it is easier for kids to do step-by-step tasks by muttering
2.According to the passage, muttering can help people in a way that ________.
A. it completely controls people’s mind
B. it directly explains people’s behavior
C. they concentrate more on their job at hand
D. they reduce their pressure from their mind
3.The two experiments mentioned in the passage show that ________.
A. participants were better at doing the shopping task
B. it took the participants the same time to find the objects
C. showing pictures of the items helped find them more quickly
D. participants saying aloud the word found the object more quickly
4.What is the best title of the passage?
A. Effects of Muttering
B. How to Find Lost Objects
C. What to Mutter to Yourself
D. Methods of Remembering Objects
Dear Sir,
I am writing to express my concern about the plans to build a motorway near our village.
Haldersham is one of the loveliest villages in England. It is peaceful and quiet, and it is situated in a very attractive valley. There are also several beautiful countryside walks in the surroundings, with a view of many rare trees and plants.
Most of the people who live in Haldersham have moved here from other places, often from London and other big cities. They have bought houses here to live in a place far away from the noise and the stress of the big city. They paid a lot of money for their houses, but they knew they would get a high quality of life for it.
If the planned motorway is built, life in Haldersham will change greatly. There will be a lot of noise around us, and nobody will want to go on the walks. House prices will certainly go down, because nobody will want to buy houses in a place close to a motorway. Haldersham will become an ugly place.
I don’t think any of the people living in this beautiful village want that, and we all believe exposure to noise pollution can have a direct influence on our health. So, let’s all tell the politicians who support the motorway plans what we think about them!
Yours faithfully,
Hilary Riley
1.Many people move to Haldersham because ________.
A. it has a good environment
B. it is not far away from big cities
C. they want to be a help to the village
D. they prefer to study rare plants in this area
2.According to Hilary Riley, a motorway will ________.
A. cause high house prices
B. bring people stress
C. provide a convenient life
D. affect the quality of life
3.What’s the purpose of the letter?
A. To give an introduction of Haldersham.
B. To show grateful thanks to the politicians.
C. To express disapproval about the motorway.
D. To offer suggestions on building the motorway.
Pooja Dhingra is an Indian chef and businesswoman, the owner of macaroon bakery chain Le 15 Patisserie (西饼店) in Mumbai. She should have been a lawyer. But while studying ________ at university in Mumbai, she decided to ________ her major and do something more creative.
Dhingra’s father and her elder brother are both restaurant owners. Remembering helping her mother in the ________ during her childhood, she decided to work with food instead of legal cases. She ________ her parents to let her attend a hospitality (招待) and management course in Switzerland. Three years later, she went to Paris to learn the ________ of French baking. There her friends took her to one of the best macaroon shops. After just one ________, Dhingra determined that when she returned to Mumbai she would ________ her own shop, the first of its kind in India.
After graduation, she started making macaroons in her parents’ kitchen, ________ it was a complete failure. The hot and wet weather in Mumbai made it ________ to make delicious cakes. It took her around six months of research and 60 failed ________ to finally get a favorite recipe. Yet being both young and female ________ she faced extra challenges. “The biggest problem was to get people to take you ________,” she says. “For example, if I had to buy machinery, I would have to ask my father to make these calls for me.”
Dhingra eventually opened her first shop in 2010. To ________ sales in a city where very few people knew what a macaroon was, Dhingra gave away some ________ macaroons to customers, which made her cakes popular immediately. She continued ________ new recipes. “Once you know basic techniques, inventing recipes is very ________,” she said. “All you need is an open ________. I get a lot of my ideas and ________ from basic things around me.”
Dhingra is the author of a best-selling cookery book, The Big Book of Treats. She also started running classes on how to make macaroons and other cakes. In 2016, Dhingra ________ her business, opening a new location called Le 15 Café. Today, as a professional baker, Dhingra ________ up one of India’s finest patisseries.
1.A. artB. lawC. historyD. medicine
2.A. quitB. checkC. enjoyD. follow
3.A. bedroomB. basementC. studyD. kitchen
4.A. remindedB. warnedC. convincedD. allowed
5.A. techniquesB. situationsC. functionsD. results
6.A. drinkB. kickC. breathD. bite
7.A. visitB. openC. sellD. name
8.A. soB. orC. butD. for
9.A. difficultB. unusualC. reasonableD. available
10.A. preparationsB. messagesC. programsD. attempts
11.A. includedB. meantC. admittedD. explained
12.A. seriouslyB. properlyC. differentlyD. peacefully
13.A. ignoreB. reportC. promoteD. examine
14.A. strangeB. modernC. famousD. free
15.A. introducingB. creatingC. demandingD. protecting
16.A. typicalB. familiarC. simpleD. regular
17.A. taskB. replyC. mindD. secret
18.A. inspirationB. authorityC. progressD. equipment
19.A. preservedB. inspectedC. acquiredD. expanded
20.A. coversB. headsC. picksD. brings
I wish I ________ them about the project. Now it’s been canceled and they’re all disappointed.
A. hadn’t toldB. didn’t tell
C. wouldn’t tellD. wasn’t telling
Peter doesn’t smoke now, but he ________ for almost twenty years.
A. was smokingB. had smokedC. has smokedD. smoked
