A Deed a Day
It was a busy day as usual. I was making sandwiches and balancing the phone between my shoulder
and chin. The washing machine sounded as my husband walked in with our daughters. We had only about twenty minutes to eat we had to take the girls to their next activity. My husband seemed a bit that dinner was not on the table.
That night, I had a heavy , thinking we were becoming taskmasters on an assembly line (流水线). We had become too in our own tasks and not very considerate towards
those around us. We needed to do something to bring back some meaning into our lives. It needed to be something that would our own agendas and energize us toward the common good.
I bought a notebook, named it “Our Deed Diary” and held a family meeting. I told my family I wanted us all to think about doing a for others every day. It could be for each other or for people outside our . And we all needed to write it down in the notebook.
I thought one deed a day was too easy. However, it was actually than it seemed because it had to be something what we had already done. Sending birthday cards to people we already sent cards to every year would not .
We had a rough . On some days, someone would forget to a good deed, while on other days, we would forget to write our good deeds in the diary. After a few weeks though, I found myself waking up in the morning trying to what good deed I could do for someone that day. My daughters began to rush to me after school to me the good deed they had done.
Now, after a year, I am happy to say that it is making a(n) in our lives. Instead of always what the day will bring for us, we think about what we can do for someone else.
Who would have thought that trying to do a simple kindness a day would be so ? I feel my daughters have felt inner joy that you can only by giving to someone else from your heart. The best thing is that you feel so great about doing something for someone else; you don't even look for or expect anything in . So, when someone does return the favor, it is an enormous and positive .
1.A. before B. while C. though D. unless
2.A. embarrassed B. frightened C. annoyed D. puzzled
3.A. heart B. shoulder C. foot D. stomach
4.A. successful B. absorbed C. confident D. interested
5.A. repeat B. recall C. refocus D. relate
6.A. task B. copy C. job D. kindness
7.A. home B. town C. school D. room
8.A. stranger B. harder C. bigger D. sweeter
9.A. between B. beyond C. about D. from
10.A. matter B. happen C. last D. count
11.A. time B. start C. idea D. life
12.A. praise B. record C. do D. check
13.A. describe B. explain C. remember D. decide
14.A. bring B. tell C. offer D. teach
15.A. effort B. fortune C. difference D. choice
16.A. forgetting B. believing C. knowing D. wondering
17.A. tiring B. rewarding C. surprising D. moving
18.A. experience B. exchange C. predict D. imagine
19.A. silence B. order C. time D. return
20.A. effect B. contribution C. bonus D. attitude
After Steve Jobs died，his friend Larry Ellison said something like this, “There will never
be another Steve Jobs”. 1. Larry wrote this list of Steve's life lessons to remind us all.
1. Love what you do. Sure Steve became a billionaire when he brought Apple back. Apple was his calling even after he got fired from the company. We all have bad jobs at one point in our lives. But the question is: am I in the right job? Have I found the right company? Life doesn’t go on forever. 2.
2. Don't do it all by yourself.
Steve learned a great leader can't do it all by himself. He needs people. They must be talented. 3._ They must be given the opportunity to succeed and fail. In short，we have to learn to be a great leader if we want to see our great ideas and hard work truly have an influence on the world.
3. 4._
Apple is always good at creating a new product that meets the exact needs of users. It’s empathy（共鸣）that helps Apple achieve this. Whenever the user has the first touch with a new Apple product，he says "Wow，it's just what I need". Remember, you're King in the business world if you know exactly what consumers desire.
4. Don't mess around with your health.
5._ That's the most important lesson from Steve's life. It's great to learn from him but，the fact is he should still be here if he had treated his cancer properly. Instead, Steve chose a naturopathic(自然疗法)solution that wasn't effective. When he finally decided to take his doctor's original advice，it was too late.
A. What are the key things that we could learn from him?
B. Get on our right path now.
C. Will this lead to a successful career?
D. They must be inspired.
E. Put yourself in the other person's shoes.
F. Take your health seriously.
G. Be the best in your field.
Humans have launched themselves into the outer space. They’ve landed on the moon. They’ve built habitable space stations that orbit the Earth. The next giant leap for mankind is to reach another planet – specifically, Mars.
The problem is that it’s no easy task. The planet is 586 times further away from the Earth than the moon, and it’ll take around 180 to 220 days to reach Mars, depending on where each planet is in its orbit. Such long periods in space have suggested many potential health problems, including hormonal changes, skin conditions, and muscle and bone deterioration (损耗).
Here’s where some furry friends come in. A wide range of animals have been in space, from fruit flies and spiders to cats, and dogs. Such experiments began as far back as the late 1940s in first tests to see if living things could withstand the extreme g-force (重力) of a rocket launch.
Mice continue to play a very important part in space experiments, mainly because the animals make excellent test subjects. They’re small, which makes them inexpensive and easy to care for. In addition, their size and short life span make it possible to do the equivalent of several human years of tests in a much shorter time. Finally, because mice are mammals, they share many common characteristics with humans in terms of genetics, biology and behavior.
Astromice have hit the headlines recently, as a team of scientists led by Betty Nusgens, professor of biology at the University of Liege in Belgium, found that the mice suffered a 15 percent thinning of their skin after 91 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
This experiment was part of a wider NASA mission (任务) called the Mice Drawer System (MDS). The Italian Space Agency developed the facility, which allows six mice to be housed, monitored, and automatically fed and watered aboard the ISS, among which three survived during the mission.
The mice have participated in 20 separate experiments, to study such effects as osteoporosis (骨质疏松症), anemia (贫血) and heart health.
Results for the 20 experiments are coming in gradually. But it’s clear that mice continue to play an important role in the ongoing quest to conquer the final frontier.
1.We can infer from Paragraphs 2-3 that ______.
A. Mars is the farthest planet away from Earth discovered so far
B. animals that have been sent into space have mostly survived
C. it was in the late 1940s that animals were first sent to the ISS
D. the journey to Mars could put humans’ health at risk
2.The underlined word “withstand” in Para.3 means _________.
A.set up B. come across
C. work out D. hold up
3.According to Betty Nusgens and her team, the mice aboard the ISS ______.
A. all survived for the duration(期间) of the mission
B. suffered the loss of part of their skin
C. were fed and watered by the astronauts
D. participated in 20 experiments that made great breakthroughs
4. The main purpose of the article is to _____.
A. analyze how mice could pave the way to Mars
B. report on the results of the Mice Drawer System
C. describe the role mice play in scientific research
D. change people’s traditional attitudes toward mice
I was in my first year of college, making friends and enjoying life, but then my whole world turned upside down. I had a heart attack. It felt like someone was stabbing (刺) me in the chest with a knife over and over again.
After three months of rest I went back to college, but then things took a turn for the worse. I was staying at my Nana’s house and woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible pain in my chest. I knew I was having a heart attack again.
I couldn’t even shout for help. Luckily my grandpa was going to the toilet and heard me falling out of bed. If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be here.
The two holes in my heart were causing the problems and I needed an operation immediately to repair them. Unfortunately, the surgery didn’t go well and they only managed to repair one of the holes.
When I woke up from the operation, I had a really dry mouth and couldn’t wait to have something to eat and drink. The biggest shock of all came when I was told that I needed a heart transplant and was put on the register. The doctors were stunned at how quickly heart failure came on – it usually takes years, but it took my heart less than six months to get to that stage. My whole world came crashing down, but I stayed strong. It was a choice between crying every day and getting on with my life.
As time went on, life became even harder. I hated feeling weak all the time and needing help with everything. It got to the point where I thought I would never get a new heart. I was diagnosed with depression.
Even though I thought that Christmas 2008 would be my last, I really enjoyed it and even had a good New Year. Everyone was crying for me when the clock struck midnight and they told me to keep fighting.
A week later, I got a call from the doctors saying they’d found a suitable donor (捐赠人). My wish came true and thankfully the operation went well. I spent four hours in surgery where they took out my old heart and put a new one in. When I woke up I burst out crying. I had a second chance at life.
1.What happened when the author was having his second heart attack?
A. He felt less pain than he had during the previous one.
B. He narrowly escaped death thanks to his grandfather.
C. He realized what it was and shouted for help in time.
D. He decided to have an operation to repair the two holes in his heart.
2.When the author learned that he needed a heart transplant, he ______.
A. chose to continue to fight for his life
B. couldn’t help crying every day
C. felt so depressed that he tried to kill himself
D. was so anxious that his heart failure developed very quickly
3.At the beginning of 2009, the author ______.
A. was convinced that the past Christmas had been his last
B. received a heart transplant but the operation didn’t go well
C. felt blessed and grateful for his second chance at life
D. felt hopeless all the time and was diagnosed with depression
4.Which one would be the best title for the text?
A. Choices matter
B. Rebuilding my world
C. Waiting for a new heart
D. The most special Christmas
For many people around the world, a subway journey means speeding from one dull station to the next, surrounded by too many uncomfortable, impatient people. But on the Moscow Metro, taking the subway is like walking through a national heritage site. Depending on where you get off, you’ll receive a brief course in architectural movements and face colorful glass windows, marble(大理石) columns, gilded(鎏金的) mosaics and painted scenes from Russian history.
“These extraordinarily beautiful places are unlike any metro station I’ve ever seen, “says Vancouver-based photographer David Burdeny.
When Burdeny, who himself has a master’s degree in architecture, first found out about Moscow’s metro stations, he was struck by the work of art. In all, he has photographed 20 of the most beautiful stations.
Burdeny had originally planned to focus on Russian stations more generally, taking photos of examples in both St. Petersburg and Moscow.
“But when I saw the stations in Moscow, they just completely blew away the St. Petersburg ones,” he says.
Shooting in the subway sounds simple, but it is not without challenges. For one thing, Burdeny had to figure out a way to access them between 00:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., when the stations were closed.
In the end, he settled on Arbatskaya Metro Station, whose vaulted(拱状的) arches he found the most beautiful. But it also represented a challenge he was not sure if he was able to overcome: conveying the hugeness of the spaces. The Arbatskaya platform, for example, stretches 820 feet.
“Some of the arches are quite long,” he says. “When you enter them, they’re just so completely grand.”
1.We can learn from the text that David Burdeny .
A. is a world-famous architect
B. took photos of Moscow subway stations
C. took the subway to and from work
D. is studying Russian history
2.What Burdeny found challenging was .
A. when to take photos of Moscow subway stations
B. Whether to work in St. Petersburg or Moscow
C. where to get off to study the Moscow metro system
D. how to photograph the long arches at Arbatskaya Metro Station
3. What does the underlined word “Shooting” mean in Paragraph 6?
A. Firing bullets from a gun
B. Making movies
C. Taking photographs
D. Throwing the ball at the basket.
Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self-respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized(把……归类) 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 (暗中的) 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 actions 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. friendly relationship B. financial rewards
C. advertising ability D. self-respect 21*com
2.The author thinks that keeping silent about the uncharged item is equal to __________.
A. lying B. cheating
C. stealing D. advertising
3.How will we feel if we let the clerk know the mistake?
A. We’ll be very excited.
B. We’ll have a sense of honor.
C. We’ll feel unfortunate.
D. We’ll feel sorry for the clerk.
4.Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?
A. Happiness through Honorable Actions
B. Importance of Peacefulness
C. Ways of Gaining Self-respect
D. How to Live Truthfully
