Why do some people live to be older than others? You know the standard explanations: keeping a moderate diet, engaging in regular exercise, etc. But what effect does your personality have on your longevity(长寿)? Do some kinds of personalities lead to longer lives? A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at this question by examining the personality characteristics of 246 children of people who had lived to be at least 100.
The study shows that those living the longest are more outgoing, more active and less neurotic (神经质的) than other people. Long-living women are also more likely to be sympathetic and cooperative than women with a normal life span. These findings are in agreement with what you would expect from the evolutionary theory: those who like to make friends and help others can gather enough resources to make it through tough times.
Interestingly, however, other characteristics that you might consider advantageous had no impact on whether study participants were likely to live longer. Those who were more self-disciplined, for instance, were no more likely to live to be very old. Also, being open to new ideas had no relationship to long life, which might explain all those bad-tempered old people who are fixed in their ways.
Whether you can successfully change your personality as an adult is the subject of a longstanding psychological debate. But the new paper suggests that if you want long life, you should strive to be as outgoing as possible.
Unfortunately, another recent study shows that your mother’s personality may also help determine your longevity. That study looked at nearly 28,000 Norwegian mothers and found that those moms who were more anxious, depressed and angry were more likely to feed their kids unhealthy diets. Patterns of childhood eating can be hard to break when we’re adults, which may mean that kids of depressed moms end up dying younger.
Personality isn’t destiny, and everyone knows that individuals can learn to change. But both studies show that long life isn’t just a matter of your physical health but of your mental health.
1.The aim of the study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society is ________.
A. to see whether people’s personality affects their life span
B. to find out if one’s lifestyle has any effect on their health
C. to investigate the role of exercise in living a long life
D. to examine all the factors contributing to longevity
2.What does the author imply about outgoing and sympathetic people?
A. They have a good understanding of evolution.
B. They are better at negotiating an agreement.
C. They generally appear more resourceful.
D. They are more likely to get over hardship.
3.What finding of the study might prove somewhat out of our expectation?
A. Easy-going people can also live a relatively long life.
B. Personality characteristics that prove advantageous actually vary with times.
C. Such personality characteristics as self-discipline have no effect on longevity.
D. Readiness to accept new ideas helps one enjoy longevity.
4.What does the recent study of Norwegian mothers show?
A. Children’s personality characteristics are invariably determined by their mothers.
B. People with unhealthy eating habits are likely to die sooner.
C. Mothers’ influence on children may last longer than fathers.
D. Mothers’ negative personality characteristics may affect their children’s life spans.
Sir William Osler has a few words for you: “In the Life of a young man, the most essential thing for happiness is the gift of friendship.” Truer words were never spoken. For what more could you ask than comradeship during the peaks and valleys of life? To whom else but a close, valuable friend can you show off your successes and complain about your failures or losses?
What is a “good friend”? How is he best described? Well, it has been my observation that although many will cry with you, few can sincerely rejoice (欣喜) with you. Therefore, in my opinion, a good friend is one who can enjoy your successes without envy; one who can say, “That was wonderful! You can do it again, even better if you want!” and mean it. Nothing taxes a friendship more than the success of one and not the other. Even the closest of friendships often cannot resist such pressure and fail. No wonder many minor friendships go down day by day for the same reason.
A person of good character and sound moral, of honor and humor, of courage and belief is a friend to be sought and treasured — for there are few. Too often we hear, “If you can count your good friends on more than one hand, consider yourself blessed.” And even then I would add, “Even if you have lost two fingers of that hand to the electric saw.
What makes a friendship last? Well, I don’t know all the answers, but one of my observations is that most good friends usually have similar tastes. They generally like and dislike many of the same things. There also usually seems to exist a similarity of personality types — especially in the fundamental values of life such as honesty, sincerity, loyalty, and dependability. More often than not, birds of a feather do fly together. I don’t think it matters a lot whether one prefers jazz or hockey to another’s Mozart or ballet. Much other matters far more: relying, sharing, giving, getting, enjoying; a sympathetic ear always there; criticism when it can help; praise — even if only because it would help. With not many people on this earth will you find this much in common. When you find one, hang on to him, for a good friend found is a rare treasure.
1.What is the meaning of the underlined sentence in Paragraph two?
A. People don’t have to pay taxes to develop friendship with others.
B. Success of one person can promote his friendship with others.
C. Friendship can be affected by the difference in success between friends.
D. Nothing can affect friendship because it has gone through the peaks and valleys of life.
2.What is the main idea of Paragraph three?
A. One is lucky to have many friends.
B. A friend should have a good character.
C. We should count our friends on more than one hand.
D. A true friend should be treasured because there are few.
3.According to the passage, which of the following plays the LEAST important role in a long-lasting friendship?
A. Hobbies. B. Tastes. C. Personality. D. Sympathy.
4.The passage mainly tells us “________”.
A. How good friends share the same taste and hobbies?
B. Why is friendship essetial in one’s life?
C. What is friendship and what makes it last?
D. What one can do to keep friendship last?
The Swedish Academy’s mid-October announcement regarding literature seldom fails to cause second-guessing.
Bob Dylan was awarded the big prize this morning, and my social media has been alive with indignation ever since. The Nobel did not go to those excellent novelists but to a songwriter. Some of those same people are still protesting that last year it was warded to Svetlana Alexievich, a “journalist”. They have decided, for whatever reasons, that song lyrics(歌词) are not literature.
And people are upset because Bob Dylan is the voice of some generation other than theirs, because he works in a popular style, because he does not work in this minute’s popular style, because he appeared on a car commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, because his songwriting skills dropped off — he was famous long ago, after all.
You may not think of Dylan as a poet, but Dylan created a climate in which lyrics were taken seriously. And Dylan accomplished something that few novelists or poets or for that matter songwriters have managed to do in our time: he changed the time he lived. Through words, with music, he affected the opinions and ambitions of hundreds of millions of people all over the world.The Nobel Prize in Literature cannot ever be all things to all people, and while this year’s award failed to accomplish various possible objectives, it was not in any way misapplied.
1.What does the underlined word “indignation” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?
A. Curiosity. B. Happiness.
C. Excitement. D. Anger.
2.Why are people upset about Dylan’s being awarded?
A. He failed to represent any generation.
B. He didn’t have good songwriting skills.
C. He played badly in the Super Bowl.
D. He is not popular any longer.
3.Paragraph 4 mainly focuses on Dylan’s _________.
A. style B. influence
C. efforts D. ambitions
4.Which can serve as the title of the passage?
A. No dish suits all tastes
B. Great minds think alike
C. Misfortune may be actual blessing
D. Judge not according to the appearance
British Women Writers in different periods of time
The English Renaissance
The English Renaissance began in the later part of the fifteenth century and lasted until the 1660s. Among the most famous women writers of this period is Aphra Behn, who is seen as the first professional woman writer in English. Aphra Behn's works include also the plays The Amourous Prince, The Town Fop, The Dutch Lover and her only tragedy, Abdelazer.
The neoclassical period
Among the well-known women in British literature during the neoclassical period, from 1660 to the end of the eighteenth century, is Anne Finch. She wrote poetry and tried to express all that she saw and experienced. Another woman was recognized for her contribution to neoclassical British literature: Mary Astell. Mary Astell was a philosopher and a feminist writer. She is best known now for her theories on the education of women.
The Romantic period
Jane Austen is one of the most famous women writers that worked during the Romantic period (1798-1832). Her works include several novels, most of which focus on marriage as a way for young women to secure social standing and economic security. Her most famous novels are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma.
The Victorian period
The Victorian period, between the 1830s and 1900, was the time when the Bronte sisters, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell lived and wrote. Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte produced many British literary classics. Mary Anne Evans adopted the male pen name George as she wanted to set herself apart from the feminine genre（女性主义流派） of cookbooks and domestic moral tales. Her most famous novel is The Mill on the Floss published in 1860.
1.According to the passage, Aphra Behn was famous for ________.
A. novels B. poetry C. plays D. cookbooks
2.According to the passage, why did Mary Anne Evans publish her stories under the name of George Eliot?
A. Women were forbidden to write novels then. B. Her works would be different.
C. It helped promote her works. D. It sounded more popular.
3.If a reader is interested in women’s education, whose works can be the best choice?
A. Anne Finch’s. B. Mary Astell’s.
C. Mary Wortley Montagu’s. D. Mary Shelley’s.
假设你是王林， 得知你校拟聘用一名英语口语老师，你的美国朋友Peter已经教书十年，而且对中国文化很感兴趣。请你用英语给他发一封100词左右的电子邮件，希望他能来应聘。口语老师要求如下：
1. 精通英语，大学毕业；2. 教学经验丰富，性格开朗；3. 喜欢学生，工作负责。
注意：1. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；2. 文中不得透露个人姓名和学校名称。
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下面短文中有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏词符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
A century before, a bird called the passenger pigeon lived in North America. There were so many passenger pigeons when people often saw thousands, even millions of birds flying overhead. Therefore, there is not a single one left today. What happened? How did all passenger pigeons disappear from the earth entire?
The passenger pigeons become extinct for two reason. First, the forests that it lived was cut down to make way with farms and cities. Second, many pigeons were shot and eaten because they were good to eat. At that time, there were no hunting laws protect endangered species as they are now.
