Make the right choices
What is life’s gift? 1. Choice is the ability to select one course of action from a set of alternatives to achieve a goal. What is so great about choice? It transforms us from dumb animals into artists. Each of us becomes another Michelangelo. Choice becomes nothing other than the tool we use to sculpt (雕刻）our life. The tool doesn’t come free, however, for the price of choice is responsibility. 2. The reward is happiness.
Life is not still. It is a flow. 3. We constantly need to monitor where we are on our journey. We need to ask questions: Am I moving closer to my goals? If not, what corrective measures can I take? What action will I take now to readjust myself to my goals? Choice is power. Choice is at the heart of life. It is the creative power of life.
4. And your life becomes more convenient or comfortable because of them. For example, you decide which stores to shop at and which gas station to go to. But the decisions that we make to sculpt our lives are far more important than deciding where to shop. The more we appreciate the difference between minor and major decisions, the greater the probability that we will experience happiness and fulfillment.
All chess lovers realize that it isn’t necessary to win to enjoy the game. The pleasure is in the playing. Life is like a chess game. 5.
A.But when we accept ad carry it out, we get a great return.
B.Make the best moves you can under the circumstances.
C.Life is full of hard choices, and the bigger they are, the harder they get.
D.Every choice we make leads us closer to or farther from our goals.
E.Choose to carry out responsibilities not because you have to, but because you want to.
F.You have to make choices every day.
G..It is free will or choice.
I was in the fifth grade when I first dipped my fingers into the endless ocean of expression and allowed my hands to grow a(n)_______.
I remember my hands being sweaty as I wandered _______ into her classroom. From corner to corner, the_______were decorated with clippings (剪报) and posters _______ Deafness and American Sign Language. Pictures of _______hands hung from the bulletin boards (宣传牌).
Once the rest of my classmates _______ in their seats, she began. She did not speak. Her hands _______ about gracefully as she signed, “Hello. My name is Ms. Lewison. Your name what?” These signs did not _______ until later that week, but still I sat upright at my desk, trying to figure them out. My entire first impression of her was “_______”.
As months passed, my class transformed to an unusually large family. Ms. Lewison was like our ________. When we were feeling troubled, we just let our ________do the talking. The lesson became less about following the lesson itself and more about ________.
Ms. Lewsion performed a tough task. She ________ repla
ced all the ignorance in me with ________. Then she opened my ________ and opened it even wider. She would find time to turn me into a ________ signer. She taught me that there are no limits and my abilities are ________.
Today my fingers have learned to ________. Ms. Lewison pushed me ________ into the ocean of Deaf Culture and I have become a strong swimmer in diverse ________.
1.A. picture B. voice C. order D. poster
2.A. calmly B. excitedly C. quickly D. anxiously
3.A. walls B. ocean C. students D. desks
4.A. caused by B. related to C. contributing to D. aimed at
5.A. welcoming B. outstanding C. signing D. waving
6.A. settled B. seated C. backed D. locked
7.A. flowed B. wandered C. flew D. came
8.A. draw attention B. make sense C. catch sight D. hold breath
9.A. silent B. dull C. strange D. strict
10.A. teacher B. partner C. friend D. mother
11.A. bodies B. hearts C. hands D. eyes
12.A. sings B. language C. love D. life
13.A. successfully B. finally C. easily D. unwillingly
14.A. confidence B. patience C. curiosity D. freedom
15.A. mouth B. mind C. arms D. fingers
16.A. clever B. unique C. special D. fluent
17.A. endless B. strong C. weak D. uncertain
18.A. dip B. dance C. swim D. think
19.A. firmly B. hardly C. gently D. heavily
20.A. classes B. worlds C. families D. waters
Certain aspects of music have the same effect on people even when they live in very different societies, a new study reveals.
Researchers asked 40 Mbenzele Pygmies in the Congolese rainforest to listen to short clips of music. They were asked to listen to their own music and to unfamiliar Western music.
The same 19 selections of music were also played to 40 amateur or professional musicians in Montreal. Musicians were included in the Montreal group because Mbenzele Pygmies could be considered musicians as they all sing regularly for ceremonial purposes, the study authors explained.
Both groups were asked to rate how the music made them feel using emoticons, such as happy, sad or excited faces.
There were significant differences between the two groups as to whether a specific piece of music made them feel good or bad. However, both groups had similar responses to how exciting or calming they found the different types of music.
"Our major discovery is that listeners from very different groups both responded to how exciting or calming they felt the music to be in similar ways," Hauke Egermann, of the Technical University of Berlin, said in a news release from McGill University in Montreal. Egermann conducted part of the study as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill.
The Montreal participants felt a wider range of emotions as they listened to the Western music than the Pygmies expressed when listening to either their own or Western music. This may be due to the different roles music plays in the two cultures.
"Negative emotions are felt to disturb the harmony of the forest in Pygmy culture and are therefore dangerous," Nathalie Fernando, of the University of Montreal's faculty of music, said in the news release. "If a baby is crying, the Mbenzele will sing a happy song. If the men are scared of going hunting, they will sing a happy song — in general, music is used in this culture to evacuate all negative emotions, so it is not really surprising that the Mbenzele feel that all the music they hear makes them feel good," she explained.
1.Why could Mbenzele Pygmies be regarded as musicians?
A. They are crazy about music.
B. They major in music at school.
C. They can play musical instruments well.
D. They often sing songs on ceremony.
2.The study mainly finds that ________.
A. music is universal across cultures
B. music varies among different countries
C. western music results in negative emotions
D. music makes people happy
3.The underlined word “evacuate” probably means ________.
A. set off B. benefit from C. get rid of D. account for
4.The examples mentioned in the last paragraph are to show that ________.
A. music plays different roles in the two cultures
B. music plays the same role in the two cultures
C. negative music disturbs the harmony of the forest
D. happy music is welcomed everywhere
When we know somewhere well，we say we “know it like the back of our hand”. But new research has shown that we don’t actually know as much about our hands as we think we do.
Wider and shorter
Professor Matthew Longo at the University of London and his team did an experiment, covering the left hands of 100 people. Then they asked the people to point to where they thought their fingertips and knuckles (指关节) were. They made some quite big mistakes.
“People think their hand is wider than it actually is,” said Longo. The fingers also seem shorter than they are. This mistake gets worse as you go across the hand from the thumb to the little finger.
Sense of position
“It is connected to our sense of position,” explained Longo. This is our ability to tell where different parts of our bodies are, even when we can’t see them. “It tells us whether a joint is straight, or not” he said. It also tells us whether we are going up or down in an elevator. All this information comes from signs from nerves in real time. It’s like our brain has maps — maps that show the size and shape of our body. “This experiment tried to find those maps,” said Longo.
Strength(强度) of feeling
But these maps make mistakes. These mistakes may be made because of how the brain understands different parts of the skin. “Our brains ‘see’ areas as larger where the skin feels touch strongly,” said Longo. Body parts don’t appear as their true size, but appear bigger or smaller depending on how strongly they feel touch. Our lips, for example, have more nerves than our nose. So brain “sees” lips on its map of the body as being bigger than our nose. The same thing happens for other parts of the body that have lots of nerves.
Longo believes that more research in this area may help us to understand eating problem better, because people suffering from these problems may not know their bodies properly.
1.Which of following statement is TRUE about the experiment according to the article?
A. People think their body parts are larger than they actually are.
B. People made more mistakes about their little fingers length than their thumbs’ length.
C. People’s fingers are actually shorter than they think.
D. People were asked to draw their hands from memory
2.What does the underlined “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A. The new experiment. B. The location information.
C. The mistake people made. D. The sizes of fingers and hands.
3.We can learn from the article that ________.
A. the maps of people’s bodies form before they are born
B. the maps of our body are based on information from nerves
C. our sense of position tells how different parts of the body work
D. how we feel about our body shape is only decided by our sense of position
4.We can infer from the article that ________.
A. the hand feels touch more strongly than fingers do
B. our lips have a weaker sense of touch than our nose
C. there are more nerves in the finger than in the hand
D. our sense of position should not be trusted because it is too often incorrect
It’s an ordinary morning，like all the others．But instead of being woken up by the buzzing of an alarm clock, you’ll be roused by the smell of freshly made coffee，light entering your room as the curtains open automatically，and a gentle back massage（按摩）provided by your high-tech bed.
This is what a typical(典型的) person's life will be like two decades from now，according to The Guardian. Want to know more?
After you get up, your apartment will be like an electronic orchestra with you as the conductor. With simple moves of your hand and spoken instructions, you’ll be able to control your apartment’s temperature, humidity, music and lighting. You’ll be able to look through the day’s news on translucent screens while your breakfast waits for you in the automatic oven.
As you move into your kitchen, you might accidentally hit your toe on a cupboard. If you do, you’ll grab your cell phone and open the diagnostics(诊断) app. Inside your phone there will be a tiny microchip(芯片) that uses X-ray waves to scan your body. The scan will tell whether your toe is bruised or broken.
After breakfast, your driverless car will take you to work. While you “drive”, your central computer system will suggest a list of chores(家务事) that your housekeeping robots can do that day and it will also remind you to buy a gift for your mother’s upcoming birthday.
As you can see, with the help of advanced technology, our lives will be more efficient(有效率的). Technology will mitigate our forgetfulness and free us of many small burdens that distract us, such as buying a ticket. Our brain will therefore be able to focus on more important things like preparing for a presentation or doing “deep thinking”.
However, the development of technology might have some disadvantages as well. By 2036, we’ll be relying heavily on the virtual(虚拟的) world, which will mean that all of our data will be stored in the cloud, a remote digital storage system with near limitless capacity(容量). That will increase the possibility of someone else accessing, sharing or manipulating(操控) our personal information.
1.What might be the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To stress the importance of developing technology.
B. To remind people not to depend too much on computers．
C. To introduce one new invention that will benefit our future lives.
D. To describe how advanced technologies will affect our future lives.
2.According to the text, in two decades, ________.
A. you’ll be able to rely on an electronic orchestra to wake you up instead of an alarm clock
B. a tiny microchip in your phone will treat you when you are sick
C. you will be able to adjust the conditions of your apartment via oral instructions or simple hand gestures
D. technology will be smart enough to help us with important things like preparing for a presentation
3.What does the underlined word “mitigate” in Paragraph 6 mean?
A. Make up for. B. Worsen. C. Cure. D. Take advantage of.
For many people, being on the job might just sound like a picnic compared to a day at home filled with housework, meals and childcare. Even for those with a happy family life, home can sometimes feel more taxing than work.
In a new study, researchers at Penn State University found significantly and consistently lower levels of cortisol(皮质醇) released in response to stress, in a majority of subjects when they were at work compared to when they were at home. This was true for both men and women, and parents and people without children.
Both men and women showed less stress at work. But women were more likely to report feeling happier there. Men were more likely to feel happier at home. Experts say there are other reasons why work is less stressful than home for many. “Paid work is more valued in society,” says Sarah Damaske, the lead researcher on the study. “Household work is boring and not particularly rewarding.”
We get better at our job with time and the increased competence means less stress and more rewards. Yet none of us, no matter how long we’ve been doing it, ever truly feels like an expert at parenting or even at marriage.
The support and friendship of co-workers also offer stress relief. At home, meanwhile, stress spreads and accumulates quickly. “That’s the reason why most housewives wish they were the bread earners,” Dr. Damaske says.
Much of the advice to families and couples include the warning to “leave work stress at the office” and even to change our mind-set from work to home, for example, a walk around the block. The recent findings, though, suggest our home life, not our attitude, might be due for some change.
1.Which of the following can replace the underlined word “taxing”?
A. stressful. B. cheerful. C. worthwhile. D. rewarding.
2.What did the research in the second paragraph prove?
A. Men felt better at home.
B. Women felt they had less time.
C. Women were easier to feel happier.
D. Most people felt more stress at home.
3.What do most people think of work at office?
A. It is competitive. B. It improves ability.
C. It can’t relieve stress. D. It doesn’t always pay off.
4.According to the recent findings, what should we change to solve the problem mentioned?
A. Our attitude. B. Our mind-set.
C. Our home life. D. Our working style.
