My Perfect Imperfect Life
A few years ago, I was standing at the barre (扶手杠) waiting for my adult ballet class when I heard a voice behind me. “So, do you have this perfect life?”
My first reaction was to _______ who was being asked such an odd question. Then I remembered there were only two of us in the room. When I turned _______, the other woman was looking straight at me.
I had no idea how to answer it. Was she _______? Who has a perfect life? Sure, occasionally I did find the perfect dress or the perfect pair of shoes, _______ never would I use that word to describe anything about me or my life. I felt a twinge of guilt for somehow giving her that _______.
She watched me. I finally _______ to whisper a quick “No”.
By then, the teacher had entered the room and turned on the music to start class. With a sigh of _________, I moved my feet into the best position. But as soon as my knees bent for our first pose, I realized my _______ had been disturbed. This woman’s words wouldn’t _______ echoing in my thoughts.
I wanted to know how she came up with her very mistaken _______. If she knew anything about my life, she never would have had the _______ to ask me that question.
I did my best to do our floor exercises in front of the mirror. For a few moments, I didn’t see the usual _______ of my older self attempting to use a beautiful art form to _______ my gracefulness. I only saw the little girl whose father died when she was two, the child who walked home from elementary school every day to an empty house, who learned to sew her own clothes to _______ money.
Perfect. My life had been far from it.
When those memories ________, I was left with a vision of the woman I had become, the woman _______ by all those things I considered imperfect. I now saw the woman who had learned to be self-reliant, who _______ her family and her friends, who didn’t take life for granted. Was that the “perfect” this woman had detected?
I still don’t know, but I no longer feel _______ or feel like I must keep track of all the difficult times to prove my life isn’t _______. If ever again asked whether my life is perfect, I would have a different _______. Because now I see that, despite all its imperfection, it is.
1.A.notice B.understand C.wonder D.expect
2.A.up B.away C.over D.around
3.A.fair B.serious C.anxious D.wise
4.A.but B.or C.for D.and
5.A.intention B.instruction C.impression D.information
6.A.learned B.managed C.agreed D.planned
7.A.sadness B.surprise C.pleasure D.relief
8.A.concentration B.patience C.confidence D.effort
9.A.escape B.keep C.stop D.stand
10.A.idea B.advice C.reason D.theory
11.A.right B.urge C.excuse D.honor
12.A.reflection B.preference C.appearance D.expression
13.A.experience B.describe C.replace D.improve
14.A.collect B.earn C.spend D.save
15.A.faded B.failed C.floated D.flashed
16.A.buried B.shaped C.watched D.followed
17.A.changed B.welcomed C.valued D.protected
18.A.worried B.guilty C.cautious D.desperate
19.A.comfortable B.ordinary C.perfect D.meaningful
20.A.solution B.message C.approach D.answer
Sleep has become a big deal in working life. Thanks to high-profile figures including Arianna Huffington, sleeping is no longer seen as a sign of weakness among competitive colleagues.
1.A US study has found that in areas where the sun sets earlier, people sleep longer — and this translates into higher earnings. In the long term, just one extra hour of sleep a week increases wages by 4.9%. 2.But don’t move house — the higher wages correspond almost exactly with higher house prices. Actually, if you want to sleep more, there are better ways to do it than moving house — just buy better curtains.
3.Each extra hour of sleep should be taken away from working time. So how can sleeping earn you money? The answer is productivity. The biggest effects come through employees who work on commission. If you go to work well rested, you are livelier and happier, and can sell more to increase your earnings.
Even small amounts of sleep deprivation (缺乏) can have large effects. Another study found that sleeping six hours a night for two weeks produced the same results in cognitive tests as being totally sleep-deprived for up to two days straight. 4.If you struggle to get eight hours of sleep a night, a siesta（午休）can have a “reset” effect, and your productivity improves afterward.
Lack of sleep has already been shown to be worse for productivity than being overweight or underweight. So, why are you still reading this? 5.
A.You should go back to bed.
B.But a mid-afternoon nap can help.
C.Therefore, you should get enough sleep.
D.This goes against conventional economics.
E.Research shows that more sleep can lead to us earning more money.
F.So if you live in an area that gets darker earlier, you should be richer.
G.You are supposed to get down to business as quickly as possible.
Want to get your package delivered via robots? Now there’s an app for that. If you live in Washington D. C. , or Redwood, you may have glimpsed a small, boxy robot rolling along a local sidewalk, minding its own business, but attracting the attention of many curious onlookers.
The autonomous machines were part of a pilot program last year by Starship Technologies focusing on delivering meals from local restaurants in dozens of cities around the world. This week, the company unveiled plans to broaden its delivery service beyond food to include package, a move that led it to declare itself “the world’s first robot package delivery service”. The next time you order food, this cute robot might roll up to deliver it. The package delivery service is not available to everyone yet.
The wheeled robots have a top speed of 4mph and can detect obstacles from 30 feet away. “The robot can operate through anything,” Nick Handrick, head of operations for Starship’s D.C. office, said. “ If you had something in the way — a stick — it’s able to climb sticks.”
To sign up for the service, which costs a little more than $ 10 per month, customers need to download the company’s app. Customers then create a “Starship Delivery Address”, a unique address inside a Starship facility, where they can have package sent from places such as Amazon.com. Once a package is delivered to the Starship address, customers receive a text notification that allows them to schedule a home delivery via robot. The robots are opened by customers via a mobile phone code.
Barriers exist for robotic ground delivery, with many states requiring that humans be in control of delivery robots. Those regulations haven’t stopped Starship Technologies from accumulating experience on streets around the globe ahead of the company’s latest launch. The company says its robots have covered more than 125,000 miles in more than 100 cities in 20 countries.
1.What can we know about the robotic delivery?
A.It is part of a trial project by Starship Technologies.
B.You can use the service free of charge via smart phones.
C.The robots are opened by customers with a text notification.
D.The robotic delivery is available to everyone at present.
2.What does the underlined word “unveiled” in paragraph 2 probably mean?
A.Revised B.Released
C.Restored D.Reset
3.What is the last paragraph mainly about?
A.The good news of the service.
B.The disadvantages of the robotic delivery.
C.How the robotic delivery works.
D.Robotic delivery develops despite challenges.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.A New Robot Was Invented B.Wheelless Robots Are on the Way
C.How Robots Deliver Packages D.Packages Will Be Delivered by Robots
We all have one shirt in the closet that we don’t want to get rid of, yet keeping around because we can’t bear to just throw it in the garbage. We don’t wear it anymore. Being a little out of style, your old T-shirt needs a new home where it can be appreciated. One city in Toronto has started a project to give it one.
Earlier this year the Toronto suburbs of Markham introduced a new program encouraging its residents and residents of nearby suburbs to donate their old unwanted clothing. The program is exceptional because unlike most of those second-hand stores, they are accepting old clothing that isn’t quite in perfect condition. It is breathing new life into these typically-trashed items. Contrary to common belief, textiles（纺织品）are not only used for clothing, and these items are being re-purposed in a variety of interesting ways.
The city has set up many different donation centers around the suburbs and residents are encouraged to donate any unwanted textiles they happen to have lying around their house. It’s volunteers’ duty to divide the donations into different sorts. Those items in usable and good condition are donated to local homeless shelters and other aid centers. Those which are not are shipped off to be used for industrial purposes. Only when there is no more industrial need for fabric and textiles will they begin to use their last place — a landfill outside the city.
The program isn’t the city’s only green initiative (倡议). It has already had one of Canada and the world’s largest solar panels, and it is said that they are steadily working towards a shift to 100% renewable energy. The city also has subsidized (补助) farmers’ markets and over 125 miles of bike paths. As a result, Markham also has a much lower rate of obesity than other Canadian cities. Now, it’s working towards another goal — 100% recycling of unwanted textiles.
1.What does the underlined word “one” in paragraph refer to?
A.A shirt. B.A city.
C.A home. D.A closet.
2.What do the volunteers do with the unwanted clothing?
A.Sell them in good condition. B.Sort through the donations.
C.Share them with poor kids. D.Send them for industrial use.
3.What does the author want to say in the last paragraph?
A.The city has been the best place to live in Canada.
B.The program is more successful than expected.
C.The citizens have fallen in love with the city.
D.The city is working hard to be a green one.
4.What is the main idea of this text?
A.One Canadian city is giving old clothing a new life.
B.Old clothes are becoming more useful in Canada.
C.Rubbish has been put into wide use in Canada.
D.Donation centers become popular in Canada.
It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.
Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself!
1.“I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means .
A.it was a firm arrangement
B.he prefers a pencil to a pen
C.the arrangement should be written as a diary
D.it was an uncertain arrangement
2.A website address can be easily found if it has been______.
A.favorited B.messaged C.emailed D.texted
3.Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?
A.message B.mobile C.email D.page
4.The best title for this passage is____.
A.Technology and Language.
B.Development of the English language
C.New Technology and New words
D.New Verbs from Nouns
Have you always dreamed of speaking another language? Travelling to Italy and striking up a conversation with the locals? Surprising your friends by ordering dinner in perfect French? Would you like to get a leg up at work by speaking Spanish — or even Mandarin Chinese?
With the Pimsleur Method, you’ll be able to learn any language you want as you go about your day. You can learn on your way to work, or while you’re out running tasks, cooking dinner, walking the dog and so on in just 30 minutes a day. In fact, Pimsleur’s scientifically-proven method is so powerful that you’ll actually start speaking a new language after a few lessons.
How is it possible? 50 years ago, Dr. Paul Pimsleur, a linguistics (语言学) professor and researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA, discovered that the best way to effectively acquire a new language is by hearing the language used in everyday situations and using it so it easily sticks in your mind.
The Pimsleur Method develops your natural ability to listen so you can:
·Understand what you hear.
·Respond easily and naturally.
·Pronounce words with a near-native accent.
·Amaze friends and family.
There is nothing more exciting or enjoyable than speaking a new language.
Click here now to try Pimsleur’s Revolutionary Method Free for One Week and you can:
·Enjoy your international travels on a completely different level.
·Take a first step to get a leg up at work.
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·Put colleagues or customers at ease by speaking to them in their languages.
·Impress friends by chatting with the waiter in Italian.
·Surprise foreign friends or family by conversing with them in their languages.
1.For a learner, what is the Pimsleur Method meant to develop?
A.Writing and speaking B.Listening and writing
C.Listening and speaking D.Reading and speaking
2.What can you achieve by trying the method for free?
A.You can better enjoy your international travels.
B.You can reach the highest foreign language level.
C.You can speak with foreign friends with native accents.
D.You can improve your translation and respond effectively.
3.What’s the main purpose of the text?
A.To introduce Paul Pimsleur and his method.
B.To explain the importance of foreign languages.
C.To persuade readers to learn foreign languages.
D.To advertise a method of learning foreign languages.
