How difficult change is depends a lot on your attitude towards it and your resistance to it. Your attitude to change can make the whole transformation process much easier.
Imagine change as a pair of shoes and this will help you understand change and how it works. I am sure that you have ever had a comfortable pair of shoes in your life. A pair of shoes is so comfortable that you really don’t want to get rid of them.
You know you need a new pair, and may even have them, but you don’t want to wear them because you are comfortable with your current pair. Besides, the new pair may hurt your feet, give you blisters（水疱）or be awkward to wear to start with. So, you resist the new shoes. However, you know that this new pair would be much better for your feet, and after the initial discomfort they would probably be even more comfortable, yet you still resist.
Do you know I’m doing this now? I’m wearing my comfortable shoes and they feel good. They have a hole in each heel, and the sole is starting to fall off, but I’m persisting in wearing them.
This describes change exactly; change of our habits, change of our thought patterns. We stick with the old patterns because they are comfortable. Yet once we get over the initial pain of the transformation, the new pattern will be comfortable and feel good until the time comes when we need another new pair of shoes.
1.Why do people prefer old shoes to new ones?
A.They have much emotion in the old ones.
B.They are more comfortable.
C.New shoes always harm the feet.
D.They look better than the new ones.
2.According to the passage, we know that people _______.
A.don’t realize the benefit of the new shoes very well
B.are positive and open - minded to accept new things
C.actually know the change will finally be good for them
D.don’t accept new patterns because they are not good
3.What can be inferred from the passage?
A.Once we form a habit, it’s difficult to change it.
B.Most people pay more attention to the future life.
C.One’s attitude to towards something is usually traditional.
D.The more often we change, the better our life will be.
As more and more people speak the global languages of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000 - 7,000 language spoken around the world today will likely die out by the next century, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, an Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations - UNESCO and National Geographic among them -- have for many years been documenting dying languages an the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University,who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalaya reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge, Turin discovered a wealth of important materials -- including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes -- which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection.
Now, through the two organizations that he has rounded -- the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project -- Turin has started a campaign t make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to scholars but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1.Many scholars are making efforts to _______.
A.promote global languages
B.rescue disappearing languages
C.search for language communities
D.set up language research organizations
2.What does “that tradition” in Paragraph 3 refer to ?
A.Having full records of the languages.
B.Writing books on language teaching.
C.Telling stories about language users.
D.Living with the native speakers.
3.What is Turin’s book based on?
A.The cultural studies in India. B.The documents available at Yale.
C.His language research in Bhutan. D.His personal experience in Nepal.
4.Which of the following best describes Turin’s work?
A.Write and donate. B.Record and reward.
C.Collect, protect and reconnect. D.experiment and report
Dale Carnegie rose from the unknown of a Missouri farm to international fame because he found a way to fill a universal human need.
It was a need that he first ______ back in 1906 when young Dale was a junior at State Teachers College in Warrens burg. To get an ______, he was struggling against many difficulties. His family was poor. His dad couldn’t afford the ______ at college, so Dale had to ride horseback 12 miles to attend classes. Study had to be done ______ his farm - work routines. He withdrew from many school activities because he didn’t have the time or the ______. He tried for the football team, but the coach turned him down for being too ______. During this period Dale was slowly ______ an inferiority complex（自卑感）,which his mother knew could ______ him from achieving his real potential. She suggested that Dale join the debating team, believing that ______ in speaking could give him the confidence and recognition that he needed.
Dale took his mother’s advice, tried desperately and after several attempts finally made it. This proved to be a______ point in his life. Speaking before groups did help him gain the ______ he needed. By the time Dale was senior, he had won every top honor in speech. Now other students were coming to him for coaching and they, ______, were winning contests.
Out of this early struggle to ______ his feelings of inferiority, Dale came to understand that the ability ______ an idea to an audience builds a person’s confidence. And, ______ it, Dale knew he could do anything he wanted to do -- and so could others.
1.A.admitted B.filled C.supplied D.recognized
2.A.assignment B.education C.advantage D.instruction
3.A.training B.board C.teaching D.equipment
4.A.between B.during C.over D.through
5.A.permits B.interest C.talent D.clothes
6.A.light B.flexible C.optimistic D.outgoing
7.A.gaining B.achieving C.developing D.obtaining
8.A.prevent B.practice C.patience D.potential
9.A.presence B.practice C.patience D.potential
10.A.key B.breaking C.basic D.turning
11.A.progress B.experience C.competence D.confidence
12.A.in return B.in brief C.in turn D.in fact
13.A.convey B.overcome C.understand D.build
14.A.express B.stress C.contribute D.repeat
15.A.besides B.beyond C.like D.with
April, a giraffe who became an Internet star after her pregnancy（怀孕）was broadcast online, has finally given birth, ending months of excitement for her audience.
The live broadcast from Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, the State of New York, began during the winter. 1. drew nearly five million viewers a day at its peak.Some viewers kept checking back, even after the period 2. April was expected to give birth had gone. Others became frustrated, questioning 3. she was really pregnant.
Finally, 4. April was pacing in her pen（畜栏）on April 15, two hooves（蹄）began to appear. After a few hours, a newly-born giraffe was lying on the floor, 5. (look) around confusedly. The calf（幼崽）tried to stand a few times but 6. not. An hour later, it was 7. its feet, walking around carefully. A spokesman for the animal park said the calf was a boy. “After months of pregnancy, both mom and calf are doing fine,” said Jordan, the owner of Animal Adventure Park.
People in Harpursville now hope the attention that April 8. (draw) will translate into an economic development for the area. Harpursville was once a manufacturing base, but it has struggled financially in recent years.
Fortunately, there are already signs 9. April’s fame is breathing new life into the area. Dozens of families recently arrived at the animal park after hours of driving, only 10. (find) it closed for the winter. A nearly hotel has booked more than 100 reservations for a package that includes admission to the park when it reopens in May.
Free film tickets will be sent to _______ are interested in film.
A.whomever B.whoever C.no matter who D.whichever
I have no doubt _______ we’ll succeed.
A.what B.whether C.when D.that
