Life Lessons
Life is not easy when you are pursuing something worthwhile and ready to learn from the best experiences.
It takes consistent time and effort to be successful in any area. However, people usually get discouraged when it takes more time than they thought it would. At this time, people refer only to people who have already achieved what you want to be, which most people fail to do. Look at any successful person and you’ll notice one thing common in all of them. They took time to learn and mastered their skills like no one else.
Be brave to take the road less travelled. In our whole life, we always want to follow the same path that everyone suggests, do the same things everyone does, take the same career path everyone takes, wear the same clothes everyone wears, and hang out with the same people we work with.
You don’t have to live your life in a way society wants you to.
| A．You have to break the rules sometimes. |
| B．After al life lessons are always learned the hard way. |
| C．There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs. |
| D．The reason why we follow others is that we are scared to fail. |
| E．It always takes tests and then fails us to learn anything worthwhile. |
| F．The general rule goes that the harder you try, the greater results you get. |
| G．Many old beliefs are being performed these days and are followed blindly. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】After choosing a school abroad and getting accepted, the most important thing is to find a desirable place to live. How do you find a suitable location? Here are some tips that may help.
Dormitory
Student dormitories can lead to truly meaning overseas experiences.
Homestay
With a homestay, you can have a home overseas with a family that will provide you with warmth and care.
Although homestays are quite affordable, families often tend to live away from the universities.
Private apartment
Renting an apartment will allow you to enjoy freedom, privacy and independence.
| A．You will generally have a private room. |
| B．There is no need to be concerned about the facilities. |
| C．By no means are you worried about the rent and privacy. |
| D．If you are still not sure where to live, ask seniors for suggestions. |
| E．In this case, you may spend time and money on local transportation. |
| F．You may be worried that you can’t find satisfying dorms which are well equipped. |
| G．However, it may cut you off from diverse cultural experiences and relationships with locals. |
【推荐2】Many people go through life's usual phases of ups and downs，which are common and normal stages in life, but when your self-esteem is low, you may need to know how to boost your self-esteem, since it can lead to problems you may not have thought of.
Self-esteem is the measurement or the value of how a person knows his worth and its effects are life-changing and dramatic, since it makes up a person’s attitude and outlook towards life.
Faced with tough decisions in life, the more self-esteem one has, the better. It is for that person to make sound decisions, even in the face of peer pressure or stress at work and at home. Let us try to look into some of the common and best practices which have been tried and tested to help boost self-esteem.
Always compliment yourself daily, especially by trying to look for specific tasks you did well for that day and congratulate yourself for it.
Appreciation of one’s physical appearance and bearing can also be your source of self-esteem, be it the size and shape of your body, your overall physical structure or unique features. Your body can be your source of pride and will help you understand how you would like others to see you, or work on your physical appearance to boost self-morale and satisfaction.
Sometimes when you tend to see things in a different light or perspective from others, don’t focus too much on making sure that what you think will cause things to change.
When you have good self-esteem you will realize that what you did was right and was made under your own food judgment, sound principles and concepts based on your personal outlook and attitude towards life.
Do not let negative feedback affect you. Of course, one cannot help but feel bad about negative comments or reactions, but you have to consider that these are tests against your character and personality.
| A．It is you yourself not anybody else that can correct your Self-esteem. |
| B．Simply put, self-esteem is the fuel that makes you feel important or loved by others. |
| C．More often times it will not, but don’t let that cloud your perception about yourself. |
| D．Now that we’ve covered those aspects of self-esteem, let’s turn to some of the other factors that need to be considered. |
| E．It will give you a regular motivation to work harder and better to improve yourself and develop your sense of maturity as a person. |
| F．When your self-esteem is high, you are less likely to be affected by these situations. |
【推荐3】We were told for years that positive thinking was the key to achieving our goals. Now more and more evidence suggests exactly the opposite: that spending a lot of time thinking about your hopes and dreams may make you less likely to put in the work required to actually achieve those dreams. So if positivity is out, what should we replace it with?
New York University psychologist Gabriele Oettingen talked about a four-step plan she’s come up with from her years of research. Oettigen explained the plan as WOOP.
Wish: First, define your goal. “Think about a wish that is dear to you,” Oettingen said. “What is it you really want? This could be running a marathon or losing a certain amount of weight.” Your wish doesn’t have to be huge; it just has to be real, something you truly want.
Outcome: Keeping your goal in mind, ask yourself: If this wish of mine is realized, what is the best possible outcome? “Very often, it is a feeling,” Oettingen said, “You define that outcome, and you imagine that outcome.”
Obstacles (障碍): After you’re let yourself daydream for a little while about what it will feel like when your goal is accomplished, bring your mind back down to reality. “Then you sat, ‘What is it in me that holds me back from experiencing that wish, that outcome?’” Oettinger said. “Very often it’s an emotion, it’s those same old habits. And you imagine that obstacle.”
Plan: “Once you’re imagined that obstacle,” Oettingen said, “you’ll understand what you need to do to overcome it.” If this obstacle pops up, then you’ll do something to get over it and keep going after your goal.
Oettingen’s research has shown that this method has helped people eat more fruits and vegetables; it’s also helped students achieve better grades in school, and it has even helped people act less insecure in their romantic relationships.
1. In the traditional opinion, what is the key to achieving our goals?| A．Positive thinking. | B．Enough evidence. |
| C．Opposite suggestions. | D．Replacement of positivity. |
| A．you have imagined more than you can do |
| B．you are held back by some obstacles to achieve |
| C．you have never experienced such a wish or outcome |
| D．your emotion contributes to forming your same old habits |
| A．prove WOOP’s effectiveness |
| B．encourage readers to be positive |
| C．offer more possible practical outcomes |
| D．attract more people to apply this method |
| A．have a strong wish | B．keep a goal in mind |
| C．come up with a plan | D．overcome an obstacle |
【推荐1】In today’s motivational literature, failure is often viewed as something to be celebrated. Inspirational speakers are fond of quoting the words of the novelist Samuel Beckett-“Fail again. Fail better.” It seems that disappointments are an essential stepping stone to success, a turning point in our life story that will ultimately end in victory.
However, psychological researches find most of us struggle to handle failure constructively. In other words, we fail to “fail forward”. We find ways to devalue the task at which we failed, and become less motivated to persevere and reach our goals. This phenomenon is known as the “sour-grape effect”, which was discovered by Professor Hallgeir Sjastad.
Sjastad explains that “sour-grape effect” is a self-protective mechanism. “Most of us picture ourselves as competent people, so when external feedback suggests otherwise, it poses a serious threat to that self-image,” he says. “The easiest way out is to deny or explain away the external signal, so we can reduce the inconsistency and preserve a positive sense of self. We do this even without noticing.”
If you have one bad interview for your dream job, you might convince yourself that you don’t really want it at all, and stop applying for similar positions. The same goes if you fail to impress at a sports trial, or if a publisher rejects the first submission of your manuscript. “We tend to explain away our shortcomings and convince ourselves our ‘Plan C’ is actually our ‘Plan A’,” Sjastad says.
It doesn’t mean we should persevere in goals all the time. It can be healthy to change ambitions if the process is no longer making us happy. But the “sour-grape effect may lead us to come to this decision prematurely, rather than hanging on a little and seeing whether we might learn and improve.
Failures are unavoidable. By learning to face the disappointment instead of devaluing its importance and pretending nothing happened, you may find it easier to achieve your goals.
1. Why does the author mention the speech of inspirational speakers in paragraph 1?| A．To offer an example to handle failure. |
| B．To describe a shallow understanding of failure. |
| C．To introduce a common attitude towards failure. |
| D．To emphasize the importance of experiencing failure. |
| A．It protects us from false feedback. | B．It pictures us as competitive people. |
| C．It poses a severe threat to self-image. | D．It denies negative feedback to ourselves. |
| A．Short-sighted. | B．Wait-and-see. | C．Objective. | D．Skeptical. |
| A．Unhappily. | B．Mistakenly. | C．Hurriedly. | D．Carelessly. |
| A．Don’t escape when our self-image is broken. |
| B．Don’t quit when goals no longer make you happy. |
| C．Never hesitate to replace “Plan A” with “Plan C”. |
| D．Never forget to maintain a positive sense of self. |
【推荐2】I once met a young woman who had dreams of swimming for the U.S Olympic team. She had to get up every morning at 4 a.m. to swim for 3 hours before going to school. She did not party with her friends on Saturday night. She had to study and keep her grades up, just like everyone else.
When I asked her what compelled her with such super-human ambition and sacrifice (牺牲). She simply said, “I do it for myself and the people I love. It’s love that gets me over the hurdles and sacrifices.”
A reason or a purpose is a combination of “wants” and “don’t wants”. When people ask me what my reason for wanting to be rich is, it is a combination of deep emotional “wants” and “don’t wants”.
I will list a few. First the “don’t wants”, for they create the “wants”. I don’t want to work all my life. I don’t want what my parents aspired for, which was job security and a big house. I don’t like being an employee. I hated it that my dad always missed my football games because he was so busy working on his career. I hated it when my dad worked hard all his life and the government took most of what he worked for at his death.
Now the “wants”. I want to be free to travel the world and live in the lifestyle I love. I want to be young when I do this. I want control over my time and my life. I want money to work for me.
Those are my deep-seated, emotional reasons. What are yours? If they are not strong enough, the reality of the road ahead may be greater than your reasons. I have lost money and been set back many times, but it was the deep emotional reasons that kept me standing up and going forward. I wanted to be free by age 40, but it took me until I was 47 with many learning experiences along the way.
I wish I could say it was easy. It wasn’t, but it wasn’t hard either. But without a strong reason or purpose anything in life is hard.
1. The passage is started by __________.| A．giving an example | B．explaining the causes |
| C．pointing out similarities | D．describing the differences |
| A．committed | B．inspired | C．forced | D．combined |
| A．the “wants” lead to the “don’t wants” |
| B．the “wants” come from the “don’t wants” |
| C．the “don’t wants” have little to do with the “wants” |
| D．the “don’t wants” are more important than the “wants” |
| A．The reality is greater than the deep emotional reasons. |
| B．With stronger emotional reasons, life must be much easier. |
| C．With deeper emotional reasons, the road ahead is likely to be harder. |
| D．In reality, we may meet many more obstacles without deeper emotional reasons. |
【推荐3】Traveling with kids is 90 percent reminding yourself to live in the moment and 10 percent making up your mind to never again leave your house.
I have an uncanny ability to forget this as soon as we return home from a trip and I've finished washing piles of dirty clothes in our luggage and cleaning all the messy caused by the kids. Extremely tired and annoyed, I would actually begin to miss the place we just left!
Family travel is like childbirth, I suppose. Painful, loud, messy, sort of awful, actually, but also wonderful. And you remember only the wonderful—until you’re back on a plane and your kids are fighting over who gets the aisle seat. Then you remember the bad stuff.
Last weekend, my kids and I flew to Texas for a trip we would have nothing to complain(抱怨) about—big hotel, wonderful view.
And yet—we found things to complain about. The pool was bigger in that other hotel! Why do you get to shower first? They call this coffee?! Luckily, I’ve learned to put my metaphorical coat of armor (盔甲) on as soon as we land somewhere, and it forces complaints to bounce off me and land in a pile at my feet.
For three days, genuine fun was had and annoying complaints were heard and ignored. Until it was time to catch a plane and fly home.
Unfortunately, our flight was canceled. We spent hours finding a hotel room. We hit the hotel pool before bed and swam well into the night, my kids making up songs and laughing so hard at their silly lyrics (歌词) and their crazy good fortune to be swimming at 10: 30 on a school night.
And that was when it hit me that family travel is all those things I said before but it’s also a lot more. It’s taking your kids to parts of the world that will open their eyes and finding that actually, yours need opening too. It’s remembering that joy and memories are where you make them, not where you find them.
1. The underlined word “uncanny” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to .| A．unknown. | B．uncertain. |
| C．unexpected. | D．unusual. |
| A．they both cause financial trouble and pain. |
| B．they are both hard as well as rewarding. |
| C．childhood memories come flooding back when they travel. |
| D．both of them need many preparations. |
| A．she tries to deal with the complaints more wisely and properly. |
| B．she turns those annoying complaints into a means to educate kids. |
| C．she has improved her language skills when handling the complaints. |
| D．she has succeeded in escaping kids’ fighting thanks to the armor. |
| A．family vacation benefits her kids as well as her. |
| B．joy and memories should be created rather than discovered. |
| C．the most unforgettable memory for her is about the complaints. |
| D．she has to spend some time on housework after the family vacation. |
