【推荐2】Weight is defined as the quantity of matter contained by a body or object.     1     So many girls are struggling with the numbers associated with their body image and it’s really sad seeing such beautiful girls become discouraged over a few numbers that don’t measure anything of true significance.

Yes, it is important to live a healthy lifestyle.    2     Neglecting either your mental or physical health will cause problems for the other. It’s very easy to get caught up in the idea that you’re too heavy or too thin, which results in your mistreating your body in some way.

    3     It harbors all of your thoughts, feelings, characteristics, and ideas. Without it, you wouldn’t be you. If you wish to change it in a healthy way, then, by all means, go ahead. With that being said, don’t make changes to impress or please someone else.    4    

    5    . You are more than the number on the scale (磅秤). You are more than the number on your jeans and dresses. You are way more than the number of pounds you’ve gained or lost in whatever amount of time. So, as hard as it may seem sometimes, understand that the number doesn’t measure the amount or significance of your contributions to this world. The fact that a dress doesn’t fit you like you had hoped doesn’t mean that you’re any less of a person.

A．Overweight and obesity may increase the risk of many health problems.

B．Your body is your special, beautiful temple.

C．You are the only person who is in charge of your body.

D．Your physical health may play an important part in your life.

E．Weight does not define your self-worth, ambition or potential.

F．Taking care of yourself includes your mental health as well, however.

G．It’s not about the size of your jeans, but the size of your heart, soul, and spirit.

【推荐1】When it's five o'clock, people leave their office. The length of the workday, for many workers, is defined by time. They leave when the clock tells them they're done.

These days, the time is everywhere, not just on clocks or watches, but on cell-phones and computers. That may be a bad thing,particularly at work.New research shows that clock-based.work schedules hinder (阻碍) morale and creativity.

Clock-timers organize their day by blocks of minutes and hours. For example: a meeting from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.,research from 10 a.m. to noon, etc. On the other hand, task - timers have a list of things they want to accomplish. They work down the list, each task starts when the previous task is completed. It is said that all of us employ a mix of both these types of planning.

What, then, are the effects of thinking about time in these different ways? Does one make us more productive? Better at the tasks at hand? Happier? In experiments conducted by Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier, they had participants organize different activities-from project planning, holiday. shopping,to yoga-by time or to-do list to measure how they performed under "clock time" vs "task time". They found clock timers to be more efficient but less happy because they felt little control over their lives. Task timers are happier and more creative, but less productive. They tend to enjoy the moment when something good is happening,and seize opportunities that come up.

The researchers argue that task-based organizing tends to be undervalued and under-supported in the business culture. Smart companies, they believe, will try to bake more task-based planning into their strategies.

This might be a small change to the way we view work and the office, but the researchers argue that it challenges a widespread characteristic of the economy: work organized by clock time. While most people will still probably need, and be, to some extent, clock-timers, task-based timing should be used when performing a job that requires more creativity. It'll make those tasks easier, and the task-doers will be happier.

1. What does the author think of time displayed everywhere?

A．It makes everybody time-conscious.

B．It is a convenience for work and life.

C．It may have a negative effect on creative work.

D．It clearly indicates the fast pace of modern life.

2. How do people usually go about their work according to the author?

A．They combine clock-based and task-based planning.

B．They give priority to the most urgent task on hand.

C．They set a time limit for each specific task.

D．They accomplish their tasks one by one.

3. What did Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier find in their experiments about clock timers?

A．They seize opportunities as they come up.

B．They always get their work done in time.

C．They have more control over their lives.

D．They tend to be more productive.

4. What do the researchers say about today's business culture?

A．It does not support the strategies adopted by smart companies.

B．It does not attach enough importance to task - based practice.

C．It places more emphasis on work efficiency than on workers' lives.

D．It aims to bring employees' potential and creativity into full play.

5. What do the researchers suggest?

A．Performing creative jobs tends to make workers happier.

B．It is important to keep a balance between work and life.

C．Task-based timing is preferred for doing creative work.

D．A scientific standard should be adopted in job evaluation.

【推荐2】How to Rent Your House

Before handing the keys to your house over to a complete stranger for care, there are decisions you need to make. In fact, the decisions you make now, before searching for a tenant (房客), will make the biggest impact on the success of your rental.     1    

What Condition Do You Want Your House in?

There is no end to the amount of improving you can do to your house before renting it out.     2     When is good enough, good enough?

A house should be clean, empty (unless you are offering it “furnished”, which is uncommon) and free from any major repairs at the time the tenant moves in.

Remember, the home does not need to be as fancy as you would want it to be.     3     Tenants will generally never take as good care of your house as you do―so don’t spend too much time or money making unnecessary upgrades that will only be ignored or broken.

Should You Use a Property Manager?

    4     If you have the time, abilities, and energy to manage yourself―you can save a good deal of money by doing so. However, if you try to manage without the ability―it could end up costing you much more than what a property manager might charge.

How Much Can You Rent Your House for?

Luckily, discovering what the monthly rent will bear for your house is not difficult.     5     In business, market research means to get out there and find out what others in your industry are charging; learning how much to charge for rent is no different. Your house will generally rent for about the same amount as other properties that are of similar location, size and condition.

A．The problem becomes learning when to stop.

B．No one wants to be a landlord with those problems.

C．The following are some questions to answer before you rent out your house.

D．Have a professional carpet cleaner clean the carpets before showing the property.

E．Look around at other rentals in your area and try to see what the typical quality is.

F．The best way to determine how much your house will rent for is to simply do market research.

G．The decision about whether to manage yourself or hire a property manager cannot be made by anyone other than you.

【推荐3】Gardening is a very popular hobby. And it is one that produces wonderful results – food for your dinner table and flowers for your home! Gardens themselves can be very beautiful. So you would think that a garden path is a great place to be. Well, in conversation, it is not. Leading someone up the garden path means you are trying to trick them. You are not trying to show them your beautiful flowers.

Speaking of beautiful flowers, gardeners love to see small buds (芽) forming on their plants. Besides plants and flowers, people can bud, too. If a child is good at drawing and painting, we can call him a budding artist. So “budding” describes something that is beginning to develop.

On the opposite end, you stop something from growing if you nip it in the bud. This is a common expression when we talk about stopping something bad and preventing it from continuing. It’s good to nip small problems in the bud before they turn into big problems.

Now flowers that bloom （开花）are beautiful to see – even garden-variety flowers. “Garden-variety” describes anything that is common and not so special. You can have a garden-variety cold—not a serious illness.

Now, a problem that many gardeners have is weeds. Weeds grow easily and can quickly take over a garden. In conversation, we sometimes use “weeds” to mean too many details. So, if you are in the weeds, you are taken over by too many details.

As we said, weeds grow quickly. So do children. So, we like to say a child grows like a weed. This expression compares a child’s fast growth to that of a weed.

1. What do you mean to do if you lead a man up the garden path?

A．Cheat him.	B．Act as a guide.
C．Teach him to work.	D．Show him your garden.

2. What should you do if you find your little brother smoking?

A．Treat it as a garden-variety matter.	B．Lead him up the garden path.
C．Encourage him to smoke.	D．Nip it in the bud.

3. In which situation may you be made busy and bored?

A．You meet a garden-variety problem.	B．You are budding in your career.
C．You are in the weeds.	D．You grow like a weed.

4. How does a mother feel if someone says her child grows like a weed?

A．Angry.	B．Proud.
C．Discouraged.	D．Overjoyed.

【推荐1】You’ve likely met the humblebrag before —— boasting (吹噓) in a way of a complaint, such as “I’m having such a worrying day. I got two job offers and I don’t know what to do.”

This is a typical example of humblebragging, a term coined by comedic writer Harris Wittels referring to “a specific type of boast that allows the offender to broadcast their achievements without the necessary shame and guilt that should normally accompany such claims.” In simpler terms, it’s a way to disguise a boast with some humility (谦让). Humblebragging comes in two different forms. The first is humility - based, an example being,＂can’t believe I got the highest grade in my class ”. The second type comes mixed with a bit of complaint, for example,＂I can’t believe that shopkeeper asked me for ID. I’m 25!”

People don’t like when others humblebrag because they find they are lacking in sincerity. Sincerity is a critical dimension of social evaluation, which is viewed as fundamental to people’s identity. In fact, people prize sincerity even above competence and warmth in others, according to Dr. Sezer.

If humblebragging doesn’t work, and no one likes it, why do we still do it? We all want to highlight our positive qualities without seeming proud. By speaking in a complaint or an expression of humility, we hope we’ll somehow land on the “sweet spot” of self - presentation: promoting ourselves while also conveying likability. In addition, research suggests that people may experience positive feelings while humblebragging.

Considering that we’re all likely to feel the urge to humblebrag, at least to some extent, the proper response when we hear a friend doing it may be to simply let it go——because ultimately we’re going to do it ourselves, and who really wants to be called out on it?

1. Which of the following remarks is an example of humblebragging

A．How I hate hearing my voice on TV!

B．I’m thrilled to be awarded the first prize.

C．I’m the only person to get promoted in the firm.

D．How I dislike doing the same thing every day!

2. Which can best describe people’s impression of, humblebraggers?

A．Honest

B．Humble.

C．Insincere.

D．Incapable.

3. What are people advised to do when hearing humblebragging from a friend?

A．Follow it up

B．Leave it alone.

C．Turn against it

D．Get to the root of it.

【推荐3】We take it for granted that with memory we can remember most of things which happened in our life. But it is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory. The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions(感知), the basis for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.
Memory can be defined as the ability to keep information available for later use. It not only includes “remembering” things like arithmetic(算术) or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves. Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile.
Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines. Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use. It is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity(容量) of a computer with that of a human being. The instant access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100,000 “words”—strings of alphabetic or numerical characters—ready for instant use. An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 1000,000 words of English. However, this is but a part of the total amount of information that the teenager has stored. Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.
The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem solving intelligence of human beings. A large part of a person’s memory is in terms of words and combinations of words. But while language greatly expands the number and the kind of things a person can remember, it also requires a huge memory capacity. It may well be this capacity that distinguishes humans, setting them apart from other animals.
1. Which of the following is true about memory?

A．It helps us perceive things happening around us every day.

B．It is based on the decisions we made in the past.

C．It is rooted in our past habits and skills.

D．It connects our past experiences with the present.

2. According to the passage, memory is helpful in one’s life in the following aspects EXCEPT that________________.

A．it involves a change in one’s behavior

B．it keeps information for later use

C．it warns people not to do things repeatedly

D．it enables one to remember events that happened in the past

3. What is the major characteristic of man’s memory capacity according to the author?

A．It can be expanded by language.

B．It can remember all the combined words.

C．It may keep all the information in the past.

D．It may change what has been stored in it.

4. Human beings make themselves different from other animals by________.

A．having the ability to perceive danger

B．having a far greater memory capacity

C．having the ability to recognize faces and places on sight

D．having the ability to draw on past experiences