Even though we may believe that it’s important to say thank you, sometimes expressing gratitude is easier said than done. We might find ourselves getting hung up on the best way to deliver the message.
However, it’s possible that we might be making our thanks more complex. In a paper, researchers compared the effects of expressing thanks in person, over a video call, and over text. And, while people generally expect an in-person thank you to be the most effective, what happened in reality was quite different: Sending a thank-you over text was almost as effective as that. Additionally, texting may be especially well-suited for situations where we feel awkward or embarrassed about expressing our appreciation.
In the study, 219 college students participated in a gratitude activity in which they wrote about three things they were grateful for over a two- week period. After writing, the students were asked to actually thank the persons involved. Some connected with the gratitude recipients (接受者) in person, others via video call, and others via text. At the beginning and end of the two weeks，participants completed surveys measuring their feelings of well-being, connections with others, loneliness and happiness.
The researchers found that people who expressed gratitude gained increased happiness, with only a few differences for the different methods of gratitude expression. Overall, video calls were just as beneficial as meeting in person. Texting was slightly less effective than video calling- it didn’t make people feel more connected and happier, while video calling did. However, participants who sent their thanks over text still experienced benefits: Texting improved their well- being and reduced their loneliness.
Overall, however, the message is that we shouldn’t worry about finding just the “best” way to express our gratitude. In fact, you re better off sending a quick thank you shortly after you receive the kindness than waiting for an occasion to schedule an in-person visit. Don’t put it off just for finding the best way—many times our gratitude goes unsaid because we spend too much time on the details.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Making a video call. | B．Sending a text message. |
| C．Expressing thanks in person. | D．Writing a thank-you letter. |
| A．To find the effect of expressing thanks on them. |
| B．To measure their physical health. |
| C．To collect a lot more ways to express thanks. |
| D．To know their views on gratitude. |
| A．In-person gratitude was less likely to be accepted. |
| B．Expressing gratitude could benefit mental health. |
| C．Ways of gratitude expression should be improved. |
| D．Texting made the gratitude recipients much happier. |
| A．Search for the best way. | B．Wait for an in-person visit. |
| C．Express gratitude in time. | D．Make careful preparations. |
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【推荐1】Research suggests that confidence is important to health and psychological well-being. But developing and maintaining confidence isn’t easy and it’s an easy thing to lose when you feel like you’ve failed or made a mistake.
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
Do you compare how you look to people around you? Or do you compare your salary to what your friend earns? Making comparisons is natural. But it isn’t likely to help boost your self-confidence.
Surround Yourself With Positive People
The people you spend time with can influence your thoughts and attitudes about yourself, perhaps more than you realize.
Self-talk that is optimistic can help you overcome self-doubt and take on new challenges. The next time you begin to think that you have no business speaking up in a meeting or that you are too out-of-shape to work out, remind yourself that your thoughts aren’t always accurate. Then find a way to turn those thoughts around into more positive self-talk.
Set Realistic Goals
The more you achieve your goals, the greater your confidence in yourself and your abilities. To set realistic goals, write down what you want to achieve.
| A．Be Kind to Yourself |
| B．Practice Positive Self-Talk |
| C．It may even have the opposite effect |
| D．So, pay attention to how others make you feel |
| E．Next, ask yourself what chance you have of achieving it |
| F．Here are a few positive effects of learning how to be confident |
| G．Fortunately, there are several ways you can increase your self-confidence |
【推荐2】How to Make a Complaint in English
Most of us do not enjoy complaining. But sometimes we must do it to get a solution.
Explain the problem
To do it effectively, you must use polite and respectful language.
State your feelings
This step is often not necessary.
The third step is to ask for action to be taken on the problem. This is an important step. Depending on who the listener is, you or they may need to ask someone else to take action.
| A．Ask for action |
| B．Blame the problem on them |
| C．You should avoid complaining |
| D．It will depend on how bad the problem is |
| E．In English,polite language is usually indirect |
| F．Today,we will tell you how to make a complaint in English |
| G．Or,maybe there is a continuing problem in your apartment building |
【推荐3】If you go into the forest with friends, stay with them. If you don’t, you may get lost. If you get lost, this is what you should do. Sit down and stay where you are. Don’t try to find your friends—let them find you. You can help them find you by staying in one place. There is another way to help your friends or other people to find you. You can shout or whistle(吹口哨) three times. Stop. Then shout or whistle three times again. Any signal given three times is a call for help.
Keep up shouting or whistling. Always three times together. When people hear you, they will know that you are not just making a noise for fun. They will let you know that they have heard your signal. They will give you two shouts or two whistles. When a signal is given twice, it is an answer to a call for help.
If you don’t think that you will get help before night comes, try to make a little house with branches(树枝). Make yourself a bed with leaves and grass.
When you need some water, you have to leave your little branch house to look for it. Don’t just walk away. Pick off small branches and drop them as you walk in order to go back again easily. When you are lost, the most important thing to do is to stay in one place.
1. If you get lost in the forest, you should _________.| A．try to find your friends in no time | B．stay in one place and give signals |
| C．walk around the forest | D．shout as loudly as possible |
| A．Crying twice. | B．Shouting or whistling three times together. |
| C．Shouting here and there. | D．Whistling everywhere in the forest |
| A．someone needs your help | B．something terrible will happen |
| C．people will come to help you | D．someone is afraid of an animal |
| A．how to travel in the forest |
| B．how to spend the night in the forest |
| C．what you should do if you are lost in the forest |
| D．what you should do if you want to get some water |
【推荐1】I owe my father a huge thank you! Sure, I need to thank him for all those years of paying my bills, fixing my bikes, and providing a shoulder to cry on. But this year I realized that his contributions to my childhood were much more than that.
I grew up as Daddy’s Little Girl. If I had a problem that needed fixing or a question that needed answering, he was the one I ran to. He helped me get through everything from math homework as a high school student to career choices as a young adult. He always expected that I do my best in whatever I did, and he believed I could succeed in anything I put my mind to. As a result, I learned to hold myself to those same standards. He always showed me unconditional love, which helped me learn to love myself. It was something I’d taken for granted until I realized from talking with my friends that they had no similar view of their self worth. Having fathers that didn’t believe in them left them to grow up not believing in themselves.
As I was growing up, my father also modeled how a woman should be lavished. He treated my mom with love and respect. As a result, I grew to expect nothing less than that from the men I dated and from the man I would eventually marry. Dad was a living picture of godliness（虔诚）, honesty and responsibility. It was only recently that I realized what a deep effect fathers have on their daughters’ lives. That is why I want to thank my dad for the godly example of love that he has been to me throughout my life.
1. From the second paragraph, the author thinks it is the most valuable that ________.| A．her father was very strict with her. |
| B．her father helped her a lot in every way. |
| C．nothing was difficult if her father was on her side. |
| D．Father’s trust deeply influenced her self-confidence. |
| A．Loved | B．Respected |
| C．Treated | D．Spoiled |
| A．Her friends. | B．Her mother |
| C．Her husband | D．Her father |
| A．grateful | B．sad |
| C．proud | D．pitiful |
The thing is, my luck’s always been ruined. Just look at my name: Jean. Not Jean Marie, or Jeanine, or Jeanette, or even Jeanne. Just Jean. Did you know in France, they name boys Jean? It’s French for John. And okay, I don’t live in France. But still, I’m basically a girl named John. If I lived in France, anyway.
This is the kind of luck I’ve had since before Mom even filled out my birth certificate. So it wasn’t any big surprise to me when the cab driver didn’t help me with my suitcase. I’d already had to tolerate arriving at the airport to find no one there to greet me, and then got no answer to my many phone calls, asking where my aunt and uncle were. Did they not want me after all? Had they changed their minds? Had they heard about my bad luck—all the way from Iowa—and decided they didn’t want any of it to rub off on them?
So when the cab driver, instead of getting out and helping me with my bags, just pushed a little button so that the trunk (汽车后备箱) popped open a few inches, it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to me. It wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to me that day.
According to my mom, most brownstones in New York City were originally single-family homes when they were built way back in the 1800s. But now they’ve been divided up into apartments, so that there’s one—or sometimes even two or more families—per floor.
Not Mom’s sister Evelyn’s brownstone, though. Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted Gardiner own all four floors of their brownstone. That’s practically one floor per person, since Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted only have three kids, my cousins Tory, Teddy, and Alice.
Back home, we just have two floors, but there are seven people living on them. And only one bathroom. Not that I’m complaining. Still, ever since my sister Courtney discovered blow-outs, it’s been pretty frightful at home.
But as tall as my aunt and uncle’s house was, it was really narrow—just three windows across. Still, it was a very pretty townhouse, painted gray. The door was a bright, cheerful yellow. There were yellow flower boxes along the base of each window, flower boxes from which bright red—and obviously newly planted, since it was only the middle of April, and not quite warm enough for them.
It was nice to know that, even in a sophisticated (世故的) city like New York, people still realized how homey and welcoming a box of flowers could be. The sight of those flowers cheered me up a little.
Like maybe Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted just forgot I was arriving today, and hadn’t deliberately failed to meet me at the airport because they’d changed their minds about letting me come to stay.
Like everything was going to be all right, after all.
Yeah. With my luck, probably not.
I started up the steps to the front door of 326 East Sixty-Ninth Street, then realized I couldn’t make it with both bags and my violin. Leaving one bag on the sidewalk, I dragged the other up the steps with me. Maybe I took the steps a little too fast, since I nearly tripped and fell flat on my face on the sidewalk. I managed to catch myself at the last moment by grabbing some of the fence the gardeners had put up…
1. Why did the author go to New York?
| A．She intended to go sightseeing there. |
| B．She meant to stay with her aunt’s family. |
| C．She was homeless and adopted by her aunt. |
| D．She wanted to try her luck and find a job there. |
| A．she was given a boy’s name in French |
| B．the cab driver didn’t help her with her bags |
| C．her sister Courtney discovered blow-outs |
| D．nobody had come to meet her at the airport |
| A．have an effect on | B．play tricks on | C．put pressure on | D．throw doubt on |
| A．the author left home without informing her mother |
| B．the author arrived in New York in a very warm season |
| C．her aunt’s family lived a much better life than her own |
| D．her aunt and uncle were likely to forget about her arrival |
【推荐3】Mrs. Hill was an English teacher at the new middle school I attended in the eighth grade. She wasn’t my teacher but I loved being around her and enjoyed her kindness. She was also a good Listener.
At the end of the year, she was moving to Florida, and I was sad. We exchanged addresses and became pen friends. I could tell her anything, and she treated me with respect even though I was a Schoolboy.
In Florida, Mrs. Hill became a lawyer, but she managed to find time to write me letters. She wrote amusing stories and always took my concerns seriously. She had given me an invitation to visit. I accepted it immediately, I spent three weeks with her in Miami. Her love of music and creative writing inspired me.
Two years later, Mrs. Hill surprised me by attending my high school graduation ceremony. Later that year, my family decided to spend Christmas in Florida and I couldn’t wait to see her again. When I arrived at her house, I had hoped to talk to her about school, but instead she was in a hospital bed. She had cancer. A month after we got back home, we were shocked to hear that Mrs. Hill had passed away.
To this day, more than 50 years later, whenever I read her letters again, thinking about the advice she gave me, I still remember the importance of her smile and her friendship. For me, she is a respected teacher forever!
1. Why did the writer feel sad in the eighth grade?| A．Mrs. Hill wasn't his English teacher. | B．Mrs. Hill was moving to Florida. |
| C．Mrs. Hill never wrote to him. | D．Mrs. Hill became a lawyer. |
| A．Three weeks. | B．A month. | C．One year. | D．Two years. |
| A．stories told by Mrs. Hill | B．The graduation ceremony |
| C．the exchange of their addresses | D．Mrs Hill’s love of music and creative writing |
| A．Died. | B．Recovered. | C．Got back. | D．Gone out. |
| A．A Visiting Invitation | B．A Successful Lawyer |
| C．Skills of Making Pen Friends | D．Memories of a Respected Teacher |
【推荐1】All over the world people enjoy sports. Sports help to keep people healthy and happy, and to live longer. Many people like to watch others play games. They buy tickets or turn on their TVs to watch the games. Often they get very excited when “their” player or team wins.
Some sports are so interesting that people everywhere go in for them. Football, for example, has spread around the world. Swimming is popular in all countries near the sea or in those with many rivers. What fun it is to jump into a pool or lake, whether in China, Egypt or Italy! And think of people in cold countries. Think how many people love to skate or ski in Japan, Norway or Canada. Some sports or games go back thousands of years, like running or jumping. Chinese wushu, for example, has a very long history. But basketball and volleyball are rather new. They are about one hundred years old. People are inventing new sports or games all the time. Water-skiing is one of the newest in the family of sports.
People from different countries often become good friends after a game together. Sports help them to understand each other. One learns to fight hard but fight fair, to win without pride and to lose with grace.
1. Why do people all over the world enjoy sports?| A．Because they want to keep healthy. |
| B．Because they are happy. |
| C．Because they want to live longer. |
| D．All the above. |
| A．their favorite team wins |
| B．they win the game |
| C．they get the good news |
| D．they can’t help themselves |
| A．they train their character in the game |
| B．they understand each other |
| C．they are friendly to each other |
| D．they help each other |
【推荐2】Giving children music lessons won’t just lead them to a world of melody——it could also greatly improve their language skills.
While numerous studies have shown that learning an instrument can impact things like language ability, it wasn’t understood if this was a side effect of a general improvement to cognitive skills, or something that directly affected language processing.
Now, we know more about that, from a study of 74 Chinese kindergarten children，led by neuroscientist Robert Desimone. “The children did show improvements in word discrimination (辨别)，particularly for consonants(声母),”explains Desimone.
For the study, Desimone’s team randomly divided the Mandarin—speaking children into three groups. One group received a 45-minute piano lesson three times a week, while another received extra reading instruction classes. The third group acted as controls, taking no extra lessons beyond their usual routine. The classes lasted for six months, after which the children were tested on their ability to discriminate words based on differences in tone, consonants,o r vowels.
The test results showed that the children who had taken piano lessons performed significantly better at discriminating between words, compared against the children who took extra reading lessons. Compared to the control group, both the music learners and the extra reading group did better in discriminating words.
To learn why these differences happen, the researchers studied the children’s brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG) and found the piano group showed greater sensitivity to tonal changes. The thinking goes, having music lessons helped develop this tonal sensitivity, which partly explains better word discrimination.
It’s also worth emphasizing that the musical education helped these children outperform their peers in language tests—even beyond the results of kids who took extra reading classes. “It’s better than extra reading. That means schools could invest in music,” Desimone says．
1. What did previous studies show?| A．Instruments learning helps language ability． |
| B．Language is a side effect of cognitive skills． |
| C．Learning an instrument slows down language processing． |
| D．Extra reading is needed to improve language skills． |
| A．Why the study was carried out． | B．The differences between word discrimination． |
| C．How the study was carried out． | D．How the groups were divided． |
| A．Because of the limitation of brain activity． |
| B．Because of electroencephalography． |
| C．Because of tonal changes between different groups． |
| D．Because of different levels of tonal sensitivity． |
| A．Compare with． | B．Invest in． | C．Do better than． | D．Differ from． |
【推荐3】There are several changes in the procedure for employees who wish to apply for vacant positions within the company. These changes make it much easier for in-house employees to fill vacancies that occur.
First, the most important difference is that employees will now be notified of all available positions before the positions are advertised for the general public. Accordingly, all in-house candidates will be interviewed before we see any outside candidates, and we will offer the job to outside candidates only if no current employees are able to fill the position.
Second, under the new procedure, in-house employees can be hired even if they don’t meet all job requirements. Under our old policy, in-house employees had to meet all job qualifications in order to obtain the vacant position. Now, however, employees who have proven themselves dedicated to the company will be hired for a vacant position even if they are lacking in some minor qualifications; training will be provided.
A third change involves recommendations. From now on, employees do not need to be recommended for an in-house position before they apply. Instead, employees may apply as soon as they are aware of the vacancy. The remaining procedures and policies (those regarding increase in pay, interview procedure, and hiring approval) remain the same.
1. What can we infer from the second change?| A．It becomes difficult for the company to find qualified employees. |
| B．The employees’ loyalty is highly valued by the company. |
| C．The company has lowered the requirements for some positions. |
| D．More and more training will be offered by the company. |
| A．A job application. | B．An interview. |
| C．A recommendation letter. | D．A hiring approval. |
| A．More outside applicants will be attracted. |
| B．Higher salaries will be offered to the employees. |
| C．The procedures of vacancy application will be simplified. |
| D．In-house employees will have a better chance to fill the vacancy. |
| A．On a poster about the company. |
| B．In a hiring advertisement. |
| C．In an inter-department email. |
| D．In a personal notebook. |
