【推荐1】How do top athletes handle defeat and disappointment? In many cases, an athlete can turn to his or her teammates for encouragement. But in some sports, the performer competes as an individual.     1     I asked several top performers in individual sports like gymnastics skating, and track and field where they find the spark to keep going after a loss. Maybe their responses will be helpful to you, too.

Think positively.

Siri Lindley is a top triathlete, competing in events that combine long-distance running, swimming and cycling. “    2    ”she says. “The I pick my head up and start thinking positively, and I visualize myself succeeding the next time. Let the losses make you stronger.”

Stick with it.

Allen Johnson won a gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1996 Olympics, but he knows that he can’t win every race. When I don’t win, I have to accept the fact that I made a mistake or that someone was better on that day, he says. “    3    ”

    4    

In bicycle road races, Mari Holdenlo often rides up to one hundred miles a day. She has finished at the front of the pack on many occasions, but she also knows what it’s like to trail the field. “ I was once in a race in France on a rainy, cold day, ” she says. “lost the main pack of riders and felt like I was out there by myself. Boy, was I miserable? I remember moments like these the most, and now when I struggle, I can say, “Hey, you’ve been there before, push through your disappointment and move on.”

Learn from mistakes

    5     “If I make a mistake in the middle of a competition, I try to forget about it because I have to go on,” she says. “If I do poorly over the course of an entire meet, I go back to the gym and figure out what went wrong. It's so important to learn from your mistakes.”

A．Pick yourself up.

B．Push through the struggle.

C．Winning or losing depend only on the athlete's own skill and efforts.

D．You can't be the best every day, but you can be the best on some days.

E．Gymnast Shannon Miller has won several Olympic medals, including two golds.

F．I try to use what I learn from each loss to make me stronger and more determined.

G．If I don't feel motivated to practice, I remind myself that if I don't train well, I don't do well.

【推荐3】You don’t have to break your back to create a yard that’s both beautiful and kind to Mother Nature. These environmentally smart ideas will turn your home turf(草地)into a little slice of Eden.     1    

Let the grass grow. Cut grass less often, so it gets a few inches longer than you’re used to.     2     That’s because roots will grow deeper and grass thicker, which means fewer pests, less disease, and a decreased need for chemical intervention.

Water the grass right way. Water before 10 a. m. , when the air is cool and not as much moisture will be lost to evaporation.     3     Water near the base of plants, slowly delivering the good stuff right to the roots. For lawns, water long and deep once a week.

Get keen on composting(制堆肥). Compost isn’t called gardener’s gold for nothing. It keeps kitchen leftover out of landfills and enriches soil with much-needed nutrients.     4     Veggie and tea bags, eggshells, dry leaves, and untreated grass clippings are all fair game.

    5     Honeybees help pollinate(授粉) 75 percent of our flowering plants and nearly 75 percent of our food crops. There is increasing evidence that many of the vital pollinators are in decline. Creating a garden that includes plants that flower at different times of the year will benefit pollinators throughout the growing season. Whenever possible, choose native plants with a variety of flower colors and shapes.

A．Many will save your money, too.

B．Dry leaves add nutrients to the soil.

C．Give bees the green-carpet treatment.

D．Make the backyard as beautiful as possible.

E．Watering in late afternoon is the next best option.

F．It also reduces dependency on chemical fertilizers.

G．It will help it survive dry periods of time in warmer months.

【推荐1】Books to Read in Your 20s

The Kite Runner

By Khaled Hosseini

As a Middle Eastern and North African Studies student, I have a great interest in books about what takes place in this area. I first read this book in high school and really enjoyed it because of its accurate language. If any of you is interested in reading this book and hasn’t yet, I highly recommend it.

Firefly Lane

By Kristin Hannah

This is my favorite book. It is a story about friendship, love and life lessons. The story covers the lives of two best friends, Tully and Kate, from childhood to adulthood. I learned so much about friendship and life. So, read Firefly Lane! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and then you’ll share this book to your best friend.

Half the Sky

By Nicholas D. Kristof

For any person of any age, Half the Sky is a must-read. It describes the struggle of women and the most pressing human rights problems of our time: the common oppression of women and girls.

The Little Prince

By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This children’s book is simple. It might seem like a wrong book to recommend to someone in their twenties but perhaps that’s what makes it a good choice. It sings praises to exploration and shows the importance of making friends.

1. What can you learn from Firefly Lane?

A．It’s written by Tully and Kate.	B．It’s about friendship, love and life lessons.
C．It’s a simple book for children.	D．It’s a book written for any person of any age.

2. Which book will you read if you want to know about human rights problems?

A．The Kite Runner.	B．Firefly Lane.
C．Half the Sky.	D．The Little Prince.

3. Which books are about friendship?

A．The Kite Runner & Firefly Lane.	B．Firefly Lane & Half the Sky.
C．Half the Sky & The Little Prince.	D．Firefly Lane & The Little Prince.

【推荐2】If we are to help students develop reading skills in a foreign language, it is important to understand what is involved in the reading process itself. If we have a clear idea of how “good readers” read, either in their own or a foreign language, this will enable us to decide whether particular reading techniques are likely to help learners or not.
In considering the reading process, it is important to distinguish between two quite separate activities: reading for meaning (or “silent reading”) and reading aloud. Reading for meaning is the activity we normally engage in when we read books, newspapers, road signs, etc.; it is what you are doing as you read this text. It involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words “making sense” of a written text. It doesn’t normally involve saying the words we read, not even silently inside our heads.
Reading aloud is a completely different activity; its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the information to someone else. It is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom; common examples are reading out parts of a newspaper article to a friend, or reading a notice to other people who can’t see it. Obviously, reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it. Because our attention is divided between reading and speaking, it is a much more difficult activity than reading silently; we often stumble and make mistakes when reading aloud in our own language, and reading aloud in a foreign language is even more difficult.
When we read for meaning, we do not need to read every letter or every word, nor even every word in each sentence. This is because, if the text makes sense, we can guess much of what it says as we read it.
1. The passage is mainly about ____________.

A．reading skills	B．silent reading
C．reading processes	D．reading aloud

2. The underlined word “stumble” in Paragraph 3 means ____________.

A．step over something and fall

B．repeat something or pause for too long

C．walk with heavy movements

D．speak in a fluent and confident way

3. We can infer from the passage that the author will continue to ____________.

A．discuss in detail how to read aloud

B．introduce some more reading activities

C．tell how good readers read in their own language

D．explain why we needn’t say the words when reading for meaning

4. We can conclude that ____________.

A．reading silently is easier than reading aloud

B．to understand a sentence, you have to read all the words in it

C．silent reading involves looking at a text and saying the words silently to yourself

D．there’s no difference between reading in one’s own language and in a foreign one

【推荐3】Reading literature is a common experience, but it is by no means a simple experience. Literature may seem a simple matter of fact when one thinks of it as being black marks on white pages; but as soon as the reader recognizes the marks as words—as phrases, sentences, and paragraphs—he has begun to leave the world of the simple experience of the “real” object, the printed page, and has begun to move in the world of abstractions. The black marks are soon seen as symbols of other things, to “stand for” objects, processes and situations.

A reader’s experience with a book is no difference in its nature than his experience with other objects in life. In life, objects appear to us and we have sensations and impressions of them as they impact on our sensory organs; we adjust to the objects with every confidence that they are real. Theseus (忒修斯, 传说中的雅典国王), in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, speaks of the errors we make in judging: “In the night, imagining some fear, how easy is a bush supposed a bear!”

As in life, the magic of imagination in literature creates vivid images that may develop in the reader a tendency to accept the images as physical reality, and what was at first imagined becomes at last directly sensed. John Keats went so far as to express a preference for the imagined when he said, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter...”

Perhaps Keats was an uncommon reader. Generally, however, most of us undervalue the power of literature to affect us directly. Indeed, the very world of reality in which we all live our daily lives is filled with imagined experience. While reading, we should take the printed page seriously as an opportunity to enjoy a significant experience. Literature, in that case, provides a memorable experience.

1. The passage mentions “confidence” in paragraph 2 to make the point that       ________.

A．we must rely on our creative abilities

B．we often trust our sensory impressions

C．we usually fail to recognize objects in life

D．we tend to make wrong decisions in reality

2. We can learn from the passage that John Keats ________.

A．had a vivid imagination

B．preferred real experience

C．undervalued the power of literature

D．followed the traditional way of reading

3. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Good literature is comforting and familiar.

B．Readers are exposed to a wider range of literature.

C．Translation matters a lot in the appreciation of literature.

D．The power of literature is grasped through imagined experience.