【推荐1】Our most commonly held code for success is broken. Conventional wisdom（普遍看法）holds that if we work hard we will be more successful，and if we are more successful，then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job，win that next promotion，lose those five pounds，happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this code is actually backward：Happiness fuels success，not the other way around. When we are positive，our brains become more engaged，creative，motivated，energetic，and productive at work. These discoveries have been repeatedly proved by rigid research in psychology and neuroscience（神经科学），management studies，and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.

In The Happiness Advantage，Shawn Achor，who spent over a decade living，researching，and lecturing at Harvard University，draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS to fix this broken code. Using stories and case studies from his work with CEOs of Fortune 500 in 42 countries，Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive ability at work.

Based on seven practical，actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms，stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe，he shows us how we can capitalize on The Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential.

A must-read for everyone trying to stand out in a world of increasing workloads and stress，The Happiness Advantage isn’t only about how to become happier at work. It’s about how to get the benefits of a happier and more positive mode of thinking to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.

1. What do we know about the new discoveries in Paragraph1?

A．Conventional code for success is totally useless.

B．The more we are successful, the happier we are.

C．Positive psychology is really backward.

D．Happiness contributes greatly to success.

2. Why did Shawn Achor write the book The Happiness Advantage?

A．To reprogram one’s brain to be healthier.

B．To make people more positive and competitive.

C．To study stories and cases of CEOs.

D．To make lectures at Harvard University.

3. The underlined phrase“capitalize on”in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to________.

A．provide fund for	B．make full use of
C．in search of	D．stand out for

4. What is the write’s purpose of writing the passage?

A．To help people stand out in the world.

B．To arouse people’s sense of happiness.

C．To help people decrease the work stress.

D．To strongly recommend the book.

【推荐2】◆ Open Monday to Saturday 10：00 to 17：00 and Sunday 12：00 to 17：00. Last admissions at 16：30 each day.

◆ Personal Admission: Adults, ￡5; Seniors/Students, ￡4.

◆ Group Admission(Ten or more): Adults ￡4.5 per person; Students/Seniors ￡3.50 per person.

◆ Payment for groups must be made together.

Welcome to the James Joyce Centre

The James Joyce Centre is to promote an understanding of the life and works of James Joyce. In doing so, the Centre tries to work with institutions to celebrate Ireland's rich cultural heritage(遗产). The James Joyce Centre provides the casual visitor with a rewarding and memorable experience.

The Centre's home is a restored 18th century townhouse in the north of Dublin, the city of Joyce's birth and the setting for all his works. From this central place in Joyce's heartland, the Centre aims to develop an appreciation of this most remarkable and significant literary figure of the 20th century.

No 35 North Great George's Street was built in 1784 and decorated with fine plasterwork(灰泥) by Michael Stapleton. The house was restored in the 1980s and opened as the James Joyce Centre in 1996, run by members of Joyce's sister's family.

The Kenmare Room is used for lectures and has a small show of reproductions of Joyce family pictures. In addition, this room provides details of Joyce's life and times, a reading table where visitors can sit and read works by and about Joyce, and a show of some of the many translations of Joyce's works.

Exhibitions

The centre's permanent and temporary exhibitions show various aspects of Joyce's life and work. Through shows and three films, you may dig into the novel about its historical background and learn more about Joyce's life. The Centre also hosts International Joyce, an exhibition that provides a wonderful introduction to the life and works of James Joyce.

Walking Tours

Our walking tours are available every Saturday at 11 am and 2 pm, and by advanced booking on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 am and 2 pm(with at least four people). Adults ￡10; Seniors/Students ￡8. For bookings, contact info@jamesoyce.ie. We look forward to your visit.

1. According to the text, the James Joyce Centre ________.

A．has a history of about 30 years

B．is run by Dublin's government

C．is on the North Great George's Street

D．has been well protected since its construction

2. It can be inferred from the text that in the James Joyce Centre, you can ________.

A．see some movies about James Joyce

B．listen to James Joyce's lectures

C．learn every event of James Joyce's times

D．have the walking tours by yourself

3. What is the main purpose of the text?

A．To comment on the James Joyce Centre.

B．To tell the history of the James Joyce Centre.

C．To briefly introduce the James Joyce Centre.

D．To attract potential tourists to the James Joyce Centre.

【推荐3】Travelling doesn’t always have to be about changing your location. Reading books also takes you on real-life adventures around the world, even from our armchairs. Here we feature 4 adventure tales that we can dive into.

Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains, by Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent.

Despite suffering from panic disorder, the brave Bolingbroke-Kent sets off on an adventure across a lesser-known part of India, Arunachal Pradesh. There is plenty of humor thrown in, along with the highs and lows of her journey, so it’s not just all serious.

Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.

“A little voice in my head said: Sounds neat! Let’s do it!” writes Bryson of his more humorous than heroic journey from Maine to Georgia along the Appalachian Trail. Bryson’s tale may be the funniest call for conservation ever written.

Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming.

Peter Fleming signed on to a risky 3,000-mile Brazilian jungle hunt to uncover the fate of a lost English explorer. Imagine a book: Funny, exciting, literate, a period piece that still works.

A Book of Migrations, by Rebecca Solnit.

It’s a search for roots in Ireland. Her long hike in western Ireland leads to a reflection on movement-cultural, psychological, personal. There is much to learn by getting away from the tourist route, walking and speaking to the people you meet along the way. They have stories to tell that you won’t find in the tourist guides.

What travel-inspiring books have you ever read? Please email us at amy.alipio@natgeo.com.

1. What is the common characteristic of the first three adventure tales?

A．Funny.

B．Magic.

C．Risky.

D．Serious.

2. Which book might be helpful if you care for environmental protection?

A．Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains.	B．Walk in the Woods.
C．Brazilian Adventure.	D．A Book of Migrations.

3. What is special about the hike in A Book of Migrations?

A．It is a search in the western land.	B．It is full of cultural movements.
C．It doesn’t follow the tourist route.	D．It has many stories about tourist guides.

【推荐1】People have grown taller over the last century, with South Korean women shooting up by more than 20cm on average, and Iranian men gaining 16. 5cm. A global study looked at the average height of 18-year-olds in 200 countries between 1922 and 2022.

The results reveal that while Swedes were the tallest people in the world in 1922, Dutch men have risen from 12th place to claim top spot with an average height of 182. 5cm. Latvian women, meanwhile, rose from 28th place in 1922 to become the tallest in the world a century later, with an average height of 169. 8cm.

James Bentham, a co-author of the research from Imperial College, London, says the global trend is likely to be due primarily to improvements in nutrition and healthcare. “An individual’s genetics has a big influence on their height, but once you average over whole populations, genetics plays a less key role. ”he added.

A little extra height brings a number of advantages, says Elio Riboli of Imperial College. “Being taller is associated with longer life expectancy, ” he said. “ This is largely due to a lower risk of dying of cardiovascular (心血管的)disease among taller people. ”

But while height has increased around the world , the trend in many countries of north and sub-Saharan Africa causes concern, says Riboli. While height increased in Uganda and Niger during the early 20th century, the trend has reversed in recent years, with height decreasing among 18-year-olds.

“One reason for these decreases in height is the economic situation in the 1980s, ”said Alexander Moradi of the University of Sussex. The nutritional and health crises that followed the policy of structural adjustment, he says, led to many children and teenagers failing to reach their full potential in terms of height.

Bentham believes the global trend of increasing height has important implications. “How tall we are now is strongly influenced by the environment we grew up in, ” he said. “If we give children the best possible start in life now, they will be healthier and more productive for decades to come. ”

1. What does the global study tell us about people’s height in the last hundred years?

A．There is a remarkable difference across continents.

B．There has been a marked increase in most countries.

C．The speed of increase in people’s height has been quickening.

D．The general increase in women’s height is bigger than in men’s.

2. What does James Bentham say about genetics in the increase of people’s height?

A．It counts less than generally thought.

B．It outweighs nutrition and healthcare.

C．It impacts more on an individual than on a population.

D．It plays a more significant role in females than in males.

3. What does Elio Riboli say about taller people?

A．They tend to live longer.

B．They enjoy an easier life.

C．They risk fewer cancers.

D．They have greater expectations in life.

4. What does the underlined word in paragraph 5 mean?

A．backspun

B．risen

C．confirmed

D．stabilized

【推荐3】Smoking is harmful. But as soon as you quit the habit, everything will be OK, right?

Wrong

New research has found that even if you give up smoking, the damage it has done to your genes(基因) will stay there for a much longer time. In the research, a team of US scientists studied the blood of 16,000 people. Among them, some were smokers, some used to smoke, and the rest were non-smokers. Scientists compared their genes and found that more than 7,000 genes of smokers had changed—a number that is one-third of known human genes.

According to NBC News, both heart disease and cancer are caused by genetic changes. Some people may have had the changes when they were born, but most people get them in their day-to-day lives while doing things like smoking.

When you stop smoking, a lot of these genes will return to normal within five years.

This means your body is trying to heal (治愈) itself of the harmful effects of smoking. But the changes in some of the genes stay for longer. They can stay for as long as 30 years. It’s almost like leaving a footprint on wet cement (水泥)—it will always be there, even when you’ve walked away and when the cement becomes dry.

Although the study results may make people unhappy, there is a bright side: the findings could help scientists invent medicine to treat genetic damage caused by smoking or find ways to tell which people have heart disease or cancer risks.

1. The function of Paragraph 1 is to ________.

A．show the main idea of the passage	B．give an example
C．make an argument	D．introduce the topic of the passage

2. Most genetic changes happen because of ________.

A．people’s condition at birth	B．people’s bad living habits
C．environmental pollution	D．heart disease and cancer

3. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 6 refers to ________.

A．the genetic change	B．the cement
C．the harmful effect	D．the footprint

4. Which of the following statements is true?

A．The findings are the fruit of more than three years’ research.

B．The findings have prevented more people from starting smoking

C．The findings help to find cures for genetic damage caused by smoking.

D．The findings offer evidence that a damaged gene can heal itself.

【推荐1】Here come some of the ways advised to keep delighted and a healthy mood by Harvard.

♦ Be grateful and say thanks often

    1    . The tiny purple flowers on the sidewalk, the beautiful sunset, and the smile in your partner’s eyes. When you have a grateful heart that is appreciative of life’s beauty, wonder and blessings, you’re automatically filled with delight. Always be appreciative of the blessings in your life. And it’s equally important to express your appreciation to those who’ve made your life better in some way.

♦     2    

If your tendency is to imagine the very worst case whenever you have a trouble, train yourself to change that tendency. Ask yourself what good can come from the situation or what you can learn from it. Optimism surely fuels success and delight.    3    . Try to find humor and laughter in life’s everyday struggles.

♦ Understand and forgive

Step into others’ shoes and understand a situation from another’s perspective, and we’re more likely to handle the situation with objectivity and effectiveness. There will be less conflicts and more delight.

Hate and anger are forms of self-punishment. When you forgive, you’re actually practicing kindness to yourself. Most importantly, learn to forgive yourself. Everyone makes mistakes.    4    .

♦ Keep learning and be a problem solver

Learning keeps us young and olive. When engaging our brains toward productive uses, we’re much more likely to feel delighted and fulfilled.

Delighted people are problem solvers. When facing a challenge in life, they don’t beat themselves up and fail into a depressive state.     5    . By becoming a problem solver, you’ll build up your self-confidence and your ability to accomplish whatever you set to.

A．Be optimistic and laugh often

B．Pay attention to the little details in your life

C．Do what you love freely and live happily in the present

D．Laughter is the most powerful treatment to anger or depression

E．It’s through our mistakes that we learn and grow to be bigger and better

F．Only by making mistakes repeatedly will we realize it is normal to make mistakes

G．Instead they face the challenge and channel their energies to finding a creative solution

【推荐2】The United Nations is warning that the world is not prepared to deal with the fast growth of cities. The World Economic and Social Survey 2013 calls for new ways to meet the needs of city populations. More than 6.5 billion people are expected to be living in cities by 2050.
Most new city dwellers will be in developing countries. The United Nations says the effect on limited resources in many countries will be huge. The World Economic and Social Survey points to the increasing demand for energy, water, sanitation, public services, education and health care.
The world population is expected to rise to more than nine billion by 2050, two-thirds of all people are expected to live in cities. The United Nations says about 80 percent of this growing urban population will be found in Africa and Asia.
The report says sustainable development of urban areas requires coordination and investments to deal with important issues, these include land-use, food security, job creation and transportation.
Willem Van Der Geest is with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, he says cities need to work closely with rural communities, so that food supplies can be secured, and the environment can be protected.
"We need enough integration(整合，融合) with cities... An integration between the rural and urban economies is absolutely vital for issues of nutrition, food security, and environmental sustainability."
The report says development in a sustainable（可持续发展）way is important to end poverty. The report also examines the problem of food insecurity, which affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. One in eight people still severely lack nutrition.
UN officials say some things are clear. The Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, Shamshad Akhtar, says world food production will have to increase by 70%, that increase will be needed to feed the additional 2.3 billion people expected on the planet by the middle of the century. She says an important part of meeting that need is to waste less food. "There has to be efforts to reduce food wastage. ."
Food and nutrition security are core elements of the sustainable development agenda.
1. The survey includes the following statements except that ______.

A．varieties of demands are hard to meet because of the increasing population in Africa and Asia.

B．one way to put an end to poverty is to be able to develop for a long time.

C．transportation is an important issue to deal with when it comes to sustainable development of urban areas.

D．hundreds of millions of people around the world are affected by the problem of food insecurity.

2. From the passage we can infer that ______.

A．cities grow so fast that the world can’t find out new ways to deal with the growing population.

B．the growing city dwellers who mainly come from the developing countries greatly challenge limited resources in the world.

C．sustainable development of urban areas requires coordination and investments to deal with important issues

D．food wastage is an effective way to feed the additional 2.3 biilion people by the middle of the century.

3. What is the best titile of the passage?

A．The World Economic and Social Survey 2013.

B．City Population Will Increase to 9 Billion.

C．Cities Need to Cooperate with Rural Areas.

D．The World Is Not Prepared to Deal with the Fast Growth of Cities.

4. The passage is chosen from ______.

A．a textbook

B．a travel guide

C．a novel

D．a newspaper