【推荐2】There is an old American saying, “Loose lips sink ships.” This means that if you speak too much about something, especially to people who you don’t know so well, it’ll cause all kinds of trouble.

The situation here is so much worse because the “loose lips” were your best friend’s. Treated this way, you’re sure to feel hurt.     1    

But I have to say that it’s partly your fault, isn’t it? You admit that you were “letting off steam”. It is understandable in that situation, but we should always think before we speak.

    2    

First, apologise to your teammate. If you ever want to win any more basketball games, you need to work together, and that means communicating with each other clearly and resolving conflicts.     3     Tell him directly and honestly that you were talking without thinking.

Then, talk to your friend. Friendship should be one of the greatest things in the world, but sometimes it can be difficult. Again, your strategy is clear communication. Tell your friend you’re angry with him for repeating what you said and making the situation worse, but that you want to move on.     4    

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, think about your own behaviour. Don’t say too much when you’re angry!     5     This gives people the wrong signal. Take a deep breath, calm down, and always remember: think first, speak later. If you feel one of your teammates isn’t pulling their weight, then raise your concerns in a professional way with your team coach.

If you think about other people’s feelings as well as your own, you’ll soon find everything works out.

A．Here’s what you need to do.

B．So have a chat with your teammate.

C．Approached in this way, your friendship will soon be repaired.

D．Always remember that a friend in need is a friend indeed.

E．We depend on our parents at home, while we depend on friends when we are outside.

F．Filled with anger, you tend to say whatever comes to your mind.

G．We should always be able to trust those closest to us, and it hurts even more when we find we can’t.

【推荐3】A growing body of evidence suggests that the most significant thing about college is not where you go, but what you do once you get there. Historian and educator Ken Bain has written a book on this subject, What the Best College Students Do, which draws a road map for how students can get the most out of college, no matter where they go. Bain introduces us to a host of real-life deep learners. Although they each have their own insights, Bain identifies common patterns in their stories:

   

※ Pursue passion, not A’s. When in college, says the famous astrophysicist (天体物理学家) Neil deGrasse Tyson, he was “moved by curiosity, interest and fascination, not by making the highest scores on a test.” As an adult, he points out, “no one ever asks you what your grades were. Grades become irrelevant.” In his experience, says Tyson, “ambition and innovation are more important than grades every time.”

※ Get comfortable with failure. Comedian Stephen Colbert, when he was still a college student, began working with an improvisational (即兴的) theater in Chicago. “That really opened me up in ways I hadn’t expected,” he tells Bain. “You must be OK with bombing. You have to love it.” Colbert adds, “Improvisation is a great educator when it comes to failing. There’s no way you are going to get it right every time.”

※ Read and think actively. Dean Baker, one of the few economists to predict the economic collapse of 2008, became fascinated in college by the way economic forces shape people’s lives. His studies led him to reflect on “what he believed and why, integrating and questioning,” Baker notes. Baker says, “I was always looking for arguments in something I read, and then finding out the evidence to see how it was used.”

※ Ask big questions. Jeff Hawkins, an engineer who created the first mobile computing device, organized his studies around some profound questions he wanted to explore: Why does anything exist? Why do we have life, and what is its nature? And given that life exists, what’s the nature of intelligence? For many of the subjects he pursued, “there was no place to ‘look it up’, no simple answer.”

※ Set goals and make them real. Tia Fuller, who later became an accomplished saxophone player, began planning her future in college, envisioning the successful completion of her projects. “I would keep focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, and what that accomplishment would mean,” she tells Bain. “That would help me develop a crystalized vision.”

※ Find a way to contribute. Joel Feinman, now a lawyer who provides legal services to the poor, was set on his career path by a book about Africa he read in college. After reading the book and travelling to Africa, Feinman decided to do something to help poor people and bring a little justice to the world.

1. By saying “You must be OK with bombing”, Stephen Colbert means that ________.

A．you need to be used to the sound of the explosion

B．he hadn’t expected there to be a lot of failures

C．you should not be defeated by failure but handle it

D．improvisation can teach you to avoid failure

2. What do Dean Baker and Jeff Hawkins have in common?

A．They both made a contribution to the world when they were in college.

B．They both benefited from thinking actively during their study in college.

C．They both are fascinated by how reading shapes people’s lives.

D．They both pursued a lot of subjects when they were in college.

3. We can conclude from the last paragraph that ________.

A．the book inspired Joel to contribute by providing legal services to the poor

B．travelling helps one to broaden his horizons and make career choices

C．the most successful college students should own a lot of talents and skills

D．achieving justice in the world begins with reading and writing in college

4. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A．Bain believes that the most successful college students are deep learners.

B．For college learners, it is not grades but curiosity and interest that really count.

C．“Big questions” require deep understanding and have no quick answers.

D．With a crystalized vision, one manages to predict when he will succeed.

【推荐1】Today’s 14-and 15-year-olds are ambitious. They are optimistic about their future, but their career ideas are rather unclear. A job for life is not in their vocabulary. Almost half the boys surveyed expected that their hobbies would lead them into the right sort of job, while most girls seemed determined to avoid traditionally female careers such as nursing.

In the past, this might have counted as bad news. But the world has changed. The global economy is not kind to yesterday’s hardworking and dependable workers. The future belongs to quick-thinking people who are resourceful, ambitious and creative. This means that young people need training and guidance to help them develop the right skills for today’s market; not the rigid preparation for a workplace that disappeared 20 years ago.

So what is to be done? A good first step would be to change the way in which schools prepare young people for adult life. The education system is becoming less flexible and paying more attention to traditional skills when the employment market is going in the opposite direction.

Accurate, latest information on new jobs and qualifications can help guidance counselors to help their students. Young people need solid information on the sort of training they need to their dream career. Also, a little bit of encouragement can go a long way.

What, then, can we as parents do to help them? The best thing is to forget all the advice that our parents gave us, and step into our teenager’s shoes. It is important for them to learn how to be independent and resourceful. Give them courage to follow their dreams—however odd they might sound right now. In a world that offers economic security to almost no one, imagination is a terrible thing to waste.

1. According to the survey, how are boys and girls different in career ideas?

A．Male teenagers are more ambitious and optimistic.

B．Dead-end but secure jobs are more popular with girls.

C．Boys prefer to choose jobs based on their interest.

D．Girl teenagers have clearer career ideas than boys.

2. What word can best describe the person who is fluent in the global economy?

A．Inventive.

B．Hardworking.

C．Modest.

D．Reliable.

3. What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph imply?

A．Wasting is the main cause of terrible economy.

B．Creativity should be valued most in the changing world.

C．No one can be secure in such a terrible world.

D．Wasting imagination leads to economic insecurity.

4. Why is the passage written?

A．To analyze teenagers’ ideas about the economic world.

B．To explain how the world has changed the young.

C．To encourage parents to help the young to be independent.

D．To offer advice on how to prepare teenagers for careers.

【推荐3】At present, in many American cities especially, many teachers in the public schools say they are underpaid. They point to jobs such as secretary or truck driver, which often pay more to start than that of a teacher. In many other fields, such as law, medicine, computer science, a beginning worker may make more than a teacher who has taught for several years.

Teaching has never been a profession that attracted people interested in high salaries. It is by history a profession that has provided rewards in addition to money — the satisfactions of sharing knowledge, of influencing others, of guiding young people. But in the past several years, there are more difficulties in teaching, for many, than there are rewards.

Unruly students, especially in big cities, large classes and a lack of support from the public in terms of money and understanding have led many public school teachers to leave the profession.

As a result, many of the best students, who would have chosen teaching as their life career in the past, are going into other fields.

Another reason for this change in teacher candidates is the changing status of women in the United States. Until the late 1960s and 1970s, one of the most popular choices for women was teaching. But as other professions, such as law and medicine opened up to women, women stopped pouring into teacher training programs. Thus, a major pool of excellent candidates for the teaching profession dwindled.

Bit by bit government officials and others realized that the status of the teacher had suffered. They talked about change. But the change in a vast society like the United States is not easy. People’s attitudes have formed over many years, and sometimes change takes many years.

1. What’ s the main idea of paragraph 1?

A．Teachers in public schools are paid less than people in other fields in America.

B．Many teachers in the public schools are unemployed.

C．Teachers in America are paid less because they don’t teach long enough.

D．Many public school teachers in America leave school because of low salaries.

2. What might cause a teacher to quit his job according to the passage?

A．Too many classes.	B．Heavy teaching burden.
C．Disobedient students.	D．Lack of support from parents.

3. What does the underlined word “dwindled” mean?

A．Expanded.

B．Decreased

C．Changed.

D．Enhanced.

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Government officials are unwilling to change the status of the teachers.

B．Government officials have taken measures to change the status of the teachers.

C．People’s attitudes towards being a teacher in a vast society can be easily changed.

D．It has a long way for the government to go to change the teachers’ present situation.

【推荐1】“Getting your eight hours” is one of those suggestions, like drinking plenty of water or not to swim in canals, that most people take at face value.

When former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reported to need only five hours’ sleep a night, it was taken as evidence of a near-supernaturally tough body.

And it’s become an increasingly common view that too much work and stress and missing out on our eight hours is a modern disaster.

But the good news, says Prof. Jim Horne, director of Loughborough University’s Sleep Research Centre, is that we don’t need eight hours at all.

“It’s nonsense. It’s like saying everybody should have size eight shoes, or be five foot eight inches. There is a normal distribution (分布) — the average sleep length is seven and a quarter hours.”

Lots of people report having more or less than the average, he said. It may all be put down to genes, and what people are accustomed to. The US National Sleep Foundation suggests seven to nine hours a night is advisable for adults, and a survey it conducted in 2002 suggested three-quarters of Americans had problems sleeping and a third were so sleepy during the day that their activities were affected. The foundation says, “In the past century, we have reduced our average time in sleep. Though our society has changed, our brains and bodies have not. Sleep deprivation (缺乏) is affecting us all and we are paying the price.” But Prof. Horne says, “The test of insufficient (不足的) sleep is whether you are sleepy in the day or if you remain alert through most of the day.”

In a nutshell, if you sleep for eight hours a night and go to work and find yourself tired on the keyboard, you aren’t getting enough. If you’re sleeping five hours and running the country, you probably are getting enough.

1. According to Prof. Jim Horne, ________.

A．the average sleep length is too long.

B．we should sleep at least seven hours.

C．we should sleep no more than nine hours.

D．different people need different sleep hours.

2. What’s the attitude of the US National Sleep Foundation towards people’s sleep deprivation?

A．Greatly concerned.

B．Greatly doubtful.

C．A little surprised.

D．A little confused.

3. What should be used to judge whether we lack sleep or not according to Prof. Jim Horne?

A．Our average sleep length.

B．Our physical and mental state.

C．Our total number of sleep hours.

D．Our performance at school and work.

4. What does the last paragraph intend to tell us?

A．The number of sleep hours alone doesn’t make sense.

B．Long hours’ sleep can’t guarantee your good performance.

C．Short hours’ sleep doesn’t necessarily affect your work.

D．Sleep hours don’t make much difference to your performance.