【推荐1】You are enrolled in a full-time school called “life”. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

Why are you here? What is your purpose? Humans have sought to discover the meaning of life for a very long time.

Each person has his or her own purpose and distinct path, unique and separate from anyone else’s. As you travel your life path, you will be presented with numerous lessons that you will need to learn in order to fulfill that purpose. The lessons you are presented with are specific to you; learning these lessons is a key to discovering and fulfilling the meaning and connection of your own life.

As you travel through your lifetime, you may encounter challenging lessons that others don’t have to face, while others spend years struggling with challenges that you don’t need to deal with. You may never know why you are blessed with a wonderful marriage while your friends suffer through bitter arguments and painful divorces, just as you cannot be sure why you struggle financially while your peers enjoy abundance. The only thing you can count on for certain is that you specifically need to learn; whether we choose to learn them or not is entirely up to you.

The challenge here, therefore, is to align (保持一致) yourself with your own unique path by learning individual lessons. But, remember, don’t compare your path to the people around you and focus on the difference between their lessons and yours. You need to remember that you will only be faced with lessons that you are capable of learning and are specific to your own growth.

Our sense of fairness is the expectation of equity — the assumption that all things are equal and that justice will always prevail. Life is not, in fact, fair, and you may indeed have a more difficult lift path than others around you, deserved or not. Everyone's circumstances are unique, and everyone needs to handle his or her own circumstances differently. If you want to move toward calm, you will be required to move out the comparing phrase of “it's not fair”. Focusing on the unfairness of circumstances keeps you comparing yourself with others rather than appreciating your own special uniqueness. You miss out on learning your individual lessons by distracting yourself with feeling of bitterness and anger.

1. According to the passage, how can the meaning of your life be realized?

A．Having the same opinions as others.	B．Taking the distinct path from others.
C．Learning the lessons presented to you.	D．Doing the different things from others.

2. From the passage we can conclude ____.

A．everyone has his own track to follow

B．the same thing usually happens to the peers

C．a painful divorce must lie in financial problems

D．a wealthy man must have a wonderful marriage

3. Which of the following is TRUE?

A．All things are equal and justice will always prevail.

B．You should learn to appreciate your specific uniqueness.

C．One has to fix his mind on the unfairness of circumstances.

D．The teachers have designed the lessons as part of your curriculum in the life school.

4. Life is called a full-time school, because ____.

A．it is full of all lessons to learn	B．you have plenty of time to learn lessons
C．you meet with specific lessons every day	D．there are so many subjects for you to choose

【推荐2】It was Mother’s Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Tenyson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her head on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.
Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. He said to me, “Mum, it’s not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”
At the front of the supermarket a charity(慈善) group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should buy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he’d come up with such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can’t take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”
By now paramedics（救援人员）had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became______ by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her.
Instead I gave the flower to the woman’s husband and told him, “ My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”
At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son. Happy Mother’s Day to you.”
The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.
1. What dose the author intend to tell us?

A．One can never be too careful.

B．Actions speak louder than words.

C．Love begins with a little smile.

D．A small act of kindness brings a great joy.

2. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The elderly woman was knocked down by Tenyson.

B．Tenyson’s idea of buying a flower gained his mother’s support.

C．Tenyson’s care for the elderly woman puzzled the flower seller.

D．The elderly woman was moved to tears by Tenyson’s gesture.

3. The underlined word “intimidated” in the fourth paragraph probably means “___________”.

A．astonished

B．struck

C．frightened

D．excited

4. What would be the best title for the passage?

A．Flower Power

B．Mother’s Day

C．An Accidental Injury

D．An Embarrassing Moment

【推荐3】Cycling to work on a dark morning last week, I was overtaken by a man in a black coat with no helmet, no lights, and listening to music through headphones. As he disappeared into a large bank, I wondered: what sort of banker does a man like him make? How can someone with such behaviors handle someone else’s money? He got me thinking about the things we reveal about ourselves when we are on two wheels.

I’ve always imagined that as a group, cyclists make relatively good employees. All of us are fit, have the way to be reliable and punctual. We are risk-takers and ever so slightly rebellious, which works quite well—especially in a job like journalism.

Only 10 minutes shows we aren’t a group at all. Some of us are fast, some slow. Some wear helmets, but some don’t. Some break all the rules, while some break none. If employers really want to know what their future employees are like, they should watch them ride a bike.

After the banker, I saw three other cyclists showing characteristics that may interest their HR departments. The first had his right trouser leg rolled up. Such wisdom in the absence of a clip (别针) impressed me so I’d hire him as a problem solver. The next was a man balancing on his bike at the lights—no one likes working with a show-off. And then there was a woman on a bike going through a red light forcing herself to step out of her way.

The two-wheel test also weeds out those who are not team players. The cyclist who is hostile to his own kind, and who squeezes past others on the inside is suitable only for working by himself.

To check my theory about the connection between personality and cycling style, I have just conducted a little control test. A reader had been offering for a while to take me for a ride on his tandems (双人自行车), and so last week I was forced to cycle as him. I definitely would have hired him. And yet I was terrified: to be on a hike without being me felt all wrong.

1. According to the banker’s behaviour, the author       .

A．got a lot of benefit from the banker

B．thought the banker was poor so he cycled to work

C．regarded the banker as a man good al handling money

D．reflected on the relation between personality and cycling

2. What is NOT one of the personalities cyclists have according to the text?

A．Being good employers good at dealing with money.

B．Being fit and having the way to be reliable and punctual.

C．Being risk-takers and ever so slightly rebellious.

D．Working quite well as a journalist.

3. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Cyclists belong to different working places.

B．Personalities vary from cyclist to cyclist.

C．Cyclists have nothing in common.

D．Some cyclists drive faster than others.

4. Who is possibly interested in the author’s two-wheel theory?

A．The people working in the bank.

B．The students looking for a job.

C．The staff working in HR department.

D．The young man fond of riding a bike.

【推荐3】Coca-Cola is probably the most famous brand in the world, and in some areas you can even access it easier than clean drinkable water. Although the company is trying to present itself as a health-conscious company, you can’t really say that drinking cola is healthy for you. Still, we all drink cola, some more and some less, and we tell ourselves that it’s all okay as long as we don’t overdo it. However, Coca-Cola has other functions besides drinking.

Cola removes the tarnish (暗锈) from old pennies. Got some old rusty (生锈的) pennies? Don’t worry! Put them inside a glass of cola and let them rest for a while. When you get them out, you’ll have shiny pennies that will look as if they were coined a couple of days ago. If you couldn’t clean those pennies with industrial acids (酸), just buy a can of cola and let it do its magic!

You can remove gum from your hair with cola. If you’ve got gum stuck in your hair and don’t know a better way to get it out, don’t worry, you won’t have to cut it. Just pour some cola into a bowl and dip the part of your hair with gum on it inside. Leave it for a couple of minutes and then simply wipe off the gum.

You can make an exploding fountain (喷泉). You probably know about this one. You can make an exploding fountain by putting a mint (薄荷糖) inside a two-liter bottle. Then move away from the bottle and get ready for a Coca-Cola explosion (爆炸). This is a fun thing to do, but it is also a warning — don’t eat a mint and drink cola at the same time, because a similar thing could happen to your stomach.

1. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 imply?

A．The expense of Coca-Cola is low.	B．Coca-Cola enjoys great popularity.
C．Coca-Cola is safe for people to drink.	D．Coca-Cola is harder to get than drinkable water.

2. What can cola be used to do?

A．Make pennies shiny.	B．Destroy the gum.
C．Improve people’s hair.	D．Take the place of acids.

3. Why can’t we eat a mint and drink cola at the same time?

A．It can cause harm to our stomach.

B．It might make our stomach smaller.

C．Mints with cola will produce heat.

D．The mint will release poisonous substances (有毒物质).

4. What’s the main idea of the text?

A．The major ingredients (原料) of Coca-Cola.

B．Why we can’t drink Coca-Cola too often.

C．Some of the strangest uses of Coca-Cola.

D．Why Coca-Cola is popular among the young.