【推荐1】Between childhood and adulthood, you go through many changes — jobs, regrettable haircuts and relationships that come and go. But what about who you are at your core (核心)?     1    

Personality is the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors unique to a person. People tend to think of personality as fixed. But according to psychologists (心理学家), that’s not how it works; personality doesn’t stay the same all your life.     2    

That’s not to say that you’re a different person each day you wake up.     3     In a study, researchers followed some adults for many years until their early 70s. They discovered that adulthood’s personality is actually stable in short time periods.

    4     They will look at how a child reacts to the world. Research suggests that our childhood’s moods — for example, whether we’re easy-going or bad-tempered, willing or unwilling to approach strangers — shape our personality of older ages.     5     If a child is always shy and withdrawn (离群的), he may grow into an unhappy teenager. On the contrary, a happy childhood usually leads to a happy adulthood.

A．Instead, it changes — develops with age.

B．Growing into adulthood, what do you care about?

C．As you grow older, does your personality change?

D．However, you don’t have to be sad about the change.

E．In fact, the change can’t even be noticed in the short term.

F．Psychologists don’t study children’s personalities, however.

G．And these early moods seem to be related to our later years of life.

【推荐2】When people have positive feelings for one another then they are able to sit down and talk about what really matters, that is, the true purpose and meaning of life. When envy and jealousy flee, truth has a rich soil to grow and ripen.

In order to really talk, people have to be willing to admit their weakness, and open up. But if there is anger, envy, jealousy or feelings of superiority, truth cannot exist because everyone is measuring what they are saying, trying to avoid making themselves vulnerable in any way.

Perhaps the biggest truth-killers of all are envy and jealousy. Envy is desiring what someone else has, while jealousy is feeling unhappy that someone has something that you would like.

The objects of envy and jealousy can be material possessions such as jewelry and houses, and other intangibles such as popularity and respect.

Most of us hold back when we think about being envious or jealous. But do we really understand how these feelings express themselves? It`s not always so obvious—unless we slow down and examine ourselves, we may miss the signs.

We think to ourselves: That person who just won that award/contract/position doesn’t deserve it. She thinks her child’s so great but he’s not very good and is really a mediocre guy. Who does he think he is—he doesn’t know anything about that subject.

We may not in truth want what the other person has, but we don’t want them to have it either. This is what we call “Dead-end Envy”. It’s the feeling of dissatisfaction that occurs when someone else owns/achieves something and you aren’t happy about it. If you turn envy or “Dead-end Envy” inside out, you get schadenfreude (幸灾乐祸), taking pleasure in someone else`s misfortune. In an earlier study, “neural correlates (神经关联) of envy and schadenfreude were tied together, with the magnitude (量级) of one predicting the strength of the other,” says researcher Matthew D. Lieberman who specializes in respect and how people get along.

Can envy ever be positive? In terms of motivating people to push themselves to succeed—yes. But in terms of personal relationships? That’s harder to prove a positive. Once you accept that someone is your superior in one aspect or another, or has been blessed with a unique talent or quality, and they become a role model, envy may turn into something else, respect.

1. The author intends to tell us that when people talk with others, ________.

A．envy and jealousy are unavoidable	B．people don’t need to be open up
C．people should measure what they are saying	D．positive feelings help talk deeply.

2. About envy and jealousy, the author thinks that ________.

A．there is no difference between them	B．most people are willing to accept them
C．they have a bad influence on truth	D．they are easy to understand and recognize

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

A．Ordinary.

B．Useless.

C．Outstanding.

D．Unique.

4. What can we conclude from Paragraph 7?

A．Envy is the opposite of schadenfreude.

B．“Dead-end Envy” can lead to schadenfreude.

C．People with envy or jealousy have no sympathy.

D．People always want what others have.

5. What is the best title of the passage?

A．Envy and Jealousy, the Power of Success

B．The Harmfulness of Envy and Jealousy

C．How to Overcome Envy and Jealousy Successfully

D．Envy and Jealousy and Their Effects