【推荐1】Sometimes we start a day with the previous day still in mind. We think about the mistakes we made in the previous day, how things went wrong, and how we felt bad about it. No wonder it becomes difficult to focus on the current day.

Here are some steps on how to start your new day fresh:

1. Take time to evaluate your day

At the end of a day, take some time to think about it. The purpose of this thinking time is not to regret how bad your day was, how things went wrong, or how people treated you badly. This won’t do you any good. Instead, the purpose of this thinking time is to extract(吸取) lessons which you can bring to the following day.

2. Make a commitment to apply the lessons

After you extract the lessons, you should make a commitment to apply them. To do so, find some actionable things you can do to apply the lessons. Next, remind yourself to do them. You may write them down if you want to.

3. “Close” your day

After you have spent the time to think about the day and extract the lessons, make a decision to “close” the day. You are done with it; don’t think about it anymore.

4. Bring only the lessons to the next day and nothing else

After you “close” a day, you should not bring anything out of it to the next day except for the lessons you extract. Focus on applying the lessons to the present. This way you will be able to start your day fresh without the burden of yesterday.

1. What will happen if we think too much about the past?

A．There will be a disaster.	B．There will be good results.
C．We won’t have a peaceful mind.	D．We surely won’t finish today’s task.

2. When should we draw lessons from the past mistakes?

A．At the end of a day.	B．When we make mistakes.
C．At the beginning of a day.	D．When we regret making the mistakes.

3. Why should we extract lessons from the past day?

A．To set them down.	B．To consider them again.
C．To make a better decision.	D．To apply them for future use.

【推荐2】Grade 3 high school students are graduating next summer. Many of them will go to university. The transition from high school to college is challenging.     1    

Your opinions and outlook on college matter.     2     Actually your attitude about whether attending college will have a positive influence on your life is a strong predictor of academic performance.

    3    Your success in college depends, in part, on surrounding yourself with people who can support you and make you have fun. So try to take an active part in extracurricular（课外的）activities so that you can have a smoother adjustment to college.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your professors or teaching assistants.     4     This means trying to find the answers on your own first, but then contacting those who can help you when you can’t. That is what they’re there for! Your professors and teaching assistants want to see you succeed in their classes.

Be confident. Feeling anxiety about communicating with peers, professors and speaking up in class may be a problem for you.     5     The more you speak up in class, the easier it becomes.

A．Hold onto high school friendships.

B．Be open to making new friends on campus.

C．And successful adjustment to college has lifelong effects.

D．Successful adjustment is about reaching out for help when you need it.

E．Family support can give you comfort and assistance when classes get hard.

F．One of the best ways to increase your communication confidence is to practice.

G．So try to face the uncertainty that goes along with going to college with enthusiasm.

【推荐3】4 Tips to Be an Expert at Managing Your Time

Do you have too much to do and too little time? Of course! Actually it’s the biggest problem facing most people today. The key to becoming more efficient(高效的) is the ability to set priorities and focus on one task at a time.    1    .

Learn from the experts.

If you want to be a big success in any area, find out what other successful people in that area are doing.    2    . Study the interviews, speeches, biographies of them.

Be open to new ideas.

The most foolish person of all is either the person who feels he has no time to learn about time management or, the person, who feels that she already knows all that’s needed to know on the subject.    3    .

Develop a plan.

Successful men and women are both effective and efficient（高效的）.    4    . Develop a plan, then decide what is the most important thing to do and how to do it.

    5    

Start with your top tasks. Focusing on your highest-value tasks is the starting point of getting your time under control .Although small things are easier and are often more fun than the big, important things .

A．Here are several ways to get organized and get started.

B．And do the same things until you get the same results.

C．However, the truth is that we have much to learn.

D．But never forget to learn from their failures.

E．They do the right things in the right way.

F．Start from small things.

G．Focus on the key tasks.

【推荐1】Hazel Mayfield usually cooks the Thanksgiving meal for her extended family in Houston, Texas. She usually welcomes friends and neighbors who are eager to taste her fried turkey, green bean casserole, candied yams, homemade cornbread dressing, and dirty rice-just a few of her signature dishes. Known as Sugar Mama, because her grandchildren think she’s so sweet, the 91-year-old typically likes to do her own shopping for the ingredients to make her special dishes.

“My mother is the head cook of the family,” said Panulette Mouton, Mayfield’s daughter. “Because of her reputation, you know, there’re people in and out all day and every family comes through. They want to get some of Sugar Mama’s cooking, and some of them would like to learn from her how to cook the food.”

But Mayfield hasn’t been to the grocery store since March. And there is little about Thanksgiving in 2020 that’s usual. Because of Covid-19, the deadly virus that has killed millions in the U.S. and spoiled life around the world, everything is different. Since limiting close face-to-face contact with others is the best way to reduce its spread, hundreds of thousands of American families have re-imagined the holiday with virtual celebrations and canceled or delayed travel plans. There can only be small gatherings with people in their households in response to COVID-19.

This year, Mayfield’s family members, without exception, are lamenting the absence of a big gathering. They’ve explained to their young children and grandchildren why this year’s Thanksgiving is different. Mayfield’s youngest daughter, Michelle Sanders, says it’s tough to help her grandchildren understand why they can’t see some of their other family members and why they have to stay at home, celebrating Thanksgiving all by themselves.

“It’s really hard, trying to explain to them,” Sanders said. “When-you’re talking to them and they want to come over, you have to tell them no. They really don’t know how to be careful.” Sanders added, “And, they don’t understand that, being three, four, and six, you know they don’t really understand that. So, it’s...it’s really, really hard, and heartbreaking.”

1. According to the passage, Hazel Mayfield is ________.

A．helpful and kind-hearted	B．stubborn and enthusiastic
C．talented and instructive	D．grateful and sensitive

2. The underlined word in paragraph 4 can be best replaced by ________.

A．fascinated by	B．upset about
C．ignorant of	D．embarrassed at

3. What can we infer from what Sanders said in the last paragraph?

A．Children are too young to understand the situation.

B．Children are always careless on Thanksgiving Day.

C．It’s tough to help children overcome their problems.

D．Adults should show patience when talking with kids.

4. What do we know about the effect of COVID-19 according to the passage?

A．People are cutting down holiday celebration expenses.

B．People are trying hard to get together to have more fun.

C．People have to make changes in their lifestyle to stay safe.

D．People have put more emphasis on the traditional customs.

【推荐2】I heard many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling(叛逆). I wish it were so. At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents. You should be learning to stand on your own feet. But take a good look at the present rebellion. It seems that teenagers are taking the same way of showing that they disagree with their parents. Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are clutching at one another’s hands for reassurance.

They claim they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. Then set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up with listening to the same record together. Their reason for thinking or acting in thus-and-such a way is that many people are doing it. They have come out of their cocoon into a larger cocoon.

It has become harder and harder for a teenager to stand up against the popularity wave and go his or her own way. Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market. These days every teenager can learn from the advertisements what a teenager should have and be.

And many of today’s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children. All this adds to a great barrier for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path.

But the barrier is worth climbing over. The path is worth following. You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party. You may want to collect rocks when everyone else is collecting records. You may have some thoughts that you don’t care to share with your classmates at once, well, go to it. Find yourself. Popularity will come with the people who respect you for who you are. That is the only kind of popularity that really counts.

1. In this passage, who does the author wants to tell?

A．teenagers how to learn to decide things for themselves.

B．readers how to be popular with people around.

C．parents how to control and guide their children.

D．people how to understand and respect each other.

2. Many teenagers think they are brave enough to act on their own, but actually most of them ________.

A．lack confidence

B．are much afraid of getting lost

C．dare not deal with problems single-handed

D．have much difficulty understanding each other

3. What does the author think of advertisements?

A．Convincing.

B．Influential.

C．Advanced.

D．Amazing.

4. During the teenage years, what should one learn to do?

A．Find one’s real self.

B．Differ from others in as many ways as possible.

C．Get into the right reason and become popular.

D．Rebel against parents and the popularity wave.

【推荐3】Between the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor, changed the requirements for students for admission into its next freshman class. It made filling out the proper forms easier.

Swarthmore is hardly alone in the desire to eliminate obstacles for a bounty of applicants. Over the last decade, many elite colleges have adjusted their applications in ways that remove disincentives and maximize the odds that the number of students contesting to get in remains robust — or, even better, grows larger.

In one sense, that’s an egalitarian (平等主义的) approach worth compliment and a sensible attempt to be sure that no qualified candidate is missed. But there’s often a less pure motive in play. In our increasingly status-oriented society, a school’s reputation is improved by a low acceptance rate, which can even influence how U. S. News & World Report ranks it. And unless a school is shrinking the size of its students body, the only way to bring its acceptance rate down is to get its number of applicants up. So, many colleges methodically generate interest only to frustrate it. They woo applicants for the purpose of turning them down.

And there can be other justifications for what looks like a loosening of application demands. Smith College and several other similarly prominent colleges no longer require the SAT or ACT, and Kathleen McCarney, the president of Smith College, said that that’s not a bid for more applicants. It’s a recognition that top scores on those tests correlate with high family income and may say more about an applicant’s economic advantages — including, say, private SAT tutoring — than about their academic potential.

Jim Bock, Swarthmore’s dean of admissions, said that by lightening the essay load for its current applicants, the college was less concerned about increasing its overall number of applicants than about making sure candidates of great merit didn’t miss out on Swarthmore and vice versa. He mentioned the hypothetical example of a high school student from a low-income family who works 10 or more hours a day and doesn’t have sufficient time to do different essays for different schools.

But will Swarthmore’s applicants this year give quite as much thought regarding whether it is suitable and the right home for them? I’m betting not.

When it’s very easy for a student to apply to yet one more college and each school is simply another desirable box of cereal on the top shelf that he or she is determined to reach, there’s inadequate thought to a tailored match, which is what the admission process should strive for. It’s what the measure of success should be.

1. What changes has Swarthmore College made in the application process?

A．It simplified its application procedure.	B．It lowered its requirements for admission.
C．It expanded the size of its next freshman class.	D．It eliminated obstacles for minority applicants.

2. The underlined word “woo” (Para.3) is closest in meaning to _________.

A．respect

B．pursue

C．impose

D．cheat

3. Kathleen McCarney holds that the results of the SAT or ACT _________.

A．should pay an essential role in the admissions process

B．conceal the uneven distribution of educational resources

C．reflect test-takers’ academic potential to a large extent

D．are closely related to test-takers’ family income levels

4. According to the author, the success of a school’s admission process lies in _________.

A．improving the school’s reputation nationwide

B．increasing the overall number of applicants for the school

C．recruiting as many genuine students as possible

D．making suitable matches between applicants and the school

【推荐1】For most thinkers since the Greek philosophers, it was self-evident that there is something called human nature, something that constitutes the essence of man. There were various views about what constitutes it, but there was agreement that such an essence exists – that is to say, that there is something by virtue of which man is man. Thus man was defined as a rational being, as a social animal, an animal that can make tools, or a symbol-making animal.

More recently, this traditional view has begun to be questioned. One reason for this change was the increasing emphasis given to the historical approach to man. An examination of the history of humanity suggested that man in our era is so different from man in previous times that it seemed unrealistic to assume that man in every age have had in common something that can be called “human nature”. The historical approach was reinforced, particularly in the United States, by studies in the field of cultural anthropology. The study of primitive peoples has discovered such a diversity of customs, values, feelings, and thoughts that many anthropologists arrived at the concept that man is born as a blank sheet of paper on which each culture writes its text. Another factor contributing to the tendency to deny the assumption of a fixed human nature was that the concept has so often been abused（滥用）as a shield behind which the most inhuman acts are committed. In the name of human nature, for example, Aristotle and most thinkers up to the eighteenth century defended slavery. Or in order to prove the rationality and necessity of the capitalist form of society, scholars have tried to make a case for acquisitiveness（贪婪）, competitiveness, and selfishness as natural human traits. Popularly, one refers cynically to “human nature” in accepting the inevitability（必然）of such undesirable human behavior as greed, murder, lying and cheating.

Another reason for doubts about the concept of human nature probably comes from the influence of evolutionary thinking. Once man came to be seen as developing in the process of evolution, the idea of a substance which is contained in his essence seemed untenable. Yet I believe it is exactly from an evolutionary standpoint that we can expect new insight into the problem of the nature of man.

1. According to the passage, anthropologists believe that human beings _____.

A．have many traits in common	B．are born with diverse cultures
C．are born without a fixed nature	D．change their characters as they grow up

2. The author mentioned Aristotle in order to _____.

A．emphasize that he contributed a lot to defining the concept of “human nature”

B．show that the concept of “human nature” was used to justify social evils

C．prove that he had a profound influence on the concept of “human nature”

D．support the idea that some human traits are acquired

3. The word “untenable” in the last paragraph of the passage most probably means _____.

A．invaluable	B．imaginable
C．changeable	D．indefensible

4. Most traditional philosophers believe that human nature _____.

A．is the quality distinguishing man from other animals

B．consists largely of acquisitiveness, competitiveness and selfishness

C．is something partly innate and partly acquired

D．changes constantly with the evolution of man

【推荐2】Unlike Hillary Clinton, and most previous US presidents, who entered the election after years of being politicians, Trump, 70, the country’s 45th president, was a New York businessman. And he was not a presidential candidate who worked hard to keep a perfect public image(形象) of a man who was always caring, fair and intelligent. Instead, Trump has a reputation of being bad-tempered, self-important and hateful toward those who disagree with him. He also blames immigrants, both from Latin America and the Middle East, for many problems in the US. This has caused a dangerous division in the country —a country made up of many diverse races. Furthermore, he opposes globalization.

But to his supporters, the fact that Trump is not a typical politician is actually one of his advantages. His habit of never hiding his opinions is also considered by many to be a sign that he is not a pretender like many politicians are. “We have seen our country take a fall in the eyes of the world. We need to go in a different direction,” Binyom in Weisswasser, 39, a man from Chicago, told the Chicago Tribune. “Trump’s not a politician. I like that he is not always politically correct and speaks his mind. It gives me the feeling that what you see is what you get. You may not like it, but you know what it is.

But interestingly, many who voted for Trump actually followed the “lesser of two evils(两害相权取其轻)” principle—one that people use when faced with picking from two unpleasant options — simply because they didn't think Clinton was a better choice. “He’s the candidate I disagree less with,” Jack Stucky, 20, a student at Northwestern University, told the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t think I'd say Donald Trump is going to be the best president ever, but I did think he’d be better than Hillary Clinton.”

1. What can we learn from the text?

A．Trump is more tolerant to immigrants.

B．Trump minds more about keeping his public image perfect.

C．Trump is thought to be more complex and flexible in politics.

D．Trump is considered more straightforward and narrow-minded.

2. What does the last paragraph imply?

A．Trump will do better than Hillary.

B．Hillary is the least unpleasant candidate.

C．Both Trump and Hillary are bad, but the former is better.

D．Trump is going to be the worst president in the history of the USA.

3. What’s the best title of this passage?

A．Trump’s shocking win.

B．Trump’s new policy to the USA.

C．Different congratulations on Trump’s win.

D．The advantages Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

【推荐3】On his deathbed in 1638 John Harvard gave away half of his estate, about £800 and his library of some 400 books to a new college in present-day Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard's founders decided to name their new university after its first big benefactor.

About 370 years ago the first Harvard scholarship to help ''some poor scholars'' was set up thanks to £100 donated by Ann Radcliffe. The university continues to be the beneficiary of generous donors. Last year, John Paulson, an investor, donated $400m to Harvard's engineering school, its largest gift ever. Last year it raised more than $1 billion. Some of its graduates think this ought to be sufficient to cancel tuition fees.

Among them are Ralph Nader, a veteran political activist, and Ron Unz, author of a number of searing articles on American meritocracy(英才管理). Both are hoping to win election to the university's board of overseers, from which they want to make Harvard free for all students to attend, and also pressure its admissions office to make data on how it chooses which students to admit known to the public.

America's universities raised a record $40.3 billion last year, according to the Council for Aid to Education. Donations are not usually used to lower tuition fees, but they can be used to provide scholarships and financial aid to students who cannot afford to pay (70% of students at Harvard get some assistance with fees and living costs).

Some lawmakers are wondering whether threats to change the tax-free status of donations might be used to persuade colleges to bring down the cost of tuition, which has increased by 220% in real terms since 1980. Nexus Research and Policy Centre says colleges receive $80 billion in support from state and local governments every year, which ought to give politicians some leverage(影响) in return.

In January Tom Reed, a Republican congressman from New York, proposed a bill requiring donations of more than $1 billion to allocate 25% for financial aid. Two congressional committees, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, have sent letters to the heads of the colleges with the biggest donations asking about spending, conflicts of interest and fee arrangements. The 56 largest private university donations have to explain how they use their tax-free investment earnings.

The colleges have their defenders. ''Most of these places are providing a fair amount of financial aid for students well beyond the poverty line, '' says Kim Rueben of the Tax Policy Centre. Kevin Weinman, Amherst's chief financial officer, says his university's donation offers $90m to the college's budget, $30m more than tuition, room board and various fees combined. This school year, it will spend $50,000 per student funding financial aid, pay faculty and fund student activities. After Congress last examined the topic in 2007, more colleges began to award grants instead of loans. Financial aid has doubled over the past decade. Rhode Island also make voluntary payments in place of property taxes.

In addition to pointing out their generosity, most colleges also argue that forcing them to spend donation money on free tuition might even be illegal. Donors can restrict their tax-free gift to a legally-binding particular purpose, such as creating a chair, establishing a scholarship or building a new lab. Around 70% of donations are restricted funds.

If the wealthiest colleges have already spent so much on financial aid, what is the problem? Mr. Unz argues that endowment-fuelled spending on new buildings, sports facilities and the hiring of administrators has created an arms-race in higher education, pushing up prices at those universities that are not fortunate enough to have lots of generous benefactors. Harvard could cancel tuition payments without damaging its finances or touching the restricted portion of its endowment, he says. Furthermore, the abolition of both complicated financial-aid forms and terrifying sticker prices for tuition could, he argues, do much to encourage applicants from beyond the plutocracy(富豪阶级).

1. The underlined word in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by     .

A．founder

B．donor

C．defender

D．innovator

2. According to the passage, Ralph Nader and Ron Unz hope that they can     .

A．help Harvard to enroll new students

B．learn about how Harvard spends its donations

C．make free education to all students at Harvard possible

D．negotiate with the Harvard's board of overseers about tuition fees

3. What can we infer from Kim Rueben's words in Paragraph 7?

A．The colleges are making full use of their donations.

B．Ordinary families cannot afford the increasing tuition fees.

C．More attention should be paid to students below the poverty line.

D．Property taxes on the colleges ought to be canceled permanently.

4. According to the last but one paragraph, most colleges hold the idea that     .

A．donors should keep a check on where their money goes

B．the financial aid they receive every year is far from enough

C．they shouldn't be forced to spend donation money on free tuition

D．most donations should be used to improve colleges' infrastructure

5. According to the last paragraph, Mr Unz thinks     .

A．the competition between universities is necessary

B．Harvard should offer help to those who lack money

C．financial-aid forms offered by universities should be simplified

D．arms-races in higher education may lead to higher tuition fees

6. What can be the best title for this passage?

A．Should Harvard's tuition fees be canceled?

B．How does Harvard make use of its donations?

C．What do Harvard and lawmakers disagree about?

D．Why does Harvard get more donations than other universities?