Most of us set a goal with energy and motivation. If it is achieved, we will feel we are on cloud nine. But in most cases, we can’t reach our goals easily. Why do we often fail to hit the target? The answer lies in the disconnection between our brains’ evaluation of rewards and the “get it done” realities that influence our behavior.
Our brains are reward-driven organs charged by neurotransmitters (神经递质) that fuel our drives and desires, and it’s easy for us to get carried away in this chemical tsunami. So, when we set up a goal, our focus is on the reward. We picture getting the reward, and how we’ll feel when we make it, which pushes us into action. But once we begin, we come face to face with what’s really required to reach the goal and our focus shifts from reward to effort.
In other words, a focus on rewards fuels the pursuit (追求), but a focus on effort takes over when the work starts. For example, getting up early to exercise for a new healthy lifestyle might seem like a good choice, but once your alarm goes off on a cold January morning, the rewards aren’t enough to get you up and out of bed. When we face the reality of our choices, we realize the effort is too much and give up.
In fairness, though, we don’t always have the best sense of how much effort something will require, especially if it’s a goal we haven’t pursued before. Getting better at setting goals has much to do with figuring this out and not letting ourselves forget the lesson.
Next time, begin our goal pursuits with as much realistic acknowledgment of the effort required as possible. Then, once we begin, refocus back to the reward and continue the efforts.
1. What does the underlined phrase “on cloud nine” mean in paragraph 1?| A．Overjoyed. | B．Scared. | C．Restless. | D．Weary. |
| A．Speaking more, doing less. | B．Aiming high, working less. |
| C．More efforts, less speed. | D．More pains, more gains. |
| A．Ambition. | B．Reward. | C．Cost. | D．Effort. |
| A．Set practical goals and work consistently. |
| B．Achieve your goal step by step. |
| C．Accept failure and learn from the past. |
| D．Refocus back to the goal. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Earthquakes happen without warning(前兆). They can happen any time of a day, at any point during the year. But don’t worry because most are so weak that they cannot be felt. Only a few big ones hurt people. However, it’s important to know what to do when an earthquake is happening．
Do NOT go outside. You could get injured from falling glass or parts of buildings. If you are outside, stay away from buildings and power lines (输电线).
Stay under a desk, table, or other strong furniture. Hold on to it. Or stay in a corner of the building. Cover your face and head with your arms and cover your mouth with a towel or clothing. Stay inside until shaking stops and it is safe to go outside.
Keep away from windows., pictures or advertisements on the wall or the building, and anything else that could fall and hurt you. Most people get injured by falling things during an earthquake, not by the shaking itself．
Also keep away from a fire. You could fall down and burn yourself on the fire.
If you are driving when an earthquake happens, stop the car if it’s safe. Stay inside your car until the earthquake stops, and don’t drive near bridges. Try not to stop by power lines or trees. These could fall and hurt you.
1. Most earthquakes are too to hurt people．| A．strong | B．weak |
| C．dangerous | D．heavy |
| A．Stay under a big building | B．Stay under a strong furniture |
| C．Stand by windows | D．drive near a big bridge |
| A．run out of the building | B．stay in a corner of the building |
| C．cover your head with your arms | D．cover your mouth with a towel |
| A．How dangerous the earthquake is． | B．How to be safe in an earthquake． |
| C．We shouldn’t be afraid of the earthquake． | D．How the earthquake comes into being． |
| A．How Earthquakes Happen | B．How to Drive a Car |
| C．What We Should Do in Earthquakes | D．Why Earthquakes Happen |
【推荐2】No matter how old your kids are, you can take steps to improve a healthy diet and to encourage good eating habits.
Family Meals
Healthy Snacks (零食)
The best way for you to encourage healthy eating is to eat well yourself. Kids will follow the lead of the adults they see every day. By eating fruits and vegetables and avoiding fast food and sweet drinks, you are sending the right message.
No Shouts about Food
Parents might find themselves shouting at children to get them to have healthy foods in front of them.
Get Kids Included (参与)
| A．Being a Good Example |
| B．Family meals are nice for both parents and kids. |
| C．Eating properly |
| D．This in fact can make children dislike what they are asked to eat. |
| E．Most kids hate eating vegetables. |
| F．Most Kids will enjoy making the decision about food. |
| G．Kids, especially younger ones, will eat mostly what can get at home. |
【推荐3】In such a busy world, it is easy for us to ignore some details that may determine success or failure, which is really annoying. Fortunately, attention to details is a learned skill, and it’s one that you can definitely develop!
1. Make full and neat lists.Making lists is a really useful way to be organized and to make sure that you know when and how everything needs to come together.
When you’re distracted, you’re not going to be able to recall things as easily as usual and more likely to forget the details of your project or homework. So if you work at home, put your phone on silent and tell your friends and family members not to call you when you’re working unless it’s an emergency.
Multitasking spreads your attention out over a variety of items instead of focusing on one specific item.
| A．Get organized if it is possible. |
| B．Try you best to limit the distractions. |
| C．Once you’ve completed an item on your list, check it off. |
| D．In other words, you are unable to give full attention to each item. |
| E．At workplace, simply say, “I really have to get this project finished.” |
| F．A good way to keep your brain sharp and focus on details is to take rests. |
| G．You need to arrange your life to have hope of paying attention to the small things. |
【推荐1】Whether in the home or the workplace, social robots are going to become a lot more common in the next few years. Social robots are about to bring technology to the everyday world in a more humanized way, said Cynthia Breazeal, chief scientist at the robot company Jibo.
While household robots today do the normal housework, social robots will be much more like companions than tools. For example, these robots will be able to distinguish when someone is happy or sad. This allows them to respond more appropriately (适当地) to the user.
The Jibo robot, arranged to ship later this year, is designed to be a personalized assistant. You can talk to the robot, ask it questions, and make requests for it to perform different tasks. The robot doesn’t just deliver general answers to questions, it responds based on what it learns about each individual in the household. It can do things such as reminding an elderly family member to take medicine or taking family photos.
Social robots are not just finding their way into the home. They have potential applications in everything from education to health care and are already finding their way into some of these spaces.
Fellow Robots is one company bringing social robots to the market. The company’s “Oshbot” robot is built to assist customers in a store, which can help the customers find items and help guide them to the product’s location in the store. It can also speak different languages and make recommendations for different items based on what the customer is shopping for.
The more interaction the robot has with humans, the more it learns. But Oshbot, like other social robots, is not intended to replace workers, but to work alongside other employees. “We have technologies to train social robots to do things not for us, but with us,” said Breazeal.
1. How are social robots different from household robots?| A．They can control their emotions. | B．They are more like humans. |
| C．They do the normal housework. | D．They respond to users more slowly. |
| A．Communicate with you and perform operations. |
| B．Answer your questions and make requests. |
| C．Take your family pictures and deliver milk. |
| D．Obey your orders and remind you to take pills. |
| A．A new design idea of household robots. | B．Marketing strategies for social robots. |
| C．Information on household robots. | D．An introduction to social robots. |
【推荐2】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. |
| A．Make pennies shiny. | B．Destroy the gum. |
| C．Improve people’s hair. | D．Take the place of acids. |
| 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). |
| 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. |
【推荐3】Long ago, people believed that in the future we would work less, have more free time and get more relaxed.
Today we work harder, work longer hours and have more stresses than ten years ago. We walk faster, talk faster and sleep less than previous generations. And although we use machines that save us time, we have less free time than our parents and grandparents.
Newspaper articles today are shorter and the headlines are bigger. Most people don’t have enough time to read the articles, so they only read the headlines. On TV and the radio, newspapers speak more quickly than ten years ago. In the USA, there is a book called One-Minute Bedtime Stories for children. These are shorter versions of traditional stories, specially written for “busy parents” who want to save time! Some answer phones now have “quick playback” buttons so that we can replay people’s messages faster — we can’t waste time listening to people speaking at the normal speed!
| A．People didn’t feel stressed ten years ago. |
| B．But unluckily, this has not happened yet. |
| C．Even when we relax we do everything more quickly. |
| D．But what is this doing to our health? |
| E．For most people, being faster doesn’t mean being better. |
| F．The only thing that is slower than before is the way we drive. |
| G．Now everything is faster than before, which bring us more convenience. |
【推荐1】3D printing is becoming more and more popular. We are now able to create things we need very quickly and easily using 3D printers. But can you imagine printing food?
Some scientists are trying to change the dining experience by doing this. They hope that having a 3D printer in the kitchen will be as common as the microwave oven or blender.
Scientists say that it’ll be quite easy: you simply have to select a recipe(食谱)and put the raw food‘inks’into the printer. You can also modify (修改) the instructions to make the food exactly how you want it. This means that it would be very quick and easy to create tasty and nutritious meals.
Using 3D printers to create your meals would also be saving the environment. There would be less need for traditional growing, transporting and packaging processes as food production would be a lot more efficient. For example, alternative ingredients such as proteins from algae, beetroot leaves and insects could be converted into tasty products.
Printing food could also help people who suffer from dysphasia (a swallowing disorder). They could program the printer to print softer versions of their favorite foods so that they would not have trouble in swallowing them.
However, some people think that a future of 3D food printing would be a disaster. It could take away many jobs, including those from growing, transporting and packaging food. Imagine a world where there was no need for farming or growing crops and the same tastes could be printed from a raw “food ink”. Likewise, traditional cafes and restaurants might lose business. Also, there are concerns about the nutritional value of printed food: is it really possible to be get the nutrients we need from food–based inks and gels(凝胶)?
What’s more，cooking and eating together with family and friends has long been a traditional and enjoyable activity. It is hard to imagine a world where the pleasure of cooking is dead and meals can be created at the touch of a button.
1. Which of the following best describes 3D food printing?| A．Soft and convenient. | B．Nutritious and tasty. |
| C．Easy and efficient. | D．Slow and popular. |
| A．Many people could lose their jobs. | B．We could all eat the same food. |
| C．It would affect the people’s health. | D．Traditional food would disappear. |
| A．3D food printing will replace traditional cooking. |
| B．The future of 3D food printing is uncertain. |
| C．It would hurt our tradition of food culture. |
| D．3D food printing would be a failure. |
| A．Can 3D printing create everything? |
| B．3D—printing food will be in fashion! |
| C．The disadvantage of 3D food printing |
| D．3D food “printing”: coming to the kitchen |
【推荐2】Children with long-term health conditions, such as asthma (哮喘), may be at greater risk of developing a mental health disorder in early adolescence compared to healthy children, according to a new study.
The findings, published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, show that kids with chronic illness exhibit higher rates of mental problems at age 10, and these health issues continue to be associated with poor mental health at ages 13 and 15.
In the study, the research team reviewed a sample of approximately 7,000 children to investigate the occurrence of mental health disorders, including anxiety or depression, and chronic illness. They found that children with chronic health conditions were approximately twice as likely at 10 and at 13 to present with a mental health disorder than healthy children. At age 15, children with chronic health problems were 60% more likely to present with such disorders.
“Although the link between chronic health conditions and mental health problems in childhood has been made before, this study provides the strongest evidence of it to data in the years of late childhood and early adolescence," said study author Dr. Ann Marie Brady. “The difference chronic illness makes to mental health is concerning, and the first impact can be seen even before adolescence, in late childhood."
The researchers also found that bullying and health-related absence from school were two most significant additional factors for children with mental health issues. The second one was identified as the most consistent factor predicting mental health problems over time.
“If children with chronic illness are more likely to miss school, or experience bullying, that can make the situation worse. Keeping an eye on school attendance and looking out for evidence of bullying amongst those children may help to find out who are most at risk.", said Dr. Brady.
1. The underlined term “chronic illness" in Paragraph 2 refers to a kind of disease_________| A．causing a lot of deaths | B．causing absent-mindedness |
| C．lasting for a long time | D．leading to mental disorders |
| A．chronic illness leads to the mental health disorder in early adolescence |
| B．healthy young adolescents have no chance of having mental problems |
| C．adolescents with illness are more likely to develop mental health disorders |
| D．chronic illness has some relation to mental problems in early adolescence |
| A．It makes a new discovery based on the findings of previous studies |
| B．It draws a more accurate conclusion based on the previous studies |
| C．It questions the accuracy of the findings by the previous studies |
| D．It draws more attention to adolescents' health than previous studies |
| A．Their school attendance. | B．Their physical conditions. |
| C．Their tolerance of bullying. | D．Their tendency for bullying. |
Producing wind power at home will not work for everyone. If you live in a over-populated residential area，there may be certain laws and zoning requirements that prohibit the use of windmills（风车）.If you live on 1 acre of land or more,you probably won’t have any issues but you should investigate carefully to make sure that wind power generators are both legal and practical where you live. Even if there are no laws or regulations prohibiting wind power generators you still need to be in a location that gets enough wind on a regular basis.
Some producers of wind generators recommend that you live in an area with wind speeds that average at least 10 mph. Newer models have been developed recently that can operate with wind speeds as low as 4 mph but maximum efficiency is achieved at higher wind speeds. Before you fix a wind powered system,you will have to determine your power requirements. Will you be using it to charge a small battery for a boat or vehicle or will you need enough power to run your entire household and be completely off the grid（电网）？Once you know what your power requirements are，you can start shopping around for a system that can meet those needs.
Wind power generators are a great solution for a lot of people.They’re an ideal solution for remote locations where it would be impractical or simply too expensive to tap into the grid.They are quiet and totally clean，producing no pollution. They require no fuel and very little maintenance. Residential wind power offers a lot of benefits but it’s not for everyone. You’ll have to have some money up front to pay for the system and equipment;however,you could save quite a bit of money if you’re able to do much of the work yourself. You’ll also need to live in an area that gets enough wind to make the equipment worthwhile. You’ll need to do your homework before you make a purchase,but wind power generators could be a great solution for producing clean, low-cost energy.
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph？
| A．Electricity bills can be highly expensive. |
| B．Most of the electricity in the US comes from fuels. |
| C．Generating electricity does harm to the environment. |
| D．Residential wind power generators are useful and necessary. |
| A．wind power generators enjoy a lot of benefits. |
| B．you can place wind power generators wherever you want. |
| C．wind power generators are affordable to most families. |
| D．wind power generators are an ideal solution for everyone. |
| A．Negative | B．Supportive |
| C．Skeptical | D．Cautious |
| A．Ways of Fully Using Wind Power |
| B．How to Reduce Your Electricity Bill |
| C．Alternative Solution-Wind Power |
| D．Function of Wind Power Generators |
