【推荐1】Don’t get me wrong-I love my parents very much. I know they love me too and would do anything to help me but sometimes they can be really embarrassing. Dad wanting to pick me up from school, Mum getting overexcited when she watches me playing football for the school team.    1    . My friends all complain about theirs from time to time. It seems a few cruel parents want to see their kids suffer on purpose, but others are just trying to be cool and fit in with our friends. There’s not really much we can do about it, or is there? Here are a few tips I’ve come up with to make life just a little easier for all of us.

Choose the behaviour you find most embarrassing

    2    . And then put them in order. Is the fact that your dad sings along to the radio when your friends are over for dinner worse than the fact that he always calls your best friend by the wrong name? By deciding which ones are worse means you’ll be free to focus your energy where you need it most.

    3    

When you’ve decided which issues you want to talk about, keep a diary of all the times your mum or dad do the things that embarrass you most. When, where and how you felt - make a note of all these things. They’ll help you put your case across.

Have a family meeting

It’s time for a little face-to-face chat.The chances are that even if your parents are aware of doing these things, they prob-ably don’t realize how embarrassing they are. Keep calm.    4    . Let them have their say — they’ll probably want to defend themselves. Of course, you’ll also have to be prepared to listen to some of the things that they don’t like about you. It’s part of the deal.

Try and be more understanding

Hopefully your parents will listen and be willing to change their ways, especially if you say you’re happy to change too. Of course, sometimes they might not. Re-member that they once had their own embarrassing parents, and the chances are many of us will be embarrassing parents ourselves one day.    5    .

A．Discuss the issues

B．Collect the evidence

C．And I know it’s not just me

D．Let them know how you feel and why

E．Maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on them

F．Write down the things that you feel happy

G．Write a list of all the things you find embarrassing

【推荐3】How do we rid ourselves of the negative (消极的) thoughts and return to a place of peace and acceptance? Read on for some expert-guided tips.

First, don’t suppress (抑制) the negative thought. “Research shows that it’s important not to suppress negative thoughts as this only makes it worse.     1     Then, select a positive thought or visual to engage with in place of the negative thought that you set free,” Dr. Carla Marie Manly, and author of Joy from Fear, tells She Knows.

Don’t forget to breathe. “Close your eyes and breathe in for a count of four; then breathe out slowly to the count of four. When worries and stress begin to rise, be kind to yourself.     2     A worried mind gets very calm when it’s focused on breathing rather than worrying,” says Manly.

    3     “Just because you have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true. When you notice you’re being hard on yourself or thinking very negatively, take a step back and question the thought you’re having,” suggests Touroni. “    4     Are you jumping to conclusions?”

Try a positive message mantra (咒语). When negative thoughts get a hold on you, Manly recommends focusing on a positive message or mantra that feels strong and calming for you. “For example, your mantra might be, ‘All will be well.     5    ’ ” Manly suggests keeping a copy of your mantra in your wallet, on your mirror, and on your desk for a handy reminder during stressful moments.

A．Things will work out.

B．Think of a peaceful image instead.

C．Don’t believe everything you think.

D．And then pause to relax and breathe.

E．Is there any evidence to support this?

F．Can you trace back to where this all started?

G．Instead, notice the negative thought and then let it float away.

【推荐1】How to Make Friends with an Extremely Shy Person

Many people are extremely shy. Shy people may feel uncomfortable being around people they aren’t familiar with. So, how can we break the ice and become friends with an extremely shy person?

Walk up to them on your own, not with a group.     1    , but not overly excited to the point where it seems insincere. You might say something like “Hey, I noticed you standing here on your own. I’m Jeff, what’s your name?” Approaching the person on your own, not with a group, increases the possibility that they will make friends with you.     2    .

Make minimal eye contact at first. Shy people tend to feel awkward in social situations.    3    . To increase their comfort level with you, aim to make eye contact between 30%-60% of the time during a conversation. Generally, you should make eye contact slightly more when listening than when talking.

    4    . To draw out a shy person, you might start by asking a few open-ended questions that require best more than a “Yes” or “No” answer. These types of questions allow the person responding to answer in their own words rather than offering limited response options.

Learn to be Okay with silence. Conversation involves speaking, listening, and silence. If you’re outgoing, you may assume silence is a sign that your social attempt has failed. It’s not.     5    , specially with a shy person. If you want to save both of you from an awkward silence, you might   say “Well, nice meeting you, Becky. We’ll have to catch up again sometime.”

A．Ask open-ended questions

B．Talk about similar interests

C．You must be sure your approach is friendly

D．Actually, a few seconds of silence is typically Okay

E．This feeling is even stronger when they are under intense stares

F．Silence is the factor that influences you to make friends with them

G．Because shy people typically feel ignored and frightened by large groups

【推荐2】Critical thinking is the process of analyzing information to get the best answer to a question or problem. By drawing upon your own experience, reasoning, observation and communication with others, you can make informed decisions that bring positive solutions. Here are several ways to improve critical thinking skills in the workplace to become a stronger employee.

Become more self-aware. Becoming more self-aware means considering your thought process, values, morals, and other beliefs. What do you believe in? How do your thoughts reflect these values?     1     Or knowing what your personal preferences, strengths/ weaknesses and prejudices(偏见)are can help you better understand why you approach specific situations from a certain perspective.

    2     Identify and evaluate how you receive and process information. Understanding how you listen, then interpret, and finally react to information is vital to becoming more mentally efficient in the workplace.

Being a critical thinker means you recognize your own prejudices and how they influence solutions and decisions. Take time to analyze your mental process before making a work decision.     3    

Develop foresight. Consider how others might feel about a situation or decision you make.     4     Having the foresight to predict how your actions at work will produce reactions will help you make the right choice.

Practice active listening. Active listening is a foundational element of effective critical thinking. Listen carefully and attentively while coworkers and supervisors are talking.     5     Gaining a full understanding of what they want, need or expect can help you react positively and have a subsequent productive conversation.

A．Evaluate existing evidence.

B．Understand your mental process.

C．This can help you act more objectively.

D．Think objectively about your likes and dislikes.

E．Be considerate and focus on understanding their perspective(s).

F．Determine the possible outcomes of a situation and what might change.

G．Follow up by asking yourself if something is a fact, an opinion or an idea.

【推荐1】•While people don’t always like the old saying “the early bird gets the worm”, getting up early is actually the secret to the success of many people.     1     There are also other benefits of waking up early in the morning.

•Improve your cognitive (认知的) function. People who get up early in the morning can concentrate better, are more attentive, and stay energetic throughout the day. Since people’s brains are more active in the morning, focusing on important tasks earlier will allow you to make better decisions than people who work later. Morning people have better problem- solving skills.     2    

•Help you sleep better. Waking up early makes going to bed early easier and helps you get consistent sleep and wake times.     3     Getting enough sleep may lower your blood pressure and improve brain function. However, people who tend to be night owls are more likely to feel tired and develop sleep disorders.

•Give you more time to eat breakfast.     4     After all, food is the fuel people need to feel energetic and ready to face the world. Just grabbing a coffee and a piece of bread at the drive- through will not give you what you need. Enjoy a nutritious breakfast of Greek yogurt and fruit to start your day off right.

•    5     Are you too tired or too busy to work out at the end of the day? Try going to the gym or for a run first thing in the morning. A morning workout can change your mood, lower stress, reduce anxiety, and increase your energy levels.

A．Give yourself more time to get relaxed.

B．Get you to do exercise early in the morning.

C．And thus this can lead to a better quality of sleep.

D．Setting your alarm clock early will give you extra time.

E．Nothing starts a day better than eating a healthy breakfast.

F．That’s because they can do more while the world is still sleeping.

G．So they can get better grades in school and obtain higher paying jobs.

【推荐2】Throwing those unwanted leftovers or unused ingredients into the trash doesn’t just hurt your wallet—it also costs the climate. When food is wasted, so are the natural and human resources that go into producing, processing, transporting and storing it.    1    Food waste is a big problem. These small changes can help.

    2    Try to look around your kitchen and see what you can make with it before heading to the grocery store, because so many things can be substituted with what you already have. In other words, you don’t have to stick exactly to the recipe if it means buying a brand new jar of something that’ll just end up sitting in the back of the fridge.    3    

Cho, host of the YouTube channel, says her most common food-waste problem is one likely shared by many. “I’ll buy a bunch of items and then put them in my refrigerator and then I simply forgot about it” she says, calling it an issue of space management.    4    . Armed with glass containers and dry-erase markers, she says it allows her to quickly assess which ingredients she’s working with, then figure out how to use them.

Once you have the ingredients you need, make sure you’re using them to the fullest extent. For one, that means using all parts of the vegetable, reminding people that broccoli stems are “perfectly eatable” and carrot tops “make a wonderful stir-fry.” Like a red onion, if you have half of it that you’re not going to be using, for example, you’ll season it. And seasoned onions are great on a toast.    5    You can also give vegetables a second life by seasoning them.

A．So, keep track of what’s in the fridge by labeling.

B．You have luck getting onions to last longer by storing it.

C．Instead, create a recipe with the thing in the new jar.

D．It just has that extra taste, and you’re not wasting your food.

E．Those processes generate significant carbon dioxide emissions.

F．When making shopping lists, start by surveying what’s already in your fridge.

G．If you won’t have a regular use for that particular product, just replace the recipe.

【推荐3】Have you ever walked through a door and thought to yourself, “What was I going to do?” If you have, you are not alone. Psychologists believe that walking through a door and entering another room creates a “mental block” in the brain. This is generally referred to as the doorway effect.

In the early years of brain research, scientists thought that human memory was like a closet, with many sections in which we could store little boxes of experiences from our lives. Boxes would remain there forever, and whenever we had to look into them, we could just go to that particular section and find that box of memory.

Beautiful as this description of human memory formation sounds, it is not true. Our brain is much more complex than that. Psychological studies suggest that our memories are episodic(情节性的)in general. If you think back on anything, you’ll probably quickly realize our memories don’t function as clear narratives. Instead, they’re more episodic and divided into parts.

A new research led by psychologist Oliver Baumann from Bond University in Australia suggests that it’s not so much the doorways that cause a memory wipe, as moving from one location to a significantly different one—it’s the abrupt change of scene that prepares our minds for something new. “A good example is moving around in a department store,” says Baumann, “Taking the elevator between floors may have no effect on our memory, but moving from the store to the parking lot might cause us to forget something that we need to buy.”

Baumann also points out that a busy and perhaps overloaded brain does seem to play some part in this phenomenon. In other words, walking through open doors is thought to reset memory to make room for a new episode.

The good news is that experiencing such forgettable episodes after entering another room does not tell you anything about your memory and intelligence. So when you enter a room and suddenly forget why you are there, you should not think that Alzheimer’s disease is creeping up on you!

1. Which of the following would most probably be “doorway effect”?

A．You missed a call and forgot to ring back.

B．You read a book and forget what it is about.

C．You entered the office and forgot what to get.

D．You saw a man years ago and forget who he is now.

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．All memories are linked in the brain.

B．Memories are clearly separated in the brain.

C．Not all the memories can be found in the brain.

D．Memories are stored in particular sections of the brain.

3. What can we infer from Baumann’s research?

A．Taking an elevator stimulates new memory.

B．Walking through open doors results in memory loss.

C．A sudden change of the scene boosts intelligence development.

D．An overloaded brain increases the possibility of doorway effect.

4. What does the author think of “doorway effect”?

A．Insignificant.	B．Beneficial.
C．Influential.	D．Damaging.

【推荐2】Dear Dr. Bob,

I was visiting my sister Mary, who has two boys, aged seven and five. They were throwing a ball around the living room. She asked them several times to stop, but they didn't listen to her. Finally, one of the boys threw the ball and knocked over a lamp. She shouted loudly at them for several minutes. Then, she sent them to their room. She looked at me and said, "They never listen to me."

Carmen

Dear Carmen,

Your sister needs to be clear to her children what behavior she expects. She should tell her boys,   "Don't throw the ball in the house. If you throw the ball again, I'm going to take it." Then, she needs to do what she says. Her boys will soon learn to listen to her.

Dr. Bob

Dear Dr. Bob,

I walked into my two-year-old daughter's bedroom and found her coloring on the wall again with her crayons. I told her, "No! No! Never write on the wall with your crayons. You can only write on paper." My husband thought I was too easy on her and that she needed a spanking (打屁股). What is your opinion?

Debbie

Dear Debbie,

You dealt with the situation well. Children this age are too little to understand the relationship between their actions and a spanking. Use this as a warning; it's time to babyproof your home. Now that your little one is more active and curious (好奇的), what else can she reach? Check her room and your home for crayons, paints, medicines, cleaning products, and other things that might interest her.

Bob

1. What was wrong with Mary's children?

A．They threw a ball at Carmen.

B．They often shouted loudly at her.

C．They had a fight over a ball.

D．They turned a deaf (聋的) ear to her words.

2. By saying "to babyproof your home", Dr. Bob means ________.

A．making your home safe for babies

B．giving your baby a spanking

C．getting crayons out of your home

D．teaching your baby to behave well

3. Both Mary and Debbie found it hard to ________.

A．stop their children from telling lies

B．ask their children to follow rules

C．get their children to go to bed on time

D．develop their children's interest in reading

4. Which saying agrees with Debbie's husband's attitude?

A．You can't judge a book by its cover.

B．The pot calling the kettle black.

C．Children are what the mothers are.

D．Spare the rod and spoil the child.

5. Where does this text probably come from?

A．A tourist brochure.	B．A news report.
C．A parenting column.	D．A science magazine.