2 . Ways to Schedule Downtime

To further improve your productivity and keep a better balance between work and life, you should be aware of how important downtime (休息) is. It always enables you to achieve the most ideal work efficiency.     1    

Making the time

For those who are not used to taking time off work and having a rest, the best way is to set a schedule for downtime.     2     Then set your alarm so that you will be reminded when it’s time to have a break as you can easily ignore the passage of time when you are absorbed in work.

Treating your downtime strictly

    3     Without rules you may easily give up downtime and your attention can be distracted by other things, so you are recommended to set rules that prevent you from crossing the boundaries.

Take using computer as an example.     4     If you are fond of surfing the Internet or playing games during a break, you should include the use of computer in your schedule, yet there needs to be a line between what to do and what not to do with it, and why and why not to use it.

Optimizing (优化) your downtime

How long did your last week’s breaks last? Is the duration longer or shorter than the scheduled time? Was your work efficiency affected because you lost control and spent a bit too much time enjoying your breaks? Or did you lack sufficient downtime? Modify your plans based on your situation. Once you find the problem lies in carrying out the plan rather than the plan itself, you’d better open a book on self-discipline.

    5     Self-discipline takes place here, and it’s essential to keep in mind that downtime isn’t equal to a waste of time. Your continued productivity and happiness really depend on it to a great extent.

A．Pay attention to the rules.

B．Have your downtime attached to rules.

C．Below are some tips for planning these breaks.

D．Highlight the needed time in black and white.

E．You can measure whether it is necessary in your downtime.

F．You’d better close it after you use it.

G．Following your plan could be difficult at the beginning.

3 . 假如你是李华，请你按照以下要点给你的英国笔友Tom写一封信。
1.你近期所做的一个决定；
2.做出这个决定的原因；
3.你是如何执行的。
注意：1.词数100字左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3.开头和结尾已为你写好，不计入总词数。
Dear Tom，

How is everything going?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All the best!

Yours,

Li Hua

4 . 假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（Ë），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

The time we have is usual limited. However, even an hour is of much valuable. We should make full use of your time to do useful things. As students, we mustn’t study hard so as to serve for our society and our nation in the future. But it is pity that there are a lot of people who didn’t know the importance of time. They spend their valuable time smoke and drinking. They don’t realize that wasting time is the same as wasting a part of their life. Remember, don’t put off which you can do today until tomorrow.

5 . E
However wealthy we may be, we can never find enough hours in the day to do everything we want. Economics deals with this problem through the concept of opportunity cost, which simply refers to whether someone’s time or money could be better spent on something else.
Every hour of our time has a value. For every hour we work at one job we could quite easily be doing another, or be sleeping or watching a film. Each of these options has a different opportunity cost—namely, what they cost us in missed opportunities.
Say you intend to watch a football match but the tickets are expensive and it will take you a couple of hours to get to and from the stadium. Why not, you might reason, watch the game from home and use ______ money and time to have dinner with friends? This—the alternative use of your cash and time—is the opportunity cost.
For economists, every decision is made by knowledge of what one must forgo—in terms of money and enjoyment—in order to take it up. By knowing precisely what you are receiving and what you are missing out on, you ought to be able to make better-informed, more reasonable decisions. Consider that most famous economic rule of all: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Even if someone offers to take you out to lunch for free, the time you will spend in the restaurant still costs you something in terms of forgone opportunities.
Some people find the idea of opportunity cost extremely discouraging: imagine spending your entire life calculating whether your time would be better spent elsewhere doing something more profitable or enjoyable. Yet, in a sense it’s human nature to do precisely that we assess the advantages and disadvantages of decisions all the time.
In the business world, a popular phrase is “value for money.” People want their cash to go as far as possible. However, another is fast obtaining an advantage: “value for time.” The biggest restriction on our resources is the number of hours we can devote to something, so we look to maximize the return we get on our investment of time. By reading this passage you are giving over a bit of your time which could be spent doing other activities, such as sleeping and eating. In return, however, this passage will help you to think like an economist, closely considering the opportunity cost of each of your decisions.
1. According to the passage, the concept of “opportunity cost” is applied to ________.

A．weighing the choice of opportunities

B．reducing missed opportunities

C．making more money

D．taking more opportunities

2. The “leftover ... time” in Paragraph 3 probably refers to the time ________.

A．taken to have dinner with friends

B．spared for watching the match at home

C．saved from not going to watch the match

D．spent on the way to and from the match

3. What are forgone opportunities?

A．Opportunities you make up for.

B．Opportunities you forget in decision-making.

C．Opportunities you give up for better ones.

D．Opportunities you miss accidentally.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the concept of “opportunity cost”?

A．Indifferent	B．Negative
C．Subjective	D．Objective