1 . Self-criticism (自我批评) is a mental habit of negatively analyzing and judging ourselves and our actions. If we don’t find a way to overcome self-criticism, we won’t be able to live a happy and satisfying life.
Stop Negative Thoughts
Thought stopping is one of the best secrets of how to overcome self-criticism. Interrupting your thoughts helps you change how you think about yourself, thus helping you feel better.
Another strategy is to replace negative self-critical thoughts with positive realistic statements. For instance, if you set a goal, be realistic about it by giving yourself enough time to achieve it. In fact, having a constant desire to achieve immediate success can ruin your confidence.
Avoid Perfectionism
Another secret is to let go of the need to be perfect. It’s all right to set high standards for yourself.
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
| A．Be realistic |
| B．Focus on strengths |
| C．It’s normal to feel like that everyone has a better life than you |
| D．Remember it’s from your mistakes that you get to improve yourself |
| E．If you’ve been stuck in negative thoughts, here’s what you need to do |
| F．It’s important to note that changing your negative thought patterns can take time |
| G．However, falling short of your goals and expectations can make you feel worthless |
2 . Nothing is better than having a sense of humor, but is yours positive or a bit different? Are you just dry?
A dry sense of humor is when you find things funny while others may not, and you say it in a serious tone of voice. Check the following signs of dry humor to see if you have that.
·Your wit always saves the day. Your quick wit enables you to outwit nearly anyone you come across. No one is a match for your sharp tongue.
·
· Some people don’t get you.
· Your jokes aren’t always funny straightaway.
The world isn’t always a cheerful place, so having a dry sense of humor is a great tool. It means you can take the negativity of the world and turn it into something funny. Next time life brings you down, just get out there and keep on laughing!
| A．Some of them can be slow burners |
| B．You deliver dry jokes with a straight face |
| C．If you have a dark and dry sense of humor |
| D．They think your jokes are slightly tasteless |
| E．You sometimes make people uncomfortable |
| F．So you can talk your way out of tricky situations |
| G．If you’re wondering what a dry sense of humor is |
Jack was a bright and curious child, always eager to learn new things and explore the mysterious world about science. However, he often found himself in disagreement with his mother. His mother was always busy with her work and she didn’t have enough time to learn about his interests and passions.
One day, Jack came home from school feeling particularly excited. He just found a sci-fi book about an adventure on the moon. Upon arriving at home, he couldn’t tear himself away from the book. He read and read until it was dark. Having finished reading it, he couldn’t wait to share it with his mother, only to be told that he should focus on more practical subjects like math and history, which would help him get into a good college and have a successful career.
Jack couldn’t understand why his mother didn’t see the value in what he was doing. He felt that she was holding him back and not allowing him to pursue his true interests. “Why can’t you see how important this is to me?” Jack asked his mother angrily. “I’m never going to be happy if I have to spend my life doing things that I show no interest in just because they are practical or make you proud.”
The once peaceful home was filled with tension and anger. His mother’s voice grew louder as she shouted, “You can’t just do whatever you want! You should be responsible for your future!” Jack, fueled by his own frustration, shot back, “I am tired of you always telling me what to do! I am not a child anymore! You only care about your own feeling! You never thought about my feeling!” They were so caught up in their own anger and hurt that they failed to see how their words and actions were affecting each other.
注意：
1．续写词数应为150左右；
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Jack rushed into his bedroom and locked the door heavily.
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When Jack heard his mother’s words, regretful tears rolled down his face.
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4 . Tiffany Hammond and her son Aidan communicate in some familiar ways, like hand gestures and body language. But when Aidan wants to
Aidan is autistic (患孤独症的) and does not speak, so when his mom asks
“Every single time we go outside the house, there’s something bad happening. There’s a
Hammond also wrote about the
In an interview, Hammond said, “I want to
| A．express | B．enjoy | C．persuade | D．change |
| A．chances | B．questions | C．roles | D．fantasies |
| A．imply | B．inquire | C．understand | D．bother |
| A．saying | B．witness | C．cheat | D．comment |
| A．pushed | B．elected | C．warned | D．begged |
| A．avoid | B．represent | C．ignore | D．refuse |
| A．necessary | B．cold | C．different | D．equal |
| A．daily | B．weekly | C．monthly | D．yearly |
| A．cover | B．significance | C．price | D．time |
| A．imagine | B．notice | C．defeat | D．achieve |
| A．record | B．teach | C．doubt | D．celebrate |
| A．nervous | B．strange | C．dangerous | D．hopeful |
| A．create | B．organize | C．share | D．build |
| A．look for | B．pick up | C．stare at | D．serve as |
| A．Immediately | B．Fortunately | C．Actually | D．Finally |
Ari was a lonely young man who lived on a large island called Iceland. Most of the villagers were fishermen. Ari often wondered what lay beyond the island. The days were long and cold, and he spent many hours in his small house thinking about what life would be like in a warm, sunny place.
“I shall find a true friend far away from here,” Ari thought, and he began writing a letter. He described himself as a loner who had few visitors, yet he had a warm heart. It was his hope to find true friendship with someone who understood his sadness.
Ari described the volcanos on his snowy island and the impressive glaciers (冰川). He wrote about the sky turning green, blue, yellow, and pink at night when the Northern Lights shined in the heavens like silk. For days, Ari poured his soul and innermost thoughts into the letter. Then he placed it into a bottle, and sealed (密封) it tightly.
Ari threw the bottle into the sea and wished upon the brightest star that a true friend would find the letter.
A year later, Ari received a letter. He had no idea who would be writing him, but with joy, he opened the envelope.
Dear Ari,
I found your simple but lovely letter. Imagine my surprise when your little bottle from so far away washed up on my shore. I; too, live on an island. It is called Sardinia. My island is warm and filled with mountains, beaches and waters. Most of the people I know are my family, and I, too, long for a true friend. Now that you have found a friend far away, I do hope that you will write and tell me more about your life and people.
Your new friend,
Renata
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
For three years, Ari and Renata exchanged letters.
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Without telling Renata, Ari started a long journey.
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6 . Tricks To Becoming A Patient Person
Here’s a riddle: What do traffic jams, long lines and waiting for a vacation to start all have in common? There is one answer.
In the Digital Age, we’re used to having what we need immediately and right at our fingertips. However, research suggests that if we practiced patience, we’d be a whole lot better off. Here are several tricks.
●Practice gratitude (感激)
Thankfulness has a lot of benefits: Research shows it makes us happier, less stressed and even more optimistic.
● Make yourself wait
Instant gratification (满足) may seem like the most “feel good” option at the time, but psychology research suggests waiting for things actually makes us happier in the long run. And the only way for us to get into the habit of waiting is to practice.
●
So many of us have the belief that being comfortable is the only state we will tolerate, and when we experience something outside of our comfort zone, we get impatient about the circumstances. You should learn to say to yourself, “
| A．Find your causes |
| B．Start with small tasks |
| C．Accept the uncomfortable |
| D．All this adds up to a state of hurry |
| E．It can also help us practice more patience |
| F．This is merely uncomfortable, not intolerable |
| G．They’re all situations where we could use a little extra patience |
7 . COVID-19 changed a lot—how we socialized, where we went, and even what work looked like. A new study shows the pandemic (流行病) may have changed our personalities as well.
Psychologists have long believed that a person’s characters stayed pretty much the same, even in the wake of stressful events. But by looking at pre-pandemic levels of neuroticism (神经质), extraversion (外向), openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (勤奋而细心) and comparing that to data collected in 2021 and 2022, researchers found clear personality changes among the United States population.
“The pandemic was an opportunity to see how a collective stressful event may impact personality,” said lead study author Angelina Sutin, a professor of medicine at Florida State University.
Extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness all declined in the US population in the years following the start of the pandemic, particularly in young adults, according to the study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
Why were younger adults more impacted? We don’t know for sure, Sutin said, but there are theories. “Personality is less stable in young adults. Then at the same time, the pandemic disturbed what young adults are supposed to be doing. They’re supposed to be in school or starting their careers. Then, everything was changed. However, the results didn’t hold true for each person.”
Researchers examined the data through the five-factor model, which hypothesizes (提出假说) that the various personality characters can come down to five important qualities: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Over the entire population they examined, researchers found a declining trend in neuroticism in 2020, but the changes were small. Once they took 2021 and 2022 data into account, researchers saw a more significant decrease in extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Neuroticism also increased over this time. That is especially significant considering how important those characters are, Sutin said. For example, conscientiousness is important for academic and work outcomes, as well as relationship and physical health, she added.
1. How do researchers get their study results?| A．By comparing data collected in different periods. |
| B．By collecting data from different people. |
| C．By making experiments in a university. |
| D．By building a five-factor model. |
| A．Personality is more stable in old adults. |
| B．The study results hold true for every person. |
| C．Younger adults are less impacted during the pandemic. |
| D．American people are more likely to be influenced. |
| A．Neuroticism. | B．Extraversion. |
| C．Openness. | D．Conscientiousness. |
| A．Pandemic Has a Great Impact on People’s Life |
| B．Young Adults Adapted Quickly During the Pandemic |
| C．Different Personality Characters Influence Social Relationships |
| D．People Experienced Personality Changes During the Pandemic |
8 . When reading, my mother likes to slice a paragraph or a sentence out and attach it to the wall of her kitchen. She picks boring sentences that puzzle me. But I prefer copying favorite bright lines into a journal in soft, gray No. 2 pencil, word by word.
She doesn’t know any of this. There's nothing shocking: for our chatting. we seldom begin certain conversations though we talk on the phone weekly, sometimes making each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don't say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything that really upsets us.
My mother has never told me “I love you, Lisa.”—as if the four-word absence explains who I am—so I carry it with me, like a label on me. The last time she almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me a friend had been in hospital. I said, “I love you, Mom.” She stopped for a while and then said, “Thank you.” I haven't said it since, but I've wondered why my mother doesn't until I've found a poem that supplies words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations:
Don’t fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge.
My son, middle-aged, says: Did you really just say that to me?
What he doesn’t know is that when we’re walking together, I desire to reach for his hand.
It's humble, yet heartbreaking. After copying it down in my journal, I emailed it to mom, adding “This poem makes me think of you.” My mother doesn’t read poetry—or at least, she doesn’t tell me, and I felt nervous clicking “Send”.
She never mentioned the poem. But the next time I went home for vacation, I noticed something new in the kitchen fixed to an antique board: the poem. The board hung above the heater, the warmest spot in the kitchen. The poem still hangs there. Neither my mother nor I have ever spoken about it.
1. What's the function of paragraph 1?| A．To stress the theme. | B．To establish the setting. |
| C．To represent the characters. | D．To create the atmosphere. |
| A．Shaky. | B．Distant. | C．Reserved. | D．Intense. |
| A．It reminded her of mom's love. |
| B．She wanted to apologize to mom. |
| C．It suited mom's taste of literature. |
| D．She needed an interpretation from mom. |
| A．A memory of golden days. |
| B．Daughter’s gratefulness to her. |
| C．A decoration in the plain kitchen. |
| D．Daughter's understanding of her. |
I still remember the day when we decorated the house, I was ten and it was two weeks before Christmas. I was looking forward to my presents. Since I’m the youngest in the family, all of the family members would give me a gift one way or another. Sometimes it was a cookie or a hug but it was always there. I was the only center of attention and it was feeling good.
My uncles usually would ask me what I wanted before Christmas and that year I knew what I wanted. It was the spaceship I saw in the ads. I was dreaming of opening a big gift box, and it was there. But that year it came in a way that I wasn’t expecting.
It was two weeks before Christmas. Just two weeks. She couldn’t wait. My dear mother told my father that it was time, and then we went to the hospital. After an hour, they told me that I had a sister now. But I didn’t want a sister. I wanted a spaceship. The next few days went so fast. No one was caring about me. Everyone was talking about her and I knew that my life is never going to be the same ever again. I wasn’t ready to grow up, to be a big brother. But it just happened in an instant.
On the day before Christmas, everyone was in our home, talking only about my newborn sister. My family was becoming hers. Even my uncles didn’t ask me anything about the gift. She stole everything I’d ever had, my life and my presents. Thinking about this, I cried to sleep. I had a nightmare (噩梦) and woke up at the middle of the night. Shadows were all around me, and I was defenseless and so weak. I ran into my parents’ bedroom but couldn’t wake up my poor parents who were just too worn out. I was standing near their bed, trying not to cry when I saw her. She was awake and looking at me with her big eyes in her small bed.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Suddenly a long shadow came into the bedroom and she started crying.
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After having comforted her, something slowly changed inside me.
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注意：1. 词数 100 左右；
2. 适当增细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：relay race 接力赛
Ladies and gentlemen,
It’s my honor to give a speech here. My topic today is “Smile to Face Failure”.
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Thanks for your attention.
