1 . As you work to develop your career (事业), whether you are applying for a job right now or planning what you will do in the future, three things are vital: your passion (激情), your value and your goals. These are three obvious but related beliefs that you need to both know for yourself and be able to communicate to others.
Passion is what drives you. Your passion is what brings a smile to your face, what lights your creative engine and what makes you approach a problem with passion. Your passion could be for a specific field, profession, industry, customer, type of problem, or some combination.
Goals are what you want to do.
Knowing your passion can help you better define (界定) your value and clarify your goals. And understanding your goals can help you go better to your passion and pronounce your value.
| A．But what are they exactly. |
| B．Thus how can we behave properly. |
| C．Value is what you offer to a partner. |
| D．Your goals may be personal or professional, a big picture or otherwise. |
| E．When your work performs your passion, it’s no need rewarding yourself. |
| F．Whatever your career is, you are to learn cooperation and communication. |
| G．The more you know about these three, the better you can build your career. |
2 . Nearly five years ago, I booked a retreat (僻静处) to work on my book, Tracking Wonder. I knew I worked best with limited distraction, but when I finally was able to carve time away from the world to do this creative work, I found it very difficult to focus.
Ⅰ. Reboot(重启) your mental health.
Just as our muscles need rest days between workouts to grow stronger, our minds need periods of idleness to process the world around us.
Innovators in times of crisis and adversity actually grant themselves space to be bored and daydream deliberately. This kind of daydreaming can lead to positive mental feelings of hope, renewal, and forward motion, but it requires boredom and space.
Ⅱ.
The capacity to be bored and the capacity to be creative go hand in hand. Want to increase your creativity?
Ⅲ. Reconnect with what matters to you.
These days, current events—and the resulting analysis, opinions, and Twitter hot takes—come at us so quickly that it’s difficult to process one issue before the next takes its place.
| A．Become more creative. |
| B．I completely lacked creativity. |
| C．Here are three ways to release your creativity. |
| D．The answer may not be more stimulation, but less. |
| E．Reach for our phones to check a fact during a conversation. |
| F．Learning to let yourself be bored can have three surprising benefits. |
| G．But to truly be an informed citizen, you need to allow time for idleness. |
A proverb says, “Time is money”. But
Failures result in mental and emotional g
Here is a positive to-do list for the upcoming year:
Start facing your problems head-on. It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them.
Start being honest with yourself about everything. Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest about every aspect of your life.
Start valuing the lessons your mistakes teach you.
Start forgiving yourself and others. We’ve all been hurt by our own decisions and by others.
Start cheering for other people’s victories. Notice what you like about others and tell them. Be happy for those who are making progress. Cheer for their victories. Be thankful for their blessings openly.
| A．Forgiveness is the medicine. |
| B．Mistakes are the stepping stones of progress. |
| C．Start being nice to the people around you. |
| D．Start spending time with right people. |
| E．Problems will not disappear unless you take action. |
| F．It doesn’t mean you’re wiping out or forgetting the past. |
| G．Because you are the person you can forever count on. |
6 . I grew up in the 1950s with very practical parents. My mother washed aluminum foil (铝箔纸) after she cooked in it, and then she reused it.She was the earliest recycle (回收利用) queen before people had a name for it.
My father was no different.He preferred getting old shoes fixed to buying new ones.Their marriage was good and their dreams were focused (集中).Their best friends lived just a wave away.Though my parents have passed away,I can see them now-Dad in trousers,a T-shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress,lawnmower (割草机) in one hand and dishtowel in the other.
It was the time to fix things-a curtain rod (挂帘杆) the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven door, and so on. They fixed all things we had.It was a way of life,and sometimes it made me crazy.All that re-fixing and renewing made me want to scream.I wanted just once to be wasteful.Waste meant being rich.Throwing things away meant you knew there’d always be more.I often thought like that.
But then my mother died,and on that clear summer night,in the warmth of the hospital room,I learnt that sometimes there isn’t any more.Sometimes,what we care about most gets all used up and goes away and it will never return. So, while we have it, it is the best that we love it,care for it,fix it when it’s broken and cure it when it’s sick.
This is true for marriage,old cars,children with bad report cards,dogs with bad hips and aging parents and grandparents.We keep them because they are worth it and because we are worth it.
1. We can learn that when the writer was young, she________.| A．thought highly of her parents’ habits |
| B．often helped her parents fix old things |
| C．often threw things away without being noticed |
| D．at times hated it when her parents fixed old things |
| A．Her mother truly loved her. |
| B．She had wasted a lot of money. |
| C．Things may never return once they are gone. |
| D．She had hurt her parents for many times. |
| A．To advise us to love what we have. |
| B．To encourage us to recycle old things. |
| C．To explain why her parents recycled. |
| D．To help us know about life in the past. |
7 . Growing pains and gains
It’s not easy to grow up. Actually it’s far from easy. Growing up can be a real “pain” for some of us. We are always doing things that someone else makes us do and aren’t allowed to do all the things we like. Sometimes we feel trapped, sometimes we are fearful, and sometimes we just don’t understand why we can’t stay young forever. When we look back on all the hardships in life with a positive attitude (态度), we realize that all of our growing pains actually turn into growing gains!
As a young girl my parents forced my sisters and me to do so many things that I never liked. They made me learn to play the violin and then the piano. At that time I hated music, just because it was what they wanted me to do. But looking back now, I am so glad that my parents encouraged me to take music lessons. Music has enriched my life in so many ways. I realize that my parents and teachers were always pushing me along, not because they wanted me to suffer but because they wanted me to succeed in life. They’ve always wanted me to have a better life than they did themselves.
Every moment of our lives we are either living or dying, so live life to its fullest! We are all going to experience growing pains, but they are just small pains in life. They might seem so huge at the time but we must be strong. Think about how we would feel if we had no fear and live life like that. The future is ours! A little hard work and sweat never hurt anyone! If we realize that these pains are just small bumps (凸块) on our road to success we will realize that our growing pains are actually growing gains!
1. What was the girl forced by her parents to do when she was young?| A．Take music lessons. |
| B．Turn gains into pains. |
| C．Take a look back on hardships. |
| D．Live a successful life by suffering a lot. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Thankful. | C．Passive. | D．Unfriendly. |
| A．Directly. | B．Terribly. | C．Carefully. | D．Completely. |
| A．Growing pains are necessary for us to grow up. |
| B．We all have to experience growing pains. |
| C．A little hard work and sweat are harmful to us. |
| D．Life without fear is a better choice for us. |
8 . Over this past year, lifestyle blogger Aileen Xu has kept a monthly gratitude list.
It wasn't a hard sell. “I think just over the last few years there's been more of a trend to focus on gratitude,” says psychologist Laurie Santos, who teaches a popular course on the science of happiness at Yale.
You can buy different kinds of gratitude journals, or download apps that remind you to take down your blessings. “Those types of products can remind us to take time to be grateful,” Santos says.
And noting your gratitude seems to pay off.
Making gratitude lists is just one way of enjoying those benefits. The best way of expressing gratitude may be different for each person. You could choose to keep your gratitude private or share it with others.
However, for all the research on the broad benefits of expressing gratitude, there's also evidence that it isn't for everyone. And it isn't a cure-all. It can't make injustice (不公平), loss or pain disappear.
| A．What gratitude can do is to give us hope. |
| B．There's a growing body of research on the benefits of gratitude. |
| C．That's why gratitude features heavily in Santos' happiness class. |
| D．Gratitude is a very rich emotion, but it's also a complicated one. |
| E．Sometimes it was the big stuff(事情): “I'm grateful so many people care. ” |
| F．Santos' students are asked to write a thank-you letter and then read it out loud to the recipient. |
