A punctual person is in the habit of doing things at proper time in a
Unpunctuality is very harmful. Friends sometimes grow cold to wards each other, or even become
There is a proverb which says, “There is a time
It was the day before Thanksgiving. Gray clouds covered the sky. The air was biting. The temperature was below freezing. And I was on the way home.
This is my driver Jacob, a tall, strong and middle-aged man. Jacob was sent to pick me up and take me three hours on a drive inland in Mexico. Like most drivers, he is very talkative. As we were driving, he started to tell me his story. Out of the habit shaped by my career, I like to chat and I like to get to know people and their stories.
He shared with me that since the pandemic, he had to change jobs and was currently spending six days a week away from his family in a town that had more work. This life certainly can seem full of pains at times. It is up to us, though, to make each one a blessing in disguise (伪装,掩饰).
He mentioned the name of his hometown ‘Nah Bok’ and shared that he had to spend five hours on his only day off on the three different buses to get there and back to spend one day with them. His mother, his wife and his kids are there, waiting for him. The weekly trips are tiring but worthwhile for those short moments of happiness and joy. Then they parted ways, wishing well thoughts for the week ahead.
I do understand such experience. Admittedly, I was one of those kids like his. My father had worked away when I was young, sometimes away for weeks and months at a time. I remember us kids waiting for our turn to have just a couple of minutes on the phone with him back before we had Skype (一种即时通讯软件).
注意:
1.所续写的短文词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
After two hours into our drive, I saw a sign saying ‘Nah Bok’.
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That’s a little moment of JOY I brought to the man.
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3 . Most of us have some sort of bucket list—a checklist of experiences and accomplishments we hope to achieve before our time here on earth is up. When we think of how to improve our lives, our first urge is generally to add things: I’d be happier if my career were going better. Everything would be different if I could find a good relationship. There is only one problem with this approach—science suggests it tends to have the opposite result.
A mountain of researches show that when you reach your goals, they’re likely to only bring you momentary joy. After a brief high, dissatisfaction creeps in and we start to long for the next thing on the list. How do you get off this problem and find lasting peace of mind? Brooks offers a simple, practical suggestion: Swap your traditional bucket list for something he calls a “reverse bucket list.”
“Each year on my birthday, I list my wants and attachments—the stuff that fits under the categories of money, power, pleasure and honor. I try to be completely honest,” he writes. Next, Brooks sits down and lists what his life would be like in five years if he were truly happy and successful—if he were living up to his values and experiencing a sense of psychological peace. The final step is to compare the two lists side by side. Would those things he longs for actually bring him closer to his vision of the good life?
If an item is on your bucket list because it lines up with your deepest desires and values, keep it. If it’s there to impress the neighbors or feed a vague and strong need for “success”, onto the reverse bucket list it goes.
When scientists ask people to solve problems of all kinds, their first urge is to add elements. They think a new feature, additional rule or extra ingredient will improve the final outcome. But recent research shows that subtraction (减法) is often the better one.
1. What is a problem probably caused when you achieve your goals?A.You will be eaten up with pride. |
B.Your confidence will be boosted overly. |
C.You will be unwilling to achieve the next goal. |
D.Your temporary happiness will give way to discontent. |
A.Whether the items on the list are listed honestly. |
B.Whether the items on the list can bring you glory. |
C.Whether the items on the list can be achieved. |
D.Whether the items on the list are consistent with your beliefs. |
A.Buying a more luxurious villa than a friend’s. |
B.Keeping on working out regularly to keep fit. |
C.Serving the community to keep mentally peaceful. |
D.Studying abroad for further education to realize self-value. |
A.The Barrier of Happiness: A Rule of Subtraction |
B.The Secret to Happiness: A Reverse Bucket List |
C.The Block to Happiness: A Traditional Bucket List |
D.The Truth of Happiness: A Checklist of Achievements |
Once upon a time, there lived a poor but cheerful shoemaker. He was so happy that he sang all day long. The children loved to stand around his window to listen to him.
Next door to the shoemaker lived a rich man. He used to sit up all night to count his gold. In the morning, he went to bed, but he could not sleep because of the sound of the shoemaker’s singing. One day, he thought of a way to stop the singing. He wrote a letter to the shoemaker inviting him over for a cup of tea.
The shoemaker came at once, and to his great surprise, the rich man gave him a bag of gold as a gift. The shoemaker took the bag and thanked the rich man. When he returned home, the shoemaker couldn’t wait to open the bag. He had never seen so much gold in his life! He sat down at his bench and began, carefully, to count it. The children watched through the window.
There was so much there that the shoemaker was afraid to let it out of his sight. So he took it to bed with him. But he could not sleep for worrying about it. So he got out of bed and went to hide it in the attic (阁楼), but he was not sure if that was a good place.
Very early in the morning, he got up and brought his gold down from the attic. He had decided to hide it up the chimney (烟囱) instead. But after breakfast, he thought it would be safer in the chicken house. So he hid it there. But he was still uneasy, and in a little while he dug a hole in the garden and buried his bag of gold in it.
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。
Paragraph 1:
He was in no mood for singing and found it difficult to focus on his work.
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At last the shoemaker felt so unhappy that he took his bag of gold and ran next door to the rich man.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . T. S. Eliot wrote of “Distracted from distraction by distraction /Filled with fancies and empty of meaning.” T. S. Eliot never had a smartphone.
Neither did I for a long time. No Facebook account; not even email. But according to my date of manufacture, I’m supposed to be a digital native. Perhaps it’s because by the age of 20 I was living in the Welsh countryside with no signal and no Wi-Fi.
When I finally fell into the digital world, I fell hard. Unlike my friends for whom social media and mobile technology had grown and flowered around them, for me it was a sudden immersion. I got Facebook, Twitter and Gmail accounts at the same time that I got an iPhone 4. I would check my phone; five minutes later I would check my phone again. I was addicted and it started to affect my relationships with friends and family
One night, without a word, I abandoned my iPhone and bought a Nokia 3310 and became the talk of the town. Soon I became aware that not only had I stolen secret time back from the hurried days, but somehow a secret space as well. I could stretch out, free to think again, to be wholly creative and to learn meaningfully.
But, wherever I went I got bloody lost. Wandering blindly around London, only to miss appointments, became a frequent pastime (消遣). What did we do before Google Maps? I was useless. The change was worth it, though. I’ll sound like an overstatement but I think it changed my life. My choices are broader and healthier because I’m not being screamed at all day.
I bought a new Samsung phone last week. I had been scared of the rate of progress, crying: “Stop the train! Stop the madness.” But I want to be part of building the future, and to do that, you’ve got to swim in contemporary waters. Rejecting the modern world doesn’t help anyone. It slows you down and I need to be efficient. Time will tell whether I’ve mastered the wisdom to reject constantly checking my phone.
1. What can be learned about the author when she lived in the Welsh countryside?A.She read a lot of T. S. Eliot. | B.She had no friends to talk with. |
C.She had no access to the Internet. | D.She was afraid of the digital world. |
A.She thought she needed a spare phone. | B.She found her iPhone stopped working. |
C.She wanted to attract people’s attention. | D.She hoped to break her smartphone addiction. |
A.She led a simple and healthy life. | B.She found her life was in a mess. |
C.She spent more time with her friends. | D.She became an example for other people. |
A.To seek wisdom. | B.To stop her madness. |
C.To keep pace with the times. | D.To get back to the real world. |
6 . As the saying goes, life is sweet. But while we may wish for consistently sweet moments, life often serves us other
Recently, we celebrated my mom’s birthday. In her nineties now, as she
The day before the celebration, we
The next day, the birthday
Truly, these are bittersweet moments, filled with
A.memories | B.flavors | C.experiences | D.smells |
A.forgets | B.realizes | C.nears | D.questions |
A.functioning | B.changing | C.failing | D.growing |
A.decided | B.asked | C.managed | D.continued |
A.new-born | B.snow-covered | C.hard-won | D.home-made |
A.working on | B.preparing for | C.cutting off | D.resulting in |
A.checking | B.decorating | C.struggling | D.volunteering |
A.cake | B.wish | C.gift | D.party |
A.unexpected | B.unknown | C.undoubted | D.unlimited |
A.picture | B.cookie | C.room | D.house |
A.dangerously | B.successfully | C.emotionally | D.accidentally |
A.new | B.strong | C.mixed | D.negative |
A.within | B.through | C.beyond | D.toward |
A.shortness | B.meaning | C.record | D.style |
A.Instead | B.However | C.Meanwhile | D.Therefore |
7 . I wasn’t raised to be a fan of snails (蜗牛). I was always taught that if we see a snail on a plant, we should pick it off and
The first time I thought of snails as more than a
Then, I
Giving ourselves time to nourish (滋养) inside and out, and waiting for the right
A.knock | B.stamp | C.lean | D.click |
A.relief | B.satisfaction | C.sympathy | D.scare |
A.view | B.focus | C.debate | D.article |
A.pet | B.toy | C.pest | D.mascot |
A.puzzles | B.interests | C.comforts | D.distracts |
A.dragging | B.using | C.lifting | D.pushing |
A.eye-catching | B.breathtaking | C.familiar-looking | D.half-blooming |
A.magically | B.secretly | C.swiftly | D.silently |
A.cured | B.reminded | C.warned | D.informed |
A.curiosity | B.excitement | C.calmness | D.eagerness |
A.placed | B.covered | C.stuck | D.wrapped |
A.stepped | B.drew | C.crawled | D.walked |
A.wander | B.sleep | C.hide | D.struggle |
A.competing | B.resisting | C.exploring | D.adjusting |
A.reason | B.position | C.moment | D.choice |
Zu Ti of the Jin Dynasty was a man who had with great ambition. When he was young, he had a good friend
One day, when they were sleeping. Zu Ti heard the rooster crowing (鸡鸣) . He woke up Liu Kun and said, “How about
The idiom “to rise with the rooster” teaches us that with ambition and hard work,
9 . My plan to learn to play the cello (大提琴) was a health y choice. So I took the next innocent step of going to a shop that sells and rents string instruments, especially violins, violas, and cellos. The place was a hole-in-the-wall, up a steep flight of stairs. Instruments left a narrow path to the counter where a woman with grey hair and warm eyes greeted me. Since I couldn’t form a question about what I wanted, I just stood there exploring the scene, which felt immensely pleasurable.
I rented a cello, a bow, and a case to hold them. What attracted me to the cello was its enormous size and its soft, smooth, and memorable sounds. It’s an instrument made of beautifully polished wood that I could wrap my arms around and feel its powerful vibrations when the strings were played. That was a good starting point for me. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to play it.
There’s a popular belief that the cello is a particularly difficult instrument to learn. Another is the admonition, “Don’t bother if you are a beginner over age 10!” Well, I was 70, and what others thought no longer influenced me. And besides, I thought of the words of Dr. Cohen, who suggested that learning causes physical changes in the brain.
So I found a teacher who had respect for older adult beginners and I practiced diligently, daily for years, and sometimes disheartened, but I kept up. I’m happy to report that now, more than a decade later, I can hold my own in a string trio and two quartets (two violins, a viola, and me, the female cello)and even a senior community band. Of course, I’ll never sound like Yo-Yo Ma but you could recognize a Mozart piece if you heard me play it. And, more importantly, I don’t need to please anyone but myself.
Whether it’s a pleasurable pastime or a new career, the starting point is the same: wonder, curiosity, determination, and the desire to keep your brain sharp.
1. How did the writer feel in the shop?A.Amused by the shop assistant. |
B.Anxious for a live performance. |
C.Pleased at the nice music atmosphere. |
D.Curious about where to find a teacher. |
A.Approval. | B.Criticism. |
C.Puzzlement. | D.Warning. |
A.To recommend a reliable doctor. |
B.To provide proof for common belief. |
C.To add another reason for her decision. |
D.To stress the crucial function of the brain. |
A.Art is man’s second nature. |
B.One is never too old to learn. |
C.Education is the key to success. |
D.Happiness is the best form of health. |
10 . Last Christmas, I volunteered for WNWNB, a charity which takes surplus (剩余的) produce from New Covent Garden Market and
The food was already in containers. So we set up the stand and got ready to distribute some Christmas
It was then time to deliver meals to those who weren’t able to come. This is
I had similar responses to my next
As a local politician I knock on doors and talk to people a lot, but there was something deeper about those
A.distributes | B.introduces | C.sells | D.exhibits |
A.forgiveness | B.images | C.recipes | D.cheer |
A.easy | B.nice | C.slow | D.safe |
A.broke away from | B.put up with | C.cut in on | D.warmed up to |
A.threaten | B.encourage | C.allow | D.command |
A.why | B.how | C.where | D.when |
A.opened | B.repaired | C.cleaned | D.guarded |
A.costly | B.unfinished | C.deserted | D.ready |
A.declined | B.reacted | C.argued | D.traded |
A.purchases | B.interviews | C.deliveries | D.schedules |
A.meal | B.chat | C.report | D.silence |
A.proud | B.free | C.lonely | D.content |
A.connect with | B.look after | C.turn to | D.rely on |
A.conversations | B.budgets | C.explanations | D.deals |
A.hesitated | B.started | C.ignored | D.struggled |