2 . Directions: Complete the following passages by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Do note that there is one word more than you need in each passage.

What My Wife and I Talk about When We Talk about Love

A. company       B. weather       C. desirable       D. restore       E. readily       F. considering G. sharpen       H. hesitation       I. peacefully       J. access       K. inconvenience

My wife used to believe that romantic love is the most important and exciting thing in the entire world when she was a teenager. And the mark of true love is when two good-looking boys get in a physical fight over her. It’s even     1     that they both get injured but don’t end up going to hospital, not because she is worried about them but because it may cause her a lot of     2     and indirect responsibility. One day this will certainly happen to her, if she’s lucky. So you might understand her anger and frustration when I told her that if the other male competitor I have to “fight” with weighs more than 100 kilograms, I will simply hand her over to him without     3    , wish them a happy marriage and walk away with the feeling that tomorrow is another day.

Fortunately, we’ve both grown a lot older and grown out of expecting our life partner to “die” for us     4    . The older we get, the more honest, open and vulnerable we allow each other to be. One of the hardest things about getting older and being in love is knowing when something is just reality and when it’s too much hard work. Identifying what the calm, joyful but often challenging sensation of long-term love is and identifying what has just become totally intolerable is where we all have to really     5     our instincts.

Shared interests are one of the most overrated     6     factors when it comes to choosing a partner. Deciding that someone is a good person, or your soulmate, or made of exactly the same stuff as you just because you both love the music of Faye Wong is ridiculous. Having the same Agatha Christie collection or enjoying most of the movies directed by Richard Linklater will not help you     7     the various unexpected storms of life together.

A much more crucial factor in terms of finding a partner is how much you love their     8    . Since my son was born, I have experienced firsthand how overwhelming it is to be a working parent of a newborn. It has become even more apparent to me that the most important thing in a relationship is how well married couples work as a team. Couples need to be really, really good friends.

When you’re looking for love, and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have     9     to plenty of love already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and     10     you. It will hold you when you cry and celebrate when you smile. You can carry it with you and keep it as close to you as you can.

3 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. necessarily     B. fade     C. survive     D. expectation     E. harsh     F. treasure    G. quantity     H. dramatically     I. comfort     J. relate     K. reflect

Things I’ve Learned From My First Year Of High School

I just finished my first year of high school, and it has been     1     different from middle school. High school has brought me so many different experiences. Some I am grateful for, yet some have not been beneficial. However, all of them have taught me so many different things, and I would not have been able to     2     my first year of high school without them. The things I have learned have been so helpful to me and can also     3     to things outside of school.

1. You’re expected to demonstrate maturity and responsibility

High school teachers won’t     4     “hold your hand” as much as middle school teachers did. Your teachers may move faster through lessons. When you have questions or meet with     5     challenges, it’s important to speak up. If speaking up makes you nervous at first, you can start by using email to build your     6     level and confidence.

High school teachers enforce higher standards, and most don’t tolerate some of the behaviors that were acceptable in middle school. Again, the goal is to prepare you for college and real life. Even if the     7     seems tough at first, remember that you’re learning helpful and important life skills.

2. Find out who your true friends are

Genuine friends are friends that you can tell everything to and they will not tell anyone else without your permission. They are also there whenever you need them, whether that is to rant or you just need a shoulder to cry on. When you find your true friends, stick with them. The thing about friends is: quality over     8    .

To be honest, high school is not easy at first, but with time, you will get to appreciate and     9     everything around your experiences. The memory will never     10    , because it is the most memorable journey. I have learned so much during my first year of high school, and I am sure that I am going to learn a lot more.

4 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. referring             B. refresh             C. pin                    D. occurred             E. acknowledging F. identify             G. drain                    H. discouraged       I. specific             J. negative K. specifically

Make a Wish List

Most of us know of New Year’s Resolutions, where one sets intentions for the year ahead. But too often, people make their resolutions     1     — “I will no longer eat biscuits left at my desk”— and then feel unhappy. In the cold month of January, the last thing you need is to     2     your energy further by setting up a series of battles with yourself. And if you break a resolution, you feel     3    , which is a rubbish way to start the year. What you need instead are things to look forward to.

So instead, try a wish list. This involves writing down 100 things you would like to do in the year ahead. The items can be enormous or tiny, ranging from “Climb Everest” to “buy a new pencil sharper”. The main thing is that at some point it has     4     to you as something that you would like to do.

The key here is — write it down.

Do you feel any resistance to the ideas? If so, ask yourself why. What is wrong with     5     what you would like to do? Try not to say to yourself: “I can’t I don’t have the money/time/energy/skills.” Just write it down.

It helps to be     6    , so rather than “Get outdoors”,     7     a place you would like to visit. And take your time when creating it — a wish list is not built in a day. Think about it, polish it and     8     it.

Finally, you have your list. And what a work of beauty it is. Here are all the things that you would like to do. Remember to     9     them up where you can see them; let yourself consider how they can be accomplished. You’ll be amazed that so many of your dreams can be realized though the simple trick of writing them down and     10     to them.

5 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. waste       B. universal       C. emotional       D. endure       E. expose       F. inspired       G. prize       H. reality

The Blooms of the Blood Thorns

The master said You must write what you see.

But what I see does not move me.

The master answered Change what you see.

—Louise Gluck

The rosebush of life is inevitably threaded with far more thorns (荆棘) than it ever is of blooms. In order to grasp one of those blossoms we come upon on occasion in life, we have to     1     the pain of the pricks (刺伤).

Life is full of pricks. From the loss of loved ones, to the pain of one-sided love, to the hopes we held for our lives that ran up against the cold steel walls of     2    , these pricks have the power to draw oozing (慢慢渗出的) blood from our souls. But the story of our lives is actually not the way in which we suffered pain and injury — but rather how we have found strength to rise up stronger.

The newly-crowned Nobel-winning American poet-laureate (桂冠诗人) Louise Gluck realized, when she was young, the redemptive (救赎的) power that     3     pain can bring. She experienced the “absence” of a sister, whose death before Gluck was born     4     theme of grief and loss in much of the poet’s work. Her teenager years were dominated by a struggle with a severe eating disorder. She later suffered the painful loss of her father, and, after her literary success, saw her marriage fall apart.

The poet, however, used these experiences as a(n) base for her poems. She filled books with the painful lessons her traumas (创伤) taught her. She squeezed the blood drawn by these experiences into her inkwell. She exorcized (驱除) the everyday traumas of her life — loss, desire, sadness and isolation — with the steady scratch of her pen on the page.

The themes of loss are     5     to the human condition. They have shaped us, for better or worse, and made us the fully human beings we are today. While her poems     6     readers to the nerves of a traumatized soul, they are also a tribute to the strength of their creator. They reveal that even in the depths of the greatest suffering, she has found a way to rob the rosebush of its     7    . By doing so, she has drawn us a map by which we may plan our own journey through the thorny pricks of life. Let’s learn from her experiences so that her hard-fought life lessons will not be in waste. As she wrote in her famous poetry collection, The Wild Iris, “At the end of my suffering there was a door.”

6 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. livelihood          B. geographical          C. increasingly        D. exhausted        E. amuse        F. beyond G. unsupported       H. slightly                 I. motivational          J. matters             K. surviving

The mission for explorers, BØrge Ousland, a Norwegian, and Mike Horn, a South African-born Swiss, was to navigate their way across the 600 miles to the South Pole    1    —no dogsleds or airdrops of equipment, no food or fuel along the way. When, in 2006, the two men finally reached their destination, Cape Arkticheskiy in Siberia, in the pitch dark of polar winter, they were utterly    2    , had frostbite(冻疮), but were still in one piece. What they had accomplished stands as one of the most daring polar expeditions in recent memory: setting out in total darkness and     3    physically and mentally. That had been the essence of the trip. Reaching the pole was necessary, but almost irrelevant conclusion.

Why would they have put themselves in this position? This was, actually, exactly what they had wanted. Both men had been adventuring since boyhood, taking    4    high calculated risks. At some point, they left their comfort zones and never went back. For them, going to extremes that may seem insane was actually a logical progression. They discovered that they could earn a living—writing books, taking pictures, making films, and presenting    5    speeches. Now, they have sponsors: outdoor gear manufacturers, construction outfits, an adventure travel agency, a watch company. Extreme adventure is their    6    .

Some people say that the two men have a death wish, but this just seems to    7    Mike and BØrge. They will tell you that it isn’t a desire to be closer to death that attracts them; it’s a desire to be closer to life. They’ve been to the mountaintop. They know that willpower can be built, and that ordinary people, like themselves, have abilities    8    their wildest dreams. They’re just the ones who are out there, searching the wilderness on behalf of the rest of us. They aren’t marking dots on a    9    map anymore. That was accomplished long ago. What they are doing now is exploring the inner map, the mental and emotional map. What will they learn about themselves from being in a position where nothing    10    except staying alive? What, exactly, is the human being capable of? This is what drives them.

7 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A.encouraged	B. excuse	C. featured	D. favor	E. approaches	F. defended
G. access	H. serve	I. regional	J. celebrated	K. lengths

When Coca-Cola was first sold in 1886, nobody thought it could be improved. Nearly a century later, in 1985, New Coke was introduced to replace the original recipe of Coke in order to rebrand the product amidst falling sales——Coke was losing customers to Pepsi, whose sweeter taste was finding     1    . Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola Company saw a significant drop in sales soon after the release of New Coke. Some customers just preferred the “classic” recipe. The old adage(格言), “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” seems to apply here.

Something similar is happening with A Bite of China, a     2     food documentary focusing on the stories, traditions and culture surrounding interesting regional dishes from around China. The first two seasons of the show saw great success. However, when the third season began last month, the reviewers were not so “sweet”. With an entirely new production team, Season Three steers away from(偏离) the show’s core focus on     3     dishes and towards intimate life stories, non-food-related subject matter and even product placement(植入广告).

In the first episode of Season Two, a teenager in the countryside collects honey high up in a tree. The scene is stunningly filmed, telling a moving story about the dangerous     4     to which people go to gather food for their families. In the third season, however, the focus is taken almost completely away from the food. In one of its most infamous episodes, DIY lipstick using questionable ingredients bought online is     5    . Viewer response has been swift and severe, with several commentators wondering whether it is still suitable to call the show a food documentary. The production crew have     6     the changes, claiming that the innovation is meant to keep the show fresh and interesting to an expanding audience. While this may     7     in part, to explain the show’s creative differences from previous seasons, it doesn’t     8     the show’s declining professionalism, which has led to some silly mistakes such as mixing up ingredients or confusing the correct names of regional dishes.

Innovation is generally     9     in industries big and small, but a winning formula that has popular     10     is not necessarily something that requires changes. Innovation is a tool often best used when a new direction is called for. By trying to reinvent the wheel, one might just end up with a flat tire. It’s time that A Bite of China took a page out of Coca-Cola’s playbook and returned to the classic recipe, where success has never tasted so sweet.

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

（A）

A. source     B. steep       C. irrelevant     D. moderate   E. regrow     F. documented G. motivated     H. equivalent     I. comparatively   J. adapt       K. constantly

Adventure of a Lifetime

I was driving with a friend recently and telling him about a new book I’m working on, an article I'm writing and this new hobby of adventure motorcycling in the desert.

He interrupted me and said, “How do you stay so    1    about things?” I hadn’t really considered the “why” behind my list of activities. But as I thought about it, I realized that the one aspect each of these projects had to make me so excited was the feeling of being in just a little over my head.

It’s easy to wonder how doing stuff that makes you uncomfortable, and might not even work, is a（n）    2    of motivation. I could not get my friend’s question out of my head and wondered whether I'm wired differently. But there’s something about a sink-or-swim environment that excites me.

I posted on Instagram about    3    getting in a little over my head, and my friend Dallas Hartwig told me about this concept called hormesis, a phenomenon by which something that could significantly damage or even kill you in high doses can make you stronger in low doses, or as the National Institutes of Health puts it, an adaptive response of cells and organisms to a（n）    4    stress. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is not a new concept. It’s well     5    that the way to grow muscle is to split the muscle tissue, and then give it time to    6    .

So what if we did the same thing in other areas of our lives? It makes sense that the business    7    of building muscle is trying new things. When you throw yourself into the deep end of something new, you often face a（n）    8    learning curve. That forces you to grow,    9    , change and develop your skill set. It’s almost    10    if the particular project ends up succeeding, because the very act of taking on something new helps you become better at your work over all.

10 . 选词填空

A. impact       B. pursue       C. superiority       D. address       E. consciously       F. lack G. reluctantly       H. opposite       I. involved       J. specific       K. limited

Although literally hundreds of traps can open a gateway to team disaster, the following traps are among the most common ones that need to be discussed.

Leader Abdication (退位)

Some managers, in their sincere efforts to be good team leaders, make a serious mistake: they withdraw from their group and     1     avoid interacting with team members. They wrongly assume that the best way they can help the team become more self-directed is by personally becoming less     2    .

Team Arrogance (自大)

A team can become so focused on achieving its own goals that it does not consider the     3     its actions may have on other groups or organizations. Outsiders see the team as arrogant and cruel. Insiders see the team as effective and misunderstood. Overall, the team’s belief in its own     4     has a damaging effect on the performance of the organization as a whole.

Undefined Responsibility

In this trap, a team may regularly make decision on which no following action is ever taken. Members are then frustrated by the collective     5     of responsibility. In instances where action is taken and the execution is poor or a mistake is made, no one takes responsibility. It is rarely clear who is responsible for     6     action items, and when an action item is regarded as the responsibility of the entire team, nothing happens.

Short-term Focus

Failure to see the “big picture” can lead a team to     7     strategies that help improve its own performance but leave the rest of the organization in a mess. Not having the information that allows seeing the forest rather than the trees can lead to suspect plans and poorly reasoned decision.

Decision by Default (默认)

Teams that have a tendency to repeatedly postpone difficult decisions will find that their options become increasingly     8    . Ironically, by hesitating, the team finally makes a decision—by default rather than by informed choices.

Participation Tricks

Tricks to increase employee involvement and participation—like suggestion boxes—can actually have the     9     effect. When individuals are rewarded for contributing suggestions through cash, there is little incentive (激励) for team members to work together to     10     problems and implement solutions.