1 . Happiness, as I see it, comprises five elements: spiritual well-being (meaning and purpose), physical well-being (nutrition, exercise), intellectual well-being (curiosity, deep learning), relational well-being (kindness and generosity), and emotional well-being (cultivating positive emotions). As an interdependent aggregate of these five elements of SPIRE, happiness is about much more than experiencing pleasure.

As Aristotle put it, happiness is the ultimate purpose of life, meaning how we spend our everyday lives is ultimately guided by what we think would make us happier. This is not a good or a bad thing. It simply is, like the law of nature. Even people who are tirelessly working for an important cause, for example, to get rid of world hunger, are doing it because they find their work meaningful. Meaning is an element of happiness.

One barrier to happiness has to do with the expectation that happiness is an unbroken chain of positive emotions. This expectation, however, prevents people from experiencing happiness because painful emotions don’t go away but grow stronger when we reject them.

The second barrier has to do with equating happiness with success. It’s a commonly held belief that happiness can be attained by achieving certain goals, like money or fame. People tend to think if they finally find success, they will automatically become happy.

The third barrier has to do with the way people pursue happiness. We want to be happy for many reasons. After all, we are constantly told that happiness is good for our health, relationships, and work outcomes. Yet, if I wake up in the morning and decide to pursue happiness straight, I will become less happy.

But how? Indirectly. As is known, if you look up at the sun directly, you’ll hurt yourself. But if you take the same sun rays and break them down, you’ll enjoy the colors of a rainbow. Similarly, pursuing happiness directly can hurt us; pursuing it indirectly—by breaking it down into something like the SPIRE elements—can contribute to our well-being. Starting a meditation practice, exercising, performing acts of kindness, learning something new, or expressing gratitude for what we have are all indirect ways of pursuing happiness.

1. What does the underlined word “aggregate” probably mean in the first paragraph?

A．Combination.

B．Conclusion.

C．Accumulation.

D．Association.

2. What’s the author’s attitude towards how we spend our daily lives?

A．Favorable.

B．Suspicious.

C．Objective.

D．Indifferent.

3. What can we know from the text?

A．Being a success leads one to happiness.

B．Refusing negative feelings helps us obtain happiness.

C．Going after happiness directly makes one feel happy.

D．Pursuing one aspect of SPIRE can boost our well-being.

4. Why is the sun mentioned in the last paragraph?

A．To make a contrast.	B．To make an analogy.
C．To conclude the argumentation.	D．To answer the previous question.

2 . Just about 50 years ago, needing money to support my family—my novels weren’t bestsellers—I had the idea of taking the longest train trip imaginable and writing a travel book about it. The trip was improvisational (即兴的). I didn’t have a credit card. I had no idea where I’d be staying nor how long this trip would take. And I’d never written a travel book before. I hoped my trip wouldn’t suffer a lot, though it was obviously a leap in the dark.

I set off with one small bag containing clothes, a map of Asia, a travel guidebook and some travelers’ cheques. I was often inconvenienced, sometimes threatened, now and then disturbed for bribes, occasionally laid up with food poisoning—all this vivid detail for my narrative.

What I repeated in the more than four-month trip was the pleasure of the sleeping car. Writing on board the Khyber Mail to Lahore in Pakistan, “The romance associated with the sleeping car comes from the fact that it is extremely private, combining the best features of a cupboard with forward movement. Whatever drama is being shown in this moving bedroom is heightened by the landscape passing the window...” A train is a carrier that allows residence.

I wrote The Great Railway Bazaar on my return in 1974, and it appeared to good reviews and quick sales. That’s the past. Nothing is the same. All travel is time-related. All such trips are singular and unrepeatable. It’s not just that the steam trains of Asia are gone, but much of the peace and order is gone. Who’d risk an Iranian train now or take a bus through Afghanistan?

But I’ve been surprised by some of the more recent developments in travel. I rode on Chinese trains for a year and wrote Riding the Iron Rooster, but now China has much cleaner and swifter trains and modernized destinations. A traveler today could take the same trip I took in 1986—1987 and produce a completely different book.

All travel books are dated. That’s their fault that they’re outdated, and it’s their virtue that they preserve something of the past that would otherwise be lost.

1. What happened at the beginning of the author’s trip to Asia?

A．He made full preparations for the trip.

B．He had expected the journey to be rough.

C．He organized the trip with his family’s support.

D．He started the trip out of his passion for traveling.

2. Why did the author repeatedly recall the sleeping car?

A．For its romantic scenery.	B．For its reassuring privacy.
C．For its full equipment.	D．For its long distance.

3. What did the author try to convey by saying “Nothing is the same”?

A．The landscape in Asia was gone.	B．Train trip was no longer popular.
C．He couldn’t write another bestseller.	D．Transportation and travel had changed a lot.

4. Which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with?

A．Practice makes perfect.	B．Sharp tools make good work.
C．Travel, truth is not the arrival card.	D．The journey, not the arrival matters.