1 . How to Live a Fulfilling Life

How awesome would it be to get out of bed each morning feeling purposeful and happy about your day? What about going to sleep each night with a grin(露齿的笑)of satisfaction on your lips?     1    Here are some tips that may help you.

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To lead a more fulfilling life, you first need to know what part of your current life is troubling or unsatisfactory. Reflect on different aspects of your life to figure out which are upsetting you the most. Try closing your eyes and questioning “What part of my life dissatisfies me the most?” Whatever comes to mind first is probably where you’ll want to start.

● Building good habits.

One of the best ways to build good habits that support a fulfilling life is by doing something each day that challenges you. Identify one thing you can take action on that pushes you beyond your comfort zone and do it. This might be sharing ideas with your boss when you typically stay quiet.    3    For example, if you’ve been trying to lose weight, but you spend too much time on the couch, reduce your time on TV or do an exercise while you watch.

● Having good health and well-being.

    4    You’ll have trouble feeling fulfilled if your energy only goes out. Just as you pour love and support into others, you must return that love and support to yourself. Take time to improve your own self with passions or self-care. Fulfillment also translates to perfect mental and physical health, so make time to exercise regularly. Schedule it into your day.     5    

A．Addressing your dissatisfaction.

B．Learning to avoid dissatisfaction.

C．It’s important to set aside “me” time.

D．End each day by reflecting on your daily challenge.

E．Replacing your bad habits with good ones is also suggested.

F．That way, it will be just like any other task on your to-do list.

G．This may seem difficult, but leading a more fulfilling life is entirely possible.

2 . If you’re always comparing yourself to your peers, you might be low in confidence and unsure of yourself. Here are some tips on how to stop comparing yourself to others.

Write down your positive traits. When you ignore your abilities, it becomes easier to compare yourself to others. You might focus on their strengths and ignore your own completely.     1     By being aware of your best qualities, you can learn to love yourself and build up your self﹣confidence.

Keep a gratitude journal. A gratitude journal helps you recognize the things you may take for granted so you can fully appreciate them. To start journaling, reflect on the little things that bring you joy.     2     Explain how they influence your life in detail. For example, if you jog in the park every day, you might express how you’re grateful for your health and how jogging helps you overcome stress at work.

    3     Instead of focusing on your “weaknesses”, reflect on the areas you can improve. Take advantage of all chances to improve your skills and techniques. Don’t be afraid to ask other people for help along the way. Only by making efforts to improve your abilities can you make yourself happy.

Compete against yourself.     4     Instead, use comparison to become an improved version of yourself. Set goals for yourself and try to improve your own personal best. When you set a goal for yourself, track your progress so that you can see how you are moving toward that goal. That way

Overcoming comparison is a continuous process, but it is possible!     5    

A．Take control over your life.

B．Work on improving your abilities.

C．Don’t compare your life to other people’s.

D．Write down why you’re grateful for them.

E．With time and practice, you can become the best version of yourself.

F．Appreciate others and use their success to motivate you to work hard.

G．To avoid this negative behavior, make a list of your strengths and talents.

3 . Active listening is a valuable skill in which the listener makes a conscious effort to understand the speaker’s entire message. Below are five benefits of active listening and what they can do for you at work.

Active listening can help achieve understanding. The conflict resolution skills of different people vary.     1     Very often we only hear what we want to hear. However, being able to understand another point of view completely can avoid many potentially negative outcomes.

Active listening can resolve conflict. People involved in conflict often feel misunderstood.     2     If you aim to resolve conflicts at work, and encourage others to do the same, you must begin by listening to the opposing point of view objectively.

Active listening is an essential part of learning.     3     Active listening is a skill that allows you to acquire the knowledge which could lead your company into a better future.

    4     Listening to the whole message means you’re engaging on a deeper level with the speaker. It allows you to absorb more precise details from the conversation itself. If you’re receiving instructions or training, you will be able to recall details more easily.

Active listening can help you become a good leader. As a leader, when you listen to what your followers have to say, you understand them better.     5     You’ll be able to work out with colleagues or employees about where improvements can be made for the benefit of all involved.

A．Active listening can help in dealing with emergencies.

B．In turn, your workplace communication skills will improve.

C．Leaders should always be open to exploring something new.

D．Active listening will help avoid missing important information.

E．Some people naturally know how to step into someone else’s shoes.

F．The reason they argue is that they don’t fully know each other’s positions.

G．It’s easy to become distracted when someone is speaking to us in a workplace.

4 . Secrets of Great Savers

Wondering how to save more money but have no idea where to cut?    1    They can make your money go further and help you live a more financially secure(保障的) life. You can form a “hand-me-down” club. Since kids grow so fast, their clothes quickly become unwearable even though they still look nice.    2    Instead of making your local kids’ clothing store rich, organise a club of parents from your child’s school or daycare to exchange hand-me-down clothing.

    3    Always buy the same colour and style of socks for your child—preferably white, since you can bleach(漂白) them when they are stained. Since socks always disappear, when you lose one of a pair, you can pair it up with another, because they are all the same.

It is a good idea to take a job for a discount. If you are looking for apart-time job, fill out applications at shops where you often do your shopping.    4    If you have teenagers in your home who are ready for a job, encourage them to work at your family’s favourite stores with employee discounts too. Not only will you benefit from the discount but you will also gain access to a new world of inside information on upcoming sales!

Why not help your friend move? Always help friends pack their belongings and load the truck when they are moving. When people are loading their households into boxes, they usually find items that they no longer need or do not want to pack or unpack. As a result, you can bring home hundreds of pounds worth of frozen food, tableware, books, toys, furniture(家具) and other household items.    5    

A．Get socks of one colour.

B．Bleach socks to whiten them.

C．We share four secrets of super savers here.

D．So, parents buy a lot of new clothes to meet the need.

E．Best of all they will still think you’ve done them a favour.

F．For example, clothing shops may give their employees a discount.

G．Once they do a favor, your problem will probably be solved very quickly.

5 . Food waste may result from lifelong habits.     1     Follow these tips to reduce unnecessary food waste in your household and save money along the way.

Plan your meals. When you don’t know clearly what you want to eat, it’s easy to pick up more than you need, especially when items are on offer. Plan your meals for the week in advance to avoid unnecessary food waste.     2    .

Store your products correctly. A lot of fruit and vegetables spoil before you eat them.     3     For example, potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables last longest if kept in the dark. Fresh fruit and vegetables, like grapes or onions shouldn’t be kept with ethylene-producing products as they make other fresh produce ripen and rot(腐烂) more quickly. You can also find many ways to keep your perishables fresh by using water.

Get creative with leftovers. For those times when planning fails you and you end up with leftover meals in your fridge, instead of throwing them out, think about inventive ways to transform them.     4     Think twice before you toss items like meat bones, which form the perfect basis for stock or a soup throughout the winter.

    5     Do you always buy the same things every time you are in the supermarket, yet every week you have things you throw away? Note down the products in the bin time and time again, so that you can avoid buying them (or so much of them) in the future.

A．Track your trash.

B．Sort out the rubbish.

C．Many unknown tips can keep produce fresh.

D．Try to stretch your grocery budget a little bit further.

E．Luckily, it’s easy to learn how to change these habits around.

F．Italians, for example, fry leftover rice and it becomes Arancini.

G．Work out what you plan to eat and how much of each item you’ll need.

6 . How often do you look back on your life and wish you had done things differently? Most of you may say regret is at least an occasional part of your life, while some may feel regret “all the time”. Although filling your life with regrets is indeed bad for you, going to the other extreme may be even worse. To truly get over your guilt requires that you put regret in its proper place.     1    

Make a list of your regrets.

Write down why each regret bothers you and its lingering bad effects. Be honest without catastrophizing (小题大做). For example, you may note that you hurt a friend’s feelings through your own fault.     2     You will find that a list is a lot less frightening than what you thought.

Forgive yourself.

After you make a mistake, life moves on.     3     In other words, you have voluntarily chosen to punish yourself for a poor decision you made in the past. Now it is the time to forgive yourself by declaring: “I make amends with myself and will not waste another minute of my life reliving a decision that cannot be changed.”

Look for the lesson.

Regret is like a school run by human nature. If you never experienced regret, you would keep repeating the same behaviors that led you to miss opportunities and wreck relationships in the past.     4     In your list of regrets, also note how you want to change your behavior, and outline your resolutions going forward. Next, list all the ways that you can invest in your own skills and improvement right now-and get started.

Regrets may hurt, but being trapped in them is destructive. Trying to live without them is a lost opportunity to grow. Life is a journey full of pleasures and pains.     5    

A．Can you undo what caused the regret?

B．Yet sometimes you just can’t stop kicking yourself.

C．Making a list of your regrets may free you from shame or sorrow.

D．Your regret can teach you to become smarter and more successful.

E．But you should also note that this certainly didn’t ruin the person’s life.

F．So, what can you do when you find yourself regretting for your past missteps?

G．To live it well means learning from every bit of it, including the mistakes, and moving forward.

7 . Because of my state of health, I was in the office making after-work plans with friends. After that, I took my notebook computer home to have the teleworking. With the help of my husband. several weeks later, I had tried all the activities I could think of. As the months passed. I grew sick of them and started searching something new to fill the ever- expanding days.

Then one day, I was thankful to find a headline on a shopping website. It was about weaving(编织). This was the universe speaking to me. I was badly in need of a hobby that was suitable to do at home. I bought all the things the writer recommended, including a book full of weaving courses.

My first weaving looked... not very great. I decided to leave out the courses in the book and freely wove a pink-and-white carpet (地毯)to hang on my apartment door. It started off OK. Then, mistake after mistake. Thus, I opened the weaving book and tried some basic patterns, using the simplest stitches(针法). And I started to make carpets I actually liked I even figured out how to sew backs onto them, fill them with polyester fiber and make colorful pillows to display on my sofa.

I was absolutely hooked so I spent all my free time weaving, listening to audio books.

Soon I realized that there were so many carpets I could make and hang in the apartment. I started making them for friends and then making pieces for others.

I’ve never been particularly good at painting, drawing or anything else that requires hand eye-brain harmony. But weaving, somehow, feels different. Weaving has become a way to fill me and to make something beautiful at the same time.

1. How did the author feel when reading the headline on the website?

A．Grateful.

B．Anxious.

C．Confused.

D．Tired.

2. What can we infer about the author from paragraph 3?

A．She was a little proud at first.

B．She enjoyed weaving sweaters.

C．Weaving was very simple for her.

D．Weaving was what she learned from colleagues.

3. What does the underlined word “hooked” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Relaxed.

B．Attracted.

C．Trapped.

D．Recognized.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．An After work Plan	B．The Magic Weaving
C．The Universe’s Word	D．A Worldwide Activity

8 . Soothe the Sunday scaries

Most of us look forward to the weekend as a time to relax, connect with friends and family, and deal with tasks from a to-do list that gets neglected during the workweek. But as the weekend comes to an end, many are missing out on Sunday Funday and instead experiencing an overwhelming sense of anxiety and even dread about the upcoming week.     1     Some people describe it as a heaviness they can feel in their body, while others feel so unsettled that they could jump out of their skin.

Even though the Sunday scaries are common, they are manageable. Here’s how experts say you can ease your end-of-weekend anxiety.

Structure your Sunday.     2     You might still go through that sense of dread, but that feeling is harder to hold on to when you’ re engaging in something that makes you feel good.

Don’t forget to relax. If you’re feeling more stress, it’s important to make space for relaxing activities to ground yourself. Maybe a midafternoon shower or bath, maybe an engaging movie or show, whatever feels like a helpful distraction to reground from the scaries.

Identify your anxiety sources. Try to figure out what’s really causing you to dread the week.     3     Even if there’s not a single reason behind your Sunday anxiety, organizing the stress into small parts can help make it all more manageable.

    4     Getting rid of the Sunday scaries isn’t just about minimizing the gloom of the week ahead. Have something to look forward to. This gives you the opportunity to shift your thoughts to fun and will help improve your mood.

End your Sunday with the right energy. Sunday night is a proper wind-down time. Maybe you want to journal, do a face mask, read a few pages of a good book. Do your best to honor this time and make Sunday night all about you.     5    

A．Is it a deadline, meeting or presentation?

B．Create some excitement for the week ahead.

C．Experts have referred to this worry as Sunday scaries.

D．Sunday scaries come from tiredness after a really busy weekend.

E．Then you feel empowered and confident that you’ll be ready for the next day.

F．Instead of sitting on the couch and watching the clock, go to do something that you enjoy.

G．Anxiety is a natural response that happens in preparation for anything that causes pain or discomfort.

9 . It’s interesting to see how people make use of the time they spend on public transport in Indian cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

In crowded buses and trains people manage to take a short nap and some even reach the snoring stage. Or they spread out a newspaper over multiple knees and arms to read about the latest sport results or political crisis.

Then there are the experienced travellers who have been playing cards with the same group over the last decade or so. They even have their specific seats so well-worn that you can make out the shape of their backsides.

There is no doubt about it. Travelling by public transport is being in the thick of the seasons of life—a sweaty life in summer where people blissfully unaware of the rivers of sweat running down their brows and inside their clothes. At the first smell of a perfumed man or woman boarding the stuffy bus or train most people feel they are reborn.

During the rains you can’t avoid getting wet or muddied. The windows almost always are not a perfect fit and if you’re not drenched by a sudden heavy rain shower then you are bound to catch a jet spray of muddy water caused by a fellow motorist driving fast through a puddle.

Rains are a perfect time for people to switch their old umbrellas for new ones. Since there are so many that look alike it’s impossible to tell whose is whose.

Winter is the time when it feels good—or at least warm—to be part of a crowd. It is amazing how much the collective breaths of a 100 or so people can raise the freezing temperature inside. Looking at the masses dressed in their bright red pullovers or green coats it’s fun to imagine what faces lie beneath their dark woolen hats.

The cold winter passes making way for spring. It is impossible not to see every little flower by the wayside blooming proudly. And the warm sun manages to transmit some of their pleasantness to the inside of a bus or train.

Now wouldn’t it be perfect if we had a public transport worth the name in all our cities?

1. On Indian public transport, you can always expect to see people ________.

A．arguing and playing games

B．sleeping and reading newspapers

C．enjoying the view and playing cards

D．carrying umbrellas and whispering politely

2. According to the author what will make passengers feel refreshed during summer travelling?

A．The cool evening breeze.	B．The rain pouring over their clothes.
C．The joy of a game of cards.	D．The sweet fragrance of a new passenger.

3. We can infer from the passage that ________.

A．Indian transport is the most crowded in the world

B．the buses and trains are old and in poor conditions

C．Indian people don’t mind switching umbrellas with others

D．almost everyone in India wears perfume when they go out

4. What is the tune of language used in this passage?

A．Concerned

B．Critical.

C．Frightening.

D．Humourous.

10 . Last Friday, Emma, my 11-year-old, decided to thank our local mailman Doug, for the service he provides for us.

Usually, a letter from her is likely to _________ some art, a joke or two, a mention of her younger brother, her cat… So, in her note to Doug, she _________ nothing out. “Dear sir, I’m Emma… Thank you for taking my letters and _________ them. You are very _________ to me. I make people happy with my letters, but you do, too.” Emma wrote. That afternoon, Doug took it when she smiling _________ it which was enough to him.

Saturday, Doug _________ at our house with a thank-you note. Then two days later, an unexpected package, full of _________ and letters from Doug’s colleagues in USPS _________ with him again.

To our amazement, these letters are so deeply human, filled with family _________, pets… and an overwhelming sense of __________. A Tracy wrote “Your letter __________ made a difference! Not many understand how hard we work…” Another, “I work alone here. And you __________ me of my son of your age…” Some Michael, to inspire Emma to start collecting stamps, even sent two special ones from his __________ while the rest were mailed for her to write back or to others.

With dozens of __________ pen-pals, Emma did what she does best. She wrote the dad. She wrote his son… She shared her time to give others the one thing they need to be well-human __________.

1.

A．enjoy

B．provide

C．include

D．admire

2.

A．gave

B．left

C．work

D．pick

3.

A．delivering

B．reading

C．protecting

D．receiving

4.

A．honest

B．polite

C．important

D．familiar

5.

A．returned

B．handed

C．accepted

D．mailed

6.

A．came out

B．got off

C．slowed down

D．showed up

7.

A．flowers

B．toys

C．notes

D．stamps

8.

A．arrived

B．traveled

C．disappeared

D．went

9.

A．photos

B．hobbies

C．books

D．jokes

10.

A．kindness

B．humor

C．justice

D．duty

11.

A．hardly

B．slightly

C．mildly

D．really

12.

A．inform

B．convince

C．remind

D．warn

13.

A．collections

B．workplaces

C．colleges

D．friends

14.

A．strange

B．familiar

C．new

D．close

15.

A．nature

B．connection

C．life

D．contribution