1 . As a professional life and relationship coach, Allison Cowan has over 21 years of experience in teaching and supporting others to achieve their goals. She has dedicated her career to helping her clients gain power and awareness in their lives.

As a coach, Allison inspires her clients to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. However, her practice has come with its own share of challenges. Expanding her knowledge to meet diverse client needs has involved lots of trial-and-error searching.

Initially, Allison spent a hard time building strong and trustworthy relationships with her clients. She knew trust was critical to finding and retaining clients but was frustrated at how long the trust-building process takes.

Allison soon learned that there was no single right way to coach. To meet her clients’ different needs, she needed to become more efficient at supporting their diverse learning styles. To overcome her challenges as a coach and offer better service, she began looking for ways to customize her coaching solutions.

During her search, Allison realized Positive Psychology is a field with many different goals. “It covers so many areas, including whatever a client may go through,” she recalled. Later, she began using self-reflection tools to help her clients develop self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. She even discovered a way to help clients without a coaching goal find their purposes. She said, “There’s a lot of blame. The more they stay in blame mode, the more angry they are, and they are not able to move forward with acceptance and forgiveness. But we can find solutions in Positive Psychology.”

Whether Allison was helping clients build self-confidence, understand their attachment styles, or reframe their challenges, she quickly found that she was also learning all the time. By completing the homework Allison assigned to them, her clients were also changing. They were more engaged with their coaching and making more significant progress between their sessions. That made Allison proud. She said, “They grow and move forward at a quicker pace. That’s what coaching is about.”

1. Why is Allison’s initial trouble mentioned in the text?

A．To show her special efforts.	B．To stress her defeated career.
C．To prove the difficulty in coaching.	D．To give the reason for setting goals.

2. What did Allison do to serve her clients better?

A．She used the same coaching ways to teach them.

B．She coached them according to their own needs.

C．She tried her best to change their learning styles.

D．She helped them overcome their challenges in life.

3. What’s Allison’s attitude to Positive Psychology?

A．Doubtful.	B．Unclear.
C．Supportive.	D．Dismissive.

4. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．Allison’s clients misunderstood what coaching is about.

B．Allison learned to build self-confidence all the time.

C．Allison’s clients helped her complete homework.

D．Allison and her clients benefited each other.

2 . Throughout history — and probably in your own life — you’ve seen examples of good and bad leaders. They can lift you up or drag you down, praise a group effort or promote themselves.

    1    .

Leadership is said to be an art.     2    . It truly takes practice to create a team atmosphere where people are happy, excited to come to work, and excited to do the work. Here are some of the most important tips to become a great leader.

Be transparent with your team

The higher up you go, the more secrecy there is.     3    . For example, you can include your team in decisions that directly affect them, ask them for feedback on plans or share important news before it becomes public.

    4    

Being a leader isn’t just about checking off tasks and evaluating your team’s performance. Leaders should also make it their job to understand their teams as a whole, understand the people on their team as individuals, and put them in the right positions.

Seek guidance

    5    . And some leaders don’t even want to be leaders! If you find yourself unexpectedly in charge of a team, reach out to a boss you liked before and ask them for advice to guide you through this process.

A．Add value to your team

B．Study how your team works

C．But you can break that cycle of secrecy

D．It’s not something everyone can do well

E．Most leaders are not trained to be leaders

F．Put yourself in the position to do the kind of work you love

G．In short, leaders are often the difference between a great job and a terrible one

4 . How do you express gratitude in your everyday life? For me, it sometimes feels worrying: hand-writing hundreds of thank you cards after an anniversary, or making sure to eat every last bite on my plate so my grandma wouldn’t think I was ungrateful for the meal.

    1    Here are some tips about how to be better at showing gratitude.

Start a gratitude journal or write a letter. Make it a habit to put down the things that you’re thankful for.     2     There’s also some evidence that it could lower your risk of heart disease and symptoms of depression for some people. Think of someone in your life who you have not had the chance to thank. Think of a specific instance when they helped you. Then, it’s a good idea to send them a letter.     3    

    4     Look around in your immediate space, and take notice of everything that makes up your environment: the sky, the cool wind, the warmth of your sweater. The act of simply noticing and naming things is a great way to stretch your gratitude muscle as well as obtain some clarity on the strength of all the unique connections in your life.

Bear in mind the difference between saying “thanks to” and “thanks for”. Being grateful “for” something can be a little unclear or general.     5     It encourages specificity and reminds you of your connection with and responsibility to that person or thing.

A．Stretch your gratitude muscle.

B．Notice the world surrounding you.

C．Better still, deliver it in person and read it to them.

D．A habitual gratitude journal will certainly benefit us.

E．But experts say it doesn’t have to be that complicated.

F．In fact, this habit reduces materialism and enhances generosity.

G．Being grateful “to” something or someone implies a direct relationship.

5 . Friendship is a practice of unconditional love, an opportunity to grow together towards fulfillment (成就), and a journey to unfold the most precious capacities of a human being.     1    Here 4 key points to develop and sustain a true friendship.

    2    Many times we blame the other person for what we feel, without realizing that we are presenting the bad power to him/her. This is not, however, something we must be afraid of or we should avoid. When we create a bond of affection with another human being, we are automatically vulnerable to the actions that are produced by this person. Being aware of that, we would be better off if we take responsibility and accept the emotions that come up in our inner world instead of blaming the other for what we are feeling.

Provide support and encouragement. Friendships aren’t all fun and games — they do require you put in some work. Say they’ve just quarreled with their parents or failed an exam. It’s your job to be there for them and provide them with whatever they need, starting with support and comfort.     3    

Whatever the case, make it apparent that you’re rooting for them.

Seek the good of the other person. When we love another person, we seek the good of the other because we gladden their own happiness. Therefore, our seeking for the other person’s good is totally disinterested. We serve the other without expecting anything in return.     4    

Accept the differences.     5    . Friendship welcomes differences and integrates them into a level of union that accepts and goes beyond them. Friendship involves recognizing that the value of the relationship is beyond our personal traits and belief system.

A．Be honest with each other.

B．Acts of love are made for its own sake.

C．Take responsibility of your own emotions.

D．Additionally, it’s your duty to give them encouragement as needed.

E．Human beings are relational beings, as everything we find in the nature.

F．Therefore, developing friendship with other people is essential in our lives.

G．Friendship doesn’t mean having the same interests, opinions and mindset as the other person.

6 . Awe (敬畏) is that feeling we get when something is so vast that it stops us in our tracks. Often, it expands our thinking, increases positive emotions and brings overall satisfaction in life.     1    

Most of us associate awe with something rare and beautiful: nature, music or a spiritual experience. But people can trigger awe too, and not just famous people, such as athletes or astronauts.     2     Psychologists call this interpersonal awe.

Often, this interpersonal awe is a response to life’s big, sweeping charges, such as witnessing a baby’s first steps. For Lynn Heady, a retired educator, it’s watching a friend fight cancer and still embrace life.     3     John Bargh, a psychologist and professor, said he was truly awestruck by his then-5-year-old daughter. When she heard another child crying, she grabbed her toy, walked over toyer toy, walked over to the boy and handed it to him.

    4    But we can prepare ourselves to notice it when they do and take steps to boost the emotion’s positive effects. Here’s how:

Blurting (脱口而出) out “Wow, that was awesome!” is a simple way to help you identify and remember a special experience.     5     Another way is to thank the person who awed you. This makes the other person feel good and can give your relationship a boost. And it helps you too: Studies show that people who practice gratitude have significantly higher levels of happiness than those who don’t.

A．Below are some useful tips.

B．This will enhance your positive emotions.

C．But interpersonal awe happens in smaller moments, too.

D．An awe experience can make us feel small in the vast universe.

E．We can be awed by our nearest and dearest-the people around us.

F．Unfortunately, we can’t make someone else behave in a way that’s awesome.

G．It can also help our relationships, making us more understanding and supportive.

7 . Meeting strangers is probably one of most people’s biggest fears, only second to speaking in front of a crowd. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be an experience as scary as you might think.     1     .

Go out alone. Don’t always go to events with a friend or family member.     2     . If you go with someone you’re familiar with, you’re more likely to stay and talk to the person you already know rather than try to talk with strangers.

    3     . Most people’s favorite topics are about themselves. Even if you don’t have an interesting icebreaker, you can always ask people to talk about themselves—they’ll be more than happy to oblige you. For example: ask what they do for a living, where they’re from, or what they studied in school.     4     . They’ll be excited to share their hobbies, and you might find that you have something in common!

Don’t be embarrassed if you’re visibly nervous. If your voice cracks or your handshake is sweaty, laugh it off. If you’re an amateur comedian and can make it into a joke, point it out and get people laughing with you. If it’s something that makes you feel less confident, just ignore it. Everyone gets nervous sometimes, so push past and continue on with the conversation.     5     .

A．Start by introducing yourself.

B．Encourage people to talk about themselves.

C．People can come to you when you’re alone.

D．By going alone, you’re forced to meet other people.

E．Don’t let it embarrass you enough that you have to walk away.

F．These few easy tips will help you talk with strangers more comfortably.

G．If you get someone talking about their interests, eventually you’ll see their true personalities come out.

10 . Think about that. If you are anything like me, you struggle to ask for help when you need it. It’s something a lot of humans battle with. You don’t want to be a burden on others. You are afraid to speak up, or want to prove that you can do it yourself.

You don’t ask for help when you don’t know how to do something or can’t manage it on your own, because you might be afraid of looking stupid or incompetent. You might pretend like you know what you’re doing when you’re really drowning. Perhaps you think asking for help is a sign of weakness; that if you ask for help you’re admitting you’re inadequate in some way; that you lack knowledge, skill or experience to do something yourself. You don’t want anyone to see that you’re struggling and you want people to think that you’re in control and can handle things.

There are tons of reason you won’t ask for help, but not to do so can be a mistake. You get in your own way if you make asking for help mean something negative about you when it doesn’t. Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re stupid or inadequate. It simply means you need help with something specific for a time.

Confident people often ask others for help. They do so not only because they’re secure enough to let it be known they need help, but they know that trying to do everything themselves is not always the best use of their time, skills or energy. They recognize it can leave them feeling overwhelmed and stressed and then they can’t do things properly. Confident people find someone who’s good at what they need to learn or get done and then ask for their help and guidance. They know that asking, “Can you help me?” shows respect for the other person’s knowledge and abilities. Otherwise, they wouldn’t ask.

1. What is the author’s personality like?

A．He shows great love to others.	B．He hesitates to ask others for help.
C．He looks down upon other people.	D．He dislikes those who pretend to know.

2. What does the underlined word “incompetent” mean in paragraph 2?

A．Indifferent.

B．Unqualified.

C．Determined.

D．Devoted.

3. Confident people will find it quite natural to ________.

A．offer help to other people	B．respect others’ abilities
C．promote their abilities	D．turn to others for help

4. Through this text, the author is trying to ________.

A．advise us to learn more knowledge	B．encourage us to bravely ask for help
C．show our respect to the people around us	D．encourage us to be more confident in our life