In the kitchen of my mother’s houses there has always been a wooden stand (木架) with a small notepad (记事本) and a hole for a pencil.
I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can’t be the same pencil? The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.
“I’m just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these years.” I say to her, walking back into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”
My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I’ve always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in those days.”
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”
This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have travelled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible (看不到的) exhibits at every meal.
1.Why has the author’s mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?
A．To leave messages.
B．To list her everyday tasks.
C．To note down maths problems.
D．To write down a flash of inspiration.
2.What is the author’s original opinion about the wooden stand?
A．It has great value for the family.
B．It needs to be replaced by a better one.
C．It brings her back to her lonely childhood.
D．It should be passed on to the next generation.
3.The author feels embarrassed for .
A．blaming her mother wrongly
B．giving her mother a lot of trouble
C．not making good use of time as her mother did
D．not making any breakthrough in her field
4.What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
A．The mother is successful in her career.
B．The family members like travelling.
C．The author had little time to play when young.
D．The marks on the breadboard have disappeared.
5.In the author’s mind, her mother is .
A．strange in behaviour
B．keen on her research
C．fond of collecting old things
D．careless about her appearance
Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I hardly went to bed before midnight, and I would always get up late the next morning.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high relationship between success and rising early. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity (效率) was always higher. So I set out to become a habitual early riser. But whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that noise and go back to sleep. Eventually some sleep research showed that my strategy was wrong.
The most common wrong strategy is this: supposing you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. It sounds very reasonable, but will usually fail.
There are two main schools (流派) of thought on sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. The second school says you should go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. However, I have found both are wrong if you care about productivity. If you sleep at fixed hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake.
My solution is to combine both methods. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time. So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5 a.m.), but I go to bed at different times every night.
However, going to bed only when I’m sleepy, and getting up at a fixed time every morning are my ways. If you want to become an early riser, you can try your own.
1.According to the passage, the underlined phrase refers to ________.
A. people who stay up until the next morning
B. people who get up early in the morning
C. people who feel sleepy in the morning
D. people whose productivity is the lowest in the morning
2.Why did the author want to become a habitual early riser?
A. Because he / she wanted to have more sleep time.
B. Because he / she wanted to do morning exercise.
C. Because he / she wanted to test which school is better.
D. Because he / she found that the productivity was higher.
3.The author experienced all the following EXCEPT ________.
A. going to bed after midnight
B. asking scholars for advice on sleeping habits
C. getting up early occasionally
D. pressing off the alarm to go on sleeping
4.What’s the author’s sleep pattern?
A. Going to bed early and getting up early.
B. Going to bed late and getting up late.
C. Going to bed when sleepy and getting up at a fixed early time.
D. Going to bed early and getting up late.
5.The passage is mainly about ________.
A. main schools of thought on sleep patterns
B. how to have a good sleep
C. wrong strategies for getting up early
D. how to become an early riser
Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job’s pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas;
1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
There are isolating jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.
2) How do you handle change?
Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don’t happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.
3) Do you enjoy working with computers？
I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.
4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？
This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won’t know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.
5) How do you like to get paid?
Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.
Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.
1.What does the underlined sentence in paragraph one mean?
A. Before you select your job, you should assess your skills and match them with your position.
B. There are more important things than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select jobs.
C. Nothing is important than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job.
D. You should ignore your skills when you select job.
2.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A. Isolating usually drive people mad.
B. Interactive jobs make people shy easily.
C. Extreme people tend to work with others.
D. Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs.
3.The underlined word “stability” in the passage most probably means?
A. no movement. B. no anger. C. gentleness. D. enthusiasm.
4.In a job search, what quality is not mentioned in the passage?
A. Outgoing. B. Motivated. C. Cooperative. D. Passionate.
5.What could be the best title for this passage?
A. Lifestyles and Job Pay B. Jobs and Environment
C. Job Skills and Abilities D. Personalities and Jobs
完形填空（共20小题；每小题1．5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
Wranglers（争吵者） and Stranglers（扼杀者）
Years ago there was a group of brilliant young men at the University of Wisconsin, who seemed to have amazing creative 36 talent. They were would-be poets, novelists, and essayists. They were extraordinary in their 37 to put the English language to its best use. These promising young men 38 regularly to read and critique (评论) each other's work. And critique it they did!
These men were merciless with one another. They 39 the minutest literary expression into a hundred pieces. They were heartless, tough, even mean in their 40 .The sessions became such areas of literary criticism that the 41 of this special club called themselves the “Stranglers (扼杀者)”.
In order to 42 , the women of literary talent in the university 43 to start a club of their own, one comparable to the Stranglers. They 44 themselves the “Wranglers (争论者)”.They, too, read their 45 one another. But there was one great difference. The criticism was much softer, more 46 , more encouraging. Sometimes, there was almost no criticism at all. Every effort, even the weakest one, was 47 .
Twenty years later an alumnus (男校友；男毕业生) of the university was making an exhaustive (详尽的；彻底的) 48 of his classmates' careers when he 49 a vast difference in the literary accomplishments of the Stranglers as opposed to the Wranglers. Of all the 50 young men in the Stranglers, no one had made a significant literary 51 of any kind. From the Wranglers had come six or more successful 52 , some of national renown (名望；声誉) such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote The Yearling.
Talent between the two？Probably the same. Level of 53 ？Not much difference. But the Stranglers were strangled, while the Wranglers were determined to give each other a(an) 54 .The Stranglers 55 an atmosphere of argument and self-doubt. The Wranglers highlighted the best, not the worst.
1.A. architectural B. artistic C. literary D. musical
2.A. strength B. ability C. performance D. power
3.A. gathered B. organized C. challenged D. collected
4.A. turned B. translated C. combined D. divided
5.A. appreciation B. criticism C. assessment D. judgment
6.A. leaders B. organizers C. members D. arrangers
7.A. participate B. practice C. succeed D. compete
8.A. determined B. agreed C. promised D. dreamed
9.A. regarded B. called C. thought D. recognized
10.A. works B. letters C. books D. papers
11.A. fantastic B. critical C. positive D. serious
12.A. required B. spared C. made D. encouraged
13.A. experiment B. study C. analysis D. judgment
14.A. reflected B. resolved C. explained D. noticed
15.A. optimistic B. confident C. bright D. honest
16.A. achievement B. influence C. contribution D. improvement
17.A. engineers B. writers C. doctors D. lawyers
18.A. courage B. patience C. education D. skill
19.A. reward B. favor C. honor D. lift
20.A. ruined B. lightened C. promoted D. enjoyed
People generally believe that women are more emotional than men, but in my experience that often is not the______.
A. stage B. case C. view D. point
The principal walked onto the platform and seated himself in a chair, ____ for answering questions.
A. prepared B. being prepared C. prepared D. preparing
