阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。
There is an old Spanish Proverb which states, "Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week". How many times have we ________ dreams until tomorrow? I’d say too many. Our dreams should not, and cannot ________. We have to go for them now! Here is why.
As you know, tomorrow is not promised. Nobody likes to talk about death, but the ________ is: everybody is going to die at one point. ________ of us know the day, or the hour. ________, today is all we have. Don’t go to your grave with ________ dreams. Make the ________ to go after every dream, big or small right now.
Unless you take the first step, your dreams will never ________. You can ________ about writing the great American play, but it’s never going to happen unless you actually put pen to ________. You can dream about finding a cure ________ cancer, but it will never happen unless you actually go to school to become ________ with the necessary tools to find that cure. In other words, dreams don’t work unless you do. They ________ you to get your head out of the clouds, and actually do the work to make them happen.
You can’t let fear win. One of the biggest dream ________ is fear. There are so many people who could ________ amazing things if only they weren’t afraid. Just think about all the things you’ve wanted to do, but allowed fear to ________ you of the fact that you weren’t capable, or good enough. In the movie After Earth, Will Smith’s character says, "Fear is not ________. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is what exists. But fear is a choice." Choose not to let fear ________ you from achieving your dreams.
Imagine how much ________ you’ll be if you’re living the life you always dreamed about. The only thing that is stopping you is you. There are so many amazing ________ and people waiting for you. So don’t keep your dreams waiting. Go after them today!
1.A. put offB. take offC. set offD. see off
2.A. stopB. disappearC. showD. wait
3.A. theoryB. puzzleC. realityD. concern
4.A. NoneB. NobodyC. AllD. Neither
5.A. HoweverB. ThereforeC. InsteadD. Otherwise
6.A. unfulfilledB. unsatisfiedC. undoneD. unreasonable
7.A. choiceB. decisionC. mistakeD. difference
8.A. realizeB. recognizeC. come trueD. come out
9.A. thinkB. talkC. walkD. dream
10.A. woodB. paperC. bookD. iron
11.A. ofB. asC. toD. for
12.A. equippedB. matchedC. filledD. compared
13.A. requestB. orderC. requireD. command
14.A. supportersB. friendsC. killersD. opponents
15.A. achieveB. have achievedC. loseD. have lost
16.A. tellB. convinceC. persuadeD. remind
17.A. lovelyB. acceptableC. falseD. real
18.A. saveB. shelterC. stopD. protect
19.A. excitedB. happierC. upsetD. more crazy
20.A. advantagesB. informationC. opportunitiesD. dangers
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
How to Say No to Your Boss
Saying “no” to a request can be a difficult thing, especially when the person making the request is your boss. 1. The following steps are helpful.
1. Give yourself some time to think about the request before saying “no”.
If the request arrives via email, don’t reply right away. 2. If your boss asks you in person or on the telephone, request some time to give it thought and tell her you will get back to her by a specific time. Consider the request carefully to determine whether you have to say “no”.
2. Prepare your answer before telling your boss “no”.
Anticipate questions she might ask in response to your answer, and decide how you want to answer them. Rehearse your conversation with your boss out loud to help build your confidence before the real conversation.
3. Choose the right time and place to speak with your boss.
Have the conversation in private if your work situation allows you to get a moment alone with your boss. Keep in mind your boss’s workday pressures and work style. If she is a morning person and gets grumpy（脾气暴躁的）in the afternoon, be sure to speak with her before lunch.
4. 3.
If your boss is asking you to take on more responsibility, that shows that she has faith in your ability to do the job. Acknowledge that it means a lot to you before telling her that you feel you cannot do it.
5. Tell your boss why you have to say “no” to the request.
4. Your boss will be grateful that you answered honestly, rather than trying to take on a project you cannot handle.
6. Offer an alternative solution.
For example, if your boss asks you to serve on a committee, suggest someone else in the company that you think may be interested and capable of serving. 5.
A. Pay your boss a compliment while denying her request.
B. Even if you try your best to do everything the boss lets you do, there are times when you can’t do and have to say “no”.
C. Put yourself in your boss’s shoes and consider how the company will be affected if you refuse the request.
D. Maybe you could offer to share the workload with someone else.
E. Most employers respect honesty in their employees.
F. Try a compromise.
G. Set the request aside and think about it for a while.
Hiking can be a pleasant as well as a not so pleasant adventure. You will have to take a number of measures so that your hike is a pleasant experience.
Hiking Tip 1 — Start Early
Most hiking experts hold the opinion that it is rather sensible to start hiking at 3 or 4 in the morning, even if it is a full-day hike. Since most hikes are conducted at high altitudes, starting off early will make sure that you are back down during the afternoon hours.
Hiking Tip 2 — Be Light
Since we are anyway talking about the load you will carry, another important hiking tip is to carry fewer loads. If you are going on a hiking trail on a familiar path, you will need reduced survival items, as chance that you will get lost or hurt yourself on these hiking trails is little.
Hiking Tip 3 — Reduce the Number of Breaks
Once you start your hike, you should make sure you do not take too many breaks. You will need to maintain a consistent speed and minimize the number of stops which you take. Speed and rest stops help distinguish an inexperienced hiker from an expert hiker. An inexperienced hiker will have bursts of speed and energy and it will be followed by rest stops. This results in slowing down the general speed.
Hiking Tip 4 — Tip for Children
Do you plan to take your kids along with you on the hiking trail? Well, then you must be looking for hiking tips for kids! You will have to educate them about nature and also get them into an exercise routine before taking them on a hike. Kids have a tendency to run in the beginning. This exhausts them and they have to be carried, which is certainly not the best of ideas.
1.You are advised to start hiking early in order to ________.
A. finish your hiking in a day
B. enjoy your hiking completely
C. avoid getting tired
D. get back down early
2.What should you do if you are going hiking on an unfamiliar trail?
A. Carry enough survival items.
B. Keep a high speed.
C. Start hiking in the afternoon.
D. Carry fewer loads.
3.According to the text, inexperienced hikers ________.
A. don’t keep a consistent speed
B. will easily get lost
C. choose well-established paths
D. don’t stop to rest
4.If you want to take a kid for hiking, you should ________.
A. make sure of his safety
B. prepare him for it
C. educate him about hiking
D. give him some tips
Not all bodies of water are so evidently alive as the Atlantic Ocean, an S-shaped body of water covering 33 million square miles. The Atlantic has, in a sense, replaced the Mediterranean as the inland sea of Western civilization. Unlike real inland seas, which seem strangely still, the Atlantic is rich in oceanic liveliness. It is perhaps not surprising that its vitality has been much written about by ancient poets.
“Storm at Sea”, a short poem written around 700, is generally regarded as one of mankind’s earliest artistic representations of the Atlantic.
When the wind is from the west
All the waves that cannot rest
To the east must thunder on
Where the bright tree of the sun
Is rooted in the ocean’s breast.
As the poem suggests, the Atlantic is never dead and dull. It is an ocean that moves, impressively and endlessly. It makes all kinds of noise—it is forever thundering, boiling, crashing, and whistling.
It is easy to imagine the Atlantic trying to draw breath—perhaps not so noticeably out in mid–ocean, but where it meets land, its waters bathing up and down a sandy beach. It mimics(模仿) nearly perfectly the steady breathing of a living creature. It is filled with symbiotic existences, too; unimaginable quantities of creatures, little and large alike, mix within its depths in a kind of oceanic harmony, giving to the waters a feeling of heartbeat, a kind of sub-ocean vitality. And it has a psychology. It has personalities: sometimes peaceful and pleasant, on rare occasions rough and wild; always it is strong and striking.
1.Unlike real inland seas, the Atlantic Ocean is ________.
A. always energetic
B. lacking in liveliness
C. shaped like a square
D. favored by ancient poets
2.What is the purpose of using the poem “Storm at Sea” in the passage?
A. To describe the movement of the waves.
B. To show the strength of the storm.
C. To represent the power of the ocean.
D. To prove the vastness of the sea.
3.What does the underlined word “symbiotic” mean?
A. Living together.B. Growing fast.
C. Moving harmoniously.D. Breathing peacefully.
4.In the last paragraph, the Atlantic is compared to ________.
A. a beautiful and poetic place
B. a flesh and blood person
C. a wonderful world
D. a lovely animal
The Process of Ageing
At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous. It has yet to reach its full size and strength, and its owner his or her full intelligence; but at this age the possibility of death is least. Earlier, we were infants and young children, and consequently more vulnerable (易受伤的); later, we shall undergo a progressive loss of our vigorous and resistance which, though vague at first, will finally become so steep that we can live no longer, however well we look after ourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us.
This decline in vigorous with the passing of time is called ageing. It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that we must decline in this way, that if we escape wars, accidents and disease we shall eventually “die of old age”, and that this happens at a rate which differs little from person to person, so that there are heavy odds in favor of our dying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will die sooner, a few will live longer — on into a ninth or tenth decade. But the chances are against it, and there is a virtual limit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky and physically strong we are.
Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until they are reminded of it. We are so familiar with the fact that man ages, that people have for years assumed that the process of losing vigorous with time, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was something self-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair of shoes. They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universe itself, must in the nature of things “wear out”.
Most animals we commonly observe do in fact age as we do, if given the chance to live long enough; and mechanical systems like a wound (上发条的) watch, or the sun, do in fact ran out of energy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (热力学). But these are not similar or equivalent to what happens when man ages. A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so worn and unreliable that it eventually is not worth mending. But a watch could never repair itself — it does not consist of living parts, only of metal, which wears away by friction (摩擦). We could, at one time, repair ourselves — well enough, at least, to overcome all but the most instantly fatal illnesses and accidents. Between twelve and eighty years we gradually lose this power, an illness which at twelve would knock us over, at eighty can knock us out, and into our grave. If we could stay as vigorous as we are at twelve, it would take about 700 years for half of us to die, and another 700 for the survivors to be reduced by half again.
1.What can be learned from this passage is that ______.
A. people usually are unhappy when they are reminded of ageing
B. children reach their full intelligence at the age of twelve years
C. people are usually more likely to die at the age of twelve years
D. our first twelve years represent the peak of human development
2.The underlined word “it” in the last sentence of Paragraph Two refers to ______.
A. remaining alive until 65
B. dying before 65 or after 80
C. remaining alive after 80
D. dying between 65 and 80
3.What does “ageing” mean according to the passage?
A. It is a fact that people cannot live any longer.
B. It refers to a gradual loss of vigor and resistance.
C. It is usually a phenomenon of dying at an old age.
D. It is a period when people are easily attacked by illness.
4.What do the examples of the watch refer to in the last paragraph?
A. Normally people are quite familiar with the ageing process.
B. The law of thermodynamics functions in the ageing process.
C. All animals and other organisms undergo the ageing process.
D. Human's ageing process is different from that of mechanisms.
Dear Alfred,
I want to tell you how important your help is to my life.
Growing up, I had people telling me I was too slow, though, with an IQ of 150+ at 17, I’m anything but stupid. The fact was that I was found to have ADHD. Anxious all the time, I was unable to keep focused for more than an hour at a time.
However, when something did interest me, I could become absorbed. In high school, I became curious about the computer, and built my first website. Moreover, I completed the senior course of Computer Basics, plus five relevant pre-college courses.
While I was exploring my curiosity, my disease got worse. I wanted to go to college after high school, but couldn’t. So, I was killing my time at home until June 2012 when I discovered the online computer courses of your training center.
Since then, I have taken courses like Data Science and Advanced Mathematics. Currently, I’m learning your Probability course. I have hundreds of printer paper, covered in self-written notes from your videos. This has given me a purpose.
Last year, I spent all my time looking for a job where, without dealing with the public, I could work alone, but still have a team to talk to. Luckily, I discovered the job—Data Analyst—this month and have been going full steam ahead. I want to prove that I can teach myself a respectful profession, without going to college, and be just as good as, if not better than, my competitors.
Thank you. You’ve given me hope that I can follow my heart. For the first time, I feel good about myself because I’m doing something, not because someone told me I was doing good. I feel whole.
This is why you’re saving my life.
Yours,
Tanis
1.Why didn’t Tanis go to college after high school?
A. She had learned enough about computer science.
B. She had more difficulty keeping focused.
C. She preferred taking online courses.
D. She was too slow to learn.
2.As for the working environment, Tanis prefers ________.
A. working by herselfB. dealing with the public
C. competing against othersD. staying with ADHD students
3.Tanis wrote this letter in order to ________.
A. explain why she was interested in the computer
B. share the ideas she had for her profession
C. show how grateful she was to the center
D. describe the courses she had taken so far
