There are many simple, powerful phrases we use. “I love you” is a big one. “I’m sorry” is another. “I forgive you” is powerful for both the speaker and the recipient(接受者). But the phrase that can change the way we relate to others and the way we view the world has become unpopular: “I need your help”.
When we acknowledge our need for help, we go beyond just connecting with others; we show our needs and allow ourselves to receive. Why is this so hard? It isn’t just our own skills or strengths that help us survive and bounce back from difficult times; it’s also making the choice to reach out to others.
It’s easy for most of us to give. It feels life affirming to help others, to give of ourselves. But asking for help and being willing to receive help from others is much harder. When we take that risk—the risk that the answer might be rejection, or unwillingness to help---we are not being weak. We are being vulnerable(易受伤害的), which is perhaps our greatest untapped strength.
Life is never “stress-free”; we all have those times that seem particularly overwhelming, where we get so tired that the word “tired” just doesn’t do it justice anymore. These are the times when it seems hardest to reach out, and these are the times when we need to do it the most.
When we ask for help:
★We are choosing to trust the person we ask for help; this shows our respect for him/her.
★We are using our resources wisely. It is a wise person that chooses to ask for help before a problem is out of control.
★We are helping to break down this idea of asking for help as weakness.
1.What can we learn from Paragraph 1?
A. Phrases can be powerful when used correctly.
B. We should use powerful phrases more often.
C. People don’t need as much help as before.
D. People don’t tend to ask for help today.
2.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 mean?
A. Life is a matter of choice.
B. Asking for help is very important.
C. It’s actually very easy to ask for help.
D. We need a lot of skills to survive hard times.
3.Which of the following statements would the author agree with?
A. Showing our weakness is our strength.
B. Offering help is harder than asking for help.
C. People are usually willing to offer help.
D. We should be ashamed of being vulnerable.
4.What does the author mainly want to show in the text?
A. Asking for help when necessary doesn’t mean weakness.
B. Today’s people love depending on themselves.
C. We should do our best to help others in need.
D. It’s not a bad idea to show our weakness.
A company has designed a water bottle, the Memobottle, which is ideal for the office worker’s bag, because it’s completely flat. With the same shape as a piece of paper, the Memobottle is a reusable water bottle that slides into your bag to lie next to books and laptops. The bottle, which can also be washed in a dishwasher, is designed to help reduce the number of plastic bottles in landfills（填埋）.
Two creative people Jesse Leeworthy and Jonathan Byrt, both 28,designed the bottle to be convenient to carry and environmentally friendly. It is made from a durable and dishwasher-friendly“green” plastic.
Leeworthy and Byrt,from Australia, say more than 600 billion single-use bottles were sold globally last year. In America alone, studies show that around 1,500 single-use water bottle are consumed every second—only 20 percent of these are recycled. And the cost of buying more and more plastic bottles adds to— the pair say that bottled water costs approximately 1,400 times more than tap water.
“We’ve always been passionate about the environment,” said Leeworthy.“For years we have been focused on creative design that provides environmental remedy while improving social convenience. The Memobottle was designed to overcome two problems that we see in our society: our attachment to the outdoors,and our inability to fit water bottles in laptop bags.”
The bottle will be available in three different sizes— A5 which holds 750 ml,A4 which holds 1.25 litres and letter size which stores 1.25 litres. The product is seeking funding on Kickstarter and has already soared（飙升）past its primary goal of raising £8,310 ($13,500),reaching it in just 36 hours. Jonathan Byrt said, “The feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive! The emails of support and interest, and social media comments have been amazing!”
The product is expected to be on the market by Christmas and will be available for global delivery.
1.What is the main character of the newly-designed water bottle?
A. Clean and easy to wash.
B. Practical and friendly to environment.
C. Flat and popular with housewives.
D. Cheap and convenient to carry in bags.
2.What are the two designers most concerned about?
A. Materials and shape. B. Price and production.
C. Comments and popularity. D. Environment and convenience.
3.What is people’s attitude towards the water bottle?
A. Opposed. B. Indifferent.
C. Supportive. D. Doubtful.
4.What can be the best title of the text?
A. The way to protect water resource.
B. Round water bottles are out of date.
C. Seeking fund for an ideal water bottle.
D. Two creative Australian young designers.
Here are the responses from parents to the posts(帖子)about toys.
●Michele Manhire
My son Aaron is 8. It’s been 8 birthdays and 9 Christmases of “What can we get, Aaron?” without proper toys along the way. He is just simply particular about toys. I can honestly tell you, I am printing this list, and heading to a couple of stores (some online) that I can get some of these items! Maybe this won’t be such a depressing Christmas.
●Vera
Do you have any yam balls (纱球)I bought a giant one for my classroom but ended up keeping it for my own kids. They’re strong enough to throw but soft enough to use as a doll bed.
●Natalie
Excellent post! Thank you so much for putting this together. I have been looking through special needs toy lists to find one that I thought would be most helpful to my followers. This post agrees to our personal experience most closely. I have shared it with many other groups and the feedback has been wonderful.
●Meagan
This is a great list. My son loved his egg chair and empty bottles are always a win. He also loves to turn a globe and look at wonder tubes. Wonder tubes are about $ 6 on Amazon. This year one of his gifts is a gel (凝胶）filled medicine ball.
1.What are the four posts responding to?
A. A game list B. A party list
C. A toy list D. A food list
2.What is Michele’s problem?
A. She has no money for toys.
B. She can’t find good toys for herself.
C. Her son has a special taste for gifts.
D. Her son missed too many birthdays.
3.Who suggests a good toy which can be used as a bed for dolls?
A. Michele Manhire. B. Natalie.
C. Meagan. D. Vera.
假定你是高中三年级学生李华，你向你的英国朋友Peter咨询在短时间内提高英语水平。请你根据下列要求写信。
要求：
1.英语学习现状（主要问题，至少两点）；
2.寻求帮助。
注意：
1.词数100左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3.开头语已写好，不算入字数。
Dear Peter,
Yours,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10 处错误，每句中最多有两处。错误涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加；在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改；在错的词下划一满线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：
1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Dear Sir，
Thank you for invite me to the summer English course in your school. As for your choice between the two courses, prefer the four-week course because of this will allow me more time to do sora traveling and make a few mw friends. Of all the subject I’m teaming at school, I like English best. I had been learning English for eleven years but my spoken English remains poorly, So I real hope to take this chance to improve it. If possible, I’d like to slay with a family for a couple of days in order that I can knew some customs in England- what I’m particularly interested in,I believe I will have wonderful time this summer.
YouR truly,
Grace
The story happened several years ago. I was in Texas and I had a friend 1. family business was to provide accommodation to people. He asked me whether I would be interested in doing a part-time job in one of the leading 2. (hotel), I said sure.
One day at around 2 a.m.in the night, I saw a car rushing 3. the parking zone with fire 4. (come) out from the front of the car and it looked pretty 5. (danger).It happened that the car might explode and there were 6. (near) 50 cars parked there. I immediately 7. (run) to see what was happening. In the meantime, the owner of the car, got out and tried to put out the fire. Within five minutes, we controlled the situation and the fire was put out. Imagine how terrible 8. would have been if other vehicles in the parking lot had caught fire. Ralph expressed his 9. (appreciate) and in the morning everyone who saw and came to know about the incident said to me that I had done 10. great job. I got a hero’s applause.
