I had never had a birthday party before, so at my “ripe old” age. I decided to throw one for myself. About 20 people________that they were coming. I don't have a lot of money, but I spent more than________in the $1 store to buy decorations and plates. I had a tiny________in order to ford all of them.
I sat,I________,and,although all of my “friends” had said they were coming, no one________!The celebration was supposed to________at 12 noon. Here it was,4:00 pm,and________,no one was here. The ice-cream cake was________,the food on the barbecue was burnt beyond________.I tried really hard not to cry.
I decided to sit back and relax, reflecting on the________moments that I did have. All of a sudden, I heard a roar of an engine, just outside my front door. Mr. Kenny, apparently, did________he could to show up. I cried in his________, sawing, "I'm not worth anything!" He wiped away my tears,________me tight, and said the________words:"I will always be your friend!" The dark clouds in my mind cleared away at once.
He had had so many challenges and difficulties over his past couple of weeks, but he________to come. As we sat outside under a blanket of clear blue skies, laughing and________,I felt that I was________.He appeared just before I wanted to give up on this________world.
Yes, life is beautiful. Yes, there are some people who love each other for over 50 years.________ there are some of us who do not have those luxuries（福气）.However, never give up the________maybe it is round the comer.
1.A. applied B. pretended C. confirmed D. required
2.A. last B. usual C. first D. forever
3.A. budget B. plan C. destination D. purpose
4.A. doubted B. hesitated C. intended D. waited
5.A. hanged out B. turned around C. checked in D. showed up
6.A. open B. start C. launch D. close
7.A. still B. also C. ever D. too
8.A. freezing B. melting C. hardening D. breaking
9.A. imagination B. control C. recognition D. repair
10.A. wonderful B. terrible C. different D. similar
11.A. anything B. nothing C. something D. everything
12.A. clothes B. aims C. shoulders D. hands
13.A. patted B. dragged C. struck D. held
14.A. magical B. practical C. familiar D. thoughtful
15.A. expected B. managed C. promised D. meant
16.A. thinking B. talking C. fighting D. crying
17.A. betrayed B. forgotten C. respected D. blessed
18.A. risky B. kind C. mean D. bright
19.A. though B. while C. when D. because
20.A. chance B. dream C. hope D. idea
Ways to Worry Less
Do you want to worry less? Of course you do, fight? That's like me asking if I could send you free bacon. Worry is like black mold—it appears in damp conditions and spreads uncontrollably. And often times we don't realize it's there until it's killing us. We must get rid of worry before it destroys us. But how?1.
Do what you need to do.
2.You ought not to avoid tough projects or hard conversions until the last moment. If you don't do what you should be doing, you will end up spending the rest of the time worried about the must-to-do things. Believe it or not, the anxiety that comes from worrying is much worse than the task we're worried about.
3.
I think many of us act like we're puppets（木偶）in a play and we're waiting for something or someone to put us in the right place. You just react to whatever is going on.4.We need to live on purpose. Nothing can cause worry like purposelessness.
Make plans.
You can't have intentionality without making plans. Making plan will enable you to achieve your aims more smoothly. Yet, don't place your plans in stone. You can adjust your plans flexibly. Accept changes.5.
There are other ways to lessen worry. As long as you are determined to take action, you will live a worry-free life.
A. Worry ruins creativity.
B. Get more intentional.
C. Do what you should be doing.
D. We need to stop letting life just happen.
E. Make new plans and then move forward.
F. You do the same as people around you do.
G. Here are some effective ways to deal with it.
Running is often tiring and a lot of hard work, but nothing beats the feeling you get after finishing a long workout around the track.
But while it’s long been believed that endorphins (脑内啡）一chemicals in the body that cause happiness 一 are behind the so-called “runner’s high”，a study suggested that there may be more to this phenomenon than we previously knew.
According to a recent study published by a group of scientists from several German universities, a group of chemicals called endocannabinoids (内源性大麻素）may actually be responsible for this familiar great feeling.
To test this theory, the scientists turned to mice.
Both mice and humans release high levels of endorphins and endocannabinoids after exercise, along with many other chemicals. After exercising on running wheels, the mice seemed happy and relaxed and displayed no signs of anxiety.
But after being given a drug to block their endorphins the change. However, when their endocannabinoids were block with a different drug, their runner’s high symptoms seemed to fade.
“The long-held notion of endorphins being responsible for the runner's high is false. Endorphins are effective pain relievers, but only when it comes to the pain in your body and muscles you feel after working out,” Patrick Lucas Austin wrote on science blog Lifchacker.
Similar studies are yet to be carried out on humans, but it’s already well known that exercise is a highly effective way to get rid of stress or anxiety.
The UK's National Health Service even prescribes (开药方)exercise to patients who are suffering from depression.
“Being depressed can leave you feeling low in energy, which might put you off being more active. Regular exercise can boost your mood if you have depression, and it's especially useful for people with mild to moderate (中等的）depression,” it wrote on its website.
It seems like nothing can beat that feeling we get after a good workout, even if we don t fully understand where it comes from. At least if we’re feeling down, we know that all we have to do is put on our running shoes.
1.What did scientists from German universities recently discover?
A. Working out is a highly effective way to treat depression.
B. The runner's high could be caused by endocannabinoids.
C. Endorphins may contribute to one's high spirits after running.
D. The level of endorphins and endocannabinoids could affect one's mood.
2.The scientists gave mice drugs in their experiment to .
A. find what reduces the runner's high symptoms
B. see the specific symptoms of the runner's high
C. identify what is responsible for the runner's high
D. test what influences the level of endocannabinoids released
3.The underlined word “notion” in Paragraph 7 has the closest meaning to .
A. effect B. goal
C. question D. belief
4.According to the UK’s National Health Service, regular workouts .
A. are the best way to treat depression
B. can help ease depression symptoms
C. only work for those with serious depression
D. can help people completely recover from depression
The scar ran down her leg from the knee to the ankle. She brushed her fingertips over its surface, remembering.
Jerry was only seven when he started surfing; by the age of eleven, he was positively incredible, moving over the face of big waves like there wasn’t even a slightest bit of efforts involved in.
On that day in Bah, though, the ocean had seemed strange. The waves broke like water in a washing machine, and the breaks had been heavy too, making it tough to tell whether it was better to try to catch one or to get out of its way. That was how he’d misjudged.
Ella had seen her brother lose control, his board was thrown out of the water riderless high into the air, but she hadn’t seen him surface. She’d waited for the space of a breath. Nothing. Something, clearly, was wrong.
She dashed into the water, swimming faster even than the competitions at school. Lung burning. Heart Piping-Focused.
She’d found him floating just beyond the reef (暗礁), face up but knocked out cold. Just as she was paddling the water hard, her leg was hurt by the reef, a short, sharp instant of pain.
No matter. She had kept Jerry’s head above water, swimming all the way back to shore. That day had been the worst, scariest moment in Jerry’s surfing career, which has seen him rise from a no-name kid who loved the ocean to a young star, winning competitions around the world.
For Ella, her life had changed as well. She had learned something about who she was, about what she could achieve. She ran her fingers again over the scar, the physical map of the person she had become.
1.Why did Ella think something was wrong?
A. She didn’t see Jerry come out of water.
B. She had not seen Jerry lose control before.
C. She saw Jerry’s board high into the air.
D. She noticed Jerry held his breath longer.
2.What does the underlined part “positively incredible” probably mean?
A. Terribly excited. B. Extremely good.
C. Relatively young. D. Hardly talented.
3.For Ella, the scar represents .
A. her skill at saving lives B. her discovery of self-value
C. her envy of her brother D. her love for swimming career
4.What can be inferred from the text?
A. Ella was as outstanding an athlete as Jerry.
B. Jerry learned how to surf all by himself.
C. Ella was grateful for this terrible experience.
D. Jerry had his leg injured in the surfing accident.
Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.
Members go on the site and register the books they own and would like to share. BookCrossing provides an identification number to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.
Bruce Pederson, the managing director of BookCrossing, says, ＂The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. BookCrossing combines both.＂
Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.
People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E-mails are then sent to the BookCrossing to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce peterson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.
BookCrossing is part of a trend among people who want to get back to the ＂real＂ and not the virtual(虚拟). The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty-five countries.
1.Why does the author mention book groups in the first paragraph?
A. To explain what they are.
B. To introduce BookCrossing.
C. To stress the importance of reading.
D. To encourage readers to share their ideas.
2.What does the underlined word ＂it＂ in Paragraph 2refer to?
A. The book. B. An adventure.
C. A public place. D. The identification number.
3.What will a BookCrosser do with a book after reading it?
A. Meet other readers to discuss it.
B. Keep it safe in his bookcase.
C. Pass it on to another reader.
D. Mail it back to its owner.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A. Online Reading: A Virtual Tour
B. Electronic Books: A new Trend
C. A Book Group Brings Tradition Back
D. A Website Links People through Books
The National Gallery
Description:
The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a different collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13th-century religious paintings to more modem ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modem works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance
Layout:
The modem Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.
The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.
The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.
The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.
Opening Hours:
The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.
Getting There:
Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).
1.In which century’s collection can you see religious paintings?
A. The 17th. B. The 13th.
C. The 18th. D. The 20th.
2.Where are Leonardo da Vinci’s works shown?
A. In the East Wing. B. In the Sainsbury Wing.
C. In the main West Wing. D. In the North Wing.
3.Which underground station is closest to the National Gallery?
A. Piccadilly Circus. B. Leicester Square.
C. Embankment. D. Charing Cross.
