Henry was an office worker in a big city. He worked very hard and enjoyed traveling in his holidays.

He usually went to the seaside, but one year he saw an advertisement in a newspaper. “Enjoy country life. Spend a few weeks at West Hill Farm. Good food. Fresh air. Horse riding. Walking. Fishing. Cheap and interesting.”

“This sounds a good idea,” he thought. “I’ll spend a month at West Hill Farm. I think I can enjoy horse riding, walking and fishing. They’ll make a change from sitting by the seaside and swimming.”

He wrote to the farmer. In the letter he said that he would like to spend all of July there. Then on the first of July, he left for West Hill Farm.

But four days later, he returned home.

“What was wrong with West Hill Farm?” his best friend, Ed, asked him. “Didn’t you enjoy country life?”

“Country life was very good,” Henry said. “But there was another problem.”

“Oh. What?”

“Well,” he said, “the first day I was there a sheep died, and we had roast mutton for dinner.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Ed asked. “Fresh meat is the best.”

“I know, but on the second day a cow died, and we had roast beef for dinner.”

“Lucky you!”

“You don’t understand,” Henry said. “on the third day a pig died and we had roast pork for dinner.”

“A different meat every day,” Ed said loudly, “and you are complaining!”

“Let me finish,” Henry said. “on the fourth day the farmer died, and I didn’t dare(敢) stay for dinner!”

1.How did Henry find out about the farm?

A. He saw it in a newspaper advertisement.

B. His best friend told him.

C. He wrote to the farmer.

D. Maybe he learned it from the radio.

2.Henry came back home several days later because ________.

A. he didn’t like the country life at all

B. the farmer wasn’t friendly to him

C. his holiday was over

D. he thought he might have to eat the farmer

3.Which is the best title for the passage?

A. What a beautiful farm!

B. Have a good time

C. A short holiday

D. Henry and the farmer

Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self-respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized(把……归类) as “honor” help you create this life of good feelings.

Here’s an example to show how honorable actions create happiness.

Say a store clerk fails to charge us for an item. If we keep silent, and profit from the clerk’s mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky (暗中的) excitement. Later we might tell our family or friends about our good fortune. On the other hand, if we tell the clerk about the uncharged item, the clerk would be grateful and thank us for our honesty. We would leave the store with a quiet sense of honor that we might never share with another soul.

Then, what is it to do with our sense of happiness?

In the first case, where we don’t tell the clerk, a couple of things would happen. Deep down inside we would know ourselves as a type of thief. In the process, we would lose some peace of mind and self-respect. We would also demonstrate that we cannot be trusted, since we advertise our dishonor by telling our family and friends. We damage our own reputations by telling others. In contrast, bringing the error to the clerk’s attention causes different things to happen. Immediately the clerk knows us to be honorable. Upon leaving the store, we feel honorable and our self-respect is increased. Whenever we take honorable actions we gain the deep internal rewards of goodness and a sense of nobility.

There is a beautiful positive cycle that is created by living a life of honorable actions.

Honorable thoughts lead to honorable actions. Honorable actions lead us to a happier existence. And it’s easy to think and act honorably again when we’re happy. While the positive cycle can be difficult to start, once it’s started, it’s easy to continue. Keeping on doing good deeds brings us peace of mind, which is important for our happiness.

1.According to the passage, the positive action in the example contributes to our __________.

A. friendly relationship B. financial rewards

C. advertising ability D. self-respect 21*com

2.The author thinks that keeping silent about the uncharged item is equal to __________.

A. lying B. cheating

C. stealing D. advertising

3.How will we feel if we let the clerk know the mistake?

A. We’ll be very excited.

B. We’ll have a sense of honor.

C. We’ll feel unfortunate.

D. We’ll feel sorry for the clerk.

4.Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?

A. Happiness through Honorable Actions

B. Importance of Peacefulness

C. Ways of Gaining Self-respect

D. How to Live Truthfully

Do you want to live forever? By the year 2050,you might actually get your wish-if you are willing to leave your biological body and live in silicon circuits (半导体电路). But long before then, perhaps as early as 2020,some measures will begin offering a semblance of immortality (虚的永生).

Researchers are confident that the technology will soon be able to track every waking moment of your life? Whatever you see and hear, all that you say and write, can be recorded, analyzed and added to your personal chronicles (履历). By the year 2030, it may be possible to catch your nervous systems through electrical activities, which would also keep your thoughts and emotions.

Researchers at the laboratories of British Telecommunications have given the name of this idea as Soul Catcher. Small electronic equipment will make preparation for Soul Catcher. It would use a wearable supercomputer, perhaps in a wristwatch, with wireless links to microseosors under your scalp (头皮) and in the nerves that carry all five sensory signals. So wearing a video camera would no longer be required.

At first, the Soul Catcher's companion system-the Soul Reader-might have trouble copying your thoughts in complete details. Even in 2030, we may still be struggling to understand how the brain is working inside, so reading your thoughts and understanding your emotions might not be possible. But these signals could be kept for the day when they can be transferred to silicon circuits to revitalize minds everlasting entities (永生实体). Researchers can only wonder what it will be like to wake up one day and find yourself alive inside a machine.

For people who choose not to live in silicon, semblance of immortal it would not be as useless as they thought. People would know their lives would not be forgotten, but would be kept a record of the human race forever. And future generations would have a much fuller understanding of the past. History would not be controlled by just the rich and powerful, Hollywood stars, and a few thinkers in the upper society.

1.The main idea of this passage is that_____ .

A. human beings long for living forever

B. there are many difficulties in making the Soul Catcher

C. people can live forever as technology develops

D. the invention of Soul Catcher has great importance

2.According to this passage, a Soul Catcher will be______ .

A. a new machine on which research measures have already been made

B. a new invention in order to catch and keep human's thoughts

C. made by British scientists to offer something that looks like living forever

D. made of silicon circuits which can catch people's nervous activity

3.We can infer from the passage that semblance of immortality is______.

A. to be a reality sooner or later

B. far from certain

C. just an idea that couldn't be realized at all

D. a fading hope

4.The meaning of the underlined word revitalize, in the fourth paragraph is close to___ .

A. make dead B. make famous

C. make known D. make active

根据短文内容,从短文后的七个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。

Culture Shock

Culture shock refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, uncertainty, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country.

Generally speaking, we could say that there are four stages of culture shock. The first stage is called “the honeymoon”. In this stage, you are excited about living in a different place. ___1.__

The next stage is “the hostility(敌意) stage”. In this stage, you begin to notice not everything is as good as you originally thought it was. ___2.___ Moreover, people don’t treat you like a guest anymore.

Then you come to the third stage called “recovery”. In this stage, you start to feel more positive. ___3._ The whole situation starts to become more favorable and begin to learn to adapt yourself to it.

The last stage of culture shock is called “adjustment”. In this stage, you have reached a point where you actually feel good. ___4.__ The things that originally made you feel uncomfortable or stranger are now things that you understand. Now you have adjusted to the new culture and you feel comfortable.

Not all individuals visiting another country will experience all the four stages. ___5.___ It also occurs within cultures as individuals move from place to place or from one setting to another (e.g., from high school to college).

A. You feel that friends should help each other to deal with culture shock.

B. And you try to develop comprehension of everything you don’t understand.

C. In addition, culture shock is not limited to the overseas visitors.

D. You become tired of many things about the new culture.

E. You have learned enough to understand the new culture.

F. You begin to understand you need to travel a lot.

G. And everything seems to be marvelous and everybody seems to be so nice to you.

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