When my grandmother was raising me in Stamps,Arkansas,she had a particular routine when people who were known to be whiners entered her store.My grandmother would ask the customer,“How are you doing today,Thomas?”

The person would reply,“Not so good today, Henderson.You see,it's this summer heat.I just hate it.It just makes me tired.It's almost killing me.”Then my grandmother would stand calmly,her arms folded,and say,“Uh-huh,uh huh.”

As soon as the complainer was out of the store,my grandmother would call me to stand in front of her.Then she would say the same thing she had said at least a thousand times,it seemed to me.“Jane,did you hear what so-and-so complained about?”And I would nod.Grandmother would continue,“Jane,there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night,poor and rich and black and white,but they will never wake again.Those dead people would give anything,anything at all for just five minutes of this weather that person was complaining about.So you watch yourself about complaining,Jane.What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it.If you can't change it,change the way you think about it.Don't complain.”

I have learned a lot from my grandmother.Her opinions always hit the nail on the head.Whining is not only impolite,but can be dangerous.

6. The underlined word “whiners” in Paragraph 1 refers to those people who ________.

A. complain often         B. enter a store regularly

C. are afraid of hot weather  D. think little of themselves

7. From what the author's grandmother said we can infer  that________.

A. she tried to comfort the whiners

B. she was impolite to the whiners

C. she was against whining

D. she shared the whiners' opinions

8. The author's grandmother told her to________.

A. be sympathetic to the dead

B. treasure every moment of her life

C. keep away from the whiners

D. get used to things she disliked

9. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Grandmother once owned a store in Stamps,Arkansas.

B. The author was told different things after different whiners left Grandmother's store.

C. The author was told that she could change her way of thinking about things.

D. Grandmother's opinion that people shouldn't complain was reasonable.

10. What is the purpose of the author in writing the passage?

A. To show that complaining is not only rude but harmful.

B. To tell us a story about her grandmother.

C. To show how to live one's life to the fullest.

D. To tell us people's different attitudes towards complaining.

A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced towaist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I’d had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill,she noticed my Louisiana license plate. “You from New Orleans?”she asked I said I was, “No charge.”She said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage (抵押贷款〉on our mined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We’d began to accept that we*d have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kemmedy in California. He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for State, the online magazine  and wanted to give us (""no conditions attached’)a new house across thelake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plan to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to let his house to me, while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet’s offer to James Kemdedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It’s almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

1.The garage employee’s attitude toward the author was that of           

A.unconcern                 B.sympathy

C.doubt                     D.tolerance

2.What do we know about James Kemnedy?

A.He was a writer of an online magazine.

B.He was a poet at the University of Florida

C.He offered the author a new house free of charge.

D.He learned about the author’s sufferings via e-mail

3.It can be inferred from the text that         

A.the author’s family was in financial difficulty

B.rents were comparatively reasonable despite the disaster

C.houses were difficult to find in the hurricane-stricken area

D.the mortgage on the ruined house was paid off by the bank

4.The author learned from his experience that          

A.worldly possessions can be given up when necessary

B.generosity should be encouraged in some cases

C.people benefit from their sad stories

D.human beings are kind after all.

 

Fourteen – year – old Richie Hawley had spent five years studying violin at the Community School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles when he took part in a violin contest. Ninety two young people were invited to the contest and Hawley came out first.

  The contest could have been the perfect setup for fear, worrying about mistakes, and trying to impress the judges. But Hawley says he did pretty well in staying calm. “I couldn’t be thinking about how many mistakes I’d make — it would distract me from playing,” he says. “I didn’t even remember trying to impress people while I played. It’s almost as if they weren’t there. I just wanted to make music.”

Hawley is a winner. But he didn’t become a winner by concentrating on winning. He did it by concentrating on playing well.

  “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part,” said the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin. “The important thing in life is not the triumph (胜利) but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

  A characteristic of high performers is their intense, pleasurable concentration on work, rather than on their competitors or future glory or money, says Dr. Charles Garfield, who has studied 1,500 achievers in business, science, sports, the arts, and professions. “They are interested in winning, but they are most interested in self - development, testing their limits.”

  One of the most surprising things about top performers is how many losses they’ve had and how much they’ve learned from each. “Not one of the 1,500 I studied defined losing as failing,” Garfield says. “They kept calling their losses ‘setbacks’.”

  A healthy attitude toward setbacks is essential to winning, experts agree.

  “The worst thing you can do if you’ve had a setback is to let yourself get stuck in a long depression. You should analyze carefully what went wrong, identify specific things you did right and give yourself credit for them.” Garfield believes that most people don’t give themselves enough praise. He even suggests keeping a diary of all the positive things you’ve done on the way to a goal.

1.Hawley won the contest because ________.

A. he put all his mind to his performance

B. he cared much about the judges’ feelings

C. he tried his best to avoid making mistakes

D. he paid close attention to the people around

2.According to the passage, successful people concentrate on ________.

A. challenging their own limits                              B. learning from others

C. defeating their opponents                                    D. avoiding setbacks

3.The passage tells us that “praise” in times of trouble ________.

A. helps people deal with their disappointment

B. makes people forget their setbacks

C. makes people regret about their past

D. helps people analyze what went wrong

 

Choosing the right job is probably one of the most important decisions we have to make in life, and it is frequently one of the hardest decisions we have to make. One important question that you might ask yourself is: "How do I get a good job?"   1.  .

There are people who can answer an insignificant advertisement in the local paper and find the best job in the world; others write to all sorts of places all over the country, and never seem to get a reply at all. Still others believe that the in-person, door-to-door approach is by far the best way to get a job; and then there are those who, through no active decision of their own, just seem to be in the right place at the right time.    2.  . He used to spend a lot of his free time down by the sea watching the tall ships, but never thinking that he might one day sail one of them. His father was a farmer, and being a sailor could never be anything for the boy but an idle dream. One day, on his usual wandering, he heard the captain of the ship complaining that he could not sail because one member of his crew was sick. Without stopping to think, the young man offered to take his place.    3.   .

 4.  . If the young man had gone home to ponder(考虑)his decision for a week, he may have missed his chance. It is one thing to be offered an opportunity; it is another thing to take it and use it well.

Sometimes we hear stories about people who break all the rules and still seem to get plum jobs(美差). When you go for a job interview or fill out an application, you are expected to say nice things about the company to which you are applying.    5.. And within a year this person had become general manger of the company.

A.This story also illustrates the importance of seizing an opportunity when it presents itself.

B.People find jobs in an limitless number of ways.

C.It's almost impossible to find a good job by answering advertisement in newspapers.

D.Take for example the young man who wanted to be a sailor.

E.But there was one person who landed an excellent job by telling the interviewer

all the company's faults.

F.He spent the rest of his life happily sailing the ships he had always loved.

G.It is very important to seize an opportunity when you are given one.

 

Howling is a behaviour commonly observed among a wolf pack. As pack animals, wolves work together to hunt and rely on howling as an important means of communication among each other. There are different explanations of a wolf’s howl and it appears that there may be more to discover.

One theory is that wolves howl to bond better together. It’s almost as if howling together helps the pack stay together. Perhaps something similar to people feeling a sense of involvement with each other when singing a song together. But this theory may be wrong, explains Fred H. Harrington, a professor who studies wolf behaviour.

Indeed, there have been times when wolves have been seen one moment howling in a chorus, and the next, quarreling among each other. It appears that usually the lowest-ranking members of the pack may actually be “punished” for joining in the chorus at times. So is howling a way to strengthen a social bond or just a way to reconfirm status among its members? —Why do wolves howl for sure?

What is clear, however, is that howling is often used among packmates to locate each other. Hunting grounds are distant and it happens that wolves may separate from one another at times. When this happens, howling appears to be an excellent means of gathering.

Howling, interestingly, is a contagious behaviour. When one wolf starts to howl, very likely others will follow. This is often seen to occur in the morning, as if wolves were doing some sort of “roll call” where wolves all howl together to report their presence.

1.What is the possible similarity between wolves’ howling together and humans’ singing in chorus?

A. The act of calling each other.          B. The sense of accomplishment.

C. The act of hunting for something.      D. The sense of belonging to a group.

2.Why does Harrington think the “social bond” theory may be wrong?

A. Wolves separate from each other after howling. 

B. Wolves tend to protect their hunting grounds.

C. Wolves sometimes have quarrels after howling together.

D. Wolves of low rank are encouraged to join in the chorus.

3.Researchers are sure that wolves often howl to ______.

A. show their ranks               B. find their companions

C. report the missing ones          D. express their loneliness

4.“Howling… is a contagious behaviour” (in the last paragraph) means _______.

A. howling is a signal for hunting       

B. howling is a way of communication

C. howling often occurs in the morning   

D. howling spreads from one to another

 

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