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This is the season for giving. Looking to get in touch with your generous side? Learn these four habits of truly thoughtful gift givers.

1. 1.

Considerate gift giving is as much about planning as it is about how well you know the person. Take time to think about his or her personality and interests to figure out how he or she will get the most value.

2. They don’t focus on cost.

The practice of thoughtful giving offers a wealth of benefits, but that doesn’t mean givers should focus on expensive gifts. 2. It seems that having more cash could actually reduce compassion(同情). And isn’t compassion what this time of year is all about? So don’t take it too hard if you don’t have a lot to spend. 3.

3. They make gifts personal.

Gifting is an opportunity to let a person know how much you appreciate and love him, and show how well you know him. 4. Book a massage (按摩), take them to a wine tasting event, or get a couple of tickets to a concert or show. If you’re buying for a parent, taking their kids for an evening could be the best gift of all.

4. They think about the presentation.

5. See what you have around your house to customize packaging. You can use pretty towels to cover something like a bottle of wine. You can also tie on a decoration that fits the theme of your gift.

A. They plan ahead.

B. Instead, get creative.

C. They enjoy giving more than receiving.

D. In fact, thoughtful gift givers don’t concentrate on the cost of presents.

E. Thoughtful gift givers pay attention to detail, including how their gifts are packaged.

F. Make a list of your ideas ahead of time to make sure you find the perfect fit for everyone.

G. If you’re buying for someone who seems to have everything, consider gifting an experience.

I was never very neat, while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but mine always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签)everything. I always looked for everything. Over time, Kate got neater and I got messier. She would push my dirty clothing over, and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

War broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! Why under my bed! ” Deafened, I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation,I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up, she quickly crawled (爬)under her covers, sobbing. Obviously, that was something she should not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy rose up in my heart.

Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bed, cleaned the socks and swept the floor, even on her side. I got so into my work that I even didn’t notice Kate had sat up. She was watching, her tears dried and her expression one of disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me, “Thanks. ”

Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn’t always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.

1.What made Kate so angry one evening?

A. She couldn’t find her books.

B. She heard the author shouting loud.

C. She got the news that her grandma was ill.

D. She saw the authors shoes beneath her bed.

2.The author tidied up the room most probably because .

A. she was scared by Kate’s anger

B. she hated herself for being so messy

C. she wanted to show her care

D. she was asked by Kate to do so

3.How is Paragraph 1 mainly developed?

A. By analyzing causes. B. By showing differences.

C. By describing a process. D. By following time order.

4.What might be the best title for the story?

A. My Friend Kate B. Hard Work Pays Off

C. How to Be Organized D. Learning to Be Roommates

We live in a sweet world. The average American kid consumes more than 20 teaspoons of sugar per day, and adults eat 50% more sugar today than they did in the 1970s. We all know that too much sugar isn’t good for you. But did we know it could be dangerous? A team of researchers at the University of Utah used mice to conduct a study on the negative effects of sugar. They found it could have serious effects on people’s health.

Sugar is found not only in sweets and candies, but also in many household items like pasta and crackers.

During the 58-week-long study, mice were fed a diet containing 25% more sugar. This percentage equals a healthy human diet along with three cans of soda daily. The team found that these mice were twice as likely to die as mice fed a similar diet without the sugar. Though the mice did not show signs of obesity or high blood pressure, male mice were 26% less territorial and produced 25% fewer offspring than the other mice.

Scientists often use mice for research because they have a similar genetic(基因) structure to humans. “Since most substances that are dangerous in mice are also dangerous in people, it’s likely that those physical problems that cause those mice to have increased deaths also work in people,” says study author James Ruff of the University of Utah. Findings from this study reveal negative effects that are not as noticeable as weight gain or heart problems. Sugar can contribute to long-term changes in the body that can change development and even shorten lives.

Cutting sugar out of the American diet altogether may be difficult. But making the effort to control our nation’s sugar desire will provide for a truly sweeter future.

1.The study conducted by researchers aimed at learning about________

A. the advantages and disadvantages of sugar

B. the negative effects of sugar on people’s health

C. the genetic structure of mice

D. American’s diet

2.According to the study, which of the following statements is wrong?

A. Sugar can even shorten lives.

B. Sugar’s negative effects are not noticeable.

C. Mice are more likely to die when fed a diet containing 25% more sugar.

D. Eating much more sugar can make mice put on weight and get high blood pressure.

3.From the passage we can infer_______

A. sugar plays a very important role in Americans’ diet

B. kids consume more sugar than adults in America

C. the study on human beings lasted 58 weeks

D. the genetic structure of mice is totally different from that of people

4.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. Living a sweet life

B. Kids consume much more sugar

C. Genetic structure of humans

D. Danger of sugar

Want to add some hours to your day? Ok, you probably can't change the fabric of time. But a new study suggests that the way you feel about your goal can change your concept of time and that some simple strategies could make you feel less rushed.

In a series of experiments, Jordan Etkin, a professor of marketing at Duke, and her co-authors, Loannis Evangelidis and Jennifer Aaker, looked at what happens when people see their goals as conflicting with one another. In one, they asked some participants to list two of their goals that they felt were in conflict, and others simply to list two of their goals. Those who were forced to think about conflicting aims felt more time pressure than those who weren't. In another experiment, the researchers gave participants a similar prompt regarding goal conflict, but this time measured their anxiety levels as well as their attitudes toward time. They found that participants who thought about conflicting goals had more anxiety than those who didn't, and that this, in turn, led to feelings of being short on time.

"Stress and anxiety and time pressure are closely linked concepts," D. Etkin explained. "When we feel more stress and anxiety in relation to our personal goals, that manifests as a sense of having less time."

Technological advances that allow people to do lots of things at once may increase the fe'eling of goal conflict, she said."I think the easier it is for us to try to deal with a lot of these things at the same time," She said"the more opportunity there is for us to feel this conflict between our goals."She isn't the first to suggest that actual busyness isn't the only thing that can make us feel busy At the Atlantic, Derek Thompson wrote that "as a country, we're working less than we did in the 1960s and 1980s." He offered a number of possible reasons some Americans still feel so overworked, including "the fluidness ffl±) of work and leisure." As he put it:"The idea that work begins and ends at the office is wrong. On the one hand, flexibility is nice, On the other, mixing work and leisure together creates an always-on expectation that makes it hard for white-collar workers to escape the shadow of work responsibilities."

And Brigid Schulte writes in her 2014 book Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time that some researchers believe "time has no sharp edges. What often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time, they have found, is how we feel about it.Our concept of time is indeed,our reality.”

Fortunately, Dr. Etkin and her team did find ways of making us feel better about time—or, at least, of reducing the negative influence of goal conflict. When participants performed a breathing exercise that reduced their anxiety, the impact of such conflict on their perception of time was less pronounced. Reframing anxiety as excitement (by reading the phrase "I am excited!" aloud several times) had a similar effect.

Breathing and reframing may not solve everyone's time problems—Ms. Schulte writes that some Americans are indeed working more than they used to. She cites the work of the sociologists Michael Hout and Caroline Hanley, who have "found that working parents combined put in 13 more hours a week on the job in 2000 than they did in 1970. That's 676 hours of additionally paid work a year for a family. And that's on top of all the unpaid hours spent caring for children and keeping the house together." Sometimes, we may feel short on time because we actually are. However, Dr. Etkin believes her findings suggest we may "have the ability to influence our experience of time more than we think we do."

"We're all going to have times in our lives when our goals seem to be in more conflict than others," she said. But with techniques like the ones her team tested, "we really can help ourselves feel like we have more time."

1.What makes people feel rushed today?

A.Goal conflict. B. High pressure.

C.Too much expectation. D. Lack of exercise.

2.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A. Most people are having less work to do nowadays.

B. People under a lot of stress have a better sense of time.

C. Technological advances allow people to feel less stressed.

D. The flexibility of work increases white-collar workers' pressure.

3.The underlined sentence "Our concept of time is, indeed, our reality." means_______

A.we should make full use of time

B.we value time more than the way we live

C.we can feel better about time if we want to

D.we don't have the time to enjoy life in reality

Walk through the Amazon rainforest today and you will find it steamy, warm, damp and thick. But if you had been there around 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age, would it have been the same? For more than 30 years, scientists have been arguing about how rainforests might have reacted to the cold, dry climate of the ice ages, but till now, no one has reached a satisfying answer.

Rainforests like the Amazon are important for mopping up CO2 from the atmosphere and helping to solve global warming. Currently the trees in the Amazon take in around 500 million tons of CO2 each year: equal to the total amount of CO2 given off in the UK each year. But how will the Amazon react to the future climate change? If it gets drier, will it survive and continue to draw down CO2? Scientists hope that they will be able to learn in advance how the rainforest will manage in the future by understanding how rainforests reacted to climate change in the past.

Unfortunately, collecting information is incredibly difficult. To study the past climate, scientists need to look at fossilized pollen(花粉)kept in lake mud, Going back to the last ice age means drilling down into lake sediments(沉淀物), which requires specialized equipment and heavy machinery. There are very few roads and paths, or places to land helicopters and aeroplanes. Rivers tend to be the easiest way to enter the forest, but this still leaves vast areas between the rivers completely unsampled(未取样). So far, only a handful of cores have been drilled that go back to the last ice age and none of them provide enough information to prove how the Amazon forest reacts to climate change.

1.How do scientists study the past climate change?

A. By predicting the climate change in the future.

B. By drilling down deep into land sediments.

C. By analyzing fossilized pollen in lake mud.

D. By taking samples from rivers in the Amazon.

2.Why is it difficult to collect information about the past climate change?

A. Because scientists can't find proper equipment and machinery.

B. Because it is very difficult to obtain complete samples.

C. Because helicopters and aeroplanes have no place to land.

D. Because none of the cores provide any information.

3.Where is the passage most probably taken from?

A. A medical journal. B. A news report

C. A travel brochure. D. A science magazine.

4.The best title for the text may be .

A. Secrets of the Rainforest

B. Climates of the Amazon

C. The History of the Rainforest

D. Changes of the Rainforest

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