________ I have to say ________ all of you.

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How many times do you have to fail at something in order to succeed? Did you know that Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times while trying to invent the light bulb? He certainly had a “learn and do” attitude! He was able to turn each failed experiment into a successful way to invent the light bulb. So what can we learn from this? You can adopt the “fail forward” strategy too.

In reality, none of us are failures. It’s true that we will experience times of defeat, problems, and disasters, but remember, each one of us is meant to succeed in life. However, we must choose our fate. Henry David Thoreau said, “Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”

We can never be forced into having a happy and successful life. Whether or not you experience success or failure is completely controlled by what you think and do. You are the only one who can choose the thoughts that will keep you from achieving the abundant life and joy that you are meant to have. No matter how difficult things may seem, say to yourself, “I choose to be a happy and successful person.”

Why do some people get what they want and others fail? I believe that getting what you desire in life takes planning, and it doesn’t just happen by luck. So how do we plan for success?

It has been proven that successful people do things more differently than unsuccessful people. They recognize the patterns of success and follow them; one of those patterns is planning. They plan what they think and do, which sets them apart. They know exactly what they desire, have an intelligent plan for getting it, and then work their plan. They know what success will cost them in terms of time, energy, and results, and they devote the right resources toward making their plans happen.

1.The writer refers to Thomas Edison to ________.

A．introduce his invention

B．put forward the topic of the text

C．praise the inventor

D．show the way to success

2.What Henry David Thoreau said implies that ________.

A．everyone is able to be a success

B．most people lack the confidence to succeed

C．everyone can do nothing but succeed in his life

D．no one can succeed without difficulty and suffering

3.The main idea of the last two paragraphs is that ________.

A．planning plays an important role in success

B．successful people differ from unsuccessful ones

C．successful people have many patterns of success

D．devoting the right resources can help reach one’s goal

4.Which of the following would match the text?

A．All roads lead to Rome.        B．Think twice before you act.

C．No pains, no gains.       D．Failure is the mother of success.

For a while, my neighborhood was taken over by an army of joggers．(慢跑者). They were there all the time—early morning, noon, and evening. There were little old ladies in gray sweats, young couples in Adidas shoes, middle-aged men with red faces. “Come on!” My friend Alex encouraged me to join him as he jogged by my house every evening. “You'll feel great.”

    Well, I had nothing against feeling great and if Alex could jog every day, anyone could. So I took up jogging seriously and gave it a good two months of my life, and not a day more. Based on my experience, jogging is the most overvalued form of exercise around, and judging from the number of the people who left our neighborhood jogging army. I'm not alone in my opinion.

    First of all, jogging is very hard on the body. Your legs and feet a real pounding (沉重的脚步) running down a road for two or three miles. I developed foot, leg, and back problems. Then I read about a nationally famous jogger who died of a heart attack while jogging, and I had something else to worry about. Jogging doesn't kill hundreds of people, but if you have any physical weaknesses, jogging will surely bring them out, as they did with me.

    Secondly, I got no enjoyment out of jogging. Putting one foot in front of the other for forty-five minutes isn't my idea of fun. Jogging is also a lonely pastime. Some joggers say, “I love being out there with just my thoughts.” Well, my thoughts began to bore me, and most of them were on how much my legs hurt.

    And how could I enjoy something that brought me pain? And that wasn't just the first week: it was practically every day for two months. I never got past the pain level, and pain isn't fun. What a cruel way to do it! So many other exercises, including walking, lead to almost the same results painlessly, so why jog?

    I don't jog any more, and I don't think I ever will. I'm walking two miles three times a week at a fast pace, and that feels good. I bicycle to work when the weather is good. I'm getting exercise, and I'm enjoying it at the same time. I could never say the same for jogging, and I've found a lot of better ways to stay in shape.

1.From the first paragraph, we learn that in the writer's neighborhood ________.

A. jogging became very popular

B. many people were encouraged to jog

C. Alex organized an army of joggers

D. jogging provided a chance to get together

2. The underlined word “them”(Paragraph 3) most probably refers to ________.

A. heart attacks   B. Back problems  

C. hundreds of people   D. physical weaknesses

3. From the author's experience, we can conclude that ________.

A. jogging can help people keep fit

B. many physical problems result from jogging

C. not everyone enjoys jogging

D. jogging makes people feel great

Parents should stop blaming themselves because there’s not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.

I’ve seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I called round. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. “I don't know what to do with him these days,” she said. “He’s forgotten all the manners we taught him.”

He hasn’t forgotten them. He’s just decided that he’s not going to use them. She confessed (坦白) that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.

Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, “I don’t like your dress; it’s ugly.” One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.

“Where did we go wrong?” her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.

1.This text is most probably written by ______.

A．a doctor for mental health problems

B．a headmaster of a middle school

C．a parent with teenage children

D．a specialist in teenager studies

2.The underlined word “it” in the second paragraph refers to ______.

A．the advice that parents want their children to follow

B．the change from good to bad that’s seen in a child

C．the opinion that a child has of his parents

D．the way that parents often blame themselves

3.From the second example we can infer that the parents of the two daughters ______.

A．pay no attention to them

B．feel helpless to do much about them

C．have come to hate them

D．are too busy to look after them

4.What is the author's opinion about the sudden change in teenage children?

A．Parents should work more closely with school teachers.

B．Parents should pay still sore attention to the change.

C．Parents have no choice but to try to accept it.

D．Parents are at fault for the change in their children.