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When you think of success, you think of relative achievements in your own world. Each element of your world is important to you, and there is no need to compare with others. You cannot affect the success of others; you can affect your own success.

Success is very much achievable to everybody. Believe that and you have taken the first step. If you do not believe in yourself, then building self-esteem is your first task. However, believing in your ability to achieve whatever you want to succeed in is very important if you are not to be held back by self-doubt throughout your journey to success.

There are many things that will affect your ability to succeed, and it is best to focus on those under your immediate control. Once you do that, then the characteristics you develop can be applied to becoming successful in a range of activities.

What is important to you is that, as you start to reach milestones in your ambitions, you should appreciate your own achievements. Appreciating yourself will strengthen your self-confidence and your determination to succeed.

Some of the key characteristics you will find in those who are successful are perseverance, prepared to research, plan, work hard and practice a lot even when things do not seem to be going well, and an ability to recover and learn from setbacks. At the beginning of whatever you are trying to succeed in, a strong vision of your future, planning, and setting yourself achievable tar gets can all play an important role.

All these qualities, skills and characteristics can be learned and developed. But it is up to you to get things started. Those who do not start travel nowhere. For others, life can be a continuous journey of fulfillment.

1.56. According to the passage, if you want to achieve success, what should you do first?

2.57. Why should you appreciate your own achievements according to the passage?

3.58. The underlined word“setbacks”（in paragraph 5）probably means ________.

4.59. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

Are you an optimist? Do you look at your glass and see it as half full? Do you believe that every cloud has a silver lining and that generally things turn out for the best? Do you believe that if something is meant to be, it will be? If you reply “yes” to all of these questions, then you are an optimist. You probably are enthusiastic, cheerful and outgoing. You may well be successful atwork and in love.

But you may be misguided because things don’t turn out for the best. You may believe that when one door closes another one opens (for example，you may fail to obtain a new job，another chance will come around soon), Wrong. When one door closes, another door slams in your face. That's bitter reality.
Now a book has been published which confirms what we pessimists(悲观者）have suspected all along. It's called The Positive Power of Defensive Pessimism. Its author argues that defensive pessimism can lead to positive results. Defensive pessimism is a strategy used to manage fear, anxiety and worry. Defensive pessimists prepare for things by setting low outcomes for themselves. They carefully consider everything that may go wrong and plan for ways to handle these problems. And this gives them a sense of control. Lawrence Sanno, a psychology professor, says, “What’s interesting about defensive pessimists is that they tend to be very successful people, so their low opinion of the situation’s outcomes is not realistic. They use it to motivate themselves to perform better. ”
So far, so good. This is not rocket science. Defensive pessimists prepare carefully and consider what might go wrong, whether at work, on a date or even in a sports game. It makes sense to have a back-up plan. There are many sayings in English urging caution. For example, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” and “ Don’t count your chickens until they hatch. “ To have a confident and optimistic approach to life’s problems is good. But listen to what Woody Alien，the American comedian says, ”Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.”
There are pros and cons to being an optimist and a pessimist. Don’t feel bad if you see the glass half empty. You are a realist. But lighten up and hook up with someone who sees the same glass half full.
【小题1】What is the passage mainly about?

When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher if I grew up，simply because I wanted to write on the chalkboard！My teachers seemed to be the   36  printers，curving their letters just so，and I wanted to do it   37 ！Now，after "higher education"，and three   38  career paths，I have come back to want to be a   39 ，but my reasons have changed. I was   40  in my years of high school，to have teachers that really   41  me as an individual, and I want to   42  this back.

A teacher's gentleness needs to be shown when    43   or encouraging the students. It is important to make the corrections in order for the students to learn.    44  ，this needs to be done in a    45   that will help to    46   the student to make the changes necessary,___47___  discouraging them from learning.Being patient is also extremely important，because the class needs to know what to    48   from the teacher.This will also help to build a better agreement with the students，and help both the teacher and students to learn more about each other.

If a teacher exhibits a true love of    49   and helping students learn，many of the qualities ___50___ above will just fall into place. The teacher that had the most    51   on me had the best fame in the school. She was strict，and she did demand a lot, but she was able to show us it was               ___52___she cared for us. She knew each of us was worth it，and she knew we each could do it. She __53___ knowledge，gently, firmly, patiently，respectfully, and most effectively. She gently encouraged us to make    54   when we needed to，and    55   us when we did. She was a true teacher, not just someone who taught，and this is the kind of teacher I hope to be.

1.                A．funniest        B．greatest        C．strangest  D．cleverest

2.                A．too            B．either          C．also  D．hard

3.                A．ordinary        B．familiar         C．difficult   D．different

4.                A．teacher        B．doctor          C．lawyer   D．secretary

5.                A．diligent         B．active          C．successful D．fortunate

6.                A．cared about     B．believed in      C．longed for D．thought about

7.                A．take           B．keep           C．give D．hold

8.                A．talking         B．working         C．correcting D．stressing

9.                A．Besides         B．Moreover       C．However  D．Otherwise

10.               A．sense          B．class           C．means D．manner

11.               A．prevent        B．motivate        C．force D．forbid

12.               A．beyond        B．through        C．without   D．towards

13.               A．result          B．hear           C．suffer D．expect

14.               A．teaching        B．learning        C．considering D．treating

15.               A．discussed       B．referred        C．mentioned D．engaged

16.               A．goal           B．impact         C．affect D．duty

17.               A．while          B．although        C．since D．because

18.               A．passed on       B．pulled on       C．kept on   D．turned on

19.               A．decisions       B．choices         C．changes   D．attempts

20.               A．blamed         B．ignored        C．helped    D．praised

When our son, Alex, was young, he hated to travel. We endured refusals to visit one more museum, even if it was the Louvre. We coped with a child who resisted even a taste of onion soup in Paris and who insisted he would like nothing more than ordering room service at the hotel and watching TV.

Over the years, we have come up with several hard-earned but realistic strategies to help kids cope on long-distance trips.

First, we recognize that some children have trouble adjusting to new environments, food, time zones and schedules. So, in advance of a trip to England, we gave our son a taste of the new culture by making shepherd’s pie for supper. He loved the mashed potatoes, chopped meat and brown gravy（肉汁）. For Italy, we sampled homemade pesto（香蒜沙司） served over linguine（扁面条）. For Amsterdam, I cooked up a pot of comforting pea soup and baked a delicious apple pancake called pannekoeken. Then, when we traveled to these places, he ate these foods and they seemed like a taste of home.

In addition to food, we always sample the culture beforehand by reading books and renting movies from the countries we will be visiting. For Italy, the book Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino and the films Johnny Stecchino, Cinema Paradiso, and Il Postino gave our son a glimpse of the Italian way of life. For Britain, we rented Mr. Bean and Billy Elliot, and enjoyed stories by J.R.R. Tolkien and E. Nesbit. For Amsterdam, he finished The Diary of Anne Frank.

Before we leave home, we also ask Alex to go through our tour books and pick out activities that appeal to him. He was excited about visiting the London Dungeon and the Imperial War Museum, and taking a ride in the London Eye. They turned out to be big hits. Because Alex’s preferences were given equal attention, he was more tolerant of his parents’ selections, such as visiting Charters Cathedral and the Van Gogh Museum.

We’ve also learned the hard way that dragging our son out of bed early in the morning ,thus making him grumpy all day. Now that he is a teenager, we let him sleep in while we sip coffee at a café, work out at the hotel gym, or take a long walk. This makes our time together much more enjoyable

1．According to the writer, parents are advised to _______.

A. cook children’s favorite food           

B. postpone traveling until the kids are in college[来源:Z_xx_k.Com]

C. allow their kids a ride in the London Eye

D. take children’s interest and preferences into account

2．Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino are mentioned as _______.

A. particular desires of children         B. an approach to interest the future possible visit

C. highly appreciated films for tourists  D. comfortable activities children could pick out

3．The underlined word “grumpy” in the last paragraph is similar in meaning to _______.

A. bad-tempered           B. tolerant           C. energetic             D. nervous

4．Which of the following might serve as a possible title for this passage?

A. Kids and Parents.                             B. Joys of Traveling.

C. Whether You Go or Not.                       D. How to motivate Kids to travel

My love affair with the sea began when I was no more than six years old, walking along the sandy beaches. I always wanted to make the first set of footprints in the wet sand.
Unlike many surfers who sought the perfect wave, my interests always lay beneath the sea’s surface in a world I could only imagine and dream of. Soon, wearing a snorkel and a mask, I made my first solo adventures in the deep.
Perhaps the greatest turning point in my life came when I was in high school and I wrote a letter to the famous Scripps Oceanographic Institution, in San Diego, asking how I might learn more about the sea.
A kind scientist answered my letter and told me how to apply to Scripps for a summer scholarship, which I received. During one of their cruises that summer, I met Dr. Robert Norris, a marine geologist. He loved the sea almost as much as I did. Soon he was asking me what my plans were and where I expected to attend college. I told him I didn’t know, so he suggested I consider his school, the University of California in Santa Barbara.
Now my love affair with the sea became a serious endeavor. If I wanted to be an undersea explorer, I needed to learn as much as I could about the laws of the physical world that controlled the environment I wanted to enter. The undersea world is not our natural world. It is unforgiving to those who make mistakes. At its greatest depths the water temperature is near freezing, the pressure is eight tons per square inch, and it is totally dark. It is easy to get lost in such a world. I needed to learn a lot about geography, navigation, meteorology, geology, biology, and many other things. While I was in school, I took a little of everything.
I decided another important thing for me to do was to join the U.S. Navy. If I was going to be an undersea explorer, I would have to lead men and women on dangerous adventures where they might get hurt, and I didn’t want that to happen. In the Navy I learned discipline, organization, and how to motivate and lead people on expeditions so that we could explore the wonders of the deep.
Finally, the time came to put all that I had learned to use, to go forth with a team of men and women and explore an adventure I am still on and hope to be on for many years to come.
【小题1】In Paragraph 5, the writer discusses “the laws of the physical world.”Which of the following is an example of one of the laws?