Do you expect _____to be a possibility that we shall be able to afford the particular furniture that we need.

When asked about happiness, we usually think of someth.ng extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer the older we get.

For kids, happiness has a magical quality. Their delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫无掩饰的).

In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most attractive boy at the school party.

In adulthood the things that bring deep joy—love, marriage, birth—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults, happiness is complicated(复杂的).

My definition of happiness is "the capacity for enjoyment". The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, and even good health.

I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunch-box and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which 1 love. When the kids and my husband came home, 1 enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.

Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don't think that my grandmother, who raised 14 children, had much of either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this is what satisfied her.

We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we've got to have. We're so self-conscious about our "right" to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

Happiness isn't about what happens to us―it's about how we see what happens to us. It's the skillful way of finding a positive for every negative. It's not wishing for what we don't have, but enjoying what we do possess.

51. As people grow older, they ______.

A. feel it harder to experience happiness

B. associate their happiness less with others

C. will take fewer risks in pursuing happiness

D. tend to believe responsibility means happiness

53. What can we learn about the author from Paragraphs 5 and 6?

A. She cans little about ha own health

B. She enjoys the freedom of trawling

C. She is easily pleased by things in daily life.

D. She prefers getting pleasure from housework

53. What can be inferred from Paragraph 7?

A. Psychologists think satisfying work is key to happiness

B. Psychologists* opinion is well proved by Grandma's case.

C. Grandma often found time for social gatherings

D. Grandma's happiness came from modest expectations of life,
54. People who equal happiness with wealth and success

A. consider pressure something blocking their way

B. stress their right to happiness too much

C. arc at a loss to make correct choices

D. arc more likely to be happy

55. What can be concluded from the passage?

A. Happiness lies between the positive and the negative.

B. Each nun is the master of his own fate

C. Success leads to happiness.

D. Hippy is he who is content.

The days of elderly women doing nothing but cooking huge meals on holidays are gone. Enter the Red Hat Society －a group holding the belief that old ladies should have fun.

“My grandmothers didn’t do anything but keep house and serve everybody. They were programmed to do that,” said Emily Cornette, head of a chapter of the 7-year-old Red Hat Society.

 While men have long spent their time fishing and playing golf, women have sometimes seemed to become unnoticed as they age. But the generation now turning 50 is the baby boomers(生育高峰期出生的人), and the same people who refused their parents’ way of being young are now trying a new way of growing old.

If you take into consideration feminism(女权主义), a bit of spare money, and better health for most elderly, the Red Hat Society looks almost inevitable(必然的). In this society, women over 50 wear red hats and purple(紫色的) clothes, while the women under 50 wear pink hats and light purple clothing.

 “The organization took the idea from a poem by Jenny Joseph that begins: “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple. With a red hat which doesn’t go,” said Ellen Cooper, who founded the Red Hat Society in 1998. When the ladies started to wear the red hats, they attracted lots of attention.

 “The point of this is that we need a rest from always doing something for someone else,” Cooper said. “Women feel so ashamed and sorry when they do something for themselves.” This is why chapters are discouraged from raising money or doing anything useful. “We’re a ladies’ play group. It couldn’t be more simple,” added Cooper’s assistant Joe Heywood.

1．The underlined word “chapter” in paragraph 2 means __________.

A．one branch of an organization              

B．a written agreement of a club

C．one part of a collection of poems         

D．a period in a society’s history

2．From the text , we know that the “baby boomers” are a group of people who         

A．have gradually become more noticeable                                

B．are worried about getting old too quickly 

C．are enjoying a good life with plenty of money to spend

 D．tried living a different life from their parents when they were young

3．It could be inferred from the text that members of the Red Hat Society are          .

A．interested in raising money for social work

B．programmers who can plan well for their future

C．believers in equality between men and women

D．good at cooking big meals and taking care of others

4．Who set up the Red Hat Society ?

A．Emily Cornette .   B．Ellen Cooper .  

C．Jenny Joseph .    D．Joe Heywood .

5．Women join the Red Hat Society because          .

A．they want to stay young  

B．they would like to appear more attractive

C．they would like to have fun and live for themselves

D．they want to be more like their parents

The energy crisis (危机) has made people aware of how the careless use of the earth’s energy has brought the whole world to the edge of disaster. The over – development of motor transport, with its increase of more cars, more traveling, has contributed to the near – destruction of our cities and the pollution not only of local air but also of the earth’s atmosphere.

Our present situation is unlike natural disasters of the past. Worldwide energy use has brought us to a state where long – range planning is vital. What we need is not a continuation of our present serious state, which endangers the future of our country, our children, and our earth, but a movement forward in order to work rapidly and effectively on planetary problems.

This country has been falling back under the continuing exposures of loss of morality (道德) and the revelation (揭露) that lawbreaking has reached into the highest place in the land. There is a strong demand for morality to turn for the better and for some devotion that is vast enough and yet personal enough to enlist the devotion of all. In the past it has been only in a way in defense of their own country and their own benefits that people have been able to devote themselves wholeheartedly.

This is the first time that we have been asked to defend ourselves and what we hold dear in cooperation with all the other people of this planet, who share with us the same endangered air and the same endangered oceans. There is a common need to reassess our present course, to change that course and to employ new methods through which the world can survive. This is a priceless opportunity.

To grasp it, we need a widespread understanding of nature if the crisis we and the world are facing is no passing inconvenience, no by-product（副产品）of the ambitions of the oil – producing countries, no environmentalists’ only fears, no byproduct of any present system of government. What we face is the result of the invention of the last four hundred years. What we need is transformed life style. This new life style can flow directly from science and technology, but its acceptance depends on a sincere devotion to finding a higher quality of life for the world’s children and future generation.

1. Which of the following has nearly destroyed our cities?

A. The loss of beliefs and ideas.                        B. More of law – breaking.

C. Natural disasters in many areas.                     D.  The rapid growth of motors.

2. By comparing past problems with present ones, the author draws our attention to the        .

A. seriousness of this crisis                                B. ineffectiveness of laws

C. similarity of the past to the present          D. hopelessness of the situation

3. Which of the following is used as an example to show the loss of morality?

A. Disregard for law.                                        B. Lack of devotion.

C. Lack of understanding.                                 D. Destruction of cities.

4. The author wrote the passage in order to        .

A. make a recommendation for a transformed life style

B. limit ambitions of the people of the whole world

C. demand devotion to nature and future generation

D. encourage awareness of the decline of morality

— We need a room for tonight, and I’d like to take a chance to check in without reservation.

   — Don’t you know about the jammed hotels in this season? ______.   

A. Better play it safe                                           B. Do as you please   

C. No problem                                                                            D. Think nothing of it