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Recently, a professor of philosophy in the United States has written a book called MoneyandtheMeaningofLife. He has discovered that how we deal with money in our daytoday life has more meaning than we usually think. One of the exercises he asked his students to do is to keep a record of every penny they spend for a week. From the way they spend their money, they can see what they really value in life.
He says that our relation with others often becomes clearly defined when money enters the picture. You might have wonderful friendship with somebody and you think that you have a very good friend. But you will know him only when you ask him to lend you some money. If he does, it brings something to the relationship that seems stronger than ever before. Or it can suddenly weaken the relationship if he doesn't. This person may say that he has a certain feeling, but if it is not carried out in the money world, there is something less real about it.
Since money is so important to us, we consider those who possess a lot of it to be very important. The author interviewed some millionaires in researching his book.
Question: What is the most surprising thing you have discovered about being rich?
Answer: The most surprising thing is why people give me so much respect. I am nothing. I do not know much. All I am is rich.
People just have an idea of making more and more money, but what is it for? In his book, the professor uncovered an important need in modern society: to bring back the idea that money is an instrument rather than the end. Money plays an important role in the material world, but expecting money to give happiness may be missing the meaning of life.
【小题1】The author seems to believe that asking your friend to lend you some money ________.
| A.is a good way to test your friendship |
| B.will do harm to your friendship |
| C.will strengthen your friendship |
| D.is a good way to break off your friendship |
| A.He does not feel that he is well educated. |
| B.He does not think that he is a very important person. |
| C.He does not think that being rich is worth so much attention. |
| D.He does not consider himself to be very successful. |
| A.Money is an end. | B.Money is a means. |
| C.Money is everything. | D.Money is unimportant. |
| A.Money is important in modern society. |
| B.The meaning of life does not completely lie in money. |
| C.Wealth will surely bring the owner happiness |
| D.Happiness is not necessarily the result of wealth. |
A few months ago I was at a bus stop in town in the evening. The bus came on time and I took the window seat. The bus route was by the seashore and I was enjoying the breeze (微风) while watching the sea waves. After a few minutes the bus made its next stop. A young boy and a girl got on. They were standing on my left when the bus pulled off. I looked at them curiously and realized that all the window seats were occupied (占据). They could sit but not together. Suddenly a different wave passed through my body and my inner mind gave me the advice to get up. I got up and offered them my seat. The young lady smiled kindly and said thanks. I occupied another seat and we parted our ways. I don’t remember whether I got off the bus before them or not.
Months passed by. Suddenly one day while I was standing at the same bus stop waiting some time for the bus to arrive I heard a voice.
“Excuse me, Uncle.” I looked in the direction of the voice. It was a beautiful young lady.
Puzzled, I said, “I do not recognize you.”
She said, “Do you remember you gave us your window seat?”
Puzzled, I said, “Maybe, but what is so great in that?”
She said, “If you had not given your seat that day, perhaps I would have not sat with my friend. By sitting together it helped us bridge a misunderstanding that had been between us forever. Do you know we are getting married next month?”
“Good! God bless both of you,” I replied.
The young lady again said thank you and went on her journey. I realized the importance of giving that day.
【小题1】 Why were the young boy and the girl standing on the bus?
| A.Because they wanted to enjoy the sea view. |
| B.Because they couldn’t sit together. |
| C.Because there were no empty seats. |
| D.Because they preferred to stand. |
| A.he wanted to do something special |
| B.the sea wave made him upset |
| C.a wave from the sea flooded him |
| D.he wanted to make a sea wave in his heart |
| A.small things can create great happenings in life |
| B.it is giving rather than receiving that matters |
| C.offering one’s seat to others may win respect |
| D.we sometimes forget what happened in the past |
This is a true story about two friends.
One day a young man said to his good friend, "I can see that some day you will become great and rich." His friend laughed, "Ridiculous! How can you know that?" The first said, "Yes, I can see it from your forehead." The second one said, "Ok, if I become great and rich, I will give you 10,000 rupees." The first friend asked. "Really? If so, then write it down."
The second one really wrote it down. The first man kept the note, but he never took his friend seriously. The agreement was made as a joke. 10 or 12 years later, the friend did become rich and great, while the other remained poor. By that time both friends had separated and were leading their own lives. Even so, the poor friend still preserved the note, although he felt that since it was a joke, he would never receive the money.
Quite unexpectedly, the poor man fell seriously ill. Just before he died, he took out the agreement and called his son, who was only seven years old, "My son, there is something very precious that I have kept for you. After I die…you go to this man and show him what he has written."
Soon the man died. Their friendship had faded so much that the rich man did not even come to see him before he left this world. But after three or four weeks' time the son took the note to the rich man. The boy gave the rich man the note. The rich man read it and asked, "Did I write this?"
The boy said, “I do not know. My father asked me to give it to you before he died." The rich man summoned one of his secretaries and explained, "I promised this boy's father many years ago that I would give him 10,000 rupees if I became rich and great. I have been rich for seven years; please calculate how much interest I have to give him in addition to the 10,000 rupees."
The secretary told him, "An additional 7,000 rupees, which makes it 17,000 altogether."
The rich man immediately issued a check for 17,000 rupees and gave it to the little boy, saying, "Take this directly to your mother.”
This is how a sincere man kept his promise.
56. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A. The first friend can know others’ future from his or her forehead.
B. The second friend couldn’t believe his friend’s words at first.
C. The first friend wished his friend to help his son after he died.
D. The second didn’t come to see his dying friend because of different life.
57. What do you think of the man who became rich later?
A. He had a bad memory.
B. He is very selfish and unwilling to help others.
C. He is mean with his money.
D. He is a man who keeps his promise.
58. What can be inferred from the passage?
A. The poor friend preserved the note because he knew he would get the money sooner or later.
B. The man became rich 3 or 5 years later after he signed the agreement.
C. The rich man gave the boy 17,000 rupees altogether.
D. The little boy knew something about his father’s story.
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two - headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.
【小题1】The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ____ .
| A.repeated without any change | B.treated as a joke |
| C.made some changes by the parent | D.set in the present |
| A.in a realistic setting | B.heard for the first time |
| C.repeated too often | D.told in a different way |
| A.makes them less fearful |
| B.develops their power of memory |
| C.makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
| D.encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
| A.fairy stories are still being made up |
| B.there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales |
| C.people try to modernize old fairy stories |
| D.there is more concern for children's fears nowadays |
| A.they are full of imagination |
| B.they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
| C.they are not interesting |
| D.they make teachers of history difficult to teach |
C
Are you afraid of change? Whether it is you personally or the working/living environment around you that changes, change will happen, it’s one guarantee I can give you and if you want success you need to make changes too.
Throughout the history of mankind changes have happened and they will continue to do so until the end of time. I do not think I need give you a list of any of these events they are obvious to us all.
Where are you going with this Steve, I hear you saying to yourself, everyone knows that changes happen all the time and we as human beings adapt accordingly. Well, yes, I agree with you to a point, but in that case why are we all not living the life we want in the world we want?
Because some of us resist change, because we are afraid of the unknown factors that change may bring into our lives.
Stop resisting and the changes will happen automatically, that is what happened to me when I started using hypnosis(睡眠状态) and mediation (沉思)to help me come to terms with the changes I needed to make to get out of Going Nowhere Land. I honestly believe that if I had
not lost my fear of change when I did that there is absolutely no way that I would be enjoying life and the success I am having as much as I do at this moment in time.
My intention is to carry on enjoying life to the full and to successfully help others to do the same and if that means making even more changes to my life, as it surely will, then bring them on and let’s get started.
It does not matter if you start off making small changes like getting up early so that you can share breakfast with your loved ones, take some exercise or meditating before going to work, start making those changes now. By getting into the habit of making changes, you will accept change into your life, you will begin to change more of your old habits into new and better ones and even enjoy the feeling that making those changes brings and the success that comes with them.
64. Which would be the best title for the passage?
A. Are you afraid of change? B. Changing for success.
C. Why do you resist change. D. Change brings happiness.
65. The underlined phrase “come to terms with” in the fifth paragraph probably means “_______ “
A. reach an agreement with B. fight against
C. accept something unpleasant D. overcome the bad consequences of
66. From the fifth paragraph we can infer that ___________.
A. the author has never been afraid of changes in his life.
B. the author used to believe that changes happened automatically
C. the author is still not satisfied with his present situation
D. the author had experienced a period of frustration(挫折) in his life
67. In the last paragraph, the author intends to ________.
A. list the necessary changes we ought to make
B. advise us to make any necessary changes
C. explain what changes can bring
D. explain the progress of making changes