I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent.
I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows (誓约) mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today.
So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a desire of the next promotion (提升)， the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure (空闲), it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. And realize that life is the best thing and that you have no business taking it for granted.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my choice, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.
I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and totally. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a deadly illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
【小题1】The best title of this passage probably is ________.

Here are five letters from readers listed in 1-5. All the greetings and signatures are left out. Suppose you are a secretary of the magazine CR (Crazy English Reader), for each one find a suitable reply from A-F. Mark the correct letter (A-F) on your answer sheet. There is one extra reply which you don’t need to use.

   1. I am a reader of CR. Recently I found students translate some articles of CR. I appreciate your offering an opportunity to us beginners to practise using English. So I want to ask how they can obtain these articles and translated them for you, and what qualities you require. Thank you.

   2. I love your Crazy English Reader magazine! It provides valuable data for work in our English teaching. My wife and I are teaching Conversational English so I’ve been giving you a bit of a plug at our middle school. I told the students to “get a copy!” It’s good stuff! Fantastic!

     3. I’m one of Yao’s fans from Guangzhou. I have read the Yao Ming articles in No.7 Crazy English Reader. I want to know his correspondence address and the official website. Could you please tell me? Thank you very much indeed.  

     4. First of all, I must say thank you very much to all the CE Reader editors who gave us a really good English magazine. Secondly, I want to give you a piece of advice. In each passage, you gave us some new words with their Chinese translation. However, as far as my knowledge, I think you should give us not only the Chinese meaning but also the English meaning so as to know the words more accurately. Thank you!

     5. I am an editor of the English Monthly of our school. I have a question that is how to say the position of the paper e.g., 总编 责任编辑 and so on. I hope you can help me to tell me the word in English. The more the better. Thank you so much! I love the book very much. Now, I do this work, I need study more information about this work, if you have time, please email me. Thank you.

Thank you for your suggestion. We may try that in some future issues of CR. I think the best way to improve your reading vocabulary is to be able to guess the meaning of the word from the other words around it. Also, if you have an English dictionary, it’s good to look up the words and then mark them down in a notebook and review them later on. Then if you really want to learn how to use the words, try using them in conversation or in writing. Hope this helps.

The best way for you to learn the different positions in a newspaper or magazine is to get a copy of an all-English magazine or newspaper and then copy down the different positions. There are also titles such as Managing Editor, reporter, Copy Editor, Photo Editor and Layout Editor. I hope this helps. If you have some more specific questions, you can send them to me and I’ll try to answer.

C．The best way to reach Yao directly is through his home team, the Shanghai Sharks. You can write him at 2570 Xietu Road, Shanghai. For more information on Yao, you can look at the sports section in sina. com. I hope this helps. Another idea is that you can try to write Yao while he’s living and playing in Houston. You can try to reach Yao in the US at:   Yao Ming   Compaq Centre 10  Houston, TX 77046

Thank you for being such a careful reader of CR. Yes, you’re right we made a mistake in the writing of that Chinese word. Each issue we try to read very carefully each article and its translation to make sure there are no mistakes, but unfortunately a few mistakes always get by. But you encourage us to keep improving, so thank you.

Yes, we do have several students who help us translate some of the articles in our magazine. We contact these translators directly after interviewing their translation work. Afterwards we assign the articles to them for translation. If you are interested in being one of our translators you can send us some information about yourself and a sample of your translation work.

Thank you for helping us to promote CR. We’re glad it’s helpful to your students. We always try to include articles that reflect real life. It’s our hope that CR will not only improve student’s English but also open up a different worldview.

C

Most of us long for relationships in which we are loved and accepted. Our hearts’ desire is to give and receive love in relationships that make us feel that even if others disagree with what we do or say, they still love us, accept us, and appreciate what we give to the world. While it would be wonderful to have these types of relationships with all people, we know that’s hard to do. However, we can have such relationships with some others, but only when we first have them with ourselves—and, strangely, this is often the hardest relationship of all.

   Do you love yourself? You may think you do, but do you really? There’s only one way to find out— by taking a close look at what you think, say, and do. You may not like some of what you find, but if you are serious about really loving yourself, you can use this insight to do some positive inner work. Here’re three ways for gaining greater personal insight for deeper love:

Listen Closely to Your Thoughts

   Your thoughts will determine your actions. One thing helping you to listen to your thoughts is keeping a journal. It is not necessary for you to write in it every day, but it helps to record various insights you gain as you go about your life. Instead of using a big notebook, you might use a small notepad that you can keep in your pocket for easy access to record your thoughts as they occur to you. Whichever method you choose, what’s most important is that you write your thoughts down. It will help you know what’s in your heart.

Be Honest with Yourself

When I was an education official in Palo Alto, California, Polly Tyner, the president of our school board, wrote a letter that was printed in the Palo Alto Times. Polly’s son, Jim had great difficulty in school. He was classified as educationally disabled and required a great deal of patience on the part of his parents and teachers. But Jim was a happy kid with a great smile that lit up the room. His parents acknowledged his academic difficulties, but always tried to help him see his strengths so that he could walk with pride. Shortly after Jim finished high school, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. After his death, his mother submitted this letter to the newspaper.

Today we buried our 20-year-old son. He was killed instantly in a motorcycle accident on Friday night. How I wish I had known when I talked to him last that it would be the last time. If I had only known I would have said, “Jim, I love you and I’m very proud of you.”

        I would have taken the time to count the many blessings he brought to the lives of the many who loved him. I would have taken the time to appreciate his beautiful smile, the sound of his laughter, his genuine love of people.

       When you put all the good qualities on the scale and try to balance all the irritating phenomena such as the radio which was always too loud, the haircut that wasn’t to our liking, the dirty socks under the bed, etc., your angry feelings won’t amount to much. 

        I won’t get another chance to tell my son all that I would have wanted him to hear, but, other parents, you do have a chance. Tell your young people what you would want them to hear as if you knew it would be your last conversation. The last time I talked to Jim was the day he died. He called me to say, “Hi, Mom! I just called to say I love you. Got to go to work. Bye.” He gave me something to treasure forever. 

       If there is any purpose at all for Jim’s death, maybe it is to make others appreciate more of life and to have people, especially family members, take the time to let each other know just how much we care. 

According to the passage, we know that ________. 

A. Jim kept to himself

B. Jim did very well in his studies

C. Jim’s parents were patient with him

D. Jim failed to finish his high school.

The underlined word “irritating” in Paragraph 4 means _________.

A. annoying  B. aggressive   C. impatient    D. thrilling

By writing the letter printed in the Palo Alto Times, the mother intends to ______________.

A. mourn her son’s sudden death in a traffic accident

B. remind people to be cautious of motorcycles

C. advise people to take the chance to express their love in time

D. appreciate more of life than ever before

What can be the best title of the passage?

A. Love your Family             B. Do it Today

C. Walk with Pride              D. Appreciate Smiles