When Armida Armato’s daughter, Alexia, came home from school one day last year keen to go on a school trip to Ecuador, she wasn’t too sure how to feel. She was happy that her daughter could experience something she never did as a teen but was fearful of letting her travel to such a remote part of the world.

Alexia was 16 at the time, a student at Westwood High School. The school sponsored a humanitarian trip for 26 students and two teachers to spend 18 days living in a mountain village to build a one-room school. Even though Armato trusted her daughter, the other students and the teachers, she was worried about the side effects from the travel vaccines, possible accidents, and medical care.

Now that Alexia was home, Armato said she saw her daughter’s new maturity, greater confidence and independence. “This is the best thing I ever did,” Alexia said. “The experience was so eye-opening and life-changing. You’re with people who are not as lucky as you are. They live in very poor conditions but they’re so happy and outgoing. You say, ‘My God. I’m taking everything for granted back home.’”

She said they built a one-room school from scratch with no mechanical cement mixers. They used their hands, shovels and basic tools. She and another student lived with a local family in a small village about eight hours outside the capital, Quito. Despite the initial strangeness and knowing only basic Spanish, she said they grew very close and felt like a family.

Every year, groups of students at Montreal High School like Alexia pack their bags and fly off with classmates and teachers to developing countries where they volunteer for a variety of projects.

“Armato’s worries are very common among parents,” says Bill Nevin, a teacher at St. George’s High School. He organizes a humanitarian rip to India to the Sheela Bal Bhavan orphanage and says the three biggest fears families have are health, security and contact.

1.When hearing the news that her daughter would go on a school trip to Ecuador, Armato was _______.

A.proud and happy

B.supportive but concerned

C.fearful and nervous

D.excited but puzzled

2.The underlined phrase “from scratch” in Paragraph 4 probably means “______”.

A.having great help

B.using high technology

C.ending up in failure

D.starting from the beginning

3.What would be the best title for the text?

A.Volunteering helps students grow and develop.

B.School trips make parents worried about their children.

C.Ecuador is the most attractive travel destination in the world.

D.Brave Alexia dreams to work in Ecuador one day.

“Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they're given after all. Choices can be hard.”

I got the to start Amazon 16 years ago. I the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2300 percent per year.I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew so fast. And the idea of building an bookstore with millions of titles was very to me. I had just turned 30, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife that I wanted to my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t ,and I wasn’t sure what to .She told me I should 38the idea. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my .

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a boss that I admired very much. I went to my boss and with him that I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park and listened to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.”That logic made some to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult , but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret and failing. And I suspected I would always be troubled by the decision not to try at all. After much , I took the less .path to follow my dream, and I’m of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.

1.A. idea B. support C. fund D. message

2.A. got through B. set aside C. came across D. turned down

3.A. online B. available C. intelligent D. expensive

4.A. practical B. exciting C. flexible D. productive

5.A. take B. 1and C. exchange D. quit

6.A. matter B. work C. fail D. exist

7.A. do B. achieve C. plan D. expect

8.A. give up B. set up C. stick to D. put off

9.A. passion B. pace C. hobby D. example

10.A. cruel B. brilliant C. greedy D. modest

11.A. shared B. argued C. reasoned D. enquired

12.A. gradually B. eventually C. carefully D. generously

13.A. so B. and C. otherwise D. but

14.A. sense B. difference C. bet D. bargain

15.A. while B. before C. once D. since

16.A. puzzle B. suggestion C. choice D. report

17.A. managing B. requesting C. changing D. trying

18.A. consideration B. determination C. conversation D. Application

19.A. stable B. secure C. amusing D. interesting

20.A. confident B. regretful C. hopeful D. proud

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

You already know that you should wake up early to become more productive, and perhaps you have also heard that you shouldn’t check your email first in the morning. While this advice is good and well-documented, there is also another kind of productivity advice that is as effective as well. 1.

1. Work when there is a distraction(分心) around

Your environment doesn’t have to be 100% quiet if you want to get work done. Let’s say that you are working from home and you have kids. Let’s also assume that you don’t have a quiet workspace in your home to do your work. Naturally, you could decide to do work during the quiet hours. 2. .

2. Drink coffee before taking a nap

3. Then take a caffeine nap. Combining coffee and napping time can have a big improvement in one’s personal productivity. Drink a cup of coffee, take a 20-minute nap right afterward and wake-up refreshed.

3. 4.

It’s so funny to think that the places that seem like the last ones in which to get anything done are the best for productivity. I’m talking about trains and when I travel alone, I look forward to getting work done there. In fact, I have done a lot of work during my trips when I’m moving from one place to another.

4. Close the curtains

Closing the curtains can improve your productivity. I might do some work at the dining table where there is a window to the left of me. Since I can see the nearby parking space through the window (and the people and moving cars as well), the movement might catch my attention, so the simplest way to prevent the distraction is to close the curtains.5.

A. Work in a train.

B. Focus on one thing at a time.

C. Have a mobile Internet access with you.

D. But not all of the tasks have to be done then.

E. Try these tips and see how they work for you.

F. Want to improve your afternoon productivity?

G. That way I can put all of my attention to my work.

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