We thought we had it all---a beautiful house, three healthy children and one more on the way, two cars, a couple of four-wheelers for entertainment---and we loved it. Then, the market turned and my husband’s job at a construction company was gone. The company was closing down for good.We both started looking for jobs right away, but there weren’t any to be found. With each passing day we were getting increasingly worried and we continued to work together in order to pull our family through. The more we pulled together, the closer we got. I felt feelings of admiration for my husband that I hadn’t felt in years.

That’s why it was so hard for me to watch him blame himself for our present situation. I continually asked him to stop, but he seemed to want to punish himself for not having a job.

Finally, one afternoon I pulled him aside and said, “We have four healthy children and each other. That’s what’s important. That makes you a rich man.”

“ But what if we lose the house? They’ll hate me—you’ll hate me,” he replied.

I smiled at him and put my hands on both sides of his face to make him look me in the eye. “No matter where we live I will be happy –as long as I have you.” I smiled again. In all the struggling together I had found that deep love for him that I had on the day we said “I do”.

  I could see his shoulders and neck relaxed. He held me close and we were able to talk and plan and dream together in a way that we hadn’t for quite some time. It was a turning point for us as a couple and a family.

We are still struggling for out better life, but I consider us well-off because we have something that money can’t buy and no one can take away from us.

The underlined sentence in the second paragraph means that________.

       A.they became closer as they struggled together    

B.they hoped to find jobs in the same company

       C.neither of them had the courage to ace difficulty

       D.they were trying to make their relationship closer

We can learn from the passage that________.

       A.they both found good jobs at last.

       B.both of them were worried about joblessness.

       C.her husband was to blame for the unemployment

       D.they didn’t love each other when they got married

Which of the following can best describe their present life?

       A.Bitter but easy.         B.Comfortable and happy.

       C.Hard but warm.          D.Well-off and relaxing.

The best title of the passage might be________         .

       A.We Have It All            B.We Find It Again

       C.A Perfect Couple            D.A Hard Time

Babies are born yogis. Once we were all able to pull our toes up by our ears and laugh about it. Then we aged, got injured, and began carrying stress in our shoulders and back. In short, we lost our balance.

Yoga(瑜伽)is an ancient practice that helps create a sense of union in body, mind, and spirit. It brings us balance. I was seriously out of balance when I started practicing yoga in 1999. I had plantar fascitis(足底筋膜炎) in both feet, and my doctor had warned me against all the things I loved to do: walking, hiking, and playing tennis. I was desperate for exercise. Yoga became my salvation(拯救) and even enhanced my other fitness activities. I practice yoga at least twice a week, but I consider yoga to be part of my daily life because after a while you no longer just practice yoga—you love it.

Yoga becomes part of your physical life. Your body grows stronger, more toned, and more flexible as you move from one pose to the other. I spent a week in Mexico at a yoga retreat(静修), and it was the first vacation on which I lost weight. “Rather than building muscle, yoga builds muscle tone,” says Shakta Kaur Khalsa, author of the K.I.S.S. Guide to Yoga. “Because yoga helps maintain a balanced metabolism (新陈代谢), it also helps to regulate weight. Additionally, yoga stretches muscles lengthwise, causing fat to be removed around the cells.” I do yoga poses throughout the day. After hours at my computer, I stretch my stiff shoulders and arms. When I need a boost of energy, I do energizing poses. When I am feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I do restorative poses.

Yoga becomes part of your mental life. Yoga teaches you to focus on breathing while you hold the poses. This attention to breath is calming; it dissolves stress and anxiety. I use yogic breathing on the tennis courts, in the dentist’s chair, and in traffic jams. You should always leave a yoga practice feeling energized, not tired. If you feel tired after yoga, it means you spent the time “fighting” yourself, trying to force yourself into poses. In yoga, you “surrender” to the pose by letting go of the tension.

Yoga becomes part of your spiritual life. Yoga is practiced by people from all religions; it is not restricted to any religious group. Yoga teaches “right” living in how we deal with ourselves and others. As I work on a difficult pose, I learn patience, forgiveness, and the value of gentleness. Yoga advocates proper eating, but you don’t have to be a vegetarian to practice yoga.

What would be the best title for this passage?

A. What’s Yoga?                              B. How I Do Yoga Poses 

C. The Benefits of Yoga                     D. The Varieties of Yoga

According to the third paragraph, yoga can help people __________.

A. grow taller                                          B. lose weight             

C. become flexible in thinking             D. make more friends

People feel tired after yoga because __________.

A. they consume energy in practicing yoga    

B. they respond well to yoga poses

C. they spend too much time on yoga            

D. they force themselves into yoga poses

If this passage continues, what will the writer most probably write about in the next paragraph?

A. Yoga as a means to keep fit.                       B. Different yoga poses.

C. Popularity of yoga all over the world.         D. Encouraging people to do yoga.

Scholars and researchers have tried to discover what personality characteristics go along with success in intercultural experiences. Their findings have often been unclear or incomplete. But three characteristics stand out in their reports: patience, a sense of humor, and the awareness of being unclear.

Patience, of course, is the ability to keep calm even when things do not go as one wants them to, or hopes they will, or has even been sure they will. Impatience sometimes brings improvements in relations with other people, but usually it does not.

A person with a sense of humor is less likely to take things too seriously and more ready to see the humor in her own reactions than a humorless person. The value of a sense of humor really needs to be paid more attention to.

“The awareness of being unclear” is a more difficult concept than patience or a sense of humor. Foreigners often find themselves in situations that are unclear to the newcomers. That is, they do not know what is happening in the situation. Perhaps they do not understand the local language well enough, or they do not know how some system or organization works, or they can’t be sure of different people’s roles in what is going on. “It’s like I just got here from the moon,” a Chinese graduate student who newly arrived in the United States said, “things are just so different here.”

The passage mainly tells us              .

       A.that it’s not easy to travel abroad

       B.that humor is very important in communication

       C.about some characteristics in dealing with foreigners

       D.about three main ways useful for communicating with foreigners

According to the passage, what characteristic should be most focused on?

       A.Patience                 B.The awareness of being unclear

       C.The sense of humor     D.Understanding each other.

“The awareness of being unclear” refers to            .

       A.knowing the meaning of an exact situation

       B.not stating clearly what happens

       C.realizing the possible misunderstanding in a situation

       D.being aware of the unclear situation

According to the writer, the Chinese students is            .

       A.a hard-working student           B.recently back from the moon

       C.interested in the study of moon      D.not used to the culture in America

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