I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died “full of years”, as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence(吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.
At the first home, the son of the deceased（亡故的）woman said to me, “If only I sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died. ”At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”
You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?
There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.
The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.
A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to his tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.
【小题1】The author had to conduct the two women’s funerals probably because____.

A．he was minister of the local church	B．he wanted to comfort the two families
C．he was an official from the community	D．he had great pity for the deceased

【小题2】People feel guilty for the death of their loved ones because ____.

A．they couldn’t find a better way to express their sorrow.

B．they had neglected the natural course of events

C．they believed that they were responsible

D．they didn’t know things often turn in the opposite direction

【小题3】According to the passage, the underlined part in paragraph 4 probably means that _____

A．everything in the world is predetermined

B．there’s an explanation for everything in the world

C．the world can be interpreted in different ways

D．we have to be sensible in order to understand the world

【小题4】 What’s the idea of the message?

A．Life and death is an unsolved mystery

B．Never feel guilty all the time because not every disaster is our fault

C．Every story should have a happy ending

D．In general, the survivors will feel guilty about the people who passed away

Silence is unnatural to man．He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness．In between he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and he fears silence more than anything else．Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent a fearful silence．If he is introduced to another person, and a number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure, a worthless person, and is full of envy of the emptiest headed chatterbox（喋喋不休的人）.He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly, but he is anxious to join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure（蜡塑人像）.

The aim of conversation is not, for the most part, to communicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must be admitted, different qualities of buzz; there is even a buzz that is as annoying as the continuous noise made by a mosquito （蚊子）.But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person. Most buzzing, fortunately, is pleasant to the ear, and some of it is pleasant even to the mind. He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing -with his neighbors.

Those who hate to pick up the weather as a conversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wish to talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people's ears, though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or that they had food in a Swiss hotel. At the end of an evening during which they have said nothing meaningful for a long time, they just prove themselves to be successful conservationists.

1.According to the passage, people usually talk to their neighbors_____.

A．in the hope of learning something new

B．in the hope of getting on well

C．about whatever they have prepared

D．about whatever they want to

2.According to the author, people make conversation to______.

A．achieve success in life

B．exchange ideas

C．overcome their fear of silence

D．prove their value

3.What is the author's purpose in writing the passage?

A．To persuade people to stop making noises．

B．To explain why people keep talking．

C．To discuss why people like talking about weather．

D．To encourage people to join in conversations．

4.By "the buzzing of a fly"(Para.1), the author means"_____".

A．the voice of a chatterbox

B．meaningless talk sound

C．a low whispering

D．the noise of an insect

 

 ---Many people make a / an ______ that the housing price will remain high or even go up.

---No wonder some queue up day and night for an order.

A．acquaintance

B．assumption

C．comparison

D．consideration

 

Here in the hills were buffaloes (野牛). I had even, in my very young days — when I could not live till I had killed one of each kind of African animal — shot a bull out there. Later on, when I was not so interested to shoot as to watch the wild animals, I had been out to see them again. But twice I had to go back without success.

But one afternoon as I was having tea with some friends outside the house, Denys came flying from Nairobi and went over our heads westwards; a little while after he turned and came back and landed on the farm. I drove down to the plane to bring him back, but he would not get out of his plane.

“The buffaloes are out feeding in the hills,” he said, “come out and have a look at them.”

“I cannot come,” I said. “I have got a tea-party up at the house.”

“But we will go and see them and be back in a quarter of an hour,” he said.

This sounded to me like the suggestions which people make to you in a dream. So I went up with him. It did not take us long to see the buffaloes from the air; we counted them as they peacefully mixed and separated on the open ground closed in by bushes. There was one very old big black bull, and a number of young ones; if a stranger had come near to them they would have heard or smelt him at once, but they were not prepared for something from the air. They heard the noise of our machine and stopped feeding, but they did not seem to be able to look up. In the end they realized that something very strange was about; the old bull first walked out in front of the others. Suddenly he began to go down the valley side and after a moment he broke into a run. The whole group now followed him, rushing hurriedly down into the buses. In a small wood of low trees they stopped and kept close together. Here they believed themselves to be out of sight. We flew up and away. It was like having been taken there by a secret unknown route.

When I came back to my tea-party the teapot on the stone was still so hot that I burned my fingers on it.

1.The writer drove to the plane ________.

A．to pick Denys up and take him back to the tea-party

B．to have a talk with Denys

C．to do some repairs for Denys

D．because they wanted to go up in the plane

2. Denys said it would only take a quarter of an hour to go and see the buffaloes ________.

A．but it took much longer than that	B．and he was right
C．if they went by a secret route	D．but it wasn’t a serious suggestion

3.When the buffaloes heard the noise of the plane, they ________.

A．looked up at it	B．ran away immediately
C．continued feeding	D．were uncertain what to do

 

Laziness is a state of inaction. It is something that you do, not something that you are. Being lazy means you have no         to do anything. This is obvious but the mistake that many people make is          themselves as someone who is lazy.

Lazy people are often seen as useless.      , are they really being lazy or are they acting lazy? There is a huge difference between saying you are lazy sometimes and you are a lazy person. One is suggesting that your laziness is       while the other suggests that it’s permanent. This is the myth of laziness. People who are lazy aren’t lazy; they      are people who are temporarily acting that way.

So what causes a person to be inactive? The answer is a lack of goals. If you give someone a good enough      to do something, he will do it. People who don’t seem to do anything just haven’t found a good enough reason to do something. Lazy students don’t study because they don’t see the        in studying. For example, if you are too lazy to clean out the garage, would someone        a gun to your head help you take action? The reason can be positive or negative      it’s strong enough to induce(引起) action.

To motivate someone who is lazy, what you need to do is to help him find enough      to work towards a certain goal.

1.A. motivation B. question       C. promotion     D. courage

2.A. agreeing    B. denying         C. identifying    D. refusing

3.A. Otherwise B. Besides C. However       D. Therefore

4.A. correct       B. false      C. temporary     D. inspirational

5.A. simply         B. occasionally          C. often     D. hardly

6.A. excuse       B. gift         C. chance D. purpose

7.A. point B. success C. situation        D. difficulty

8.A. dropping    B. pointing         C. shooting        D. hiding

9.A. as long as B. as soon as     C. so that  D. in case

10.A. reasons    B. money  C. energy  D. Confidence