When T was a child I never said, "When T grow up, I want to be a CEO," but here T am．When I look back on my career, I realize the road to becoming a CEO isn't a straight, clearly clarified path．In fact, no two paths are the same．But whether you want to be a boss one day or not, there's a lot to learn from how leaders rise to the top of successful companies．

    As this series of stories shows, the paths to becoming a CEO may vary, but the people in that position share the qualities of commitment, work ethic （守则） and a strong desire for building something new．And every CEO take risks along the way—putting your life savings on the line to start a software company or leaving a big business to be one of the first employees at a startup．

    I grew up in Minnesota, and learned how to be an entrepreneur （企业家） from my father, who has run a small business for almost 30 years．I went to Georgetown University and tried a lot of business activities in college with varying degrees of success．And I always had a dream job pattern: to walk to work, work for myself and build something for consumers．

    I'm only 29, so it's been a quick ride to CEO．Out of college, I worked for AOL as a product manager, then moved to Revolution Health and ran the consumer product team．In mid-2007 I left Revolution Health and started LivingSocial with several other colleagues, where I became a CEO．

    Career advice; Don't figure out where you want to work, or even what industry you'd like to work at．Figure out what makes you do so．What gives you a really big rush? Answer why you like things, not what you like doing．．．and then apply it to your work life．Also, just because you're graduating, don't stop learning．Read more books than you did in college．If you do, and they're not, you're really well-positioned to succeed in whatever you do．

1.What can we know from the first paragraph?

    A．The author hasn't achieved his childhood ambition．

    B．The author thinks there is some easy way to become a CEO．

    C．The author had an ambition of becoming a CEO in his childhood．

    D．The author believes success stories of CEOs can be beneficial to everybody．

2.According to the author, successful CEOs should _____．

    A．try not to take risks

    B．stay in the same business

    C．have a strong sense of creativity

    D．save every possible penny

3.What can we know about the author from the passage?

    A．His father had far-reaching influence on him．

    B．He used to run the consumer product team for AOL．

    C．His business activities at college ended up in more failure than success．

    D．He started LivingSocial when he was still a student of Georgetown University．

4.Which of the following proverbs may the author agree with according to the last paragraph?

    A．Well begun is half done．

    B．One is never too old to learn．

    C．Time and tide wait for no man．

    D．Everything conies to him who waits．

 

Everyone has got two personalities—the one that is shown to the world and the other that is secret and real. You don’t show your secret personality when you’re awake because you can control your behaviour, but when you’re asleep, your sleeping position shows the real you. In a normal night, of course, people frequently change their position. The important position is the one that you go to sleep in.

If you go to sleep on your back, you’re a very open person. You normally trust people and you are easily influenced by fashion or new ideas. You don’t like to upset people, so you never express your real feelings. You’re quite shy and you aren’t very confident.

If you sleep on your stomach, you are a rather secretive （不坦率的）person. You worry a lot and you’re always easily upset. You’re very stubborn, but you aren’t very ambitious. You usually live for today not for tomorrow. This means that you enjoy having a good time.

If you sleep curled up（卷曲）, you are probably a very nervous person. You have a low opinion of yourself and so you’re often defensive. You’re shy and you don’t normally like meeting people. You prefer to be on your own. You’re easily hurt.

If you sleep on your side, you have usually got a well-balanced personality. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You’re usually careful. You have a confident personality. You sometimes feel anxious, but you don’t often get depressed. You always say what you think even if it annoys people.

31. According to the writer, you naturally show your secret and real personality ___________.

A. only in a normal night                B. only when you go to sleep

C. only when you refuse to show yourself to the world

D. only when you change sleeping position

32．Which is NOT mentioned in the second paragraph about a person’s personality？

A. He or she is always open with others.

B. He or she always likes new ideas earlier than others.

C. He or she is always easily upset.

D. He or she tends to believe in others.

33．Point out which sentence is used to show the personality of a person who is used to sleeping on his or her stomach？

A. He or she is careful not to offend others.

B. He or she doesn’t want to stick to his or her opinion.

C. He or she probably can’t be successful in business.

D. He or she likes to bring others happiness.

34．Maybe you don’t want to make friends with a person who sleeps curled up. Why？

A. He or she would rather be alone than communicate with you.

B. He or she is rarely ready to help you.

C. He or she prefers staying at home to going out.

D. He or she wouldn’t like to get help from you.

35．It appears that the writer tends to think highly of the person who sleeps on one side because ___________.

A. he or she always shows sympathy for people

B. he or she is confident，but not stubborn

C. he or she has more strengths than weaknesses

D. he or she often considers annoying people

For an owl (猫头鹰) with one-metre wingspan, the sky should be the limit. But Troy prefers his bird’s eye view to be no higher than 5 feet 10 inches. The one-year-old owl has an inconvenient symptom: he’s afraid of heights. After an unfortunate start in life when he fell from his nest by accident, Troy was raised by Gareth Tonen, a handler (饲养员), who just happens to be 5 feet 10 inches tall.

As a result, Troy has grown up without any great ambitions of his own. When it comes to trees, he can’t see what is about and would prefer to fly along at Mr. Tonen’s side. Only when the 25-year-old handler climbs up a tree can Troy be tempted to leave his comfort zone and join him.

Ashley Smith said, “ Troy’s fear of heights was a result of forgetting how to be a bird. He’s been in captivity (被圈养) for as long as he can remember and has never been higher than his handler can lift him. He sees himself as more of a human than an owl, and he doesn’t know how to sit in trees or hunt. Gareth has to almost act like an owl to get Troy to behave like one.”

As a result, a daily tree climb has become part of Troy’s – and Mr. Tonen’s – routine. Ladders have been fixed so Mr. Tonen can climb into the trees and call for Troy, who will fly up and join his handler but go no higher. Most of the time he flies down again, but occasionally Mr. Tonen has to carry him back to ground level. The afternoon ends with a meal of mouse, rabbit or his favorite, chicken.

Mr. Tonen said, “He now looks upon me as his mum or dad. He’s gaining more confidence and if I have to carry on climbing up trees with him then we’ll do what it takes for him to be a high flyer.

1.Troy was brought up by Gareth Tonen because he ______.

A. couldn’t fly high                    B. got badly hurt

C. left his parents accidentally         D. couldn’t live in trees

2. What can you learn from the second paragraph?

A. Troy doesn’t show any interest in flying high up in the sky.

B. Gareth Tonen has spoiled Troy by offering him everything.

C. Gareth Tonen is pleased to see Troy fly along at his side.

D. Troy would like his owner Gareth Tonen to climb up trees.

3.According to Ashley Smith, Troy doesn’t know he is a bird because ______.

A. he has developed the symptom of fearing heights.

B. he has been raised since he was very small.

C. he can’t learn how to fly higher than his owner.

D. he doesn’t want to fly among trees hunting for food.

4. Why does Gareth Tonen have to climb up trees every day?

A. To set an example of flying high to Troy.

B. To see how high Troy can really fly.

C. To teach Troy how to get meals in high trees.

D. To get Troy back down to cure his fear of heights.

 

 

When did you last visit a shopping mall? In many places, the answer would be “last weekend”. Some people go even more often. Why? For one thing, malls offer goods and services that people need all in one place : food, clothing, things for their houses, entertainment，and even medical services. So, are malls one of the highlights of modern civilization? Environmental activists would say “No!” They would go even further and say that consumer behavior is causing a huge environmental disaster. They cause consumers of ignorance of the side effect of their shopping—urban sprawl (城市杂乱无序拓展的地区）.

Social scientists agree that patterns of development have changed the landscape a great deal in the last half century. Prior to 1950，most people lived in towns or cities and either walked to work or took public transportation. Only very wealthy people had automobiles. Farmers lived in rural areas or isolated villages and came into town only when they needed things they couldn’t produce themselves. If you gazed at the landscape you would see towns surrounded by countryside. Then a massive change occurred.

Automobiles became affordable and people were quick to adopt them. Now ambitious workers could live in the suburbs, the areas just outside cities, which started to grow rapidly. As long as there was lots of cheap land in the suburbs, no one paid much attention to the usage of that land. Malls, fast food restaurants, cinemas, and car dealerships spread out in large, flat buildings. These one - storey buildings and their parking lot took up a great deal of space. Well - meaning farmers thought they were better off selling their land than growing crops. In ignorance, no one realized that once the land was built up in urban sprawl, the good farming land would be ruined forever. There was no way to preserve it.

Only in recent years have people come to mourn the old way of life as they have developed insight into the problems of unconditional growth. Now people realize that urban sprawl has come with serious environmental problems. The negative aspects of sprawl include air and water pollution, loss of agricultural land, traffic jams, and the death of businesses in the old town centers. Many scholars think the time has come to analyze the problems better so we can develop appropriate policies to control further sprawl. Some think the best way to do is to educate citizens about their priceless environment.

1. What is mainly discussed in the passage?

A. Urban sprawl                       B. Weekend fun

C. New automobiles                       D. Isolated villages

2.Who do activists blame for environmental problems?

A. Endangered animals.            B. Unthinking shoppers.

C. Shopping mall owners.           D. Ambitious farmers.

3.What does the underlined word “They” refer to in the first paragraph?.

A. Activists    B. Malls.     C. Farmers.     D. Scientists.

4.What is the scholars’ attitude toward urban sprawl?

A. Respectful.   B. Pessimistic.   C. Disapproving.    D. Doubtful.

 

When we can see well, we do not think about our eyes often. It is only when we can not see perfectly that we come to see how important our eyes are.

People who are nearsighted can only see things that are very close to their eyes. Many people who do a lot of close work, such as writing and reading, become nearsighted. Then they have to wear glasses in order to see distant things clearly.

People who are farsighted face just the opposite problem. They can see things that are far away, but they have difficulty reading a book unless they hold it at arm’s length. If they want to do much reading, they must get glasses too.

Other people do not see clearly because their eyes are not exactly the right shape. This, too, can be corrected by glasses. Some people’s eyes become cloudy because of cataracts（白内障）. Long ago these people often became blind. Now, however, it is possible to operate on the cataracts and remove them.

When night falls, colors become fainter（不清楚） to the eyes and finally disappear. After your eyes have grown used to the dark, you can see better if you use the side of your eyes rather than the centers. Sometimes, after dark, you see a small thing to one side of you, which seems to disappear if you turn your head in its direction. This is because when you turn your head, you are looking at the thing too directly. Men on guard duty sometimes think they see something moving to one side of them. When they turn to look straight at it, they can not see it any more, and they believe they were mistaken. However, this mistake happens because the center of the eye, which is very sensitive in daylight, is not as sensitive as the sides of the eye after dark.

1.We don’t know that our eyes are of great importance until ________.

A. we think about our eyes           B. we cannot see clearly

C. we wear glasses                 D. we have to do much reading[来源:Z,xx,k.Com]

2.According to the passage, a ________ is more likely to be nearsighted.

A. student    B. runner    C. guard    D. worker

3. People who are farsighted ________ .

A. cannot do a lot of close work without glasses

B. can only see things that are very close to their eyes

C. have difficulty reading a book if they hold it at arm’s length

D. have the same problem as the nearsighted people

4. To see a small thing at night, it is better to look ________ .

A. with wide open eyes             B. with half shut or narrowed eyes

C. straight at it                    D. in a slightly different direction