One of the keys to being successful is persistence（坚持）．Once you have determined exactly what you want to achieve, you must take active action in order to succeed.

One of the things you'll notice on your journey towards your goal are roadblocks. That is, you will come across obstacles（障碍） to discourage your progress. Actually, they are a part of life. Everyone would have every success they ever wanted if there were no obstacles. Your job is to be persistent and work through those obstacles. If you find little or no obstacles along the way, chances are that you are not really challenging yourself. And when you do reach your goal, you won't experience the feeling of "sweet success". Make your goal a challenging one!

If you take the time to study any successful person, you will learn that the vast majority of them have had more "failures" than they have had "successes". This is because successful people are persistent; the more they stumble（绊倒）and fall, the more they get right back up and get going again. On the other hand, people that don't get back up and try again, never reach success. For example, Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for his dream of creating the "Happiest Place on Earth". Today, due to his persistence, millions of people have shared "the joy of Disney".

Having known these facts, keep in mind that you must constantly reevaluate（再评估）your circumstances and the approach you are using to reach your goal. There is no sense in being persistent at something that you are doing incorrectly! Sometimes you have to modify（修改）your approach along the way. Every time you do something you learn from it, and

therefore find a better way to do it the next time.

Today is the day to begin your journey, using consistency and persistency, towards tomorrow's successes!

1.The author seems to hold the belief that      .

A．challenges we come across are beneficial

B．obstacles will surely lead to someone’s success

C．the more obstacles we have, the more discouraged we feel

D．it’s rewarding to enjoy the feeling of“sweet success”

2.Which can be inferred from the text?

A．Making a practical goal will ensure your success.

B．Having a beautiful picture will lead to your success.

C．Never giving up in face of failure may contribute to your success.

D．Suffering from more failures will make you disappointed.

3.What must you reevaluate constantly?

A．Attitudes and skills.	B．Circumstances and ways.
C．Roadblocks and challenges.	D．Failures and successes.

4.What’s the text mainly about?

A．Persistence makes for success	B．Overcome obstacles
C．Challenge yourself	D．Failure is the mother of success

 

Monitoring global warming usually requires a Ph. D. and enough maths to glaze your eyes. But that Francisco Lopez and Ruby Nostrant track（记录）what climate change is doing to five different plants in Tucson, Arizona and they are only in the second grade.

    “We are collecting data because the weather is changing and the plants are blooming,” Ruby explained.

    Scores of other students at Borton Primary Magnet School and Sunnyside High School in Tucson are heading outdoors to be part of a new scientific push to figure out how the biological timing of the earth is changing. It’s a research project that the average person, even a kindergartner, can join in.

    The National Phenology（生物气候学）Network is calling on volunteers to help track early spring blooms and eventually changes in animals caused by global warming. It’s called Project Budburst. When it was first open to the public last year, thousands of people participated in 26 states.

    “All people can contribute to it by tracking the timing of flowering events or leaf-out events for plants and animals in their backyard,” said Phenology Network director Jake Weltzin. He calls the volunteers “citizen-scientists.”

    The idea is that tracking flowers blooming—especially lilacs（丁香）; which everyday people have helped track for decades—is fairly simple. The Website http://www.Windows.ucar.edu/ citizen_science/budburst/index.html gives directions on what to look for in different parts of the country.

    University of Maryland professor David Inouye said it’s so easy to figure out what’s blooming that a lack of special knowledge isn’t a problem.

    University of Arizona ecology graduate student Lisa Benton coordinated（协调）the Tucson high school students as they looked at plants five minutes from their high school. Each student has specific guidelines and she’s been happy so far with the data she is getting. For his part, second-grader Francisco said he had fun helping out.

    “I like going out in the desert,” he said. “I want to be an Einstein.”

1.Francisco Lopez and Ruby Nostrant are monitoring global warming by __________.

A. watching early spring blooms and changes in animals

B. studying the biological timing of earth

C. collecting data of the local weather

D. tracking the early spring blooms of some local plants

2.Those who participate in Project Budburst are mostly ___________.

A. ecology college graduates              B. high school students

C. common people                         D. experts

3.What David Inouye says suggests that ____________.

A. the study carried out by students is convincing

B. the students still need special training to study climate change

C. it is difficult to study climate change

D. to figure out what’s blooming needs special knowledge

4.Who is primary school student joining in the Project Budburst?

A. Lisa Benton.      B. David Inouye

C. Francisco Lopez.    D. Jake Weltzin.

5.We can conclude from the passage that _______.

A. changes in animals caused by global warming happen earlier than those in plants

B. the biological timing of earth is changing because of climate change

C. the effect of climate change in Tucson, Arizona can be hardly noticed

D. all the plants in Tucson, Arizona are blooming earlier because of climate change

 

A major source of teen stress is school exams，and test anxiety is not uncommon. When you recognize your teen is under stress，how can parents help your teen stay calm before an exam?

Be involved. Parents need to be involved in their teen’s work.  71 _ What they look for is your presence—to talk，to cry，or simply to sit with them quietly. Communicate openly with your teen. Encourage your teen to express her worries and fears，but don’ t let them focus on those fears.

Help them get organized.  72   Together，you and your teen can work out a schedule in which she can study for what she knows will be on the test.

Provide a calm environment. Help your teen set up a quiet place to study and protect his privacy(隐私). Give them a nutritious diet. It is important for your teen to eat a healthy，balanced diet during exam times to focus and do her best.   73    If this happens，encourage your teen to eat light meals or sandwiches. A healthy diet，rather than junk food，is best for reducing stress.

  74  Persuade your teenager to get some sleep and/or do something active when she needs a real break from studying. Making time for relaxation，fun， and exercise are all important in reducing stress. Help your teen balance her time so that she will feel comfortable taking time out from studying to spend time with friends or rest.

Show a positive attitude.   75  Your panic，anxiety and blame contribute to your teen’ s pressure. Make your teen feel accepted and valued for her efforts. Most importantly，reassure (安慰)your teen that things will be all right， no matter what the results are.

A．A parent’s attitude will dictate their teen’s emotions.

B．Exam stress can make some teens lose their appetite（a desire for food）.

C．They will only make the situation worse.

D．Encourage your teen to relax.

E. The best thing is simply to listen.

F. Help your teen think about what she has to study and plan accordingly.

G. Your teen may also make negative comments about themselves.

 

No satisfactory way exists to explain how to form a good idea. You think about a problem until you're tired, forget it, maybe sleep on it, and then flash! When you aren't thinking about it, suddenly the answer arrives as a gift from the gods.

   Of course, all ideas don't occur like that but so many do, particularly the most important ones. They burst into the mind, glowing with the heat of creation. How they do it is a mystery but they must come from somewhere. Let's assume they come from the "unconscious." This is reasonable, for psychologists use this term to describe mental processes which are unknown to the individual. Creative thought depends on what was unknown becoming known.

  All of us have experienced this sudden arrival of a new idea, but it is easiest to examine it in the great creative personalities, many of whom experienced it in an intensified form and have written it down in their life stories and letters. One can draw examples from genius in any field, from religion, philosophy, and literature to art and music, even in mathematics, science, and technical invention, although these are often thought to depend only on logic and experiment. All truly creative activities depend in some degree on these signals from the unconscious, and the more highly insightful the person is, the sharper and more dramatic the signals become.

  A type of creative experience is illustrated by the dreams which came to Descartes at the age of twenty-three and determined his life path. Descartes had unsuccessfully searched for certainty, first in the world of books, and then in the world of men. Then in a dream on November 10, 1619, he made the significant discovery that he could only find certainty in his own thoughts, cogito ergo sum ("I think; therefore, I exist"). This dream filled him with intense religious enthusiasm.

  Descartes' experience is representative of countless others in every field of culture. The unconscious is certainly the source of instinctive activity. But in creative thought the unconscious is responsible for the production of new organized forms from relatively disorganized elements.

1.Good ideas come from ________according to the writer.

A. the unconscious               B. creative activities     C. dreams           D. logic and experiments

2.The underlined word “these” (paragraph 3) probably refers to __________.

A. philosophy, music, mathematics and science

B. religion, philosophy, literature, art and music

C. mathematics, science, and technical invention

D. both B and C

3.What point can we see in the example of Descartes ?

A. Dreams are the sources of instinctive activities.

B. Dreams sometimes contribute to important discoveries.

C. Geniuses have creative thoughts in their dreams.

D. Important discoveries are always made in dreams.

4. The best title for this passage may be __________.

A. The Unknown Becoming Known                 B. The Role of Dreams

C. The Unconscious and Creative Activities           D. Birth of Bright Ideas

 

Every day on the road, accidents are caused. They do not only happen. The reason may be easy to see: an overloaded tray, a shelf out of reach, a patch of ice on the road. But more often than not there is a chain of events leading up to the misfortune-frustration, tiredness or just bad temper-that show what the accident really is, a sort of attack on oneself.

Road accidents, for example, happen frequently after a family quarrel, and we all know people who are accident-prone, so often at odds with themselves and the world that they seem to cause accidents for themselves and others.

By definition, an accident is something you cannot predict or avoid, and the idea which used to be current, that the majority of road accidents are caused by a minority of criminally careless drivers, is not supported by insurance statistics. These show that most accidents involve ordinary motorists in a moment of carelessness or thoughtlessness.

It is not always clear, either, what sort of conditions make people more likely to have an accident. For instance, the law requires all factories to take safety actions and most companies have safety committees to make sure the regulations are observed, but still, every day in Britain, some fifty thousand men and women are absent from work due to an accident. These accidents are largely the result of human error or misjudgment-noise and fatigue, boredom or worry are possible factors which contribute to this. Doctors who work in factories have found that those who drink too much, usually people who have a high anxiety level, run three times the normal risk of accidents at work.

1.This passage might be written to         .

A．college students                        B．drivers

C．ordinary citizens                        D．businessmen

2.“Accident-prone” in Paragraph 2 means          .

A．likely to have accidents                   B．injured in accidents

C．likely to die in accidents                  D．responsible for road accidents

3.The passage suggests that           .

A．accidents mostly result from slippery roads

B．accidents are usually caused by psychological factors

C．doctors run three times the normal risk of accidents in factories

D．about 50,000 people lost their lives at work in Britain every day

4.Which of the following is NOT discussed as a factor of accidents in this passage?

A．Mood            B．Carelessness       C．Tiredness         D．Weather

5.What do you think would be the best title for the passage?

A．Accidents and Human                    B．Why accidents happen

C．Human Factors in Accidents               D．How to Prevent Accidents