If you were given a chance to choose your favorite life metaphor(比喻), what would it be? Do you agree with Forrest Gump’s mother that life is “a box of chocolates” because “you never know what you’re going to get”? Or do you prefer the phrase from the 1930’s song that “life is just a bowl of cherries(樱桃)”? Though simply stated, each conveys a very different view. A “box” implies mystery, because we don’t know what is in a closed box. Meanwhile, a “bowl” of cherries is completely in view.
For many centuries, the metaphor of life that probably burst into most people’s mind was the one suggested by Shakespeare: “All of life is a stage…” On that stage, we take seven roles. More recently, psychologist Erik Erikson took up the idea of life as a stage. Erikson regarded development as a “powerful unfolding” in which we are driven from one stage to the next as our bodies, minds, and social roles develop.
Stage metaphors fit with many of our common-sense ideas about change, but the problem with the stage metaphor is that it isn’t particularly accurate. None of the studies that try to clarify the universality of adult life stages actually studied people as they developed over time. All of them were based on performances of their samples(样本) at one point in time. People’s actual lives don’t fit into these stage metaphors. They don’t automatically transform when people reach a certain age. Instead, people’s real lives are messy, unpredictable, and full of surprises.
Today, I’d like to focus on an even longer study, an 80-year study which is the subject of a recent book by Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin. Their final chapter summarizes the “many changes of healthy and unhealthy pathways” that their participants took over the course of their lives. As I too discovered in my research, the pathway provides a perfect metaphor of human development. We don’t all go down the same road marked with the same signposts based on age. People travel through diverse routes as they track the years of adulthood. Friedman and Martin use health and long life as their measure; I’ve used sense of achievement. In both cases, we are in perfect agreement in evaluating development not according to age but “the key features of life”.
The paths that Friedman and Martin describe seize the changes that characterize people as they age. Some examples are “The High Road” (reliable, full of plans); “Not Easy Street” (exposed to high stress throughout life), “Catastrophe Lane” (a downwardly twisty life); “Happy Trails to You” (cheerful, sociable), “The Road to Resilience” (able to handle stress with a strong will). Though I haven’t yet been able to follow my participants for 80 years, I too saw some of these pathways among my samples: “The Minding Way” , “The Downward Slope” , “The Straight and Narrow Path” , and “The Successful Trail”.
The pathway metaphor gives you hope for changing the direction of your life if you are unhappy with it so far. You can’t stop the clock from ticking the minutes between one birthday and the next, but you can adjust the road that you’re on by changing yourself, your situation, or both.The author introduces the topic of the passage in the first paragraph by ______.
| A．making comparisons | B．giving examples |
| C．describing scenes | D．providing explanations |
According to the passage, the “stage metaphor” ______.
| A．leads to misunderstandings |
| B．is used in memory of Shakespeare |
| C．doesn’t exactly reflect one’s real life |
| D．hasn’t enough stages to clarify life changes |
The author is convinced of the life metaphor Friedman and Martin suggest because she ______.
| A．spent less time on her research | B．has found their book a bestseller |
| C．considers their measure more scientific | D．got a similar finding to theirs |
When a person is facing difficulties bravely, which metaphor can best describe him?
| A．“Not Easy Street” | B．“Happy Trails to You” |
| C．“Catastrophe Lane” | D．“The Road to Resilience” |
What does the passage focus on?
| A．The pathway as a perfect life metaphor. |
| B．Various views on life metaphors. |
| C．The stage as a common life metaphor. |
| D．Different kinds of life metaphors. |
Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia was delivered to my house. N
o card came with it. Calls to the flower-shop were not helpful at all. After a while I stopped trying t
o discover the sender’s name and just delighted in the beautiful white flower in soft pink paper.
But I never stopped imagining who the giver might be. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about the sender. My mother encouraged these imaginings. She’d ask me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness. Perhaps it was the old man across the street whose mail I’d delivered during the winter. As a girl, though, I had more fun imagining that it might be a boy I had run into.
One month before my graduation, my father died. I felt so sad that I became completely uninterested in my upcoming graduation dance, and I didn’t care if I had a new dress or not. But my mother, in her own sadness, would not let me miss any of those things. She wanted her children to feel loved and lovable. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia－lovely, strong and perfect with perhaps a bit of mystery (神秘).My mother died ten days after I was married. I was 22. That was the year the gardenia stopped coming.
Which of the following would be the best title 
for the text?
| A．A Childhood Dream | B．A Mother’s Love |
| C．A Graduation Party | D．A Special Birthday |
The mother insisted that her daughter go to the graduation dance because ________.
| A．she could take care of things herself |
| B．she hoped she would find a boyfriend |
| C．she wanted her to be happy and strong |
| D．she thought education was the most important |
Who was the sender of the flower?
| A．A boy the writer had run into. | B．One of the writer’s neighbors. |
| C．One of the writer’s classmates. | D．The writer’s mother. |
For years, there has been a bias (偏见) against science among clinical psychologists (临床心理学家). In a two-year analysis to be published in November in Perspectives on Psychological Science, psychologists led by Timothy B. Baker of the University of Wisconsin charge that many clinical psychologists fail to “provide the treatments for which there is the strongest evidence of effectiveness” and “give more weight to their personal experiences than to science.” As a result, patients have no guarantee that their “treatment will be informed by … science.” Walter Mischel of Columbia University is even crueler in his judgment. “The disconnect between what clinical psychologists do and what science has discovered is an extreme embarrassment,” he told me, and “there is a widening gap between clinical practice and science.”
The “widening” reflects the great progress that psychological research has made in identifying (确认) the most effective treatments. Thanks to strict clinical trials, we now know that teaching patients to think about their thoughts in new, healthier ways and to act on those new ways of thinking are effective against depression, panic disorder and other problems, with multiple trials showing that these treatments — the tools of psychology — bring more lasting benefits than drugs.
You wouldn’t know this if you sought help from a typical clinical psychologist. Although many treatments are effective, relatively few psychologists learn or practice them.
Why in the world not? For one thing, says Baker, clinical psychologists are “very doubtful about the role of science” and “lack solid science training”. Also, one third of patients get better no matter what treatment (if any) they have, “and psychologists remember these successes, believing, wrongly, that they are the result of the treatment.”
When faced with evidence that treatments they offer are not supported by science, clinical psychologists argue that they know better than some study what works. A 2008 study of 591 psychologists in private practice found that they rely more on their own and colleagues’ experience than on science when deciding how to treat a patient. If they keep on this path as insurance companies demand evidence-based medicine, warns Mischel, psychology will “discredit itself.”Many clinical psychologists fail to provide the most effective treatments because ________.
| A．they are unfamiliar with their patients | B．they believe in science and evidence |
| C．they depend on their colleagues’ help | D．they rely on their personal experiences |
The widening gap between clinical practice and science is due to _______.
| A．the cruel judgment by Walter Mischel |
| B．the fact that most patients get better after being treated |
| C．the great progress that has been made in psychological research |
| D．the fact that patients prefer to take drugs rather than have other treatments |
How do clinical psychologists respond when charged that their treatments are not supported by science?
| A．They feel embarrassed. | B．They try to defend themselves. |
| C．They are disappointed. | D．They doubt their treatments. |
In Mischel’s opinion, psychology will ____.
| A．destroy its own reputation if no improvement is made |
| B．develop faster with the support of insurance companies |
| C．work together with insurance companies to provide better treatment |
| D．become more reliable if insurance companies won’t demand evidence-based medicine |
We keep reading that TV is bad for you. If this is true, how come the cur
rent generation of TV-addicted kids is much smarter than we are? In my home, the only people who can work the remote control are the children.
Perhaps TV does educate you. For example, you learn a useful medical fact: A person who has been shot always has time to speak an incomplete sentence before he dies. “The killer was…” (dies)
But I guess the biggest things we learn from TV can be regarded as “Life Skills”. Bad things only happen on dark and stormy nights. Emotional breakdowns cause people to wander in the heavy rain without umbrellas. And contrary to what scientists say, the crack(霹雳) of lightning and the accompanying flash happen at exactly the same time, wherever you are.
I’ve even acquired useful geographical facts from science-fiction shows: Aliens speak English no matter which planet they come from.
Making use of what we learn from TV can improve our security. Consider these truths. If you are ever attacked by 20 bad guys, don’t worry about being outnumbered. The criminals will hang back and take turns to approach you in ones and twos just so you can conveniently defeat them all. Bad guys who are completely covered in black clothes always remove their black masks to reveal that they are in fact, aha, women.
TV also teaches us important information about escaping from danger. Watch and learn. (1) If anyone is running after you down a passage, you will find that boxes have been conveniently placed near all the walls you need to jump over. (2) If you are tall and handsome, you can run from any number of armed criminals, and every shot will miss you.
Be warned, however. If your name card says “henchman” (帮凶) and you are part of a group of plain-looking people trying to catch a handsome individual, a single shot will kill you. But don’t be anxious: TV also delivers useful information for bad guys. All cars are inflammable (易燃的) and have amazing shock absorbers that enable them to fly into the air and land without damage — except police cars.
TV even teaches us about TV. Whenever anyone turns on a TV, it shows a news flash about someone they know. They then turn the box off immediately after that news item.By saying “A person who has been shot always has time to speak an incomplete sentence
before he dies” (Paragraph 2), the writer shows his________.
| A．humor | B．sympathy |
| C．deep concern | D．medical knowledge |
We can infer from Paragraph 3 that in the real world_______.
A．bad things cause people to break down in the ra in |
| B．bad things never happen on dark and stormy nights |
| C．people with emotional problems like to walk in the rain without umbrellas |
| D．the crack of lightning and the accompanying flash don’t happen at the same time |
On TV what usually happens when a person turns it on?
| A．The news shown is always about someone the person knows. |
| B．The person always turns off the TV when it’s time for news. |
| C．The program shown is always about the importance of TV. |
| D．TV always shows news about famous people. |
What’s the main idea of this passage?
| A．Life skills can be learned from TV. |
| B．TV plays an important role in society. |
| C．Watching TV makes people more creative. |
| D．What happens in TV is very different from reality. |
One of the most widely accepted, commonly repeated assumptions (假设) in our culture is that if you exercise, you will lose weight. I exercise all the time, but I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit. Why isn’t all the exercise getting rid of it?
It’s a question many of us could ask. More than 45 million Americans now belong to a health club, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. Of course, some people join and never go. Still, as one major study — the Minnesota Heart Survey — found, more of us at least say we exercise regularly.
And yet obesity (肥胖) figures have risen sharply in the same period: a third of Americans are obese, and another third count as overweight by the Federal Government’s definition. Yes, it’s entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised less. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise, so I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don’t. Could exercise actually be keeping me from losing weight?
The popular belief that exercise is essential for weight control is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against too much exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases — those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly over-evaluated.
“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” says Eric Ravussin, exercise researcher at Louisiana State University. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn’t as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser — or, for that matter, from magazines like this one.
The basic problem is that while it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can make one hungry. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate (使无效) the weight-loss benefits we just gained. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder. From the passage we learn that ____.
| A．some Americans join a health club but never go there |
| B．the number of overweight people has doubled since 1993 |
| C．more than 45 million Americans now go to the gym regularly |
| D．Americans waste too much money each year on sports |
According to the passage, exercise ____.
A．has long been believed to be good for older adults |
| B．is not properly advertised as an effective way to lose weight |
| C．was first recognized as an effective way to lose weight in the 1960s |
| D．is less effective in preventing heart disease than what doctors believe |
According to the writer, people might gain weight because ____.
| A．they have the habit of going to the gym regularly |
| B．they eat the same food when they do not exercise |
| C．they exercise less than required by doctors |
| D．they eat more after they exercise |
What may be the best title for this passage?
| A．Overweight Is Not Good for Your Health |
| B．Exercise Won’t Make You Thin |
| C．Gym Is Part of American Lifestyle |
| D．Obesity Is a Social Problem in America |
Below is some advice on how to prevent colds and flu.
| 8 Ways to Avoid Colds and Flu 1. Wash your hands and wash them often The US Naval Health Research Center conducted a study of 40,000 volunteers who were ordered to wash their hands five times a day. The volunteers cut their incidence of flu by 45 percent. 2. Wash your hands twice every time you wash them Researchers at Columbia University found one hand washing had little effect, even when using antibacterial soap. So wash twice if you’re serious about preventing colds. 3. Change your toothbrush every three months You think your toothbrush gets your teeth clean — and it does. But once you’ve finished brushing, it can be a breeding ground for germs. Most dentists recommend you change your brush every two or three months. It’s also a good idea to replace it after you’ve had a cold or flu. 4. Sneeze and cough into your arm or tissue (纸巾) Whoever taught us to cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze got it wrong. That just puts the germs right on our hands, where you can spread them to objects — and other people. Instead, put your arm over your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough if a tissue isn’t handy. It’s pretty rare that you shake someone’s arm, after all. 5. Stop blaming yourself when things go wrong Believe it or not, blaming yourself makes you more likely to catch a cold! Researchers found that even those who had control over their work were more likely to begin sneezing if they lacked confidence or tended to blame themselves when things went wrong. Such attitudes make people more stressed on the job, and stress, as you know, can challenge your immune system. 6. Once a day, sit in a quiet, dim room, close your eyes, and focus on one word Meditate (冥想). It is a proven way to reduce stress. Studies have shown that stress weakens your immune system. In fact, people with high stress levels have up to twice the number of colds as non-stressed people. 7. Get moving Ride a bike, join a dance class, or go for a walk. A study found that older women who did 45 minutes of gentle exercise, five times a week for a year, were up to three times less likely to get a cold than women who took little exercise. The researchers found that the exercisers’ immune system was strongest in the last three months of the study. 8. Leave the windows in your house open a crack You don’t have to keep all of them open, but one or two in the rooms in which you spend the most time. This is particularly important if you live in a newer home, where fresh circulating air has been the victim of energy efficiency. A bit of fresh air will do wonders for chasing out germs. |
To prevent yourself from getting colds, you should wash your hands____.
| A．twice every hour | B．twice every time |
| C．five times every hour | D．five times every time |
When you cough or sneeze, you should ____.
| A．put your hands over your mouth |
| B．avoid shaking hands with other people |
| C．cover your mouth with your arm or a tissue |
| D．keep away from other people |
Your immune system will be weakened if ____.
| A．your stress level is high |
| B．your room is not bright |
| C．you have control over your work |
| D．you do not exercise for 45 minutes every day |
If you live in a new house, it is particularly important to ____.
| A．leave all the windows open a crack |
| B．leave only one or two windows open to save energy |
| C．keep one or two windows open in the rooms where you spend the most time |
| D．keep all the doors and windows open to let in more fresh air when you are at home |
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