Sports are the base of my life, next to my mother who raised me when my dad left us. I have been into sports since I was six years old. I have known many coaches and heard hundreds of their tips, but they usually focused on drills to develop my skills and reach the next level of play.
When I was in Senior Two, I met the new school basketball coach, Brian Pawloski. I thought I was certain to be selected for the school team since I had been in it the year before. I showed up to the tryouts and put out about 90% effort since I thought I’d make it with no problem. That was a big mistake.
Brian Pawloski is the hardest-working coach I have ever met. He didn’t expect 100% effort, he expected 200% effort. One example: he once made us do 40 suicide drills for the 40 lay-ups (投篮) we missed in a game. Some think this is crazy, but it isn’t. After this conditioning practice, as we were getting a cup of cold water to drink, I said, “coach, that was the best practice I ever had.” I was completely sincere. This man was and is the person who influenced me most at my high school. He expects us to be excellent not just on the court but in the classroom. If I am not working on basketball, I am reading a book that he thinks will help us better understand life’s challenges, including Wooden, Coach, and The Screwtape Letters.
In the first two years I slacked off, not putting forth my full potential. Now, unlike the coaches of my youth, this man was interested in how he did off the court. He always made sure I kept up with my studies and was able to be trusted. I can honestly say that on other coach has given me so much advice on how to succeed in basketball, but more importantly, in life. My school is lucky to have such a great person to teach, coach and influence their students. I will always remember my high-school basketball days as one of the hardest times I have ever worked in my life not only in basketball but in my growth as an individual.Different from other coaches, Coach Brian ________.
| A．concentrated on skill training |
| B．trained the team to the edge of death |
| C．expected the team to do well in their studies |
| D．asked the team to do more reading than training |
The underlined phrase “slacked off” in the last paragraph probably means ________.
| A．paid no attention | B．showed no interest |
| C．had less passion | D．made less effort |
In the author’s eye, Coach Brian is ________.
| A．strict and helpful | B．hardworking and honest |
| C．skilled and cruel | D．professional and serious |
What is a lifestyle and how is that different from a life? A lifestyle is about brand names and buying identity or fame. Lifestyle gives a false sense of peace and acceptability that comes from others recognizing what you’ve bought into (as well as bought). If your car, clothes, and home are expensive, you’re sophisticated(世故的) and stylish. If you have the right kind of job or go to the right social gatherings, then you receive the insincere approval of others. This means that your self-esteem(自尊) is always at the mercy of others, with no appreciation of you as an individual.
A life, on the other hand, is very different. A life is what you lead when you know what matters most to you. It is very simple and comes from being connected to what you know is important and being willing to put that first, no matter what others may think. When you create a life vs. a lifestyle, your self-esteem comes from what’s inside you, not what others think about you.
Lifestyle is expensive financially and personally, because it costs a great deal to keep up appearances and do what you think is socially acceptable. A life is not expensive. Rather than using personal or financial resources, a life generates energy and staying power. It’s about liberating yourself from the mindless consumption that society expects. It is about making the choices that are in line with your values, instead of using up your bank account or energy for no heart-driven reason.
How can you make the change? Understand the difference between a life and a lifestyle. Analyze your current lifestyle to see what is costing you in money, time, stress, and energy to maintain it. Let go and make room for what is really important to you, what supports you and brings you joy. Remember who you are from within, not what you own!Which of the following examples best explains “what is life about”?
| A．We work long hours in a job that we do not enjoy. |
| B．We focus on what we wear, or what kind of car we drive. |
| C．We find out what our true beliefs and values are and choose to live by these. |
| D．We think that how others see us is more important than what we think of ourselves. |
What method does the author use to explain his opinion in the third paragraph?
| A．Making comparison. | B．Giving an example. |
| C．Giving a definition. | D．Giving a reason. |
To make the change, we need to______________________.
| A．be directed from within | B．be directed from outside |
| C．be driven by social values | D．be driven by others’ opinions |
What is the author’s purpose of writing this passage?
| A．To describe what life is. |
| B．To introduce what lifestyle is. |
| C．To promote life instead of lifestyle. |
| D．To tell the differences between life and lifestyle. |
Researchers claimed that waitresses who wear red get up to 26 percent extra in tips than they would wearing other colors. However, the team finds that the sexes tip very differently—with the bigger tips coming only from male customers.
No matter what color they wear, female diners will give the same kind of amounts for service every time. Yet men, whether they realize it or not, add anything between 15 and 26 percent more to a waitress in red than they would if it was the same waitress wearing a different color.
The test was simple. Take 11 waitresses in five restaurants over a six-week period and ask them to wear the same kind of T-shirt every day but change the colors. Previous research has suggested waitresses could earn more if they acted charmingly or wore more make-up than their colleagues. But this study, by the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, only changed the color of the T-shirt. Every other aspect from make-up to behavior remained the same.
When wearing either black, white, green, blue or yellow T-shirts, the size of the tips from both male and female customers was almost identical. But when they wore red, the size of the tips went up by between 15 and 26 percent from male customers, yet stayed the same from female ones.
A total of 272 restaurant customers were studied by researchers Nicolas Gueguen and Celine Jacob for the international journal of the tourism industry.
Even as a T-shirt, it shows just how much the color red is thought, by men, to increase the physical and sexual attractiveness of woman, said the researchers.
The researchers wrote: As red color has no negative effect on women customers, it could be in their interest to wear clothes at work.The underlined word “identical” in Para. 4 probably means____________________.
| A．different | B．similar | C．the same | D．close |
According to the passage, in the research by the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research waitresses could earn more by _________________.
| A．wearing red T-shirts | B．putting on attractive make-up |
| C．changing the color of T-shirts | D．behaving themselves |
Which of the following is right according to the passage?
| A．Bright color can increase the physical and sexual attractiveness of women. |
| B．Waitresses in red make no difference to female customers. |
| C．Make-up makes no difference to man customers. |
| D．Whether male customers tips more or not depends on service. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．People tip differently if waitresses wear different make-up. |
| B．Waitresses who wear red get more tips than they would wearing other colors. |
| C．Male customers are more interested in the red color. |
| D．Red color has no negative effect on female customers. |
Like many languages spoken by people, Ayapaneco is dying. Only two people in the world still speak it, and they won't talk to each other.
Spoken in Mexico for centuries, Ayapaneco is one of 68 surviving languages in the mainly Spanish-speaking nation. The two speakers are Manuel Segovia and Isidro Velazquez. Though they live only 500 meters from each other in the village, the two men seldom talk to each other. Daniel, an American expert, who is working to make a dictionary of Ayapaneco, says the two men “don’t have a lot in common,” and that Segovia can be “active” while Velasquez tends to mind his own business and stay at home.
While Segovia still speaks to his wife and son in Ayapaneco, neither of them can manage more than a few words. Velasquez hardly speaks his native tongue any more. Daniel is working to preserve the language in dictionary form before its last surviving speakers pass away. According to Daniel, Ayapaneco and the other languages began dying out with the introduction of public Spanish education in the mid-20th century. For decades, local children weren’t allowed to speak anything else. Many people to cities, starting in the 1970s, also helped the dying out of native languages.
Ayapaneco is the name given to the language; Segovia and Velazquez call it “Nuumte Oote”, which means “true voice”. Neither man, however, speaks the same language. The dictionary will contain two versions(版本) of the language when it comes out later this year. Those behind the dictionary aren’t the only ones trying to save Ayapaneco. The National Language Institute plans to hold classes so that Segovia and Velasquez can pass on what they know to children.
It is thought that there are about 6,000 languages spoken on earth and that about half will disappear over the next 100 years. Let’s hope the “true voice” isn’t one of them.Segovia and Velasquez seldom talk to each other in Ayapaneco because they___________________.
| A．both dislike the language |
| B．don’t get along well with each other |
| C．are too busy to talk to each other |
| D．don’t share the same interests |
Which are the main reasons why the language Ayapaneco started dying out?
a. No teacher liked to teach it. b. Local children had to speak Spanish.
c. many villagers went to live in cities. d. The surviving speakers didn’t like to use it.
| A．a, b | B．a, c | C．b, d | D．b, c |
How does the National Language Institute try to save Ayapaneco?
| A．Write a dictionary of Ayapaneco. |
| B．Let Ayapaneco be taught at school. |
| C．Introduce a public Ayapaneco education. |
| D．Ask villagers to speak Ayapaneco. |
From the text we learn that the author____________________.
| A．agrees that it is natural that Ayapaneco should die out |
| B．thinks Daniel’s effort to preserve Ayapaneco won’t work |
| C．thinks highly of Ayapaneco and wants people to learn it |
| D．hopes that Ayapaneco will not die out in the future |
One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods from door to door found that he had only one dime left. He was hungry so he decided to beg for a meal at the next house.
However, he became nervous when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal, he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she replied, “Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” As Haward Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in God and the human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.
Years later, the young woman became seriously ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists could be called in to study her rare disease. Dr. Haward Kelly, now famous was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.
Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room and determined to do his best to save her life. From that day, he gave special attention to her case.
After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the bill to him for approval. He looked at it and then wrote something on the side. The bill was sent to her room. She was afraid to open it because she was positive that it would take the rest of her life to pay it off. Finally she looked, and the note on the side of the bill caught her attention. She read these words,
“Paid in full with one glass of milk.”
(Signed) Dr. Haward Kelly
Tears of joy flooded her eyes as she prayed silently, “Thank You, God. Your love has spread through human hearts and hands.”After finishing the milk, the boy ______________.
| A．felt angry because what he was really hungry |
| B．regretted that he didn’t ask for any food |
| C．felt more hungry than ever before |
| D．had a stronger faith in God and the human race |
The underlined word “baffled” in Para. 4 probably means_______.
| A．puzzled | B．excited | C．amazed | D．encouraged |
What did the local doctors finally do when the young woman became seriously ill?
| A．They looked on indifferently. |
| B．They asked for Dr. Howard Kelly’s help. |
| C．They sent her to a hospital with specialists. |
| D．They believed that his faith in God would cure her. |
Which of the following statement is RIGHT according to the passage?
| A．The young woman knew that Dr. Howard Kelly would help her and save her life. |
| B．The doctor walked away the moment he heard the name of the town she came from. |
| C．The doctor saved the woman’s life and paid off the bill. |
| D．We shouldn’t ask for help because one day we will pay a lot for it. |
In the eighteenth century one of the first modern economists, Adam Smith, thought that “ the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country” provided revenue to “three different orders of people: those who live by rent, those who live by wages, and those who live by profit”. Each successive stage of the industrial revolution, however, made the social structure more complicated.
Many intermediate groups grew up during the nineteenth century between the upper middle class and the working class. There were small-scale industrialists as well as large ones, small shopkeepers and tradesmen, officials and salaried employees, skilled and unskilled workers, and professional men such as doctors and teachers. Farmers and peasants continued in all countries as independent groups.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the possession of wealth inevitably affected a person’s social position. Intelligent industrialists with initiative made fortunes by their wits which lifted them into an economic group far higher than that of their working-class parents. But they lacked social training of the upper class, who despised them as the “new rich.”
They often sent their sons and daughters to special schools to acquire social training. Here their children, mixed with the children of the upper classes, were accepted by them, and very often found marriage partners from among them. In the same way, a thrifty, hardworking labourer, though not clever himself, might save for his son enough to pay for an extended secondary school education in the hope that he would move in a “white-collar” occupation, carrying with it a higher salary and a move up in the social scale.
In the twentieth century the increased taxation of higher incomes, the growth of the social services, and the wider development of educational opportunity have considerably altered the social outlook. The upper classes no longer are the sole, or even the main possessors of wealth, power and education, though inherited social position still carries considerable prestige.What criterion did Adam Smith seem to go by in his classification of social groups?
| A．The amount of wealth | B．The amount of money |
| C．The social status | D．The way of getting money |
If you compare the first and second paragraph, what groups of people did Adam Smith leave out in his classification?
| A．Officials and employees. | B．Peasants and farmers. |
| C．Doctors and teachers. | D．Tradesmen and landlords. |
Who were the ‘new rich’ during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
| A．They were still the upper class people. |
| B．They were owners of large factories. |
| C．They were intelligent industrialists. |
| D．They were skilled workers who made their fortune. |
According to the passage, what did those people do who intended to make their children move up in the social ladder?
| A．They saved a lot of money for their children to receive higher education. |
| B．They tried to find marriage partners from the children of the upper class. |
| C．They made greater fortunes by their wits. |
| D．They worked even harder to acquire social training. |
In the twentieth century class differences have been partly smoothed out by ____.
| A．increased income and decreased taxation |
| B．taxation, social services and educational opportunities |
| C．education, the increase of income and industrial development |
| D．the decrease of the upper class population |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号