Henry was a carpenter of our village. Once I asked him to make a table for my family. A week later, Henry sent us the table and the bill as well. My wife said to me, "It's a beautiful table, dear, isn't it?" "I won't decide about that until I see the bill." I said. Henry was drinking a glass of water. He laughed and gave me a piece of paper. It said, Bill One dining table June 10, 2011 Cost of wood 17.00 Paint 1.50 Work, 8 hours (1 an hour) 8.00 Total 36.50 When I was looking at the bill, Henry said," It's a fine day, isn't it? Quite sunny." "Yes," I said. "I'm glad it is only the 10th of June." "Me too, " said Henry." You wait. It will be a bit hotter by the end of the month." "Yes, hotter and more expensive. The table will be 20 more expensive on June 30th, won't they, Henry? " I said, "If it isn't too much trouble, please add it up again. You can forget the date." "OK, man. You are such a guy." Henry said with a smile in his two blue eyes, and he left with the money he should get. In Henry's opinion the write was a _ guy. A) smart and careful B) silly and lazy C) rich and hardworking D) stupid and rich
A
I promised Michael I wouldn't mention this until the season was over.Now l think it's time. Early last season, I wrote a column about an art of kindness I had seen Jordan do to a disabled child outside the stadium.After it ran,I got a call from a man in the western suburbs.He said,"I read what you wrote about Jordan.but I thought I should tell you another thing I saw." Here it comes, I thought. It always does. Write something nice about a person, and people call you up to say that the person is not so nice. A few weeks later Jordan and I were talking about something else before a game, and I brought up what the man had said. Was the man right? Had Jordan really been talking to those two boys in that poor and dirty neighborhood? "Not two boys," Jordan said. "But four." And he named them. He said four names. And what did they talk about? "Everything," Jordan said. " Anything. I've asked to see their grades so that I can check to see if they're paying attention to their study. If it turns out that one or two of them may need teaching, I make sure they get it." It's just one more part of Michael Jordan's life,one more thing that no one knows about, and one more thing Jordan does fight for. The NBA season is over now, and those boys have their memories. So do J! When the expert reviewers begin to turn against Jordan as they surely will, I'll think about those boys under the streetlight, waiting for the man they know to come. For someone they can depend on. The text implies that Jordan is _ . A) an excellent basketball player B) good at dealing with problems of life C) always ready to make friends with young people D) willing to do whatever he can for the good of society
D
Q: Olaf Stapledon wrote a book called First and Last Men, in which he looked millions of years ahead. He told of different men and of strange civilizations, broken up by long 'dark ages' in between. In his view, what is called the present time is no more than a moment in human history and we are just the First Men. In 2,000 million years from now there will be the Eighteenth or Last Men. However, most of our ideas about the future are really very short-sighted. Perhaps we can see some possibilities for the next fifty years. But the next hundred? The next thousand? The next million? That's much more difficult. When men and women lived by hunting 50,000 years ago, how could they even begin to picture modern life? Yet to men of 50,000 years from now, we may seem as primitive in our ideas as the Stone-Age hunters do to us. Perhaps they will spend their days goallocking to make new spundles, or struggling with their ballalators through the cribe. These words, which I have just made up, have to stand for things and ideas that we simply can't think of. So why bother even to try imagining life far in the future? Here are two reasons. First, unless we remember how short our own lives are compared with the whole human history, we are likely to think our own interests are much more important than they really are. If we make the earth a poor place to live on, because we are careless or greedy or quarrelsome, our grandchildren will not bother to think of excuses for us. Second, by trying to escape from present interests and imagine life far in the future, we may arrive at quite fresh ideas that we can use ourselves. For example, if we imagine that in the future men may give up farming, we can think of trying it now. So set your imagination free when you think about the future. Spundles and ballalators are used in the text to refer to _ . A) tools used in farming B) ideas about modern life C) unknown things in the future D) hunting skills in the Stone Age
A: C
(Question)
Our most commonly held code for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we'll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this code is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, and productive at work. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigid research in psychology and neuroscience , management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe. In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research--including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS to fix this broken code. Using stories and case studies from his work with CEOs of Fortune 500 in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive ability at work. Based on seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can _ the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. A must-read for everyone trying to stand out in a world of increasing workloads and stress, The Happiness Advantage isn't only about how to become happier at work. It's about how to acquire the benefits of a happier and more positive mode of thinking to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives. What is the purpose of the writer in writing the passage? A) To help people stand out in the world. B) To arouse people's sense of happiness. C) To help people decrease the work stress. D) To strongly recommend the book.
(Answer)
D