题型:任务型阅读 题类:真题 难易度:困难
2013年高考英语真题试卷(湖南卷)
“Let's Talk”:The Free Advice Project
A few weeks ago, I took a walk around Washington Square Park. I met all the usual people:street performers, the Pigeon Guy, a group of guitarists singing in harmony. But off to the side, sitting on a bench was a woman doing something vastly different—giving free advice.
A week or two later, I set up an interview with her and we discussed her project at length.
Lisa Podell, 32, started the Free Advice Project this past May. It began as an experiment;she sat in Washington Square Park for a day with a sign that read “Free Advice” as a simple way to reach out to people. Podell was astonished at the strong response.
Podell admits that she was doubtful at first, but now she describes the project as mutually (相互地) beneficial. People learn from her—but she also learns from them. She says that the majority of those who come to her are dealing with some pretty heavy issues, and they expect her not only to listen, but also provide real answers.
Having worked as a full time teacher and now as an adolescent advisor, Podell believes that talking things out is an important in the decision-making process.
Sometimes, people walk around all day, keeping their problems in their own head and thinking about them in the same way. Podell simply strives to provide people with perspective.
I asked if there is a future plan for the Free Advice Project. Podell said she would like to promote it to each public space in New York, which would be carried out by various volunteers across the city.
It was truly inspiring to meet someone with such a big heart, especially in New York—where it is sometimes very hard to find anybody to listen.(303 words)
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Aside from the health benefits of laughter (which are numerous and significant), having a sense of humor about life's difficulties can provide a way to bond with others, look at things in a different way, normalize your experience, and keep things from appearing too overwhelming or scary. Properly developed, a good sense of humor can keep people and relationships strong.
Studies show that having a smile on your face can make you feel better, and can lead you to actually feeling happier (rather than just looking happier). Even if the smile is fake, the benefits you will experience are real! Also, a fake smile leads readily to a genuine one. If you are able to put a smile on your face, the laughter will come more easily, and the stress will melt more easily.
If your situation seems ridiculously frustrating, recognize what can develop into humor in just how ridiculously frustrating and annoying it is. In your imagination, take the situation to an extreme that becomes even more ridiculous until you find yourself amused. For example, when you're waiting in a long line at the store, you can imagine that hours pass, then days, visualizing yourself accepting visits from loved ones from your new home in this ultra-long line, holding your children's birthday parties in aisle seven so you can be there to enjoy them...you get the picture.
Besides, find a friend with whom you can laugh also works! You can each share your frustrations, and laugh about them in the process. Even when your friend isn't there, you can feel less stressed by thinking about the retelling that will come later.
You can have a “most annoying boss” game with your friends, or try to count how many times the same potentially frustrating event happens in a day.(“I was cut off in traffic 7 times today—I'm almost up to 10!”) This works well for predictable or repetitive annoying situations that you can't control; you can begin to value them in their own special way instead of letting them upset you.
One of the factors that drive the popularity of shows like Modern Family or movies like the classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is that they take somewhat universal situations that many people find frustrating and push them a little further, pointing out the silliness of it all.
What's more, you can try joining Funny Clubs.Years ago, when Oprah had a show rather than a network, she did a part on Laughter Yoga that interested me, and I researched a club on my own, finding it to be a terrific place to enjoy a good laugh. Whether you mean business or laugh at the silliness of it all, taking part in the exercises of laughter yoga with other humor-participants can be a very effective way to get back in the practice of getting some more laughter into your day.
Title | Develop a good sense of humor |
{#blank#}1{#/blank#} | Developing a good sense of humor concerning {#blank#}2{#/blank#}in life is an effective coping technique.It leads to better relationship as well as simple stress management. |
Suggestions | *Start with a {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It's shown in the studies that wearing a smile can help you feel happier.The more you laugh, the {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the stress is to melt. |
*Value the extremes: Imagine the situations to an extreme so that you can recognize the{#blank#}5{#/blank#}humor. | |
*Have an interesting friend: Share frustrations with your friends. If your friend isn't with you,{#blank#}6{#/blank#} the retelling to come can help lighten your moods. | |
*Make it a {#blank#}7{#/blank#} Value your frustrations in a “most annoying boss” game or count the times of the same potentially frustrating events in a day. | |
*Watch funny shows and {#blank#}8{#/blank#} Realizing that some{#blank#}9{#/blank#} frustrating situations are actually funny can help you endure them with a smile-even if it's ironic. | |
*Join laughter yoga clubs: Whether you are taking laughing {#blank#}10{#/blank#} or just laughing at the silliness of it all, joining a laughter yoga club is of much help. |
If there is one word to describe the progress made in the last 100 years, it's connectedness. From the telephone to the radio to the TV to the Internet, we have found ways to bring us all closer together, enabling,constant worldly access.
I don't think I need to highlight the benefits of all this. But the downsides are also beginning to show. Beyond the current talk about privacy and data collection, there is perhaps an even more detrimental side-effect here: We now live in a world where we're connected to everything except ourselves. According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, and we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction and use the noise of the world to block out the discomfort of dealing with ourselves.
However, we ignore the fact that never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely an anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.
Fortunately, there is a solution. The only way to avoid being ruined by this is to face it. It's to let the boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self. That's when you'll hear yourself think, and learn to engage the parts of you that are masked by distraction.
The beauty of this is that, once you cross that initial barrier, you realize that being alone isn't so bad. Boredom can provide its own stimulation.
When you surround yourself with moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately familiar with your environment in a way that forced stimulation doesn't allow. The world becomes richer, the layers start to peel back, and you see things for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.
You learn that there are things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface. Just because a quiet room doesn't scream with excitement like the idea of immersing yourself in a movie or a TV show doesn't mean there isn't depth to explore there.
Sometimes, the direction that this solitude leads you in can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to introspection (内省)—your thoughts and your feelings, your doubts and your hopes—but in the long term, it's far more pleasant than running away from it all without even realizing what you are.
Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us. That's ironic because it's more important than most of the ones they do.
Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.
The Cost of Connectedness |
|
Introduction |
●{#blank#}1{#/blank#} the development of IT has brought us all closer together than ever before, we {#blank#}2{#/blank#}to connect ourselves while connected to everything. |
The disadvantages of connectedness |
● We are afraid of a{#blank#}3{#/blank#} state of existence and the boredom it brings. ●We feel so uncomfortable when dealing with ourselves that we {#blank#}4{#/blank#} from it all and choose to be aimlessly distracted by the noise of the world. ●We often ignore the fact that never facing ourselves is to {#blank#}5{#/blank#} for our feeling lonely and anxious. |
The {#blank#}6{#/blank#} to the problem |
●You can deal with whatever is going on with your sense of self. ●You'll hear yourself, think, and learn to engage what is masked by distraction. ●Being alone isn't so bad. {#blank#}7{#/blank#}, you'll be stimulated by boredom. ●The world becoming richer and ,the layers starting to peel back, you'll have {#blank#}8{#/blank#} views about what you see. ●You'll find yourself capable of being attentive to some things and {#blank#}9{#/blank#} in depth beyond noise and scream. |
Conclusion |
●Solitude is the first step you should take to save yourself from being ruined by {#blank#}10{#/blank#} and anxiety. |
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