A friend asks you to be a volunteer. Your husband asks you to glance over an e-mail he is writing to his boss. You say you'd love to. Really! But..."I don't have time". It seems plausible( ). We're all busy these days, right? But there are reasons not to use these four words, at least with yourself. Here's the big one: _ is not true. You tell yourself "I don't have time" to exercise, but we all have 168 hours a week. If someone offered to pay you $100,000 a week to go to the gym for 5 of those 168 hours, you would probably find the time to do it. Since that isn't going to happen, this is a more exact description: " It's not a priority ." There are a million things we could be doing with our time; some are priorities and some are not, even if it's wrong to say so. Try it. "I'm not going to read to you tonight, sweetie, because it's not a priority. Daddy's present priority is to check my e-mails." Using the words "I don't have time" keeps us from admitting to the fact that how we spend our time is a choice. It puts the responsibility for our lives on someone else: a boss, a client or a family member. Better to be truthful: "I have another volunteer job on which I am focusing my energy right now. It is the cause that is most important to me." Or, to your husband "I wish you had mentioned this earlier. Right now, my priority is to get our children dressed and out of the door for school. I will be available around lunch time if you would like to talk". You can find this text in the  _  section of a newspaper. A) sports B) entertainment C) culture D) science
C


Digital technology -- email and smart phones especially--have vastly improved workers' ability to be productive outside of a traditional office. Even so, most white-collar work still happens in an office. One reason is that, according to findings of a new survey   of office workers conducted by Wakefield Research for the IT company Citrix, most bosses are doubtful about remote working. Half of the workers say their boss doesn't accept it, and only 35 percent say it's tolerated. Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts reinforced   by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they've watched TV or a movie while "working" remotely, while 35 percent have done housework,and 28 percent have cooked dinner. It is true, however, that working at home makes people much more efficient  , because it allows workers to take care of annoying housework while still getting their jobs done. It's much faster, for example, to shop for groceries at a quarter to three than to stand in line during the after-work rush. The fact that such practices remain officially unaccepted reflects how far we haven't come as a society from the days when we expected every full-time worker to be supported by a full-time homemaker. More broadly the Wakefield survey suggests that employers may be missing a low-cost way to give workers something of value. Sixty-four percent of those survey participants who haven't worked remotely would rather give up some bonus in order to get even one day a week working from home. Under such circumstances, smart firms need to find ways to let their employees have enough ability to change or be changed easily to suit a different situation to manage their time efficiently. What does the author suggest smart firms do? A) Shorten their office hours. B) Give employees a pay raise. C) Adopt flexible work patterns. D) Reduce their staff's workload.
C


Q: "Dad," I say one day, "let's take a trip. Why don't you fly out and meet me?" My father had just retired after 27 years as a manager for IBM. His job filled his day, his thought, his life. While he woke up and took a warm shower, I screamed under a freezing waterfall in Peru. While he tied a tie and put on the same Swiss watch, I rowed a boat across Lake of the Ozarks. My father sees me drifting aimlessly, nothing to show for my 33 years but a passport full of funny stamps. He wants me to settle down, but now I want him to find an adventure. He agrees to travel with me through the national parks. We meet four weeks later in Rapid City. " What is our first stop?" asks my father. "What time is it?" "Still don't have a watch?" Less than an hour away is Mount Rushmore. As he stares up at the four Presidents carved in granite , his mouth and eyes open slowly, like those of a little boy. "Unbelievable," he says, "How was this done?" A film in the information center shows sculptor Gutzon Borglum devoted 14 years to the sculpture  and then left the final touches to his son. We stare up and I ask myself, Would I ever devote my life to anything? No directions, no goals. I always used to hear those words in my father's voice. Now I hear them in my own. The next day we're at Yellowstone National Park, where we have a picnic. "Did you ever travel with your dad?" I ask. "Only once," he says. "I never spoke much with my father. We loved each other--but never said it. Whatever he could give me, he gave."  _  In Glacier National Park, my father says, "I've never seen water so blue." I have, in several places of the world, I can keep traveling, I realize--- and maybe a regular job won't be as dull as I feared. Weeks after our trip, I call my father. "The photos from the trip are wonderful," he says. "We've got to take another trip like that sometime." I tell him I've decided to settle down, and I'm wearing a watch. What could be inferred about the author and his father from the end of the story? A) The call solves their disagreements. B) The Swiss watch has drawn them closer. C) They decide to learn photography together. D) They begin to change their attitudes to life.
A: D


*Question*
What kind of life do you seek for? One that is frustrating and full of complaints every day? Or one that is filled with thankfulness, gratefulness and a positive mind? The moment we open our eyes each day, we should be grateful that we are still alive. We are given a brand-new day. We are given another day to love. We are given another day of hope. We are given another chance to do whatever we have failed to accomplish. Those who have chosen to leave this place do not have any second chance. We should be grateful every day. By being grateful, we will treasure the things around us. We will learn to appreciate life in a better way. Treat others better and find ourselves in a better mood every day. When we are thankful and grateful for the things we have, the universe tends to give us more. By being thankful and grateful for our personal health, we will focus our attention on it and we would want to have a better well-being for our health. We will want to eat healthier food to nourish our body. After all, the body is the temple of our soul. We have to treat it well so that it can carry us a longer journey in life. When we face problems in life, be thankful and grateful too. They are designed specifically for us so that  we will be stronger and wiser. We are like a strong oak tree, facing the _ weather time to time. After each storm, we will grow stronger and strengthen our foundations for the next harsh weather. The year 2013 has come to an end. Have you achieved what you aimed for in the past year? Be grateful for those you have achieved and especially for those you have not--both successes and failures. Failures and mistakes will give you valuable lessons. So, pick yourself up and try again this year. Good luck! What would be the best title for the text? A) Kinds of Life B) Be Positive C) Be Grateful Every Day D) Pick Yourself Up
**Answer**

C