Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Times are tough. The nightly news is filled with stories of people who have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis, or lost their homes in a fire or natural disaster. Have you ever seen people who have just endured an awful situation? Some focus on what they have lost, and this is easy to understand. But other people focus on what they did not lose, and they start thinking about a better future.
One good piece of advice to remember is that you cannot always control situations or other people. The only thing you can control is your own personal reaction to bad situations. Sometimes a situation may really be overwhelming. However, in many cases, you really can influence our own moods by the way you think about negative situations.
Imagine two families: Both have lost their homes and all their belongings in a devastating storm. One family cannot mask their grief. They feel that everything they hold dear has been destroyed. They cannot imagine how they will ever be able to replace things and start over again. Their normal life seems to have been completely lost. In contrast, a second family is crying with joy. All of the people in their family are unharmed and safe. This family is just happy that everyone has survived. This family is already trying to figure out how they can recover. You can’t really blame the first family for experiencing a very normal reaction to a terrible situation. However, the second family certainly seems to be better off. They are thinking about making progress rather than focusing on the tragic events.
Though this scenario is extreme, everyone experiences setbacks that seem just awful at the time. This could be a job loss, illness, or problems with family members. Nobody gets through life without having some bad things happen. In these situations, try to focus on the steps you can take to remedy the situation, instead of how awful the setback is. By doing this, you will be laying the foundation for a better tomorrow. And you will not suffer as much pain today.
Actually, controlling how you feel and trying to maintain a positive attitude can help you through many tough situations. The bottom line is, no matter what the problem is, you are more likely to fix it if you can stay positive and work out a plan. Also, never be afraid to seek help when you need it. The advice of a friend, family member, or even a professional may be all it takes to get back on track.
It may sound like a cliché. While a positive attitude may not be the answer to every problem, it can certainly give you an advantage in surviving most of life’s minor setbacks.
(Adapted from “Select Readings – Upper Intermediate” by Linda Lee and Erik Gundersen)
As John became more successful, he had less time for his family.
A.The less time John had for his family, the more successful he became.
B.The more successful John became, the less time he had for his family.
C.More and more successful John achieved caused him to have less time for his family.
D.The more successful John achieved, the less time he had for his family.
A visible change of any living organism is getting older. Child, youth, adult and elder are some of the stages in our life. Child and elderly stages are dependent stages compared to other two stages. For both of these situations, a human being needs other’s support.
While we were children, our parents were there for our supportive role. When the parents became older, definitely their children need to be the supportive role for their parents. This is the role we carry among human beings vice versa. If the parents live with their children only parents will feel safer, attached to family and sharing of love. Unfortunately, many of them attending to works, they do not have time to look after their children neither their parents. In this case, elders could be sending to some a common place where other elders are staying. But payment cannot be made by the government.
Since it is the responsibility of their family, definitely family needs to pay for caring of their parents. They may not have enough time to take care of their parents. Since the government has employed special people for that, at least those elders’ parents need to be paid by their family.
For an example, many of the parents were private sector employees and they did not have a monthly pension scheme. But they have only Employee provident fund and employee trust funds. It has been used by the children of the parents in plantation sector of Sri Lanka. Finally, children will neither look after their parents nor elderly parents do not have own money in hand. That is, all advantages utilised from elders. When they become a stage of the dependent, families are trying to escape from their responsibilities. This is a kind of selfish. Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them.
Especially the children are responsible for looking after the parents; they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government.
( Written by - Niro)