.完形填空

　　(2014·南京市、鹽城市二模)

　　Mark Twain said that “habit is habit, and not to be flung(扔) out the window by anyone, but coaxed(勸誘) downstairs a step at a time.” The chances of successfully changing negative behavior __1__ when you make gradual changes that give you time to __2__ negative patterns for positive ones.

　　On any given day, countless numbers of us get out of bed and __3__ to begin to change a given behavior “today”. Whether it be exercising more, drinking less, managing time __4__ or some other change in a negative behavior, we start out with high __5__. In a short time, however, a vast majority of people fail and are soon doing __6__ it was they thought they shouldn't be doing.

　　After considerable research, some researchers believe that behavior changes usually do not __7__ if they start with the change itself. __8__， they believe that we must __9__ a series of “stages” to adequately prepare ourselves for that __10__ change. Once you have analyzed all the factors that __11__ what you do, you must decide which behavior­change technique will work best for you.

　　According to the psychologist Albert Ellis, most __12__ problems and related behaviors arise from irrational(不理性的) statements that people make to __13__ when events in their lives are different from what they would like them to be. For example, suppose after doing __14__ on an exam, you say to yourself，“I can't believe I failed that easy exam. I'm so stupid.” By changing this irrational “catastrophic” self­talk into rational, __15__ statements about what is really going on, you can increase the __16__ that positive behaviors will occur.

　　Positive self­talk might be __17__ as follows: “I really didn't study enough for the exam. I just need to prepare for the next __18__.”

　　Such self­talk will help you to recover quickly from __19__ and take positive steps to correct the situation. Some other technique like purposefully __20__ or stopping negative thoughts and refusing to dwell on(沉湎于) negative images can also spare you wasted energy, time and emotional resources and move on to positive changes.

　　文章大意：本文是一篇說(shuō)明文。主要介紹了“我們”自身養(yǎng)成的一些壞習(xí)慣不是一朝一夕就能改變的。想成功地改掉這些消極的行為就必須給“我們”一些時(shí)間用積極的行為來(lái)替代消極的行為。