My father had died when I was young, so if I didn't acknowledge my mother's birthday, likely no one would. On her birthday, I decided to bake her some cookies, take them to her house and leave them with a little note for her.
But what to write about? My mother and I had not always been close. Pouring out words of love seemed insincere, but there were plenty of things I did appreciate, so I wrote a letter expressing my appreciation for what she had taught me. She taught me to live within our means, and not to go into debt. She taught me the color of someone's skin was irrelevant. She taught me helping others in need was its own reward. She taught me to value the elderly. She taught me how to see the shapes in the clouds. She taught me to appreciate the way the air smelled after a rain ...
Having finished the letter, I sent the cookies and the handwritten letter to my mother. That evening, she called and thanked me, saying it was a wonderful birthday present.
Two years later, she suffered a fatal heart attack. While cleaning out her house, I came across a photocopy of the birthday letter I had written to her in the drawer of the bedside table in the guest room. And then room after room, drawer after drawer revealed more photocopies of the same letter. There was one in the kitchen drawer and one taped to the inside of the kitchen cabinet. I also found one in a drawer in both bathrooms, another in the living room and two more in her bedroom.
Finally, I opened the drawer beside her bed, where I found an old handkerchief and as I pulled it out, a wrinkled piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It was the original birthday letter. It had been smoothed over and over again. I realized at that moment that the best things I could have given my mother weren't really things at all.
1. What did the author learn from her mother?| A．Live a happy life regardless of how much money one has. |
| B．We should treat people of different skin colors differently. |
| C．One can be rewarded a lot of money when helping others. |
| D．It's of great importance to explore the beauty of nature. |
| A．Six. | B．Seven. | C．Eight. | D．Nine. |
| A．What her mother value was her love not the gift itself. |
| B．She should never have sent any present to her mother. |
| C．Of all the gifts she had given her mother, nothing was best. |
| D．No gift was better than what she had given her mother. |
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【推荐1】We’ve got two dogs, Roxie and Cosita. My childhood memories are full of the cats we’ve loved, from my dad’s cat, Bandit, to our beloved white cat Cecelia, whose gray fur formed a perfect heart shape across her stomach. But since our last cat friend, Sunny the orange cat, died too young, we’ve been cat-less. The sudden loss of Sunny was hard to move on from, especially for my mom.
This year, Mom finally thought she was ready for a new kitten. It was all she wanted for her birthday on June 16. “Roxie and Cosita need a new friend!” she said. In the week leading up to her birthday, something happened. She started to hear a kitten’s meow (喵叫声) in the garage. Every time she went in and out of the garage, she could hear the soft cries but couldn’t tell the exact position of the sound. She asked my dad if he heard it too. He only shrugged (耸肩). At last, Mom’s birthday was arriving. She kept her fingers crossed, hoping for a kitten.
Over the past week, my dad had heard the kitten’s meow every time he walked past my mom’s car. One day he opened the hood (车盖) of the car, and a yellow kitten stared back at him. How in the world did she get there? And where did she come from? Dad didn’t know, but he fed the kitten every day, waiting for the day he’d give her to Mom.
The little kitten was such a perfect birthday gift, and Dad even didn’t need to leave the house to find her for my mom’s happy birthday! When it came time to name our new furry friend, we took inspiration from a song famously performed by Wilson Pickett and called her “Sally”.
1. What was difficult for Mom to forget?| A．The young orange cat’s death. |
| B．The moving of one of her friends. |
| C．The sudden death of the cat Bandit. |
| D．The heart shape across Cecelia’s stomach. |
| A．A new car. | B．A little cat. |
| C．A little dog. | D．A new cassette. |
| A．Dad hid her in Mom’s car. |
| B．Sally was bought for Mom. |
| C．Sally was named after a song. |
| D．Mom received her ahead of the birthday. |
| A．A new home for Sally | B．My pet friends in memory |
| C．My mom’s happy birthday | D．An unexpected birthday gift |
【推荐2】Parents should stop blaming themselves because there’s not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem, the one I want to talk about as a specialist. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.
I’ve seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I dropped in on them. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. “I don't know what to do with him these days,” she said. “He’s forgotten all the manners we taught him.”
He hasn’t forgotten them. He’s just decided that he’s not going to use them. She admitted that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.
Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, “I don’t like your dress; it’s ugly.” One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.
“Where did we go wrong?” her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.
1. Who is probably the author of the text?| A．A doctor for mental health problems. |
| B．A headmaster of a middle school. |
| C．A parent without teenage children. |
| D．A specialist in teenager studies. |
| A．The advice that parents want their children to follow |
| B．The change from good to bad that’s seen in a child |
| C．The opinion that a child has of his parents |
| D．The way that parents often blame themselves |
| A．They pay no attention to the two daughters. |
| B．They feel helpless to do much about the two daughters. |
| C．They have come to hate the two daughters gradually. |
| D．They are too busy to look after the two daughters. |
| A．Parents have no choice but to try to accept it. |
| B．Parents are at fault for the change in their children. |
| C．Parents should work more closely with school teachers. |
| D．Parents should pay still more attention to the change. |
【推荐3】What makes a gift special? Is it the price you see on the gift receipt? Or is it the look on the recipient’s face when they receive it that determines the true value? What gift is worth the most?
This Christmas I was debating what to give my father. My dad is a hard person to buy for because he never wants anything. I pulled out my phone to read a text message from my mom saying that we were leaving for Christmas shopping for him when I came across a message on my phone that I had locked. The message was from my father. My eyes fell on a photo of a flower taken in Wyoming, and underneath a poem by William Blake. The flower, a lone dandelion standing against the bright blue sky, inspired me. My dad had been reciting those words to me since I was a kid. That may even be the reason why I love writing. I decided that those words would be my gift to my father.
I called back. I told my mom to go without me and that I already created my gift. I sent the photo of the cream-colored flower to my computer and typed the poem on top of it. As I was arranging the details another poem came to mind. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe; my dad recited it as much as he did the other. I typed that out as well and searched online for a background to the words of it. The poem was focused around dreaming, and after searching I found the perfect picture. The image was painted with blues and greens and purples, twisting together to create the theme and wonder of a dream. As I watched both poems passing through the printer, the white paper coloring with words that shaped my childhood, I felt that this was a gift that my father would truly appreciate.
Christmas soon arrived. The minute I saw the look on my dad’s face as he unwrapped those swirling black letters carefully placed in a cheap frame, I knew I had given the perfect gift.
1. The idea for a special gift began to form when the author was .| A．doing shopping | B．having a debate |
| C．reading a message | D．leaving for Wyoming |
| A．a photo of a flower | B．a story about a kid |
| C．a call from the mother | D．a text about Christmas |
| A．the father | B．the author |
| C．William Blake | D．Edgar Allan Poe |
| A．To show how to design images for gifts |
| B．To suggest making gifts from one’s heart |
| C．To explain how computers help create gifts |
| D．To describe the gifts the author has receives |
【推荐1】Looking at Rosa Ferrigno's new suit, you could swear it was knitted(织) with regular yarn(毛线).It’s only when you touch it and hear the characteristic rustling(沙沙声 )of plastic that you realize there's something special about it.In fact, the suit is made out of over 300 plastic grocery bags.
Ferrigno, who once worked as a tailor before starting a family, got the idea for her unique hand-made suit last August.She was at a family picnic and saw on of the other guests carrying a purse made from re-purposed plastic bags.It attracted her, so she and her daughter searched for instructions on how to make one on You Tube.The 75 -year-old ended up making a purse from colorful plastic bags.But that was only the beginning.After finishing her second plastic bag purse, Ferrigno realized she needed something to match it with, so last November she told her daughter she was going to make a skirt and jacket suit out of plastic bags, as a winter project.
Rosa started by cutting up the plastic bags into strips(A.)and then tying them together to make longer, yarn- like strips that could be knitted.But to knit the plastic yarn, she needed that didn't exist on the market so she made them on her own.
The suit took Rosa two months to complete.The jacket was made out of 170 plastic bags, and the skirt required another 140.Although she didn’t even use a pattern when knitting the impressive suit, it ended up fitting her perfectly, and when she finally showed it off at the supermarket earlier this month, everyone went crazy.
“We love it when our customers reuse or recycle grocery bags, but never have we seen a work of art like Rosa's! It's really fantastic "Jo Natale, the supermarket chains vice president of media relations, said.
1. What makes Rosa Ferrigno,s new suit special?| A．Its unique way of knitting. | B．Its unusual knitting material. |
| C．Its being knitted by an old lady. | D．Its being able to sing when touched |
| A．By modelling a guest. | B．By consulting her daughter. |
| C．By watching You Tube videos. | D．By asking a tailor for instructions. |
| A．She thinks highly of Rosa’s behavior. |
| B．Rosa's work of art will become popular. |
| C．The potential of grocery bags needs further developing. |
| D．She thinks all customers should follow Rosa’s footsteps. |
| A．She is quite able and patient. |
| B．She is good at matching clothes. |
| C．She does nothing without careful planning. |
| D．She likes showing off her knitting |
【推荐2】Spending roughly a decade preparing for her 2023 book Alive: Like Light and Salt, writer Liao Zhi has taken a creative journey with her memories of surviving the disastrous Wenchuan earthquake. The then 23-year-old dance teacher was rescued from a collapsed building, but suffered the loss of her legs and her child.
Selected from Liao’s diary entries, the six-chapter book touches upon topics like “finding one’s true self” and “relationships”, revealing how the writer dealt with pain to set career goals and find the courage to become a parent once again.
The writer said her desire for life seemed to have been strengthened by the near-death experience and that may be why she took only less than a year to get back on track again. Swimming, running marathon and taking part in charity dance performances were only a part of Liao’s daily agenda that helped her see the light again.
Alive: Like Light and Salt is not all about dealing with difficulties. Liao has devoted several chapters to topics like “becoming a communication expert in close relationships” and sharing her thoughts on love.
Liao met Charles Wang, a prosthesis(假肢) engineer, when she was getting her new artificial legs. Although she was hesitant about getting remarried, Wang assured her that she was the one, even telling his parents that “I’ll never again meet such a good girl.”
“Her life-loving nature, her health y mind-set toward her disability and also her willingness to speak up for people with the same experiences as herself, such things let me see a different side of life. I’ve been deeply touched by her,” said Liao’s mother-in-law.
Liao set up the Home of Chenxing, a rehabilitation(康复) studio in Chongqing for disabled people in 2019, and has now helped over 100 people walk again with artificial limbs(肢). She’s also a leader of a charity group called “Seeing and Change”. “Society needs to be educated to see this particular group of people. We represent a part of society’s value,” Liao noted.
1. What do we know about the book Alive: Like Light and Salt?| A．It’s mainly intended for earthquake survivors. | B．It’s inspired by her husband encouragement. |
| C．It’s focused on ways to handle difficulties. | D．It’s based on the author’s life experiences. |
| A．It helped her see the hope of life. | B．It pushed her to start a studio. |
| C．It urged her to write many books. | D．It enabled her to walk again. |
| A．To introduce Liao’s achievements. | B．To confirm Liao’s good qualities. |
| C．To think highly of Liao’s marriage. | D．To ask people to experience life. |
| A．Charity should be made international. |
| B．The disabled create more social values. |
| C．Liao is devoted to helping the physically disabled. |
| D．Society owes an apology to the particular group. |
【推荐3】Do I Know You?
Cecilia Burman has always had a problem with faces. As a child, she struggled to pick out her own face in school photos, and she is hard pressed today to describe her mother’s features. Over the years she has offended countless friends, passing them on neighborhood streets or in office half ways like strangers. “People think I am just snobby, ”says Burman, 38, a computer consultant in Stockholm. “It makes me really, really sad to lose new friends because they think I couldn’t bother to say hello.”
There is a name for Burman’s condition: prosopagnosia or, more informally, face blindness. The disorder was thought to be extremely rare and mainly a result of brain injury. Until a few years ago, there were perhaps 100 officially recorded cases, says Ken Nakayama, a professor of psychology at Harvard.
Within that group of sufferers, however, the condition varies widely. For the vast majority, the problem is not so much about detecting a face. Prosopagnosics can see eyes, noses and mouths as clearly as anyone else. It is about recognizing the same set of features when seeing them again. While mild prosopagnosics can train themselves to memorize a limited number of faces(it is said to be like learning to distinguish one stone from another), others struggle to identify family members and, in extreme cases, their own faces. Gaylen Howard, 40, a homemaker in Boulder, says that when she is in front of a mirror in a crowded restroom, she makes a funny face so that, as she puts it, “I can tell which one is me.”
For now, it is enough for face-blind people like Burman, who has spent a lifetime being misjudged as lazy and uncaring, to know that there are many others out there like her. Burman made her first contact with fellow prosopagnosics on an Internet mailing list in 2000. “It was only then that I really recognized my own situation in theirs,” she says. “It was such a relief. I cried for days.”
1. The underlined word “snobby” in paragraph 1 most probably means “___________”| A．strange | B．superior |
| C．cruel | D．stupid |
| A．She got fully understood by all the people around her. |
| B．Prosopagnosia can finally be cured now. |
| C．She realized she was not alone who suffered from face blindness. |
| D．She gained the ability to recognize the same set of facial features. |
| A．Prosopagnosia is in fact quite common. |
| B．The disorder results from brain injury. |
| C．Burman has no difficulty recognizing her own features. |
| D．Face-blind people are not necessarily snobby. |
| A．Face-blind people are often thought offensive by those who have no idea of their situation. |
| B．Burman made great contributions to the internet platform concerning prosopagnosia. |
| C．There are more and more face-blind people. |
| D．That prosopagnosia can be cured has brought great relief to people who suffer a lot from it. |
【推荐1】Make Money This Summer with Sunny Libraries!
Do you have too much free time this summer vacation? Do you need a summer job to earn extra money? Do you want to be involved in your community? Sunny Area Library System (SALS) has job opportunities for high school students. These are good chances to get work experience.
Book Theater brings children’s book stories to life. It has shows at all Sunny Libraries. Applicants should enjoy performing in front of an audience and working with young children. Work Hours: Practice: Fridays 4:00 pm — 6:00 pm Performance: Tuesdays 10:00 am Rate of Pay: $16/performance | Computer Tutor helps guests to deal with technology problems, involving Internet searches and using the SALS Website to find materials. Applicants should have computer skills. Work Hours: Monday—Friday 9:00 am—5:00 pm Rate of Pay: $ 8/hour |
Bookmobile helps the driver find the routes to libraries. The truck you work in is air-conditioned, and the driver is friendly. Applicants must be able to lift heavy boxes. Work Hours: Sunday and Friday 9:00 am — 4:00 pm Rate of Pay: $10/hour | Reader Desk provides service with a smile while checking materials in and out to guests. Friendly attitude and ability to work on library data system required. Work Hours: Monday—Tuesday 8:00 am—4:00 pm Rate of Pay: $ 7.50/hour |
| A．$64. | B．$120. |
| C．$320. | D．$140. |
| A．To repair computers. | B．To lift heavy boxes. |
| C．To work with young children. | D．To check materials for guests. |
| A．To attract students to libraries. | B．To raise money for libraries. |
| C．To introduce new books. | D．To provide job opportunities. |
【推荐2】Beijing—Chengdu Train
Altogether about 5 pairs of trains are running between Beijing and Chengdu at present. Among them, a few pairs are high speed trains, which run between Beijing West Railway Station and Chengdu East Railway Station with duration of 8 to 10 hours; the rest few pairs are normal types between Beijing West Railway Station and Chengdu Railway Station and the whole journey takes about 21 to 32 hours.
High Speed Trains
Basic Facts:
·Duration: about 8—10 hours
·Distance: about 1,874—2,391 kilometers (1,165—1,485 miles)
·Top speed: 300 km/h (186 mph)
·Operated at: Beijing West Railway Station, Chengdu East Railway Station
·Stations along the way: Shijiazhuang, Handan East, Anyang East, Zhengzhou East,
Huashan North, Xi'an North, Guangyuan, Mianyang
Beijing to Chengdu High Speed Train Schedule:
(Last Update on Nov 12, 2020)
| Train No. | Departure - Arrival | Travel Time |
| G89 | 06:53—14:38 | 7h45m |
| G571 | 09:22—18:54 | 9h32m |
| G307 | 09:38—19:36 | 9h58m |
| G349 | 15:13—22:58 | 7h45m |
Beijing—Chengdu Train Ticket Price:
(Last Update on Nov 12, 2020)
| Business Class Seat | First Class Seat | Second Class Seat |
| CNY 2,417 / USD 350 | CNY 1,246 / USD 181 | CNY 778 / USD 112 |
Note: Children under the height of 1.2 for free ; Children with height between 1.2 and 1.5 meters half price ; Children above the height of 1.5 full price.
1. Where will you get off if you take a normal type train from Beijing to Chengdu?
| A．Chengdu Railway Station. | B．Chengdu East Railway Station. |
| C．Beijing West Railway Station. | D．Mianyang Station. |
| A．G571. | B．G307. |
| C．G89. | D．G349. |
| A．USD 224. | B．USD 280. |
| C．USD 336. | D．USD 1945. |
【推荐3】Visitors to Rome can now see one of the most important private collections of ancient Greek and Roman marble sculptures. The 90 works from the Torlonia Collection opened this week in the newly rebuilt Palazzo Caffarelli, overlooking the Roman Forum.
Among the works is a marble fountain (喷泉) that was made in ancient Greece. Experts on ancient Rome believe the fountain once stood in the garden of the general and statesman Julius Caesar. At the time, it was already hundreds of years old.
The 620-piece Torlonia collection is believed to be the greatest private collection of classical art in the world. It was begun more than a century ago by Prince Alessandro Torlonia. He found many of the pieces on the grounds of his family’s Roman properties. Wealthy from a business relationship with the Vatican (梵蒂冈), the family bought other well-known sculpture collections.
In 1884, the Prince built his own museum to show off his collection. When the museum closed in 1976, the pieces went into storage.
“The reappearance of such a collection is a very important event,” said art historian Salvatore Settis. “When I saw the collection for the first time, it was very emotional because I knew most of those pieces from books, but I had never seen them.”
The Torlonia family chose Settis to do the difficult job of deciding which works should be shown to the public. Anna Maria Carruba helped prepare the statues for the show. “Many of these pieces were already restored from the year 1600 onwards. We didn’t need to work on the structure of the statues but only on the surfaces, cleaning them,” she said.
The show will stay open until June 29, 2021. It is the result of public and private cooperation among the culture ministry, the city of Rome, the Torlonia Foundation and the Roman jeweler Bvlgari.
1. What did the author stress about the marble fountain?| A．Its beauty. | B．Its huge size. |
| C．Its long history. | D．Its unique structure. |
| A．It’s the biggest collection of classical art. |
| B．It was totally passed down from the family's ancestor. |
| C．It is a combination of ancient and modern sculptures. |
| D．The family enlarged it through purchases. |
| A．92 years. | B．376 years. | C．1600 years. | D．1884 years. |
| A．Bvlgari. | B．Salvatore Settis. |
| C．The Torlonia family. | D．Anna Maria Carruba. |
【推荐1】Cure for tiredness?
Staying up late is a potential battle between parents and kids. But the solution could be as simple as changing your meal time.
Researchers at the University of Surrey, UK, found that delaying meals could help change one of the internal body clocks. Besides a“master”clock in the brain, there are clocks in other parts of the body. They are usually synchronized（使…同步）according to factors including light.
During the study, researchers tested 10 participants to examine the effect of changing meal times on their body clocks. The participants were given three meals—breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the first stage, participants received breakfast 30 minutes after waking. Lunch and dinner followed, after 5-hour intervals. In the second stage, each meal was delayed by 5 hours. Right after each stage, blood and fat samples were collected.
Results showed that later meal times greatly influenced blood sugar levels. A 5-hour delay in meal times caused a 5-hour delay in the internal blood sugar rhythms.
The discovery showed that meal times are in line with the body clock that controls blood sugar levels.
This is a small study but the researchers believe the findings could help jet lag suffers and night-shift workers.
In a study by the University of Surrey in 2013, researchers explored what happened when a person’s body was changed from a normal pattern to that of a night-shift worker’s.
After people work through the night, over 97 percent of the body’s rhythmic genes are disrupted（扰乱）.
These findings explain why we feel so bad following a long flight, or after working at night, according to Simon Archer, one of the study’s researchers.
“It’s like living in a house. There’s clock in every room in the house and in all of those rooms those clocks are now disrupted, which of course leads to chaos in the household.”fellow researcher DerkJan Dijk told the BBC.
Changing meal times didn’t affect the“master”body clock—the one controlling when we get sleepy—but it can reset the body clock that controls blood sugar levels. This wouldn’t necessarily cure jet lag completely, but it might reduce the negative effects.
A study published earlier this year suggested that just a weekend camping trip could be enough to reset our body clocks. And now this latest research shows regular food schedules could play a key part too.
1. What did researchers at the University of Surrey find from their new study?| A．Connections between the“master”clock and clocks in other parts of the body. |
| B．Changing meal times can be enough to reset one of our body clocks. |
| C．A delay in meal times causes an irregular change in blood sugar rhythms. |
| D．Blood sugar levels are affected by when we eat rather than by our internal clocks. |
| A．The interval between each meal being given was different. |
| B．Blood and fat samples of the two groups of participants were collected. |
| C．Participants were asked to report their feelings after each stage. |
| D．Each meal was served five hours later during the second stage. |
| A．All our body’s genes would be disrupted if we worked through the night. |
| B．Our genes often become less active after a long flight or night of work. |
| C．The disruption of one gene could lead to the disruption of other genes. |
| D．A disruption to the body’s rhythmic genes can cause people to feel bad. |
| A．it’s impossible to reduce the negative effects caused by jet lag or night work |
| B．there is more than one way to reset body clocks |
| C．the“master”body clock controls all the other body clocks |
| D．a change in meal times can reset the“master”body clock |
【推荐2】As PhD research goes, Brian Wisenden was enviable, watching baby fish swimming swiftly through the clear waters in the Costa Rican tropical dry forest. By recording their growth and numbers, he hoped to look at their risks of being eaten. Instead, he witnessed something odd. Many groups were increasing in numbers. In these groups, some were smaller than others, suggesting they weren’t siblings (兄弟姐妹). Wisenden had accidentally discovered that the fish, called convict cichlids, adopt each other’s babies. Why would they do that, he wondered?
In the human world, we think of adoption as a selfless act. But in nature, its presence is puzzling. Taking on the burden of bringing up babies with no genetic link would seem to reduce an animal’s chances of survival or at least provide no gain. Yet, adoption is surprisingly common in the world.
Take the eastern grey kangaroo. Between 2008 and 2013, Wisenden followed the fates of 326 baby kangaroos in the National Park in Victoria and recorded 11 cases of pouch swapping. The circumstances behind some of these adoptions aren’t known, but four were straight swaps and another four occurred after a mother had lost her own baby.
How come? Before independence, baby kangaroos go through a period inside and outside their mother’s pouch. Following out-of-pouch forays, mothers normally sniff their young before allowing them back in, but Wisenden’s team suspect that during an emergency they may skip the sniff test, allowing a vulnerable baby to quickly climb in before fleeing from danger. Once inside the wrong pouch, the young may fake the mother’s odor, making them smell confusingly like her own progeny. So, poor baby recognition is the prime cause of “accidental” adoption.
Some of nature’s adoptions are, actually, driven by young looking for better prospects. In burrower bugs, for example, females lay a nest of eggs close to those of unrelated bugs. Mother bugs tend their developing eggs before they hatch, then feed their babies nuts from weedy mint plants. Finding nuts is a competitive business, so not every mother bug gets her fair share. And if the delivery rate isn’t up to scratch, clever young may abandon their mothers to join a better-fed group. That’s similar to behavior in several species of gull whose babies, if poorly fed, may leave home in search of better parents.
The consequences of adoption following mistaken identity can be dire. The true babies of adopting mothers were abandoned. But it can have remarkable benefits, not just for adoptees but also for adoptive parents.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that Wisenden’s findings are .| A．too weird to be witnessed | B．out of his own expectations |
| C．envied by his peer co-researchers | D．a sound proof of his research object |
| A．Baby animals’ looking for better parenting. |
| B．Parents’ failure to recognize their own babies. |
| C．Selfless adoption commonly seen in animal world. |
| D．Parents, inability to provide enough food. |
| A．weak and easily attacked | B．naughty and easily hurt |
| C．independent and well-fed | D．fragile and poorly raised |
| A．The benefits for baby animals. | B．The benefits for adopters. |
| C．The consequences of adoption. | D．The consequences of wrong identity. |
【推荐3】“What are you?” they ask. “Guess,” I say. Some suggest I have Japanese eyes. Others think I’m Filipino, maybe Indian. Few guess the truth: I am Mexican American. But it’s not like I’ve ever worn that name alone. I’m part of a younger generation of Americans whose identity is shaped neither by where we came from nor where we ended up.
My parents know the California immigrant experience first-hand. They grew up picking fruit in the San Joaquin Valley, knowing what it was to be poor, but also knowing what it was to be Mexican. Wanting a better life for their children, they went to college and got professional jobs. By the time I was born, they were fully accepted into the middle class. I grew up in the racially mixed zones of Sacramento, and when my parents talked of their years in the fields it was hard to connect those stories to where we found ourselves now.
By the time I reached my teens, difference had announced itself. We were all struggling for a sense of individuality, looking everywhere but where we came from. Identity became goods. Wearing certain clothes and liking certain kinds of music created social categories.
I became a junkman, sorting through the ruins of pop culture past looking for the pieces of myself. In love with the Beatles, I linked myself to England. Fascinated by Japanese cartoon, I took language classes at the local Buddhist temple.
I grew up American to a fault, rarely considering my own people’s culture and humanity. I left Sacramento and moved to San Francisco’s Mission District to put myself together again. There I first saw my people living in a separate community that had its own language, one I’d never learned. My brown face led people to ask me for directions in Spanish. I could only respond with a universally understood shrug.
“This is what I am,” I said to myself, looking at a street full of newly arrived immigrants. No, that wasn’t quite it. I corrected myself: “This is where I come from.”
Is it tragic that I grew up far from my mother culture, discovering it so late in life? I prefer to think that my American upbringing has taught me to apply insights from many different cultures to my everyday life. I am a product not just of Mexico or the U.S. but of the world as a whole.
1. Where does the writer grow up?| A．In Sacramento. | B．In a Mexico town. |
| C．In the San Joaquin Valley. | D．In San Francisco’s Mission District. |
| A．To promote mother culture. | B．To adapt to new surroundings. |
| C．To clearly express individuality. | D．To learn from different cultures. |
| A．liked to play sports | B．wanted to learn Spanish |
| C．was interested in different cultures | D．did not like living in San Francisco |
| A．the growing pains of immigrants | B．the culture differences in America |
| C．the author’s exploration of his identity | D．the problems of immigrants in America |
