Five years ago, my husband and I bought a former farm. It’s a short ride from our Vancouver home but a world away. As we restore the land, I feel my well-being returning, but I think the farm is also working its magic on our son’s growing resilience (适应能力). Since Dev was 20, he has lived with mental illness. We have been on this journey with him from crisis to recovery.
It has taken a couple of years to clear the land, seed the lawn (草坪) and build garden beds. But we did it even as other parts of our life had come undone. The farm was holding our family together. We come over on weekends and holidays and have been planting.
Before he went to treatment, we planted a “guild” in the old apple farm.
The desire to recover this land has grown in me.
| A．We helped ourselves by helping others. |
| B．We also learned how to depend on others. |
| C．My son had great difficulty making a recovery. |
| D．I have seen this drive toward restoration in my son as well. |
| E．Just when it couldn’t get any worse, an unexpected light occurred. |
| F．During this time, Dev is concentrating on his own restoration process. |
| G．Its aim is to support the health of trees by grouping other surrounding components. |
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【推荐1】The great-grandmother is learning English with the help of her family when she is at the age of 91. She hopes to use the language at next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. Takamizawa was one of the more than 200, 00 people who requested to volunteer for Tokyo’s 2020 Games. English is not required for service, but it is a useful skill for volunteers to have.
But Takamizawa had not been able to learn the language when she was young. Takamizawa said that she was in high school when World War Two started. She said, “In my second year there, English was banned because it was the enemy language.”
Takamizawa said her grandchildren helped persuade her that she was not too old to learn. “When I talked to my grandchildren about my wish, they said, ‘It’s not too late. We will teach you one word a day’ ”. Natsuko is Takamizawa’s granddaughter and main English teacher. Natsuko sends a new English word to her grandmother’s phone every day. They also often work together directly on phrases that Takamizawa will need for the Olympics. “Welcome to Tokyo, this is the Olympic stadium, how can I help you?” Takamizawa answers when asked to say an English phrase she has learned. Natsuko explains that she wanted to give her grandmother something to enjoy. “I can clearly see her English is getting better. It’s my joy now.”
The EF English Proficiency Index is a measure of the level of English spoken in a country. Japan ranks 49th among countries where English is not the first language. This situation is slowly changing as younger generations welcome English. However, Takamizawa believes real change will not happen unless Japanese people become more open to the rest of the world. With around 500 days to go until the games begin, the whole Takamizawa family is ready to welcome the world to Tokyo.
1. Why couldn’t Takamizawa learn English when she was young?| A．Because English was useless. |
| B．Because she was too young to learn English. |
| C．Because English was forbidden to learn. |
| D．Because she was unwilling to learn English. |
| A．Takamizawa gets strong support from her family. |
| B．Takamizawa’s grandchildren love her a lot. |
| C．Natsuko is Takamizawa’s granddaughter and only English teacher. |
| D．Natsuko teaches Takamizawa English mainly by talking with her. |
| A．English is not the first language in Japan. |
| B．The level of English spoken in Japan is relatively low. |
| C．Younger generations in Japan welcome English. |
| D．Japanese people become open to the rest of the world. |
| A．Where there is a will, there is a way. | B．It is never too late to learn. |
| C．The early bird catches the worm. | D．Two heads are better than one. |
【推荐2】In 1990, during a performance of my stage play, I became preoccupied with one particular member of the audience. While everybody else laughed, there she sat, staring at the floor, with her fingers in her ears. I’ll never forget her look of complete discomfort.
That woman was my mother. Despite the fact I’d established myself as a humorist, my mother never found me or my work particularly funny. She was my hardest critic. “Is Drew really that funny?” she’d ask family members.
To make matters worse, the feeling was mutual (相互的): though our social circle swore that she was humorous, I never saw it. My mother was supposedly very funny in her first language, Anishinaabemowin—an Indigenous (原住民的) language, but alas, I didn’t speak it. At family gatherings, when somebody would say something “funny” in Anishinaabemowin, she’d explain it to me. Sometimes the humour translated. Sometimes it didn’t.
For a while I was convinced I would never make her laugh. Then, in 2005, I succeeded. I had published a book called Me Funny. In it were dozens of essays deconstructing Indigenous humour, along with 50 so-called “Indian jokes” to break up the various chapters. (For instance, “Why do Native people hate snow? Because it’s white and all over our land.”) She laughed hard and declared, “Wow, that was funny!”
In 2009, my mother passed away at the age of 77. During the funeral, in the tears, family member after family member got up and recounted things she had done and said over the years. To my surprise, I found myself laughing. Suddenly I remembered a moment from the early ‘90s, when my mother asked me, completely serious, what “owie” meant in French. I struggled to come up with an answer until I spelled it out in my mind: oui (“yes” in English).
More and more stories about her surfaced. We laughed as we remembered her. I couldn’t see my mother’s forest for my own trees. I wish I could have shared those laughs with her while she was alive, but I’m glad I finally made the connection.
1. What prevented the author and his mother from understanding each other’s humour?| A．Language barriers. |
| B．The author’s unique job. |
| C．Mom’s critical personality. |
| D．Views of Indigenous people. |
| A．He tried to fit in his Indigenous family. |
| B．He recalled amusing moments about mom. |
| C．He wanted to hide his sadness over mother’s death. |
| D．He intended his laugh to make mother rest in peace. |
| A．The author learned from mother a very important life lesson. |
| B．The author failed to relate to his mother from her perspective. |
| C．The author finally understood mother’s sense of humour better. |
| D．The author didn’t write enough humorous books to make mother laugh. |
| A．Am I funny? | B．Why isn’t Mom laughing? |
| C．What’s so funny? | D．Does laughter have an accent? |
【推荐3】Children looked after by grandparents while their mothers are at work would be better off in nurseries, a study finds.
It discovered that children in the care of grandparents struggled to socialize with their peers by the age of 3, had significantly more behavioral problems and were behind at key developmental stages compared with those in nurseries. The only clear benefit was their good vocabulary.
The latest study of 4,800 children born in 2000 and 2001, was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London. All had mothers who worked when their children were babies. Children cared for by grandparents made up over one third of the sample and the researchers said that the differences between this group and the others were considerable.
In terms of social skills, boys in the care of grandparents did particularly badly, regardless of social background. The researchers said that other researches suggested that formal childcare with qualified people could help children to develop the social skills needed to get on with their peers and to avoid more serious problems later.
“Children who are looked after by grandparents, on the other hand, spend more time with adults,”said Kirstine and Denise, of the Institute of Education.
The threeyearolds who had been in formal childcare from nine months achieved higher scores in a “school read” assessment(评估) that measured their understanding of colors, letters, numbers, sizes and shapes.
In terms of vocabulary, the children cared for by grannies did well, especially if they had highly educated mothers. “This may, of course, reflect the better vocabulary skills of grandmothers in such families,” said Dr Hansen, research director of the Millennium Cohort Study. “But it may also be partly because grandparents talk to children more than other carers, not only because they have more time but because they make up for a reduction in physical activities with the child.”
1. What does “the sample” in Paragraph 3 refer to?| A．A small part of a song from a CD or a record. |
| B．A group of children chosen for the research. |
| C．A small part of something that is examined. |
| D．A small amount of a product for customers to try. |
| A．Formal childcare with qualified people could avoid more serious problems later. |
| B．Formal childcare makes children have better “school read” ability. |
| C．Boys cared for by grandparents have poor social skills. |
| D．Children cared for by grandparents have strong feeling of dependence on adults. |
| A．They have better language ability. |
| B．They know better about numbers. |
| C．They like talking with their peers. |
| D．They are good at making friends. |
| A．children in formal childcare act more actively |
| B．well educated grandparents love telling stories |
| C．children cared for by grannies lack physical activities |
| D．grandparents are too old to take care of children |
| A．Where should children go, home care or a childcare center? |
| B．Children do better with grandparents than in a childcare center. |
| C．Children are better off in a nursery than looked after by grandparents. |
| D．Grandparents contribute both positively and negatively to childcare. |
