It would be easy to believe that Mother’s Day was created by a greeting card company. After all, the day is celebrated with special sales and brunches, lots of presents and massive advertising campaigns. But the day was actually set up more than a century ago by Anna Jarvis of West Virginia as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.
Jarvis’s mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Club”, teaching women how to care for their children. During the Civil War, she organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day”, where mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers met to try to promote harmony. The younger Jarvis was inspired by all the things her mother had accomplished with her social work.
When Jarvis was young, she overheard her mother praying, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will find a memorial mother’s day honouring her for the matchless service she offers to humanity.” When her mother died in 1905, Jarvis looked through all the sympathy cards she received. She underlined all the kind words that praised her mother, reading them over and over. The outpouring of kindness for her mother inspired her to create a day to honor all mothers.
The white carnation(康乃馨) was her mother’s favorite flower, so it became the symbol for the day. She said it symbolized the truth, purity and charity of a mother’s love. Her idea of celebrating Mother’s Day was wearing a carnation while visiting your mother. Children were also encouraged to write letters to their mothers, sharing the depths of their appreciation.
The first official Mother’s Day events were held on May 10, 1908, at the church where her mother taught Sunday School in West Virginia, and at the Wanamaker’s department store auditorium(礼堂) in Philadelphia.
1. Why was “Mother’s Day” set up?2. How did Jarvis advised children to celebrate on Mother’s Day?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then write the false part on the paper and explain why.
Jarvis’s mother hoped someone, sometime, will find a perfect day to honor her for the service she offers to humanity, which inspired her to create a day to honor all mothers.
4. Why do you think Mother’s Day is important and how do you celebrate it? (about 40 words)
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【推荐1】Listening to your parents fight is very hard to do, and you may. not know how to respond When they start up again. However, there are some things you can do to try to make them understand how you feel and hopefully get them to decide to stop on their own.
Choose the right time to talk to your parents. Although you want their fighting to stop immediately, it’s best if you stay away (if possible) during your parents’ fight
Write out what you want to say in advance
Talk to someone you trust about your parents’ fighting. If you’re not sure whether or not you should talk to your parents, if you’re not sure what you should say to them when you do talk to them, or if you’ve talked to them but nothing has changed, you should try to find a trusted adult to talk to,
| A．Explain how you feel |
| B．Wait until they’ve calmed down |
| C．Tell your parents what you think • |
| D．Pick someone who cares about you and you can trust |
| E．Describe to your parents how things seem to you |
| F．If you are nervous about remembering everything you want to say to your parents ‘ |
| G．If they are opening to talking, do your best to listen to them without interrupting (打断) |
【推荐2】The middle child, I think, is now an “endangered species”. According to a study, in 1976,65 percent of mothers between aged 40 and 44 had three or more children. Today, nearly two-thirds of women with children have only one or two. Middle children will soon be the tiniest.
As a middle child, I am disappointed at the potential disappearance of middle children. I’m the middle of three—two boys, one girl—so I’m what’s sometimes regarded as a “classic middle child”.
Being a middle child is not something you are eager for. As one middle child said to me, “There is a thing called middle-child syndrome (综合征). I certainly was always aware that the middle was not a position to be admired, even as I came to see typical middle-child features in myself. Middle children are natural mediators (和事佬); I avoid disagreements and habitually act as the family peace-maker. Middle children tend to be private but also long for love; I keep to myself but do not exactly hate attention.”
According to studies, middles traditionally receive less economic and emotional support from their parents. They also typically have less close relationships with their mothers and fathers compared with other brothers or sisters, so they tend to have more friends to fill the feeling gap.
In a study conducted by the City College of New York in which participants were asked to choose words they associate with the first, last, and middle kids, positive words such as caring and ambitious were cited concerning all three birth orders. Only middles, however, were described with such negative terms as overlooked and confused. More importantly, middles may be many things and they were the only birth order with which no one connected the term “overindulged”. It is true: their parents couldn’t allow them to do or have whatever they want, especially when they are enough old, and they don’t ask for everything either even if they are eager to own it occasionally.
1. Why does the author mention the study in paragraph 1?| A．To inform a definition. |
| B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To make a comparison. |
| D．To support his opinion. |
| A．It is dangerous for middles to suffer from it. |
| B．It clearly shows the typical features of middles. |
| C．It is what non-middle kids admire and wish for. |
| D．It is the result of the unsuccessful parenting style. |
| A．John, 3, asking his mother for dressing him. |
| B．Mary, 8, busy in focusing on her preference. |
| C．Paul, 12, unwilling to have breakfast by himself. |
| D．Nancy, 17, afraid to challenge the math problems. |
| A．They are always in low spirits. |
| B．They stress the protection of privacy. |
| C．They are ignored but independent. |
| D．They support the family economically. |
【推荐3】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1】The Harlem Renaissance
The word “renaissance” means “rebirth”. The Harlem Renaissance took place during the 1920s. It was a time when the African American artistic community grew and flourished, producing a ton of work in a short period of time. The work celebrated African American culture and spoke to their experiences as minorities---both the good parts and the bad parts.
After the Civil War, many African Americans left the South to escape unfair treatment and laws that discriminated against them. Between 1910 and 1920, massive numbers of black Southerners moved from the rural south into the urban North and West in the Great Migration. The African American population of Chicago more than doubled during that time! And in New York, African Americans flocked to uptown Manhattan, setting in a neighborhood called Harem. Forming a community within the big city let African Americans keep their cultural identity in a white-dominated society. It was a good thing, and a lot of important cultural issues were brought to light during the Harlem Renaissance. One of the most important figures of the time was the African American writer, W. E.B Du Bois. In his book, The Souls of Back Folk, in 1903, Du Bois wrote that African Americans suffered from something called “double consciousness”. They had their own self-image while they saw themselves through the eyes of white Americans. And performers like Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson brought African American culture to all New Yorkers. The Renaissance was so influential that “Harlem” grew into something of a brand name
African Americans were pushing boundaries across all aspects of society. Black businesses began to flourish, creating a growing middle class, like Madame C.J. Walker, who tuned her cosmetics line into a million dollar empire. All together, the artists, and thinkers of this period helped mobilize the larger black population. Young African-Americans took advantage of improved access to higher education. This opened up new career paths and opportunities to attain advanced degrees. Perhaps most importantly, people---black and white---began the push for racial integration, planting the seeds of what would eventually become the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
1. Why did many African Americans leave the South after the Civil War?| A．To escape slavery | B．To find jobs in agriculture |
| C．To avoid racial discrimination | D．To gain citizenship |
| A．He led to movement to return to Africa |
| B．He composed folk music based on African American theme |
| C．He wrote plays about the African-American experience |
| D．He wrote about the struggle for African-American identity |
| A．Nearly all were unemployed at that time |
| B．The vast majority were considered lower class |
| C．Most were regarded as middle class |
| D．A large percentage were recognized as wealthy |
| A．Spread of black businesses | B．Access to higher education |
| C．Shift from agriculture to industry | D．Push for unity among all Africans |
【推荐2】Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for family, health, and life in general. However, Black Friday has turned it into a business.
Traditionally, the true value of Thanksgiving lies at home not the shopping centers. However, Black Friday has nowadays allowed society to ignore this as individuals(个人) long for something that they do not need or even truly want. Shopping on Black Friday becomes a sign of a shift into a culture that values material wealth（财富） over spending time with loved ones. People are willing to force their way through the crowds in their desperate search for marked-down sweaters and necklaces.
In recent years, Thanksgiving has become a pre-Black Friday holiday for many families. They are devoted to mapping out shopping routes and making organized schedules for which stores to hit first. By drawing individuals out to shopping centers with "matchless savings", businesses encourage this behavior of ignoring Thanksgiving. Many families take their home-cooked meals while camping out at the door of shopping centers. With each new year, Thanksgiving is becoming victim to over-commercialized（过度商业化）society—changing from a meaningful time for family to a day devoted to products and shopping.
Black Friday has shown that with current common standards(标准), people cannot even set aside a single day to appreciate what they already have without immediately buying more. Families have lost sight of what is truly important in life, and have found reasons in debating between a low cost HD television and an appreciation for what they already have. Remember, Thanksgiving should be a day in which people are grateful for all that they have.
1. What does the underlined word "this" in paragraph 2 probably refers to?| A．The sign of a shift. | B．The true value of Thanksgiving. |
| C．The shopping crowd. | D．The material wealth. |
| A．They’ll visit some newly-opened shopping centers in advance. |
| B．They’ll choose a big store for their first visit. |
| C．They’ll make full preparations for the Black Friday shopping. |
| D．They’ll go camping at the gate of shopping center for a good deal. |
| A．appreciate what we've possessed with our families |
| B．stay with our families as long as we can |
| C．try to spend less to get low cost products |
| D．set aside a single day to buy more |
| A．puzzled | B．unconcerned |
| C．happy | D．worried |
【推荐3】RED lanterns adorn(点缀) the aisles of a small supermarket. There are stacks of red envelopes on sale, for stuffing cash in and handing out as gifts. A sign offers seasonal discounts. Such festive trappings are quite common in China in the build-up to the lunar New Year, which this year starts on January 28th. But this is Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, where Han Chinese are a mere 2.5% of the country’s population. They are a sign that Chinese New Year is becoming a global holiday.
Several countries in Asia celebrate the lunar New Year in their own way. But dragon and lion dances in Chinatowns the world over have helped to make China’s the most famous. These days growing numbers of people who are not of Chinese descent are joining in. In Tokyo window cleaners dress up as the animals of the Chinese zodiac(十二生肖). Barcelona’s Chinese parade includes dracs (a Catalan species of dragon). America, Canada and New Zealand have issued commemorative stamps for the year of the chicken. Last year New York City made the lunar New Year a school holiday for the first time.
The spread of the spring festival, as China calls it, is partly due to recent emigration from China: 9.5 million Chinese people have moved abroad since 1978, many of them far richer than earlier waves of migrants. It also reflects the wealth and globe-trotting ambitions of China’s new middle class: festivities in other countries are partly aimed at the 6 million Chinese who are expected to spend their weeklong holiday abroad this year. International brands are trying to lure these big spenders with chicken-themed items.
Conscious of China’s growing economic and political clout, foreign leaders have taken to noting the occasion. Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, has given a video address, a tradition started in 2014 by her predecessor, David Cameron. Last year the country’s royal family tweeted a picture of Queen Elizabeth dotting the eye of a Chinese lion-dancer’s costume. Also in 2016, Venezuela’s culture minister admitted that his country was celebrating Chinese new year for the first time—with six weeks of festivities—in a bid to improve economic ties with China. It is rumored that this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was held a week earlier than usual to avoid clashing with Chinese New Year.
China also sponsors related events, such as a display this year of martial arts in Cyprus and a traditional Chinese temple—fair in Harare, Zimbabwe. It may give Chinese officials satisfaction to see foreigners enjoy such festivities. They lament the growing enthusiasm among Chinese for Western celebrations such as Christmas—in December cities across China are bedecked with Santas and snowflake decorations. Chinese New Year is a welcome chance to reverse the cultural flow.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Many countries in Asia are similar to each other in celebrating the Chinese lunar New Year. |
| B．This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was held a week earlier than usual to avoid clashing with Chinese New Year. |
| C．Venezuela is the first country in South America to celebrate the Chinese spring festival. |
| D．Partly owing to recent emigration from China, the Chinese spring festival could be spread worldwide. |
| A．analyzing reasons | B．giving examples |
| C．listing arguments | D．comparing facts |
| A．hook | B．attack |
| C．interfere | D．exclude |
| A．Two | B．Three |
| C．Four | D．Five |
| A．Because these activities are beneficial to improving economic ties with foreign countries. |
| B．Because these activities can bring about large amounts of money. |
| C．Because these activities offer a chance to promote Chinese culture. |
| D．Because these activities would bring forth peace and harmony of the world. |
