One early morning, I went into the living room to find my mother reading a thick book called Best Loved Poems to Read Again and Again. My interest was aroused only by the fact that the word “Poems” appeared in big, hot pink letters.
“Is it good?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she answered. “There’s one I really like and you’ll like it, too.” I leaned forward.
“‘Patty Poem,’”she read the title. Who is Patty? I wondered. The poem began:
| She never puts her toys away, Just leaves them scattered①where they lay,... | ①散乱的 |
The poem was just three short sections. The final one came quickly:
| When she grows and gathers poise②, I’ll miss her harum-scarum③noise, And look in vain for scattered toys. | ②稳重 ③莽撞的 |
And I’ll be sad.
A terrible sadness washed over me. Whoever Patty was, she was a mean girl. Then, the shock.
“It’s you, honey,” My mother said sadly.
To my mother, the poem revealed a parent’s affection when her child grows up and leaves. To me, the “she” in the poem was horror. It was my mama who would be sad. It was so terrible I burst out crying.
“What’s wrong?” my mother asked.
“Oh Mama,” I cried. “I don’t want to grow up ever!”
She smiled. “Honey, it’s okay. You’re not growing up anytime soon. And when you do, I’ll still love you, okay?”
“Okay,” I was still weeping. My panic has gone. But I could not help thinking about that silly poem. After what seemed like a safe amount of time, I read the poem again and was confused. It all fit so well together, like a puzzle. The language was simple, so simple I could plainly understand its meaning, yet it was still beautiful. I was now fascinated by the idea of poetry, words that had the power to make or break a person’s world.
I have since fallen in love with other poems, but “Patty Poem” remains my poem. After all, “Patty Poem” gave me my love for poetry not because it was the poem that lifted my spirits, but because it was the one that hurt me the most.
1. Why was the writer attracted by the book Best Loved Poems to Read Again and Again?| A．It was a thick enough book. | B．Something on its cover caught her eye. |
| C．Her mother was reading it with interest. | D．It has a meaningful title. |
| A．sorrowful | B．excited | C．horrified | D．confused |
| A．it reflected her own childhood | B．it was written in simple language |
| C．it was composed by a famous poet | D．it gave her a hint of what would happen |
| A．discover the power of poetry | B．recognize her love for puzzles |
| C．find her eagerness to grow up | D．experience great homesickness |
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【推荐1】Yesterday we said goodbye to my grandfather. He was 96 years old and he was my last grandparent.
It has been a while since I saw my grandpa in person. I think he only met my youngest Lilly once. It kind of pains me to think that I deprived(剥夺)my children of the chance to know their only great-grandparent. But I didn’t want them to know or remember a very old man, incapable of getting down on his knees to play with them, and laughing with them because he can’t hear what they’re saying. That’s not the grandfather I know.
My grandfather never stopped. He was an early-adopter to have a laptop-type-device long before Apple was a houschold word and he was programming video games for grandkids to play before most people knew what programming was. He kept physically fit every day of his life. In his later years, he kept busy playing tennis, ballroom dancing, swimming, bicycling. In the end, he didn’t lose a battle to any disease. His body simply could not go on anymore.
I feel extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to know my grandfather. Intentional or not, he taught me many lessons. My grandfather taught me to waterski when I was 5 years old and he taught me how to surf about a decade after that. Whenever I thought it’s too late for me to study a language or get better at piano, he made it clear that it’s only my fear holding me back, not age.
These lessons make life meaningful to me. I prefer to think of them as lessons for living a positive life that leaves a positive impression on me. That is something I will strive to do. Thanks to my grandfather, I have a pretty good blueprint to follow. So I guess the best thing I can offer my children to feel connected to that man is the lessons I learned from him.
1. Why did the author seldom take kids to their disabled great-grandfather?| A．To promote the kids’ independence. |
| B．To keep the old man living a quiet life. |
| C．To prevent the kids from being frightened. |
| D．To avoid the kids having a bad impression of him. |
| A．By eating apples everyday. | B．By playing with little kids. |
| C．By living a simple life. | D．By keeping exercising. |
| A．He was a surfing instructor. | B．He was very encouraging. |
| C．He did everything with an intention. | D．He studied a new language in his old age. |
| A．Memories of My Grandfather | B．Winning a Battle to Disease |
| C．Connecting the Generations | D．Impression of My Childhood |
【推荐2】As I went down the wooden snowy steps, I held the rough fence with one hand, held my crying daughter Kelly with the other and made my way into the yard. I knew everything would be okay if I located my mother.
Instead of a smile, she greeted me with concern. I knew she had read my face as I’d approached. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
I held the baby out. “I can’t take care of this baby,” I said simply. My mother didn’t take her from my arms as I expected. She smiled slightly, and then replied firmly, “You have to take care of that baby.” This was not the reply I wanted. Couldn’t she hear the baby crying? I wanted her to fix this problem. Instead, she took off her gloves and asked me in for some coffee.
Mom held Kelly while I held the coffee cup. At that moment the baby finally stopped crying. I glanced over at Kelly, content in my mother’s arms. Her tiny blue eyes were fixed on me, as if to ask, “What’s the problem here, Mama?” Her sweet, familiar breath eased the stress in the air. I looked at my mother, feeling foolish but relieved. She stood and placed an arm around my shoulders. “By the time you came along, things were quite the opposite for me. But with your elder brother, you can bet that I often felt helpless.”
The baby showed no signs of our afternoon struggle, while my own hair remained damp and messy from sweat and worry. “Crying is the only way babies have to communicate. Try to listen to her cries and hear them as language. She’s not crying to annoy you; she’s trying to send a message with the only voice she has.”
Once again, her gentle guidance had supported me through a storm and back into clear skies.
1. Why did the author visit her mother in the rough weather?| A．She was concerned about her mother’s safety. |
| B．She was helpless and needed her mother’s help. |
| C．She wanted to learn to care for babies from her mother. |
| D．She intended to borrow some money from her mother. |
| A．Inexperienced but patient. | B．Considerate but impatient. |
| C．Experienced and confident. | D．Thoughtless and unconcerned. |
| A．Taking care of babies was difficult. |
| B．Babies enjoyed annoying their parents. |
| C．The author should let her baby cry more. |
| D．Parents should understand and accept babies’ crying. |
| A．She usually goes shopping with the author. |
| B．She lives a lonely life without her children. |
| C．She often gives advice to the author in trouble. |
| D．She likes to raise small children for young mothers. |
【推荐3】Life is not always easy. One day you wake up feeling like you can take over the world, and the next day you wake up feeling like all you want to do is to lie in bed and hide from everything.
People walk into your life, grab your hand, and lead you through the most beautiful path you’ve known, but sometimes the same people let go of your hand without warning, and you become stranded at a place where you never thought you’d feel lost.
Let’s be honest, sometimes everything is going so great and it seems like nothing could go wrong, but right when you begin to think that, something so horrible comes crashing down and all of a sudden more problems come drowning around you and you just feel so hopeless because it’s so bad…
It’s so hard to understand why such things happen in life, and I personally wish I had an answer to that “why” you always ask yourself, but all I can say is no matter how hard life gets, you have to keep going. The life around you will never stop going on.
I’ll be honest and say that sometimes I feel a little bit worried and all I can think is “Will I be able to keep up? What if everything goes too fast?” But I realize that being scared and living with that burden of running away from problems only slow me down even more.
And I’ve come to the point where I believe that because life never stops, I shouldn’t stop either. It’s okay to take a break and to give yourself time to heal, but you cannot give up and you cannot quit.
Keep positive, fill your heart with gratitude for what you already have, and always remind yourself to be humble and true to who you are!
1. How does the author illustrate “Life is not always easy”?| A．By making comparisons | B．By using some famous sayings |
| C．By presenting his own experience | D．By listing statistics |
| A．pointless | B．reasonable |
| C．helpful | D．considerate |
| A．Save against a rainy day. |
| B．Constant dripping wears away the stone. |
| C．A good medicine tastes bitter. |
| D．Think it over before you leap. |
【推荐1】I was blind, but I was ashamed of it if it was known. I refused to use a white stick and hated asking for help. After all, I was a teenage girl, and I could not bear people to look at me and think I was not like them. I must have been a terrible danger on the roads. Coming across me wandering through the traffic, motorists probably would have to stop rapidly on their brakes. Apart from that, there were all sorts of disasters that used to occur on the way to and from work.
One evening, I got off the bus about halfway home where I had to change buses, and as usual I ran into something. “I’m awfully sorry,” I said and stepped forward only to run into it again. When it happened a third time, I realized I had been apologizing to a lamppost (街灯柱). This was just one of the stupid things that constantly happened to me. So I carried on and found the bus stop, which was a request stop, where the bus wouldn’t stop unless passengers wanted to get on or off. No one else was there and I had to guess if the bus had arrived.
Generally in this situation, because I hated showing I was blind by asking for help, I tried to guess at the sound. Sometimes I would stop a big lorry and stand there feeling stupid as it drew away. In the end, I usually managed to swallow (吞下) my pride and ask someone at the stop for help.
But at this particular evening no one joined me at the stop; it seemed that everyone had suddenly decided not to travel by bus. Of course I heard plenty of buses pass, or I thought I did. But because I had given up stopping them for fear of making a fool of myself, I let them all go by. I stood there alone for half an hour without stopping one. Then I gave up. I decided to walk on to the next stop.
1. The girl refused to ask for help because she thought ________.| A．she might be recognized | B．asking for help looked silly |
| C．being found blind was embarrassing | D．she was normal and independent |
| A．began to run | B．hit a lamppost by accident |
| C．hit a person as usual | D．was caught by something |
| A．to find more buses there | B．to find people there |
| C．to find the bus by herself there | D．to find people more helpful there |
【推荐2】Summer school is something a kid will never forget. For some, it’s a way to advance past their classmates. For most, summer school is a requirement in order to graduate with their classmates. I can remember being forced into taking a summer school course. It was not the school that forced me into this awkward situation; it was my mother.
I was a 16-year-old kid in a new school. My school did not offer summer courses so I had to take my course at an alternative school in the city. It was an experience I will never forget. I was not concerned with making friends. I was there to get credit (学分) for a course that I should have received credit for the previous semester. It was my doing that landed me in the situation and it was important that I understood this.
The fees were lowest but the experience was amazing. I enjoyed. I didn’t miss the day. The course was from Monday to Friday for an entire month. I passed the course with an A. I was thrown into an awkward situation and actually enjoyed it. My friends didn’t even know I took the course. Most of them were still sleeping by the time my course ended each day.
Awkward situations are so important for personal growth. This situation made me feel more independent. I made friends. I finally understood what sacrifice and hard work were all about. While attending college, I remembered how much I enjoyed summer school and I chose to take summer school in my first three years of college. Some kids get pushed too much but some don’t get pushed enough. I was never pushed enough.
Enable your children to struggle for success. If your child needs summer school you explain to them why it’s important. Some parents are surprised by the situation and may want to be more involved in their children’s education. Follow through and follow up.
1. Most students go to the summer school in order to ______.| A．find good jobs after graduation | B．become top students in their class |
| C．have a chance to make more friends | D．graduate successfully on time |
| A．What he had done. | B．His mother’s wish. |
| C．His own requirement. | D．Study competition. |
| A．It helped him get rid of bad habits. |
| B．It helped him make new friends. |
| C．It helped him understand what sacrifice and hard work were. |
| D．It increased his independence. |
| A．does not like summer school at all even though it is useful |
| B．thinks summer school is unnecessary for children |
| C．encourages parents to make their children attend summer school |
| D．is against forcing children to attend summer school |
| A．He thinks it is awkward. | B．He thinks it is significant. |
| C．He doesn’t think it is suitable. | D．He thinks nothing of it. |
【推荐3】Halloran has loved mountains since she was five or six, when her mother took her to Ireland during the summer holidays. They lived overlooking Annascaul lake on the Dingle peninsula. “It’s a lovely viewpoint. I used to sit there as a child. I loved the freedom of going up the mountain alone, when I was nine or ten. I cried for days before going back to London because I felt I would be in a rabbit hutch (窝).”
For Halloran, life had settled into a comfortable rhythm. But then her four-year-old son died in a car accident; six years later, her husband also passed away. After the loss, she became a workaholic. She went into the office at 5 am, and worked until 10 pm, which was her stability. And it was time to make a change.
One day last September, Ann Halloran made her way to her nearest bus stop in Hove, East Sussex. She had done plenty of travelling but, at 65, was setting off alone on her first backpacking adventure. Somewhere between her first stop in Turkey and her final destination—a yoga retreat (静修) in Mazunte, Mexico—she found a new perspective.
In Nepal, climbing the 5,400 m Gokyo Ri in the Himalayas, Halloran broke her walking stick. She has osteoporosis (骨质疏松症), which makes bones more likely to break, so the stick was essential in the mountains. Losing it was a blow, but she found reserves of inner strength.
Now, she says: “Whenever I get scared, I think of myself on top of that mountain, looking out over Lake Gokyo—and beyond that, Everest. I say, if you can do that, you can do anything.”
Since the backpacking adventure, she understands more fully the role that work played in her life for so long. “Work was reliable. I knew what I was doing. I’m a workaholic to this day,” she says. “I’ve just realised on this yoga retreat that I have to let go of all that. The penny is dropping for me now.”
1. Why did Halloran cry before returning to London?| A．Because she didn’t enjoy living alone. |
| B．Because she was unwilling to live with rabbits. |
| C．Because she wasn’t used to travelling for a long time. |
| D．Because she couldn’t bear to part from the freedom in the mountain. |
| A．Her desire to earn more. | B．Her goal to settle comfortably. |
| C．Her wish to overcome sorrow. | D．Her plan to save money for travelling. |
| A．It is never too old to learn. |
| B．An idle youth, a needy age. |
| C．East or west, home is the best. |
| D．Success belongs to the persevering. |
| A．Money is not necessary for Halloran any more. |
| B．Halloran has realized something more meaningful. |
| C．Halloran will make a tighter budget for her next trip. |
| D．Nothing can be equal to Halloran’s salary from work. |
【推荐1】No poem should ever be discussed or “analyzed”, until it has been read aloud by someone, teacher or student. Better still, perhaps, is the practice of reading it twice, once at the beginning of the discussion and once at the end, so the sound of the poem is the last thing one hears of it.
All discussions of poetry are, in fact, preparations for reading it aloud, and the reading of the poem is, finally, the most telling “interpretation” of it, suggesting tone, rhythm, and meaning all at once. Hearing a poet read the work in his or her own voice, on records or on film, is obviously a special reward. But even those aids to teaching cannot replace the student and teacher reading it or, best of all, reciting it.
I have come to think, in fact, that time spent reading a poem aloud is much more important than “analyzing” it, if there isn’t time for both. I think one of our goals as teachers of English is to have students love poetry. Poetry is “a criticism of life” “a heightening of life, enjoyment with others”. It is “an approach to the truth of feeling”, and it “can save your life”. It also deserves a place in the teaching of language and literature more central than it presently occupies.
I am not saying that every English teacher must teach poetry. Those who don’t like it should not be forced to put that dislike on anyone else. But those who do teach poetry must keep in mind a few things about its essential nature, about its sound as well as its sense, and they must make room in the classroom for hearing poetry as well as thinking about it.
1. The passage indicates that analyzing a poem is ________.| A．not essential at all |
| B．a preparation for appreciating it |
| C．an approach to understanding it |
| D．optional in class sometimes |
| A．is the best way to understand it |
| B．easily arouses some discussion among the students |
| C．helps the teacher to analyze it |
| D．can not take the place of the poet reading it |
| A．The most important teaching goal is to have students read and recite every poem they learn. |
| B．Poetry is the foundation of all languages and literature courses. |
| C．The teaching of poetry should have been much more stressed. |
| D．Every English teacher is supposed to convey their love of poetry to their students. |
【推荐2】Way back in Victorian times, around 1872,Christina Rossetti wrote a collection of nursery rhymes entitled Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book, and in it she composed (创作) all sorts of neat little poems that were favorably received. British author Lewis Carroll, a friend of the Rossetti family, lauded the poems, and the public was particularly pleased by the illustrations.
Some of the poems improve children’s mind and character;some are memory aids for learning about numbers, time and colors; others deal with nature, including wind, rain, growth, and death. Rossetti’s delightful poems have a kind of simplicity and effortlessness that audiences today still appreciate. They refresh our memories of being a kid.
Why is the sky blue? Will my head explode if I think too much? You used to ask such fun questions when you were a little one, right? Hey, we all did. And that’s kind of what makes being a kid so cool. In fact, kids often try their hardest to come up with the silliest questions that will inspire a little laughter from others. It’s kind of their duty as kids.
“Who has seen the wind?” It is a silly question, isn’t it? But Rossetti can break nature down for us in a way that not only makes sense but sounds nice, too. The poem reopens our days of innocent imagination.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
The poem opens with the title that asks, “Who has seen the wind?” The speaker informs us that neither she nor anyone else has ever seen it. But we do see the leaves “trembling,” which informs us that the wind is passing through. The speaker then repeats the same question. The answer remains the same, but when the trees “bow down their heads,” we again realize that the wind is passing by.
1. What does the underlined word “lauded” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Discovered. | B．Praised. |
| C．Wrote. | D．Hid. |
| A．In Paragraph 1. | B．In Paragraph 2. |
| C．In Paragraph 3. | D．In Paragraph 4. |
| A．It is natural for kids to ask them. |
| B．There is no need to answer them. |
| C．They are harmful to kids’ growth. |
| D．They often annoy others. |
| A．By learning from adults. |
| B．By feeling the moving air. |
| C．By watching the movements of trees. |
| D．By listening to the sounds of the wind. |
【推荐3】Elizabeth Bishop is considered one of the best American poets of the 20th century. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911. Her dad died when she was just a baby and her mom never recovered from the loss. She went to live with her grandparents in Nova Scotia, Canada when she was five. Eventually Bishop attended Vassar College, where she began to write poetry.
At Vassar she discovered Marianne Moore’s poetry and met Ms. Moore and began their life-long friendship. She later met poet Robert Lowell. She wrote tons and tons of letters to both of them, which is good for us because we would otherwise know very little of her personal life. Bishop published her first book of poetry in 1946 and wrote until her death in 1979. She would spend years working on a single poem. Her poems are not the result of hasty scribbling (匆忙乱写) on paper while eating breakfast. She would look through drafts of poems again and again and improve them until they were as close to perfect as she could get them.
Reading Elizabeth Bishop is like being transported to the very place, the very moment she’s writing about. She leads us to a microscope so we can see every smallest part of the scene. It seems that she’s always asking us to notice more, and more until the poem is so clear in our minds that it’s almost painful—like a light that’s too bright.
1. What do we know about Bishop’s early life?| A．She spent her childhood mainly in Worcester. |
| B．She was mainly brought up by her grandparents. |
| C．She was always encouraged by her parents. |
| D．She started to write poems at five. |
| A．They offer much information about her life. |
| B．They have a deep influence on other poets. |
| C．They help us study Moore and Lowell’s poetry. |
| D．They prove she had friendships with famous poets. |
| A．She liked to write in the morning. |
| B．She could write poems at high speed. |
| C．She tried her best to achieve perfection. |
| D．She published hundreds of books of poetry. |
| A．Hard. | B．Romantic. | C．Humorous. | D．Exact. |
