Last year, on report card day, my son and a bunch of his 13-year-old friends piled into the back seat of my car, ready for the last-day-of-school party at McDonald’s. “Jack got a laptop for getting straight A’s, and Laurie got a cell phone,” one boy said. “Oh, yeah, and Sarah got an iPod Nano, and she’s only in third grade,” said another. “And how about Brian? He got $10 for each A.”
I suddenly became concerned. These payoffs might get parents through grammar school, but what about high school and beyond? What would be left after the electric guitar, the cell phone, and the portable laptop?
I saw the road ahead: As the homework load increased, my income would decrease. I saw my comfortable lifestyle vanish before my eyes — no more of those $5 bags of already-peeled organic carrots. No more organic anything!
I started to feel surprised and nervous. Would every goal attained by my two children fetch a reward? A high grade point average? A good class ranking? Would sports achievements be included in this reward system: soccer goals, touchdowns（橄榄球触地得分）, runs-batted-in（棒球打点得分）? What about orchestra（管弦乐团）? Would first chair pay more than second? I’d be penniless by eighth-grade graduation.
“We never paid anything for good grades,” said my neighbor across the street, whose son was recently accepted at MIT. “He just did it on his own. Maybe once in a while we went out for pizza, but that’s about it.”
Don’t you just hate that? We’re all running around looking for the latest electronic products, and she’s spending a few dollars on pizza. She gets motivation; we get negotiation.
1. The sentence “As the homework load increased, my income would decrease.” in the third paragraph probably means ______.| A．taking care of the children would influence my work |
| B．I would spend more money on my children’s homework |
| C．reducing children’s homework load would cost me a lot |
| D．more rewards would be needed as the children grew up |
| A．if you pay the children for good grades, they would take it for granted |
| B．if you buy children pizza for good grades, they would work harder |
| C．children would not ask for rewards when they enter high school |
| D．children would not ask for rewards when they enter university |
| A．pizza is the best way to motivate children |
| B．reward is not the only way to motivate children |
| C．the author’s neighbor was very poor |
| D．the author’s neighbor’s son didn’t like reward |
| A．Favorable. | B．Ambiguous. |
| C．Disagreeable. | D．Unknowable. |
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【推荐1】From the deserts of Southern California to the forests of Alaska, the U.S. possesses a diversity of nature. For most of her life, Joy Ryan never saw the scenery beyond her home state of Ohio. Then, when she was in her mid-eighties, her grandson Brad Ryan decided to take her on a journey to all of the U.S. National Parks, which took eight years to complete. At the age of 93, Grandma Joy has finally seen all 63 parks, ending her journey in the National Park of American Samoa.
“When I learned she had never seen the great wildernesses of America — deserts, mountains, oceans, I decided to intervene (干预) in some way,” Brad says. This idea sparked their first trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. However, once they were on the road, Brad realised that they could visit more parks that were nearby. Over the years, they managed to see all of the famous sights at Yosemite, the Redwoods, and so on. But Brad values the time spent with his grandmother just as much as the breathtaking places they were able to visit.
Despite Grandma Joy’s older age, she was able to hike mountains. Brad regards her love for life as the key to her good health. She is grateful for each new day and is always Excited for the next journey. Finally, their long journey across the U.S. came to an end with American Samoa. “It’s about 6,700 miles from Ohio, where we live,” Brad explains. “We can enjoy the beach and the beautiful tropical paradise. But as we’ve learned from the rangers that work there, American Samoa is an island community firmly rooted in family. And I think that there’s a bit of a poetic beauty to ending it there, too.”
“I am thankful every morning for giving me another day,” Grandma Joy shares. “And it is your choice whether you’re going to have a rainy day or a sunny day. So, smile at everybody, and let everybody know you’re having a whale of a time.” While her tour of the U.S. has come to a close, she and her grandson are not done traveling. Next up, they have their sights set on Kenya.
1. Why did Brad decide to travel across America with his grandma?| A．To celebrate Grandma Joy’s 93rd birthday. |
| B．To complete a task he promised Grandma Joy. |
| C．To enrich Grandma Joy’s travelling experiences. |
| D．To realise Grandma Joy’s dream of visiting parks. |
| A．Free and adventurous. | B．Tiring but educational. |
| C．Stressful but eye-opening. | D．Amazing and worthwhile. |
| A．The friendly locals. | B．The family bond. | C．The special culture. | D．The beautiful sights. |
| A．Stay Curious, Stay Young | B．It’s Never too Old to Hit the Road |
| C．Laughter is the Best Medicine | D．Travelling Contributes to Long Life |
【推荐2】My 15-year-old boy is a high achiever. He is very bright, pursuing everything he does with devotion and determination. And he is a great kid: honest, kind, faithful and caring.
Like a lot of kids who are high achievers, he is a perfectionist and very easy to fall into anxiety. That is manifested in his study, and other things he does as well. For example, he loves tennis but he often worries about losing in the game. Now he has to stop competing because the pressure he puts on himself is becoming unhealthy. He still plays, but playing socially rather than competitively means that it’s an outlet (发泄方式) for him rather than a source of stress.
He does not manage stress well. He puts so much pressure on himself to the point of worrying himself sick over just about every assessment. And he gets so negative about it, everything I say to him is met with negativity, every suggestion with a response that it won’t work, and honestly it’s depressing and tiring.
To help my son, I have a patient conversation with him. He finally follows my advice about physical exercise to ease stress. Whenever he is under a lot of pressure, I will run with him for half an hour and do some push-ups to relieve pressure. Gradually, he becomes less nervous in the later exams and his scores become more and more stable.
Pressure from grades and perfectionism can be really hard to manage when it comes to schooling. As kids, what they need is effective communication and sincere encouragement. So I have always told and shown my son that I’m proud of him, and that pride doesn’t merely depend on top grades.
1. What does the underlined word “manifested” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Rooted. | B．Hidden. | C．Reflected. | D．Involved. |
| A．He often falls ill under pressure. | B．He becomes tired of evaluations. |
| C．He fails to handle stress properly. | D．He views suggestions positively. |
| A．Stop pursuing perfection. | B．Do some exercise with him. |
| C．Talk to others more frequently. | D．Engage in some social activities. |
| A．It is hard for us to pursue the perfectionism. |
| B．The author simply takes pride in his son’s school work. |
| C．We can’t reduce the pressure from grades and perfectionism. |
| D．Communication and encouragement are helpful to teenagers. |
Social scientists have long tried to determine why some children grow up to be successful. In a 2001 study, Greg Duncan, a professor of education at the University of California, measured the influence that the people in a child’s life have on how well the child does in school. Duncan and his team found almost no relationship between how students did on the test and whom they sat beside in class, whom they hung out with after school and who lived in their block. The only meaningful link they found was between siblings（兄弟姐妹）and twins in particular.
For a long time, scholars thought that a family’s income heavily affected how well kids did in life. But that might not be the case. When Susan Mayer at the University of Chicago looked at the relationship between family income and lifetime achievement, she ran a series of experiments to measure it, finding such outcomes weren’t caused by income. She argued that the things that make a difference are relatively inexpensive: the number of books a kid has or how often his family goes to museums.
Lareau, another scholar began one of the most in-depth observations of American parenting. He concluded that success is much more related to the amount of time parents spend with their children. He said “Many parents I interviewed are anxious about their children’s futures．But they have exaggerated（夸大）the sense of the risks involved if they don't give their children the best of everything..”
So at last, we decided to leave things as it were. More time with our kid is the best we can provide.
1. The first paragraph is intended to __________.
| A．introduce the topic of the passage |
| B．confirm the result of a research |
| C．stress the importance of good education |
| D．support a research on child development |
| A．spend a lot of time with their children |
| B．like to buy a variety of books for their children |
| C．think children's achievement largely depends on schools |
| D．believe their income cannot afford children's education |
| A．Lareau． | B．Greg Duncan． |
| C．Susan Mayer． | D．James． |
| A．Parents' time matters to children's future． |
| B．School education determines children's future． |
| C．Family income counts to children's achievements． |
| D．Less education means more risks for children's success． |
【推荐1】I accidentally found a time capsule, in purple and green floss (丝线) in the midst of sorting out some old things last month. Faded and worn, it was a friendship bracelet (手链) — an important part of my teenage summers. Holding it in my hand made me think about those precious memories of childhood, which my kids will never know firsthand.
My handiwork wasn’t beautiful. But what I remember is the beauty of the offering: slipping something into a friend’s hand and knowing it would always be with them. The experience was intoxicating — like the serious business of exchanging wedding rings, it was a symbol of an unbreakable bond. Those bracelets represented how much we meant to each other, at a time when our friends were becoming the center of our lives.
I slept with my bracelets and showered with them. I wore them all summer long at camp. And I acquired new bracelets from friends there — friends who received carefully crafted bracelets from me in return, as we said our tearful end-of-summer goodbyes. I thought having them helped ease the pain of leaving my friends. But now I see that they were really helping me to leave behind childhood.
My kids don’t go to summer camp. They certainly don’t exchange anything as uncool as bracelets with their friends. They hang out on Discord (一种聊天工具) in chats that only pause but never end. Our eldest son endlessly texts on his cellphone as he and his friends make one another talking emojis and TikTok videos.
Their relationships with their phones leave no time or space for writing letters or making bracelets, and their gifts to one another leave no clear and definite traces. There will be no boxes of letters to sort years from now nor any hidden bracelets to find. They will have little to physically hold on to.
1. Why does the author compare a bracelet to a time capsule?| A．It is faded and worn. |
| B．It is shaped like a capsule. |
| C．It reminds her of her childhood. |
| D．It was made by the author herself. |
| A．Exciting. | B．Terrible. |
| C．Professional. | D．Strange. |
| A．They often send hand-made gifts to their friends. |
| B．They make more friends at summer camp. |
| C．They are unwilling to give bracelets to parents. |
| D．They spend too much time on their cellphones. |
| A．They proved the author’s kids had much to physically hold on to. |
| B．They gave meaning to the author s childhood in a way her kids will never know firsthand. |
| C．They represented both the author and her kids’ unforgettable childhood. |
| D．They recalled the author’s deep sorrow of leaving close friends at summer camp. |
【推荐2】Thanksgiving is one of those times of year that inspires reflection. For some, it is a moment to think about the meaning of family. But for me, there is a simpler message to take away: We should all have more pie in our lives.
What’s refreshing about Thanksgiving is that, for all the travel delays and the potential for family arguments, the focus is on cooking for once. At Christmas, the feast easily gets overshadowed by the mountain of gifts. At thanksgiving, by contrast, everyone recognizes that the food is what matters. Will the mashed potatoes be smooth enough? And crucially, is there enough pie?
Too many of us spend our lives in a state of pie deprivation (缺少), judging from the hunger with which the pies are greeted on a Thanksgiving table. Few things ins till more of a sense of comfort than the sight of a golden topped fruit pie.
There have been times and places when eating pie was a daily occurrence for American families. Thanksgiving aside, I don’t know anyone who regularly eats pie. This is a bit sad. Think of all that joy we are abandoning.
Thanksgiving pies have a way of living on in memory long after the other dishes are forgotten. Years ago, I made an apple pie for my nieces for Thanksgiving. The following year, I planned to make a cardamom tart instead. But my sister said I had to make the pie exactly the same as the previous year, because the girls had been talking about it for months. I can’t pretend I wasn’t pleased by this.
A pie isn’t just any dessert. It is a sign that care has been taken. I suspect that the single biggest reason we don’t make pies more often is that we don’t have time. Yet there is something about the process of fitting pie into a dish that can actually make you less rushed. “Rest for at least an hour”, reads the instruction in most pie recipes. It’s referring to the pastry, but what if it also means you?
1. What do people attach great importance to at Thanksgiving?| A．Gifts and travel. |
| B．Potatoes and pie. |
| C．Cooking and food. |
| D．Family and friends. |
| A．Most people enjoy eating pie at Thanksgiving. |
| B．Pie is not easily accessible for most of the year. |
| C．Pie was a daily dish for all the American families in the past. |
| D．Most people have realized their hunger for pie in their daily life. |
| A．To show she can really make tasty Thanksgiving pie. |
| B．To show pies played an important role in her nieces’ life. |
| C．To show she was delighted with her niece’s reactions after eating the pie. |
| D．To show pie is more easily remembered than any other Thanksgiving dishes. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical. | C．Neutral. | D．Indifferent. |
【推荐3】What do you do when nobody is around to take your picture? You take a selfie (拍照) .But what about selfies in space? On Twitter last year, NASA astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who famously became the second man to walk on the moon in July 1969, laid claim to a spaceflight first taking the first selfie in space during the Gemini XII mission in 1966.
“For me, it needs to be digital to be selfie,” argues Jennifer Levasseur, who is in charge of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. According to Levasseur, the concept of a selfie is directly linked to Internet culture and human desire to interact on social platforms. “The thing that makes a selfie is sharing it,” she says.
Still, astronauts have been carrying cameras abroad space vehicles since the 1960s ,and they've taken plenty of pictures of themselves along the way. Astronauts had to pull the film magazines out and leave their cameras behind when they returned to Earth because early space missions were restricted by a conservative weight limit on the return trip.
A big change in space camera technology came after sad loss of the space shuttle Columbia who broke apart on its return to Earth in 2003. “Fearing that they would never be able to bring the film back from space and lose all that hard work celebrated the push for digital.” Levasseur says.
Today astronauts can have access to the Internet and social platforms in space and post true based selfies taken by digital cameras. Taking selfies and sharing them on social media is a way that astronauts in space can participate in the same activities people on Earth do every day. The first astronaut selfie that went viral(网红的) on the internet was one by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide in 2012.
1. What does Levasseur think of Aldrin's claim?| A．It hardly makes any sense. | B．It revolutionizes astronautics. |
| C．It contradicts public opinions. | D．It needs to be further proved. |
| A．To lighten the load of the spaceship. |
| B．To test cameras under extreme conditions. |
| C．To prepare for the next stage of spaceexploration. |
| D．To take more pictures in space by remote control. |
| A．The invention of new films |
| B．The fear of falling behind in the space race |
| C．The concern about the loss of valuable data |
| D．The popularity of space selfies on socia media |
| A．The Exploration of Space. | B．The History of Selfies in Space. |
| C．The Change in Space Camera Technology. | D．The Development in Space Technology. |
【推荐1】Career success could be predicted as early as kindergarten, according to a 20year study recently published in the American journal Public Health.
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant connection between their social skills as kindergarteners and their success as adults two decades later.
In the research, teachers assessed how the kindergarteners interacted with each other socially using a range of criteria like whether they cooperate with their peers without being encouraged, whether they're helpful to others, whether they're good at understanding feelings, and whether they can solve problems on their own.
Researchers then kept track of whether the students go on to graduate from high school on time, get a college degree, and find and keep a fulltime job by 25. They also monitored the participants' involvement with crime, drug abuse, public assistance, and mental health issues.
The results showed that socially capable children are far more likely to earn a college degree and have a fulltime job by 25 than those with limited social skills. Those with limited social skills also have a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.
“This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future,” said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release. “From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted.”
The good news, according to Damon Jones, lead author of the study, is that intervention (干预) at a young age can help improve social and emotional skills.
“This research by itself doesn't prove that higher social ability can lead to better outcomes later on, ” he said. “But when combined with other research, it is clear that helping children develop these skills increases their chances of success in school, work, and life.”
1. What did the 20year study find?| A．Social skills play a key role in children's development. |
| B．Helpful children understand others' feelings better. |
| C．Most kindergarteners can solve problems alone. |
| D．Outgoing children cooperate with their peers easily. |
| A．When the researchers began their study. |
| B．How the researchers conducted the study. |
| C．How long it took to complete the study. |
| D．What factors were studied by the researchers. |
| A．Teach them some basic living skills. |
| B．Tell them to keep off alcohol. |
| C．Coach them in their lessons. |
| D．Teach them how to cooperate with others. |
| A．teenagers | B．doctors |
| C．educators | D．general readers |
【推荐2】People who possess high self-esteem are able to commit better and produce a greater bond in relationships with others. Dr. Douglas feels that most people do not value themselves, but with love and self-respect anyone can be above normality and grasp success with the family, the office, or others.
We have become too reliant on intelligence, beauty, and money for our own self-esteem. The loss of esteem reduces the will and ability to set and reach goals. In a series of readings Douglas teaches how to avoid negative statements, how to change them into self-facing behavior, and how to take charge of your mental attitude. Where other motivational and self-help works stop with the theoretical plan for success, Douglas takes everyday examples and puts them into his books. From raising children who believe in themselves to using self-esteem to help bridge the gap in the workplace, he gives readers concrete solutions to the problems that might ruin their interpersonal relations.
Self-esteem building comes from filling your thoughts with positive affirmations (肯定) and learning to react to failures with motivation instead of self-destruction. These lessons are valuable for anyone who feels that life is even slightly out of control. People who feel they have adequate esteem can learn to use it to make their success grander, faster, and more beneficial for others. Douglas approaches this process of self-development as a means of more than creating good things for the individual but also for setting up keys for influencing good things for others.
For more than thirty years, Dr. Douglas has addressed more than two million people on topics from time management to speaking effectively to raising drug-free children. He is the author of fifteen books, including How to Make a Habit of Succeeding.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?| A．Most people behave well enough. | B．Self-respect means being above normality. |
| C．Self-esteem matters much. | D．Committing better equals greater success. |
| A．To be reliant on self-esteem. | B．To set and reach goals. |
| C．To avoid negative thoughts. | D．To offer concrete solutions. |
| A．Learn to be positive. | B．Face it unmotivatedly. |
| C．Admit self-destruction. | D．Ask for help. |
| A．Influencing the individual. | B．Influencing more people. |
| C．Gaining more benefits. | D．Speaking more effectively. |
【推荐3】Children learn rather early that they must ask for the things they want, but as they grow up, it’s important that they begin to consider the needs of others. Raising a generous (慷慨的) child takes intentional practices like encouraging giving, teaching important habits, and modeling how best to care for others.
Help Your Neighbors
One of the simplest ways to show giving is to lend a hand to your neighbors.
Donate (捐) Clothes and Toys
Donating is one of those age-old habits that will always be the mark of a generous person. When you practice this with your children, it’s important that you allow them to choose which toys to giveaway.
By encouraging them when they choose to give and praising others who are generous, you are setting a standard for “praiseworthy” behavior. Another practice that parents have found helpful is to focus on how the things their child did has helped another.
Foster (培养) a Global Mindset
Someone with a global mindset cares for the world and is curious about how to solve global problems. Although it may seem like an abstract concept (抽象概念), there are a few ways to foster a global mindset. First, develop problem-solving and critical thinking.
| A．Below are four ways to foster generosity. |
| B．Words of praise can be powerful for young children. |
| C．Simple actions like these help to foster generosity in kids. |
| D．Giving kids a choice about whether to share encourages sharing behavior. |
| E．Be sure to encourage choosing clothes and toys that are newer or gently used. |
| F．Perhaps an elderly neighbor is ill, or a friend nearby has recently had a surgery. |
| G．Second, visit museums, exhibitions, and spend time with friends from other cultures. |
