1 . The Music Educator Award, this year, went to Annie Ray, an orchestra(管弦乐队)director at Annandale High School.She was recognized for her efforts to make music accessible to all students, particularly those with disabilities.Ray got to attend the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and bring home a $10,000 prize.
Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their child.Ray also works with a local charity to give damaged instruments a second life in her classroom.
The orchestra is about much more than just making music.The most important is to give students a chance to develop their cooperation skills, make mistakes and learn the art of refining something.Ray pushes her students to be brave, go outside their comfort zone and realize they have to learn how to make bad sounds before learning how to make good sounds.And they teach her a lot in return.” They changed my educational philosophy.I understand what it truly means to meet a student where they’re at and apply that elsewhere,” she said.
The warm reception on the ceremony was meaningful.Actually, not many people understand what exactly music educators do or how much their work matters.While her administration is supportive, that lack of understanding is a problem facing the profession in general.Another is resources.She says her school “desperately” needs new instruments.She will use some of her prize money to buy more.
Ray also plans to put some of the money towards an ongoing scholarship for students who want to pursue music when they graduate.She knows of several, those particularly interested in music, and aims to offer financial support needed to realize their musical dreams” It is hard but truly satisfying,” Ray said.“And there’s nothing else like it for them.”
1. What can we learn about Ray from the first two paragraphs?| A．She hosted the award ceremony. | B．She brought music to more people. |
| C．She gave away instruments to the poor. | D．She founded a local charity for children. |
| A．They acquire in-depth musical knowledge. | B．They make friends with the like-minded. |
| C．They gain personal growth from playing music. | D．They improve their connections with educators. |
| A．The reception on the ceremony. | B．Importance of music education. |
| C．Challenges for music educators. | D．Plans to obtain resources. |
| A．Winning a scholarship. | B．Developing interest in music. |
| C．Making musical achievements. | D．Transforming dreams into reality. |
2 . You might think of it as a scene from martial arts movies when you see people performing graceful moves down the river, all standing on a bamboo strip, but actually it is a form of intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产): bamboo drifting.
Over 2,000 years ago, the high-quality wood, nanmu, in Guizhou was in great demand by the royal court more than 2,000 kilometers to the north. With no better transportation, people had to stand on one log to drift down the river. Later, local people began to compete along the way and the game of wood drifting was born. In the Qing Dynasty, wood drifting became bamboo drifting because of bamboo’s lower price. Due to the great strength and balance it takes for one to master this act, bamboo drifting was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2021.
Yang Liu, a 25-year-old inheritor of bamboo drifting, learned it at seven. “Usually, the bamboo under your feet is about 9 meters long, and the bamboo in your hands is about 5 meters. If the length or diameter of the bamboo is not long enough, it will not be buoyant (有浮力的) enough to float. Keeping our feet firmly positioned on the narrow bamboo pole is the key, so we should fight against the current by constantly changing the angle. I lost my balance and fell in the water many times while practicing. Once I fell, I gave it another try until I knew how to handle the most difficult part,” she said.
The love for the ancient skill keeps Yang going. In the past 18 years, she has drifted all year round, in cold winter and hot summer. As hanfu culture has been on the rise, Yang started wearing hanfu while performing, creating a more beautiful scene. In 2020, Yang began to post her videos on social media. “I’m extremely proud to get responses from viewers that bamboo drifting makes the line between what is possible and impossible unclear. It’s my mission to keep it alive and known to more people,” Yang Liu says.
1. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?| A．Bamboo drifting involves lots of skills. |
| B．Nanmu was delivered to the north by land. |
| C．Bamboo was costly in Guizhou 2,000 years ago. |
| D．The martial arts movie is a form of cultural heritage. |
| A．Keeping balance. | B．Maintaining a fixed angle. |
| C．Finding the proper bamboo. | D．Holding the bamboo firmly in hands. |
| A．Impossible. | B．Confusing. | C．Unbelievable. | D．Complicated. |
| A．Balancing with Grace | B．Yang Liu: a Creative Performer |
| C．Transporting Bamboo down the River | D．Intangible Cultural Heritage in Guizhou |
3 . For much of human history, ethical (道德的) behavior has been guided by the Golden Rule: do to others as you would have them do to you. But the rule is imperfect. What you want in a given situation may not be what another person desires at all.
In the medical field, making or influencing choices for others can make all the difference. Such choices impact people’s quality of life and even their chances of survival. As health care becomes more individualized, the time seems right for a new ethical guideline—the “platinum (白金) rule” proposed by professor Harvey Max Chochinov: do to others as they would want done to themselves.
Chochinov describes this principle in his essay published last year. He begins with a story about a health crisis affecting his sister Ellen, who was severely disabled. The care doctor, after seeing her twisted (扭曲的) body, was weighing whether to insert a breathing tube when he asked Chochinov a strange question: Did Ellen read magazines? “The question was frightening.” Chochinov writes, “this was not an attempt to get to know Ellen … but rather a way to decide if hers was a life worth saving.” Ellen read widely and enjoyed many simple pleasures of life, but the gap between her life as a person who uses a wheelchair and the doctor’s sense of what he would want in her situation was too vast to be bridged by the Golden Rule. “That’s when judging from where you stand what another might need or want begins to break down,” Chochinov explained.
Time is a limited resource in the health-care system, and there’s no denying that getting to know a patient as an individual means investing additional minutes or hours. Still, Chochinov believes such investment is cost-effective. There are benefits for doctors as well. “When they emotionally connect to their patients, they do a better job.”
In certain cases, doctors may find it hard to apply the platinum rule. But there is value in the effort: at the very least, their trying to work through it will ensure that they have sufficient modesty about the wisdom of their choices.
1. Why is the platinum rule introduced to the medical field?| A．To strengthen ethical behavior in treatment. |
| B．To help doctors acquire accurate information. |
| C．To increase chances of survival for patients. |
| D．To make person-centered care accessible to patients. |
| A．A health crisis caused her disability. |
| B．The doctor was curious about her hobby. |
| C．The doctor gave little thought to her needs. |
| D．Her brother sang high praises for the treatment. |
| A．Health care system needs investing. |
| B．Time put into knowing a patient is rewarding. |
| C．Trust between doctors and patients is important. |
| D．Emotional connection to patients brings job burnout. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. | C．Careful. | D．Unclear. |
4 . By 2050, 68% of the global population will live in cities. That’s 2.5 billion more people than today. In Europe, three out of four of us already live in urban areas, and the consequences of that are becoming clear. Researchers estimate that nine million people die every year as a direct result of air pollution. As our cities grow and more people move into already crowded spaces, what do we need to do to transform our urban areas into healthy places to live? An increasing body of research tells us that we should be letting nature back in.
Green spaces in cities mitigate the effects of pollution and can reduce a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect, which refers to heat trapped in built-up areas. The effect appears in towns and cities where the heat generated by people, transport and industry is trapped in the narrow roads and concrete structures, unable to escape to the atmosphere. This can bring the temperature in urban areas up 3 — 4°C higher than the surrounding countryside, and with that comes a severe cycle. Increased temperatures in summer lead to an increased demand for cooling. This expands our energy consumption, which in turn build up fossil fuel consumption, increasing pollutants in the air and harmful smog on our streets.
Planning cities to include green spaces wherever possible is the first step in making our urban areas healthier. For example, adding a layer of vegetation to rooftops and creating green roofs has proven to reduce the urban heat island effect. Trees in our streets also play their part, and a variety of tree species can have a profound effect. Simply having access to green spaces in cities can do wonders for our stress levels and concentration at work. “People need to interact with nature whenever the opportunity arises. Something as simple as a five-to-ten-minute break during the workday can improve well-being and boost productivity,” Cecil, an expert studying nature in cities says.
1. How does the author bring in the topic in Paragraph 1?| A．By presenting facts. | B．By listing examples. |
| C．By comparing numbers. | D．By questioning an estimate. |
| A．Overcome. | B．Change. | C．Ease. | D．Shift. |
| A．Lower temperature. | B．Energy regeneration. |
| C．Fuel shortage. | D．Air pollution. |
| A．How to Let Nature Back In |
| B．Why We Need Green Spaces in Cities |
| C．Heat Effect: An Unavoidable Urban Trouble |
| D．Green Roofs: Tiny Urban Forests |
5 . On Mondays, two of my children get ready for school in an unusual way. Each packs plenty of food and water, a pair of rubber boots and sometimes a cup of hot chocolate. Then, I drop them off at a nearby park where they spend the entire day outside at a certified forest school.
When I first signed them up for forest school program, I loved the idea, but as a mum, I was concerned about a few things: Would they be comfortable outside for that long? Would they stay engaged for that many hours? Then I asked them if time ever seemed to move slowly, they stared at me in confusion. They didn’t understand my question, which fittingly removed it.
In this program, kids direct their own play, climbing tall trees or testing ice on the frozen lake. They are never told their play is too high or too sharp, but are rather trusted to self- adjust. Something else my sons appreciate about forest school is not being told to move on to the next activity, but being left to stay in a particular spot for as long as their curiosity allows. :
“What about all the things they’re missing in real school?” concerned parents have asked me. Neither of their classroom teachers thinks it’s a problem, but most significantly, my kids are learning new and different skills that a classroom cannot teach. They are learning to sit silently and observe nature up close-a skill that’s virtually impossible to develop in a noisy and overcrowded classroom setting. They are making social connections across a broader range of age groups. They cooperate together, using their different sizes and strengths to fulfill various roles within their games.
I appreciate it that forest school is shaping my boys’ relationship with the outdoors. They’re learning how to spend extended periods of time in nature, what to do to pass the time, and developing knowledge that will get them much closer to nature in the coming decades.
1. What is special about the forest school program?| A．Teachers engage in kids’ play. | B．Kids play and learn outdoors. |
| C．It focuses on nature protection. | D．It offers various food and drinks. |
| A．Awkward. | B．Concerned. | C．Relieved. | D．Proud. |
| A．The concerns caused by the program. |
| B．The benefits gained from role plays. |
| C．The skills acquired by children. |
| D．The games loved by teachers. |
| A．Nature: a wonderland for the young |
| B．Forest school program proves a hit |
| C．Parks are replacing traditional schools |
| D．Forest school: a fine place for my kids |
6 . Everyone knows what makes a good story. Our hero starts their journey as a flawed being. In scene after scene, they face challenges that push them down new paths. By the end of the talc, they overcome setbacks and become a better person in the process.
We love these plots in the novels we read but the principles of a good story offer much more than entertainment. Recent research shows that the narratives we tell ourselves about our lives can powerfully help us recover from stress. People who generate tales of struggling and turning over a new leaf from their own lives appear to have much better mental health. Professor Dan McAdams put forward this idea and discovered that whether someone can describe having had some control over events in their past is an important predictor of mental health. Another key theme involved is finding some kind of positive meaning after stressful events.
McAdams invited 14 and 15-year-olds to join in an experiment to write about their experiences of failure and success. Half of them were then given extra instructions to describe the ways they had made their success a reality and how the failure had changed them for the better. Eight weeks later, members of this group reported greater persistence and better grades in their schoolwork.
Exciting as these results are, some experts sound a few notes of caution. They worry that, hearing about the power of self-narratives, many people may feel they have to find a positive turning point in life. If they can’t, they could end up feeling guilty about having somehow “failed”.
Clearly, self-narratives aren’t the panacea. Nevertheless, if you hope for self-improvement, you can use the findings to good effect. By recognizing ourselves as the hero at the center of our own struggles, we can all become the author of our own destiny and change ourselves for the better.
1. What does the research focus on?| A．The causes of stress. |
| B．The principles of narrative. |
| C．The connection between struggle and well-being. |
| D．The link between mental health and self-narratives. |
| A．To give proof. | B．To make predictions. |
| C．To draw a conclusion. | D．To make comparisons. |
| A．Attempt to get rid of worries. | B．Means of recognizing yourself. |
| C．Solution to adolescent problems. | D．Guarantee to become better people. |
| A．Embrace Life Struggles | B．Be Your Own Hero |
| C．Ways to Make a Good Story | D．The Power of Self-improvement |
7 . Imagine a plate holding two strawberries, identical in appearance. One came out of a supermarket box, meaning it was probably harvested when it was still unripe. By the time it reached the plate it may have been off the vine for two weeks. The other strawberry was picked from a garden minutes before being eaten.
Supermarket strawberries are not entirely without advantages: they are convenient and still available even in winter months. But the two berries differ from each other in the same way that hearing music in a concert hall differs from listening to it on an old CD player. The home-grown fruit is an eatable case for making a home garden.
Your columnist, who long considered gardening a complete waste of time, advances this argument with great enthusiasm. Planting cool-weather greens, as gardeners across the north-east of America are now doing, can seem nonsense, since convenient, continuously well-stocked supermarket shelves are available all week. But the same could be said of cooking: there are many cheap and decent restaurants around, so why bother to make your own meals?
That attitude misconstrues the ultimate appeal of gardening: it mistakes the product for the purpose. It is true that a garden can produce tomatoes and carrots of incomparable sweetness, and celtuce and herbs that taste like themselves rather than the plastic they are usually packaged in. While finding, let’s say, celtuce in the shops can take some time, effort, and expense, growing your own vegetables ensures a reliable supply.
On the other hand, a garden, especially in the early years, can produce little but frustration. Green hands may plant the wrong crops for their soil. And even expert gardeners can lose a season’s harvest to uncooperative weather.
No matter. The real joy of gardening is the time spent doing it. The deepest pleasure-as with cooking. Writing or almost anything worthwhile — is in the work itself. To garden is to patiently, lovingly and diligently help life become strong and healthy, in the ground and above it.
1. What can we know about the supermarket strawberries?| A．They look distinct from home-grown ones. | B．They give out pleasant and fresh smell. |
| C．They are picked days before fully grown. | D．They are planted typically in winter. |
| A．Misinterprets. | B．Transforms. | C．Mistrusts. | D．Highlights. |
| A．To warn readers not to take up gardening easily. |
| B．To advise readers to work in harmony with nature. |
| C．To make readers reflect on the methods of gardening. |
| D．To help readers have a whole picture of gardening. |
| A．It’s a difficult and time-consuming process. | B．Products of gardening make it worthwhile. |
| C．The time and efforts invested make it a delight. | D．It reduces the cost of purchasing vegetables. |
8 . Your emotion helps you make sense of the world. At the core of an emotion is a subjective experience of the valence of it — what emotion scientists call “affect” (情感). Generally speaking, affect is what we are most focused on. Do you have chocolate cake in front of you? That’s good! Do you see a spider on the table! That’s bad!
Your affective reactions tell you which experiences are desirable, and which aren’t, but the total emotional experience includes all you do and think. You can learn a lot by observing and describing them. You can also learn a lot by appreciating their secret life.
The problem is: the affective features of emotions tend to dominate. Our subjective valence of emotion is almost all we can see. When emotions are only about what is pleasant or unpleasant in subjective experience right now, the more important features of emotion disappear.
If you can slow down and expand; if you stop running or clinging (沉浸其中) and adopt a sense of curiosity, emotions become more subtle and different. When fear comes up, don’t walk away so that fear dissipates. Instead, stay. Allow yourself to feel the nervousness, the sweating, and everything else that comes along with it. It is one of the hardest things to do in life, but it’s also one of the most rewarding. If you run, you are telling basic parts of your brain, “I guess this threat really was real. I better stay away from it.” You are training yourself to fear, regardless of that situation. If you cling, you are saying, “Escape from this emotion is a threat”, and since it is not a happy experience, happiness slips through your hands like sand.
Note that you can not fool yourself. Just allow the full emotion. You will never enter into their secret life until you stop running or clinging. To control your life, you need to actively train your emotions to be your ally (同盟). Observe. Describe. Appreciate. Do that and you may find you have allies for healthy living that were there all along.
1. Why does the author mention “chocolate cake” and “spider” in paragraph 1?| A．To explain the complex response of emotions. |
| B．To show the subjective experience of emotions. |
| C．To indicate the goodness and badness of the world. |
| D．To emphasize the significance of emotions in life. |
| A．The present feelings are less obvious. |
| B．The subjective emotions are less powerful. |
| C．The overall picture of emotions is easier to ignore. |
| D．The observation and description of emotions are easier. |
| A．Deepens. | B．Spreads. | C．Disappears. | D．Sticks. |
| A．The secret of emotions. | B．The subjective experience. |
| C．The importance of allies in life. | D．Magical functions of emotions. |
9 . Vijay Gupta is known to classical music lovers across the United States. He serves as the first violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In that job, he often plays to large crowds, including many very rich people. When he is not performing, he organizes concerts for homeless people. “They have reminded me why I became a musician.” He said.
Last week, Gupta was recognized for being a founder and the artistic director of Street Symphony. The group has performed at homeless shelters, jails and halfway houses for about eight years. Gupta is among the 25 winners of the 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “Genius Grant”. Each winner will receive $ 625,000 over five years to use as they wish. The money is coming from a private group, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It awards grants (补助金) to people whose work it considers exceptional and whose work “inspires hope in us all”. Gupta said he got the idea for Street Symphony while teaching Nathaniel Ayers, a trained musician whose mental illness led to his homelessness.
The 31-year-old winner said he did not know yet how he would spend the money. He has been a performer since the age of seven and the award will give him “space to breathe, plan and look ahead”.
Another winner is Rebecca Sandefur, an associate professor (副教授) of sociology and law in the University of Illinois. The Associated Press says her research actively supports new ways to involve poor communities in the U. S. justice system.
47-year-old Sandefur created the first national mapping of civil legal aid providers. It shows which states have the financial(金融的)resources to provide such aid and which don’t. She also found that the cost of legal services was only one of the things preventing poor people from getting lawyers. Among the others were fears of unfairness(不公平)in the legal system. Sandefur noted that a lot of attention had been paid to problems with the criminal justice system, but more attention must be paid to the civil side of the law, which also affected millions of people.
1. Why does Gupta win the award?| A．For his achievements in classical music. |
| B．For performing for large crowds. |
| C．For organizing a group playing for the homeless. |
| D．For the companionship with Nathaniel Ayers. |
| A．It is founded by the government. |
| B．It offers $ 625,000 to 25 winners in 2018. |
| C．It allows the winners to use the money freely. |
| D．It awards people who make great contributions to society. |
| A．She made it easier to get legal help for the poor. |
| B．She made the legal system fairer. |
| C．She paid more attention to the criminal justice system. |
| D．She offered legal aid to the poor freely. |
| A．Grants winners, inspiring the poor |
| B．The city homeless, in need of help |
| C．Vijay Gupta, an extraordinary violinist |
| D．MacArthur Foundation, awarding exceptional work |
In my first attempt to get control over my technology use, I set my phone to vibrate rather than ring. Soon after, another problem appeared. The act of continually checking the phone became a habit. I knew then that using only tips to permanently reform digital life is difficult. We should go past the notification settings (通知模式) on our devices or apps and consider the more essential topic of why we use so many apps in the first place. What all of us who are struggling with these challenges need is a technology usage philosophy, something that explains from the ground up which digital tools we allow into our lives, why, and under what conditions.
Cal Newport, a professor of computer science, defines Digital Minimalism (极简主义) as a “philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected activities that strongly support the things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”
To do so, however, we cannot passively allow the tools and apps provided by the internet age to control how we spend our time or how we feel. Instead, we must take steps to draw the positive aspects of these technologies while sidestepping the negative aspects.
1. What does “its danger” in the first paragraph refer to?| A．Feeling depressed. |
| B．Getting distracted in a discussion. |
| C．Giving up private moments. |
| D．Losing control of your digital life. |
| A．To make a comparison. |
| B．To explain a phenomenon. |
| C．To bring in a better solution. |
| D．To clarify misunderstandings. |
| A．Ignoring the side effect of digital tools. |
| B．Devoting your screen time to valuable things. |
| C．Spending more time selecting information. |
| D．Getting away from entertainment apps. |
| A．Reforms in life. |
| B．Technology challenges. |
| C．Apps and social media sites. |
| D．Technology usage philosophy. |
