Emily White was born seventeen years ago with so many birth problems in her body. Some of her organs, bones and muscles were out of shape. No one expected her to survive. She did make it but with her strange body figure, everyone could recognize her, even from a distance.
In Emily White’s hometown, there was a yearly outdoor performance in the school auditorium (大礼堂). It had been performed for so many years and actually had become one of the most important events of the Christmas season for many of the town’s people.
Many people tried out each year for it, but so many were turned away. It can only include the most excellent people in the field.
Emily had a beautiful singing voice. Last year she went to Mrs. Owens — her music teacher to ask to join in the performance. Without letting her sing, Mrs. Owens took a look at Amy’s body and said, “Child, you just don’t fit. Everyone would stare at you and that would make you uncomfortable. It would make them uncomfortable, too.”
Without singing a single note, Emily was sent back through the door of the choral room. Hurt and upset, she decided never to try out again. But Mrs. Owens then retired.
This year, there came a new music teacher, Mr. Buttler. He heard about Emily and suggested that she have a try.
Emily didn’t want to be rejected again, so she hesitated a little about it. As Emily struggled, the door was pushed open and Mr. Buttler called, “Emily, you’re next.” Although kind of nervous, Emily did as Mr. Buttler told her to do. Mr. Buttler sat by the piano to keep Emily company. When Emily finished her testing performance, she thanked Mr. Buttler and knew the result would be posted on the door of the choral room the next day.
Emily couldn’t sleep that night. She was suffering from the feelings that she didn’t fit and the great need to be accepted. By the next morning, her stomach was even in pain because of stress.
注意：续写词数应为150左右Paragraph 1: The next day, Emily nervously glanced at the list on the door of the choral room.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: Finally, the day of performance came.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In the first grade in senior high school, I was extremely shy, I had friends, but it just wasn’t in my personality to be very outgoing, even when I knew someone. I was afraid I would do or say something wrong, so usually I just smiled and listened to other people’s conversations.
I did well in school and I loved to write. However, I would escape into my writing, where I could be myself and never had to worry about what other people thought of me. In my stories, I was never shy, I often imagined that I was the main character in the story. My teacher, Mrs. Sather, always encouraged me to write more and be myself. She told our class to go after our dreams and dig in with great efforts. I thoughts he was one of the first people to see my inner strength.
One day, she showed us a play she had written and announccd that our class was going to perform it. “I’ll begin to choose all the performers tomorrow” she said, “I need someone who is not afraid to be onstage in front of a lot of people to play the lead part of Dorothy. Anybody wants to try?” A few excited hands shot up -mine, of course, was not one of them and Mrs. Sather smiled. “We’ll talk more about it later,” she said. Then the bell rang and my classmates slowly left the classroom.
“I will never do that,” I thought. But after rereading the play, I was deeply attracted by the story and couldn’t help imagining myself to be the main character Dorothy. There seemed to be a new person inside me, a much more daring, outgoing person who had been hidden all along, just waiting for the opportunity to appear. However, I still felt shy and could never picture myself acting in a play in front of two hundred people. Having struggled for a few minutes, I still did not know how to make the decision.
注意：1.续写词数应为 150 左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When I was packing my schoolbag, Mrs Sather asked me to go to her.
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One week later, it was time for me to perform on the stage.
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1. 这种单车的使用方法（如：APP查看车辆、扫码开锁等）；
2. 这种单车的优势；
3. 你对这种单车的看法。
注意：
1. 词数大约100左右；
2. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
提示词：智能手机 smartphone, 二维码 the QR code
Dear Jim,
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Yours,
Li Hua
A cactus (仙人掌) stood all alone in the desert, wondering why it was stuck in the middle of the desert. “I do nothing but stand here all day,” it sighed. “What use do I have? I am the ugliest plant in the desert. My spines (刺) are thick, my leaves are tough, and my skin is uneven. I can’t offer shade or juice to the passing travellers. I don’t see that I am of any use at all.” All it did was stand in the sun day after day, growing taller and fatter. Its spines grew longer and its leaves grew tougher. It truly was strange-looking.
“I wish I could do something useful,” it signed. By day, hawks (鹰) circled high overhead, and the cactus called, “What can I do with my life?” Whether they heard or not, the hawks flew away. At night the moon floated into the sky and cast its pale light on the desert floor. “What can I do with my life?” the cactus called. The moon only stared coldly as it continued its course.
A lizard (蜥蜴) passed by, leaving a little trail in the sand with its tail. “What worthy deed can I do?” the cactus called. “You?” the lizard smiled, pausing a moment. “You can do something. Just wait for the right moment. The hawks circle their ways overhead, making beautiful patterns for us all to admire. The moon hangs high like a lantern at night, so we can see our ways home to our loved ones. Even I, the lowly lizard, have something to do. I decorate the sands with these beautiful trails as I pull my tail along. And you, you will show us your beauty some day.”
Paragraph 1:
It went on year after year, and the cactus grew old.
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Paragraph 2:
The desert hadn’t known such a flower of it.
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5 . On March 7, 1907, the English statistician Francis Galton published a paper which illustrated what has come to be known as the “wisdom of crowds” effect. The experiment of estimation he conducted showed that in some cases, the average of a large number of independent estimates could be quite accurate.
This effect capitalizes on the fact that when people make errors, those errors aren’t always the same. Some people will tend to overestimate, and some to underestimate. When enough of these errors are averaged together, they cancel each other out, resulting in a more accurate estimate. If people are similar and tend to make the same errors, then their errors won’t cancel each other out. In more technical terms, the wisdom of crowds requires that people’s estimates be independent. If for whatever reasons, people’s errors become correlated or dependent, the accuracy of the estimate will go down.
But a new study led by Joaquin Navajas offered an interesting twist (转折) on this classic phenomenon. The key finding of the study was that when crowds were further divided into smaller groups that were allowed to have a discussion, the averages from these groups were more accurate than those from an equal number of independent individuals. For instance, the average obtained from the estimates of four discussion groups of five was significantly more accurate than the average obtained from 20 independent individuals.
In a follow-up study with 100 university students, the researchers tried to get a better sense of what the group members actually did in their discussion. Did they tend to go with those most confident about their estimates? Did they follow those least willing to change their minds? This happened some of the time, but it wasn’t the dominant response. Most frequently, the groups reported that they “shared arguments and reasoned together”. Somehow, these arguments and reasoning resulted in a global reduction in error. Although the studies led by Navajas have limitations and many questions remain, the potential implications for group discussion and decision-making are enormous.
1. What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?| A．The methods of estimation. | B．The underlying logic of the effect. |
| C．The causes of people’s errors. | D．The design of Galton’s experiment. |
| A．the crowds were relatively small | B．there were occasional underestimates |
| C．individuals did not communicate | D．estimates were not fully independent |
| A．The size of the groups. | B．The dominant members. |
| C．The discussion process. | D．The individual estimates. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Dismissive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
I was invited to a cookout on an old friend’s farm in western Washington. I parked my car outside the farm and walked past a milking house which had apparently not been used in many years. A noise at a window caught my attention, so I entered it. It was a hummingbird (蜂鸟), desperately trying to escape. She was covered in spider-webs (蛛网) and was barely able to move her wings. She ceased her struggle the instant I picked her up.
With the bird in my cupped hand, I looked around to see how she had gotten in. The broken window glass was the likely answer. I stuffed a piece of cloth into the hole and took her outside, closing the door securely behind me.
When I opened my hand, the bird did not fly away; she sat looking at me with her bright eyes. I removed the sticky spider-webs that covered her head and wings. Still, she made no attempt to fly. Perhaps she had been struggling against the window too long and was too tired? Or too thirsty?
As I carried her up the blackberry-lined path toward my car where I kept a water bottle, she began to move. I stopped, and she soon took wing but did not immediately fly away.
Hovering (悬停), she approached within six inches of my face. For a very long moment, this tiny creature looked into my eyes, turning her head from side to side. Then she flew quickly out of sight.
During the cookout, I told my hosts about the hummingbird incident. They promised to fix the window. As I was departing, my friends walked me to my car. I was standing by the car when a hummingbird flew to the center of our group and began hovering. She turned from person to person until she came to me. She again looked directly into my eyes, then let out a squeaking call and was gone. For a moment, all were speechless. Then someone said, “She must have come to say goodbye.”
注意：1. 续写词数应为 150 左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
A few weeks later, I went to the farm again.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I was just about to leave when the hummingbird appeared.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1.你喜欢的科技产品；
2.喜欢的理由。
注意: 1.词数80左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Hello, everyone,
I’d like to make a speech with the title: My Favourite Invention.
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That’s all. Thank you.
Rebecca stretched her tired back. “That’s the last seedling (树苗), Pa. Have we planted enough?”
Pa walked to the end of the row of cottonwood seedlings. “No,” he said. “We have to plant trees all the way to that rock over there. We’ll need about twenty more seedlings.”
“I’ll get the seedlings,” offered Rebecca. She longed to cool her feet in the shallow river running through the cotton field.
“You’d better let me go, Miss Petticoats,” teased her twin brother, William. “There are dangers all over this prairie (草原).”
“You may both go,” said Pa. “But hurry back. I’d like to finish before sundown.”
They went across the shallow river to a sandbar where small cottonwood seedlings grew.
Gently, they pulled the seedlings from the sand.
“There! That’s twenty, with a few to spare,” said Rebecca.
“OK,” said William. He led the way to the riverbank, and then stopped. “Look! That’s the dugout (防空洞) we had lived in before we moved here last year,” he said, pointing to a hole on the grassy riverbank.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
“No,” Rebecca said, “Pa is waiting. Besides, it’s hard to tell what’s in it.”
“Then you go back,” said William, handing the seedlings to Rebecca. I’ll catch up.” He ran to the dugout and stepped inside.
Rebecca wrapped the seedlings in her long apron (围裙) and began to walk. Suddenly she froze in her tracks.
A huge rattlesnake (响尾蛇) moved along the riverbank.
It stopped right in front of the dugout and lay still, coiling up on the warm sunny bank.
“William!” Rebecca shouted. “Don’t come out!”
“Huh?” William’s face appeared at a tiny window beside the door of the dugout.
Rebecca pointed at the rattler. William’s face paled when he saw the snake blocking the doorway. He turned desperate eyes toward Rebecca, and then he glanced behind himself. Rebecca knew what he was thinking: “Were there more snakes waiting in the shadowy corners of the dugout?”
Rebecca’s mind raced, trying to think of a way to get William out of there. An idea popped into her head. It was their only hope. It was risky, but it was the only hope.
“Don’t move,” she said to William in a soft voice. “When I say NOW, you run out of there as fast as you can.”
Rebecca removed the skirt-like petticoat (衬裙) from beneath her dress, and then dipped it into the river. She squeezed out some of the water, and then climbed to the top of the bank, directly above the dugout’s opening.
Paragraph 1:
“Get ready to run, William,” she said, keeping an eye on the motionless snake.
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Paragraph 2:
“Are you OK?” he asked, breathing heavily. Rebecca nodded.
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9 . Group-Centered Societies Have Just as Much Creativity
What does culture have to do with creativity? The answer could be “a lot”. For decades, psychologists trying to understand the roots of creative imaginations have looked at the ways in which two different types of cultures can come to have an effect over its artistic and
Individualism has long been thought to have a creative
The new work comes from comparing communities in different parts of China. Though it scores high, as a nation, on measures of cultural
In the new creativity study, researchers investigated innovation with these two groups in mind. The team used a drawing test that had been created by psychologists. They gave kids a sheet of paper with just a few basic elements printed on it: some dots here, squiggles (弯曲的线条) there, and a rectangle that suggested a drawing frame. The children got 15 minutes to use the elements already on the page to draw whatever they wanted. They could get “adaptive creativity” points for doodling in ways that connected the squiggles and lines into an original and
The researchers gave the test to 683 middle school students from north and south of the Yangtze River. When the scientists got the scores back, they discovered that there were no differences in the children’s overall creativity. When they broke down the results into components, they found that students from collectivistic regions scored
The findings are also a warning against cultural chauvinism (极端民族主义). Western countries have tended to lead the way in innovation — at least as defined by the metrics (指标) we Westerners have created. Perhaps we have been
| A．theoretical | B．inventive | C．productive | D．regular |
| A．prioritize | B．deprive | C．tolerate | D．abandon |
| A．satisfy | B．stimulate | C．cherish | D．sacrifice |
| A．shelter | B．edge | C．border | D．alternative |
| A．embrace | B．propose | C．resist | D．create |
| A．However | B．Therefore | C．Meanwhile | D．Moreover |
| A．broadly | B．objectively | C．seriously | D．narrowly |
| A．individualism | B．identity | C．collectivism | D．flexibility |
| A．selfish | B．collective | C．individualistic | D．realistic |
| A．fall apart | B．fit in | C．give in | D．show off |
| A．separate | B．ugly | C．unified | D．tiny |
| A．catch | B．miss | C．target | D．misuse |
| A．higher | B．averagely | C．lower | D．vaguely |
| A．capturing | B．approaching | C．imitating | D．overlooking |
| A．improvements | B．drawbacks | C．insights | D．attempts |
10 . HANDSTITCHED WORLDS: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF QUILTS
Quilts (床罩) are a narrative art; with themes that are political, spiritual, communal, or commemorative, they are infused with history and memory, mapping out intimate stories and legacies through a handcrafted language of design. Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts is an invitation to read quilts as maps, tracing the paths of individual histories that illuminate larger historic events and cultural trends.
Spanning the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, this insightful and engaging exhibition brings together 18 quilts from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, New York, representing a range of materials, motifs, and techniques from traditional early-American quilts to more contemporary sculptural assemblages. The quilts in Handstitched Worlds show us how this too-often overlooked medium balances creativity with tradition, individuality with collective zeitgeist. Like a road map, these unique works offer a path to a deeper understanding of the American cultural fabric.
Number of Works:18 quilts
Organized by: American Folk Art Museum, New York
Approximate size:175-200 linear feet
Security: Moderate security
Participation Fee: Please inquire
Shipping: IA&A makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay outgoing shipping costs within the contiguous U.S.
Booking Period:12 weeks
Tour: June 2021—August2024
Contact: TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org
Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
June 12, 2021—August 29, 2021
Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA
September 17, 2021—January 23, 2022
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT
February 19, 2022—May 14, 2022
Fort Wayne Muesum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
June 18, 2022—September 11, 2022
AVAILABLE
October 2022—January 2023
Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum, Logan, KS
February 17,2023—May 14, 2023
AVAILABLE
June 2023—December 2023
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS
January 30, 2024—April 21, 2024
AVAILABLE
May 2024—August 2024
All tour dates can be customized to meet your scheduling needs. Please contact Traveling Exhibitions @ Artsand Artists.org for more information.
1. What is the purpose of the exhibition of Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts?| A．To promote creativity and individuality thorough the engaging exhibition. |
| B．To provide an opportunity for visitors to learn to make quilts stitch by stitch. |
| C．To give visitors an insight into the history and culture of America in specific periods. |
| D．To enrich the understanding of the American culture by a tour visit to museums across America. |
| A．The exhibition is free both for the exhibitors and for the visitors. |
| B．Exhibitors that are interested can choose whatever dates they want. |
| C．The artistic and historic value of handstitched quilts used to be neglected. |
| D．Exhibitors that are interested can book the exhibition 12 weeks in advance. |
| A．exhibitors | B．visitors | C．artists | D．historians |
