1 . “Meet me in the conference room with the contracts and a cup of coffee,” my boss barked at me. “Ten minutes. ”
I didn’t respond. I stood still as if my shoes had been glued to the floor. I had no intention of taking a cup of anything to anyone, supervisor or not.
I had seen with my own eyes what such behavior did to a woman. It happened to Mrs. Wilson next door. Old Mr. Wilson couldn’t put in his own false teeth without his wife’s assistance, let alone make himself lunch. It was a miserable union. I vowed by age eight that I would never live like her. I adopted the motto: Don’t help those who won’t help themselves.
I rushed to the file room and pulled my phone. I explained to my father what had happened and asked his advice on what to do, only to be asked back. He must have forgotten the unwritten rule between us about not answering a question with a question. Fortunately, I came up with an idea that would have the best of both worlds.
I took up the files and headed for the coffee pot. I took two cups and made two cups of coffee. Then I walked into the boss’ office with a cup of coffee in each hand. I handed my boss a cup of coffee and drank at the same time as him.
“Let’s take a break,” partway through the meeting, my boss stood, saying. “I need more coffee.” I picked up my empty cup. “I do, too,” I said, and handed it to him across the table. “Thanks,” I added, looking at him expectantly. The boss was staggered for a moment, and then took the cup from me.
When I finally left my boss’ office, I hid in the bathroom and called my dad. My father’s laughter on the phone made me feel even prouder.
1. Why does the author mention the Wilsons?| A．To show how the couple grew old together. |
| B．To picture what she will be like when she ages. |
| C．To stress her opposition to inequality in society. |
| D．To explain her unwillingness to serve the coffee. |
| A．She meant to share instead of serving. |
| B．She planned to have the boss serve her later. |
| C．She intended to play a trick on her mean boss. |
| D．She wanted to save the trouble of doing it again. |
| A．Annoyed. | B．Shocked. | C．Confused. | D．Excited. |
| A．She figured out how to show respect for her superior. |
| B．She found it practical to seek solutions from her father. |
| C．She took a sensible approach to standing up for herself. |
| D．She considered it significant to fight against men bravely. |
2 . A choir teacher is a music teacher who specializes in helping students learn to use their voices in an ensemble (合奏) setting.
Like other teachers, choir teachers in public schools are required to be certified by the state in which they teach. Choir teachers frequently have other music skills.
In some schools, all students attend a choir class, while in others, choir is an elective (选修课). In the first case, many of the students most likely have no special training.
Within choir class, the choir teacher helps students warm up their voices, learn singing techniques, and learn specific songs that he or she has chosen as appropriate for the specific voices.
| A．Students learn to listen to each other as they sing. |
| B．They may have no special interest in the class at all. |
| C．There may be many ways to become a choir teacher. |
| D．The backgrounds of these choir teachers are varied too. |
| E．This involves learning information about music and reading music. |
| F．A full-time choir teacher may not be limited to working in a single school. |
| G．For example, they might be singers themselves or be good at playing an instrument. |
3 . An Indiana school system is testing a new program that turns food that would normally go to waste into meals for children who need them.
As part of a pilot program, 20 students at Woodland Elementary School (小学) in Elkhart went home on Friday with an insulated (隔热的) backpack filled with eight frozen meals to help them get through the weekend. The program is just getting started, but it seems to be going well. Cafeteria staff stood up and clapped when the plan was announced. “It’s heartbreaking, you know, seeing our kids hungry and not being able to do anything about it,” said Bickel, the director of student services for Elkhart Community School.
The school partnered with Cultivate, a “food rescue” group in nearby South Bend, to prepare the meals, which include a protein (蛋白质) and a vegetable. The group comes to five Elkhart school production kitchens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to collect food that was prepared but not served. That food had been going into the garbage. Cultivate gets food from local restaurants, hospitals and other businesses as well. The University of Notre Dame athletic department and the South Bend Cubs league baseball team also donate unused food.
Cultivate is also running pilot programs with two South Bend schools. “It’s been a long-term mission for myself,” Cultivate co-founder Randy Z said. “I was the kid who went home with no food and didn’t eat on the weekends when I was younger.”
Randy Z is getting calls from area schools and restaurants that want to get involved and from people in other parts of the United States who want to start their own programs. “Children come back to school energized and ready to go and it improves them all across the board. It’s just a great thing,” he said.
1. What is cafeteria staff’s attitude towards the pilot program?| A．Disapproving. | B．Favorable. | C．Uncaring. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．The partners of the school. | B．The causes of wasted food. |
| C．The source of the food rescued. | D．The content of the frozen meals. |
| A．He values education. | B．He wants to save food. |
| C．He founded the group. | D．He once suffered from hunger. |
| A．It makes much money. | B．It donates food to schools. |
| C．It will benefit more kids. | D．It will start its own kitchen. |
4 . Feeling overloaded by your to-do list can certainly make you unhappy, but new research suggests that more free time might not be the elixir many of us dream it could be.
In a new study released last week, researchers analyzed data from two large-scale (大规模) surveys about how Americans spend their time. Together, the surveys included more than 35,000 respondents. The researchers found that people with more free time generally had higher levels of subjective well-being — but only up to a point. People who had around two hours of free time a day generally reported they felt better than those who had less time. But people who had five or more hours of free time a day generally said they felt worse. So ultimately the free-time “sweet spot” might be two to three hours per day, the findings suggest.
Part of finding this seemingly tricky “sweet spot” has to do with how people spend the extra time they have, the researchers behind the new study argue. They conducted several smaller online experiments. In one they asked participants to imagine having 3.5 to 7 free hours per day. They were asked to imagine spending that time doing “productive” things (like exercising) or to imagine doing “unproductive” activities (like watching TV). Study participants believed their well-being would suffer if they had a lot of free time during the day — but only if they used it unproductively. Though that experiment was hypothetical, which is one limitation of the new research, it’s certainly in line with other research showing that being in a state of “flow” can be good for people’s mental health.
Of course, what feels “productive” is up to you. Many traditionally productive or purposeful activities can be easy and fun. Engaging in a bit of low-key cardio, like walking and jogging, can help burn stress. Free-time activities like reading or cooking are also known to put people in a state of flow.
1. What does the underlined word “elixir” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Magic solution. |
| B．Physical power. |
| C．Psychological test. |
| D．Relaxed atmosphere. |
| A．By doing large-scale online surveys. |
| B．By giving interviews and mental tests. |
| C．By comparing respondents’ backgrounds. |
| D．By conducting experiments and analyzing data. |
| A．Doing unproductive things leads to unhappiness. |
| B．Being in a state of flow benefits people’s mental health. |
| C．Man’s well-being is positively related to the free time they have. |
| D．How people spend their free time affects their sense of well-being. |
| A．The importance of burning stress. |
| B．Easy and fun activities to kill time. |
| C．Further explanation of being productive. |
| D．The benefits of engaging in free-time activities. |
5 . You can never imagine the social distancing policy resulted in some lifelong friendships between people who would have otherwise never met during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unlikely friendship began at the peak of the lockdown in May 2020. The lockdown was particularly hard for Mary O’Neill, who has been living alone since her husband passed away 37 years ago. Though she has two children, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren, most live out of state. The 99-year-old spent her days watching television game shows and playing Yahtzee. Benjamin Olson, a then one-year-old who lived next door, was also stuck at home and unable to play with kids of his age.
The unusual friendship developed gradually. At first, Mary would wave at Benjamin from her window whenever she saw the young boy in the yard. Then, she ventured outside to greet him in person. The routine eventually expanded to daily gatherings by the fence that separated the two homes. The unlikely pair even invented a socially distanced game that Mary calls “cane ball.”
“I came out of the house one morning, and he threw his ball toward the fence,” she told the journalist. “I got my cane, and I reached over the fence and hit the ball toward him, and he’d throw it back. That’s how it started.”
When the weather turned, the two were unable to meet in the yard as regularly. But Benjamin’s mother, Sarah, kept the friendship alive by frequently stopping by Mary’s house with the bundled-up toddler. The bond between the two has blossomed even further since Mary got vaccinated (接种疫苗). The two give each other hi-fives across the fence and often sit outside Mary’s house, blowing bubbles. This spring, Mary gifted Benjamin with a colorful toy truck collection that had once belonged to her son. The young boy returned the favor with a gift of his own— a pile of dirt that he carefully carried in his small palm and dropped at her door.
Certainly, you wouldn’t guess that a 99-year-old and a 2-year-old would be friends, but they can be.
1. What can we learn about Mary O'Neill?| A．Mary lived alone because of the lockdown. |
| B．Mary likes watching TV and playing Yahtzee most. |
| C．No family members looked after Mary in the lockdown. |
| D．Mary herself created a socially distanced game. |
| A．risked | B．shouted | C．rushed | D．escaped |
| A．Sarah was confused about the relationship. |
| B．Sarah stopped Benjamin visiting Mary’s house. |
| C．Sarah hoped to keep the friendship longer. |
| D．Sarah was not satisfied with the unlikely friendship. |
| A．Getting vaccinated is a good way to make friends. |
| B．The lockdown leads to a heart-warming friendship. |
| C．A ball game benefits the development of friendship. |
| D．Exchanging gifts helps people build true friendship. |
6 . In our home it was natural to fear our father. Even our mother was afraid of him. As children, my sister and I thought every family was like that.
Things were different after that. We had a new daddy. It was like the old one was buried that day in the forest.
| A．The praise we expected did not come. |
| B．The sun set and it began to get dark. |
| C．Our daddy worked very hard to support the family. |
| D．Then came the day we found something new and fun to do. |
| E．Our whole family was changed with a piece of chalk. |
| F．But there was something different in it. |
| G．Our mom knew that he cared for us. |
7 . Feeling a bit bored? It could be just what you need to produce your best ideas, excite your creativity or simply give your brain a rest.
Nowadays, in the age of round-the-clock entertainment, it’s (technically) trickier to be bored. If the show you’re watching has lost its spark, you can easily amuse yourself on social media without even leaving the sofa. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Feeling disengaged from the task in hand, or a lack of stimulation (刺激), does have its benefits, according to researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Being bored motivates you to search out something less boring to do. For example, if you decide there’s nothing worth watching on TV, you might choose to switch off and take up a new hobby. This, according to researchers, can explain why the lockdowns of the past two years saw a surge (激增) in creativity among people stuck at home from banana-bread-making to picking up a paintbrush for the first time since childhood.
But what about those times when you have no choice but to stick with the boring situation, waiting for a bus, for instance? The good news is that the boredom you’re feeling now could spark your creativity later, says a 2019 study published in the Academy of Management Discoveries journal. People who’d taken part in a bean-sorting task later performed better at coming up with creative ideas than another group who’d been given something more interesting to do first.
Ultimately, don’t take it for granted that there’ll always be something close at hand to entertain us. With boredom, we will not run the risk of becoming boring ourselves.
1. What does the author imply in paragraph 2?| A．Wondering mind can be healthy. |
| B．Social media can surely entertain us. |
| C．Being bored may be something good. |
| D．Being involved in the task is beneficial. |
| A．People were stimulated by boredom. |
| B．People were better equipped at home. |
| C．People had more hobbies to choose from. |
| D．People were more concerned about mental being. |
| A．To create a boring situation. | B．To reduce people’s boredom. |
| C．To make a funny performance. | D．To show an entertainment at hand. |
| A．What is the point of creativity? |
| B．Are we more easily bored nowadays? |
| C．How can we deal with daily boredom? |
| D．Does boredom make us more creative? |
8 . My nephew Tyden and I were celebrating another nephew’s birthday at a local amusement center. It was the kind of place where you got tickets for scoring points in the games and then cashed them in for prizes.
Tyden won top prize of tickets，so we went to cash them in and select his gifts. I felt a little sad because my loved one and I had our first date at this center and had exchanged little things from the showcase. I noticed a turtle and remembered my partner loved it. I asked the young man behind the showcase if I could just buy the turtle without tickets. He said. “Unluckily. that is not a choice.”
I needed to win 350 tickets to cash the turtle in.so I left Tyden choosing his gift alone there. I bought game tokens（代币）and entered the game room. I had just chosen a game I thought I could win when I heard Tyden's excited voice，“Auntie，Auntie！Look！”
He pulled the turtle out from behind his back and gave it to me. My eyes were filled with tears. and my heart burst with love. He had listened to that whole conversation and chosen to give the turtle to me instead of getting whatever he wanted.
Before I could thank him. he said，“I wanted you to have it，so you didn't have to spend money，which would cause you to work hard”.
I held him in my arms，and told him how much I loved him. I am beyond thankful to have the title of his Auntie
1. What did the author fail to do?| A．Find another gift． | B．Buy a turtle． | C．Exchange gifts． | D．Please her loved one |
| A．To get a prize． | B．To beat Tyden． | C．To challenge herself． | D．To win tickets for her nephew. |
| A．Worried． | B．Moved． | C．Surprised． | D．Confused． |
| A．Hard-working． | B．Clever． | C．Honest． | D．Caring. |
9 . “I wish I didn’t have to go to school, Grandpa." complained Alex, throwing his bag on the ground and sitting m the bench beside him. "It's such a waste of time. I’d much prefer to be out working. I could be earning money already If started working now at a restaurant like Big Chicken, I’d be earing good wages as well as good tips and I’d be able to travel and see the world like you did!"
Grandpa smiled across at Alex and looked at him a moment. “It reminds me of a story I once heard-an old tale from China.”
"Long ago in China, there was a kite. Although it rose higher than all the other kites, it longed to go higher. It saw the clouds and the birds way above and hated not being able to go up there. In fact it scolded the string for holding it back. The string was not happy with this situation and thought it was unfair."
"One day, the wind was particularly strong. The kite went up rapidly as the string was let out quickly. “Aw, not again, string!" yelled the kite to the string. 'Stop holding me back! Let me go higher this time! Let go of me!" The string let go and dropped towards the earth, no longer pulled up by the kite. Without the tension of the string holding it, the kite dropped quite quickly down. The kite was badly injured. Do you see the lesson in this for your situation?"
”YES! Thanks Grandpa! I understand now." exclaimed Alex. "What the story is actually saying is that sometimes you need constraint in order to reach your potential. Sometimes it's the things you think are holding you back that are actually mostly responsible for your growth. The string is to finish school and the kite is my future potential being realized. And the wind is my education lifting me higher and higher."
Grandpa smiled back. "Exactly, Alex. Well done. I am proud of you, young man.
1. What do we know about Alex?| A．He couldn't fit in with his classmates. |
| B．He behaved badly at school. |
| C．He desired to do what he wanted to do. |
| D．He wanted to earn money to support his family. |
| A．Because both of them dropped towards the earth. |
| B．Because the kite blamed the string for holding it back. |
| C．Because the string hated not being able to go higher. |
| D．Because the kite could see the clouds and the blue sky. |
| A．The kite and The String | B．The Grandpa and The Grandson |
| C．Making yourself a good kite | D．A Story full of fun |
10 . New England holds some special museums. They are devoted largely or entirely to the work of just one person. And they are the artists’ birthplaces or onetime homes. Here are four examples of such museums.
Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum
The name Cyrus E. Dallin (1861-1944) might not be familiar, but several of the artist’s sculptures (雕塑) are, especially those related to Native Americans. A good example is his “Appeal to the Great Spirit” standing in front of the Museum of Fine Arts. Born in Utah, he lived in Arlington for the final four decades of his life. The museum is in the Jefferson Cutter House, an 1830 Greek styled building.
Norman Rockwell Museum
Rockwell (1894-1978) was America’s well-known artist. The museum, founded in 1969, moved into its present location, Robert A.M. Stern-designed building in 1993. Its 998 paintings and drawings are the largest single collection of Rockwell's artworks.
Kids 16 and under: free; adults: $20; the old: at a 10% discount (折扣)
Edward Gorey House
Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was an artist, but he was also an author and clothes designer. Gorey bought this 18th-century house in 1979 and lived there for the rest of his life. Edward Gorey House is also known as the Elephant House. Gorey had respect for animals. The activities of the house, from art education to exhibits, show Gorey's support of animal well-being.
Gibert Stuart Birthplace and Museum
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) is responsible for what may well be the most familiar work of any American artist, His drawing of George is the basis of the first president’s portrait (画像) on the dollar. Stuart painted more than a thousand portraits throughout his life.
1. What do we know about Cyrus E. Dallin?| A．He built the Jefferson Cutter House. |
| B．He lived in Arlington for half a century. |
| C．He was best known for his Greek styled sculptures. |
| D．He created famous works related to Native Americans. |
| A．$36. | B．$40. | C．$60. | D．$72. |
| A．Edward Gorey House. | B．Norman Rockwell Museum. |
| C．Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum. | D．Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum. |
