1 . I was born legally blind. Of all the stories of my early childhood, the one about a
I was only two when the
Mom loves to use this story as an
We are almost certain to get
| A．trip | B．race | C．tree | D．driver |
| A．incident | B．change | C．illness | D．problem |
| A．feared | B．refused | C．forgot | D．turned |
| A．delay | B．absence | C．freedom | D．rest |
| A．landed | B．slept | C．laughed | D．wept |
| A．promised | B．encouraged | C．allowed | D．expected |
| A．woke | B．picked | C．warmed | D．gave |
| A．adds | B．replies | C．admits | D．supposes |
| A．drove | B．lived | C．stood | D．zoomed |
| A．crashed | B．broke | C．climbed | D．looked |
| A．answer | B．example | C．excuse | D．order |
| A．able | B．ashamed | C．afraid | D．anxious |
| A．ask | B．share | C．learn | D．try |
| A．honesty | B．toughness | C．kindness | D．curiosity |
| A．regretted | B．reviewed | C．made | D．explained |
| A．job | B．friend | C．fortune | D．house |
| A．memories | B．efforts | C．research | D．experience |
| A．mixed up | B．fed up | C．knocked down | D．settled down |
| A．play | B．relax | C．dream | D．cry |
| A．all at once | B．in the end | C．in either case | D．as a result |
1. Where does. the speaker come from?
| A．America. | B．Australia. | C．England |
| A．Friends. | B．Quiet. | C．Humorous. |
| A．Play with his friends. | B．Watch comedy shows. | C．Have a cup of tea. |
| A．The TV programs. | B．The old buildings. | C．The tea shops. |
3 . Before there was the written word, there was the language of dance. Dance expresses love and hate, joy and sorrow, life and death, and everything else in between.
“I adore dancing,” says Lester Bridges, the owner of a dance studio in Iowa. “I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.” Bridges runs dance classes for all ages. “Teaching dance is wonderful.
So, do we dance in order to make ourselves feel better, calmer, healthier? Andrea Hillier says, “Dance, like the pattern of a beating heart, is life. Even after all these years, I want to get better and better.
| A．So why do we dance? |
| B．Dance in the U.S. is everywhere. |
| C．If you like dancing outdoors, come to America. |
| D．My older students say it makes them feel young. |
| E．I keep practicing even when I’m extremely tired. |
| F．Dancing seems to change their feeling completely. |
| G．They stayed up all night long singing and dancing. |
4 . Weald & Downland Living Museum
Fun fact
Over 50 historic buildings from across the Weald and Downland area have been dismantled (拆除) and then reconstructed across a lovely 40-acre site in the South Downs national park. The collection of buildings represents almost a thousand years of rural life in south-east England: furnished just as they would have been in the past — complete with the homes, farms and public buildings. There’s a sense of exploring a real village as you wander between them along green paths, stopping to climb the stairs of a 17th-century craftsman’s (工匠) cottage to lie on the straw bed or sheltering from a shower in a smoky, 14th-century hall.
Getting there
The Stagecoach 60 bus service from Chichester to Midhurst stops just five minutes away at Grooms Yard, Singleton. The nearest railway stations are Chichester (2 miles) and Haslemere (7 miles). The museum is on Town Lane in Singleton, reached via the A286 from Chichester to Midhurst. Parking is free and there are disabled parking spaces opposite the museum shop.
Value for money?
Yes. It’s not cheap but it’s a special experience that easily fills a day. Plus, it’s a valuable cause worth supporting. Adults ￡14, children 5-17 and students ￡6.50, under-4s free, family ￡38 (two adults and two children) or ￡25 (one adult and three children).
Opening hours
Daily 10am-5pm (last entry 4pm).
1. What can visitors do in Weald & Downland Living Museum?| A．Take a shower in the hall. |
| B．Stay overnight at a cottage. |
| C．Learn construction techniques. |
| D．Explore rural life centuries ago. |
| A．￡25. | B．￡34.5. | C．￡38. | D．￡41. |
| A．It charges parking fees. |
| B．It has varied opening hours. |
| C．It is inconveniently located for bus riders. |
| D．It offers the disabled thoughtful service. |
5 . Today's world is not an easy adjustment for young adults. Key skill set for success is persistence (毅力), a characteristic that researchers say is heavily influenced by fathers. Researchers from Brigham Young University discovered that fathers are in a unique position to help their adolescent children learn persistence.
BYU professors Laura Padilla-Walker and Randal Day arrived at these findings after following 325 American families over several years. And over time，the persistence gained through fathers led to higher achievement in school.
"There are relatively few studies that stress the unique role of fathers，"Padilla-Walker said. "This research also helps to prove that characteristics such as persistence-which can be taught-are key to a child's life success.”
Researchers determined that dads need to practice an "authoritative" parenting style. Authoritative parenting is not authoritarian:rigid，demanding or controlling. Rather，an authoritative parenting style includes some of the following characteristics:children feel warmth and love from their father；responsibility and the reasons behind rules are stressed children are given an appropriate level of autonomy(自主权).
In the study，about 52 percent of the dads exhibited above-average levels of authoritative parenting. A key finding is that over time，children raised by an authoritative father were significantly more likely to develop persistence，which leads to better outcomes in school.
This particular study examined 11 to 14-year-olds living in two-parent homes. Yet the researchers suggest that single parents still may play a role in teaching the benefits of persistence，which is an avenue of future research.
1. What is special about the BYU professors' study?| A．It centered on fathers' role in parenting. |
| B．It was based on a number of large families. |
| C．It analyzed different kinds of parenting styles. |
| D．It aimed to improve kids' achievement in school. |
| A．Ignore their demands. | B．Make decisions for them. |
| C．Control their behaviors. | D．Explain the rules to them. |
| A．Single parents. |
| B．Children aged from 11 to 14. |
| C．Authoritarian fathers. |
| D．Mothers in two-parent homes. |
| A．Three Characteristics of Authoritative Fathers. |
| B．Key Skills for Young Adults to Succeed in Future. |
| C．Children Tend to Learn Determination from Father. |
| D．Family Relationship Influences School Performance. |
I'm not sure
My name is Mireya Mayor. I'm a
When the gorillas and I frightened each other, I was just glad to find
7 . I used to believe that only words could catch the essence of the human soul. The literary works contained such distinct stories that they shaped the way we saw the world. Words were what composed the questions we sought to uncover and the answers to those questions themselves. Words were everything.
That belief changed.
In an ordinary math class, my teacher posed a simple question: What’s 0.99 rounded to the nearest whole number? Easy. When rounded to the nearest whole number, 0.99=1. Somehow, I thought even though 0.99 is only 0.01 away from 1, there’s still a 0.01 difference. That means even if two things are only a little different, they are still different, so doesn’t that make them completely different?
My teacher answered my question by presenting another equation (等式): 1= 0.9, which could also be expressed as 1=0.99999.... repeating itself without ever ending.
There was something mysterious but fascinating about the equation. The left side was unchangeable, objective: it contained a number that ended. On the right was something endless, number repeating itself limitless times. Yet, somehow, these two opposed things were connected by an equal sign.
Lying in bed, I thought about how much the equation paralleled our existence. The left side of the equation represents that sometimes life itself is so unchangeable and so clear. The concrete, whole number of the day when you were born and the day when you would die. But then there is that gap in between life and death. The right side means a time and space full of limitless possibilities, and endless opportunities into the open future.
So that’s what life is. Objective but imaginative. Unchangeable but limitless. Life is an equation with two sides that balances itsef out. Still, we can’t ever truly seem to put the perfect words to it. So possibly numbers can express ideas as eually well as words can. For now, let’s leave it at that: 1= 0.99999... and live a life like it.
1. What does the author emphasize about words in paragraph 1?| A．Their wide variety. | B．Their literary origins. |
| C．Their distinct sounds. | D．Their expressive power. |
| A．The repetition of a number. | B．The way two different numbers are equal. |
| C．The question the teacher raised. | D．The difference between the two numbers. |
| A．Measured. | B．Composed. | C．Mirrored. | D．Influenced. |
| A．The Perfect Equation | B．Numbers Build Equations |
| C．An Attractive Question | D．Words Outperform Numbers |
8 . Although we all experience failure in our lives, we don’t all react to it in the same way. An interesting research has emphasized the notion that there are some people who embrace challenges and disappointments as opportunities to re-focus their thinking. These are people with a growth mindset. Then, there are other people who see failure as a complete failure. They believe that they never had the talent anyway, and they probably never will. These are people with a fixed mindset.
Psychologist Dweck has studied these mindsets and provided evidence that most people intentionally place themselves in one of those two groups. The group to which you assign yourself frequently determines how you react to challenges. If you experience failure and give up, you have conveniently assigned yourself to the fixed group. If you experience failure and regard it as a stepping stone, then you have placed yourself into the growth group.
According to the research, people in the growth group tend to generate more creative ideas than those in the fixed group. To illustrate, consider Thomas Edison. In the 19th century, Edison attempted to improve the light bulb and experimented with numerous materials. Over a thousand trials, he managed to discover an element sustaining light. A reporter once asked him,“It seems as though you’ve tried many times and continue to fail each time. Why is that?”Edison answered,“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10, 000 ways that won’t work.”
In studies of creative people, psychologists discovered that a distinguishing feature separating them from the non-creative is that they make lots of mistakes and continue to work through them. Most people consider success and failure as polar opposites. In reality, they are both parts of the same process.
1. What might people with a growth mindset agree with?| A．Challenges are welcomed. |
| B．Mistakes can be avoided. |
| C．Success is due to good luck. |
| D．Only talent leads to success. |
| A．A road to nowhere. |
| B．A challenge in the way. |
| C．An outcome to expect. |
| D．A chance to advance. |
| A．To make a prediction. |
| B．To present a fact. |
| C．To support a viewpoint. |
| D．To clarify a principle. |
| A．How people interpret failure often determines their creative output. |
| B．Learning from success plays an important part in improving creativity. |
| C．Growth mindset people see challenges differently from fixed mindset ones. |
| D．Which group people put themselves in decides how they react to challenges. |
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