White Fang is a story about a wolf-dog rescued from Beauty Smith
This novel
An ongoing television documentary telling the historic achievements that
The filming team traveled to 97 towns and subdistricts in 22 provincial-level regions and interviewed over 100 people, offering a vivid 1
3 . What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world that staged public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?
As a cultural sign, the pillow is deceptively soft. Since at least the 16th Century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an afternoon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.
Subsequent writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-Century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.
It’s a trick perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.
With the words of Tang. Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down — one that must be lightened.
1. The example of Tang Xianzu is used to illustrate that ________.| A．pillows give people satisfactory dreams |
| B．dreams are always wonderful while the real world is cruel |
| C．people’s impression of pillows changes from wonder to terror |
| D．pillows symbolically convey the meaning in contrast to their soft appearance |
| A．wrote poems about pillows |
| B．regarded pillows as reflections of our minds |
| C．shared the same viewpoint as Tang Xianzu on pillows |
| D．was likely to have been influenced by the thoughts of the Renaissance |
| A．pillows give us comfort |
| B．pillows make people more intelligent |
| C．people with too many thoughts have less inner peace |
| D．people can easily fall asleep when they know nothing |
| A．Because it is a ritual release. |
| B．Because it makes life delightful. |
| C．Because it comforts restless minds. |
| D．Because it contains a profound meaning of life. |
Good Taste of Knowledge
The aim of education or culture is merely the development of good taste in knowledge and good form in conduct. The cultured man or the ideal educated man is not necessarily one who is well-read or learned, but one who likes and dislikes the right things. To know what to love and what to hate is to have taste in knowledge.
Nothing is more annoying than to meet a person at a party whose mind is crammed (填塞) full with historical dates and figures and who is extremely well-posted on current international affairs, but whose attitudes or points of view are all wrong. I have met such people. They do have great academic knowledge, but no good judgment or taste. Being knowledgeable is a mere matter of the cramming of facts or information while having good taste is a matter of artistic judgment. In speaking of a scholar, the Chinese generally distinguish between their scholarship (学术成就), conduct and taste..
An educated man, therefore, is one who has the right loves and hatreds. This we call taste, and with taste comes charm. Now, to have taste requires a capacity for thinking things through to the bottom, the independence of judgment, and the unwillingness to be affected by any form of power.
When a man is wrong, he is wrong, and there is no need for one to be impressed by a great name or by the number of books that he has read and we haven't.
Taste, then. is closely associated with courage. as the Chinese always associated dan (“胆”) with shi (“识”) And courage or independence of judgment, as we know, is such a rare virtue among humankind. We see this intellectual courage or independence during the childhood of all thinkers and writers who in later life amount to anything. Such a person refuses to be impressed by a philosophic vogue or a fashionable theory, even though it is backed by the greatest name. this is taste in knowledge.
No doubt such intellectual courage or independence of judgment requires a certain childish. nave confidence in oneself, but this self is the only thing that one can cling to. and the moment a student gives up-his right of personal judgment, he is m for accepting all the dishonest and insincere of life.
1. According to the author, what is the goal of education?2. Why is a well-read man not necessarily an educated one?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement: Intellectual courage or independence of judgment builds confidence in oneself; then underline it and explain why Intellectual courage or independence of judgment builds confidence in oneself.
4. Please name one person with the qualities of dan and shi in Chinese history and explain what about this person makes you think so. (In about 40 words)
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All of this
9 . I always imagined I’d be a good birder one day. But it was not to be. I finally had to acknowledge this the day I met a real birder. Toward evening, a beautiful song erupted from the woods. “Oh! What’s that one?” I asked. She looked at me with unbelieving eyes and said, “That’s still a cardinal (红雀).”
Nevertheless, after decades, I’ve gotten pretty good at the 20 or so regular bird visitors to my garden. And now I have a new ambition. I want to be able to tell individual birds apart. You know, my personal birds.
I thought my ability to distinguish our local hummingbirds (蜂鸟) would be limited to telling the females from the males, which is easy, because their feathers look different. But there’s way more going on than that. I get a good look because, like many people, I put out a nectar (花蜜) feeder. That’s mainly for my benefit, to draw them close. Hummingbirds get plenty of juice from my flowers. But they also eat insects and spiders. Some more than others.
The hummingbird that has dominated (控制) our feeder — Hannibal Nectar — is one round, spider-filled little ball. But then there’s Noodle. She visits the feeder any time she senses Hannibal isn’t looking. She always picks her place carefully so she can look out for Hannibal. She looks right, left, up, down, and only then lowers and sucks everything she can. Hannibal comes way more often and drinks less at a time, because he knows he’s the boss. But he’s also the only hummingbird I’ve seen that makes a regular habit of checking out the nectar feeder from underneath. I know what he’s doing: There might be ants.
Poor Noodle. She’ll be attacking spider webs for material for her nest one of these days, and I hope she’s real comfortable in there, because that’s one place Hannibal will not be invited. I’d love to bring her a housewarming gift. Maybe a nice spider pot pie.
1. How did the author probably feel after hearing the real birder’s answer?| A．Excited. | B．Moved. | C．Frightened. | D．Embarrassed. |
| A．To hunt hummingbirds. | B．To train hummingbirds. |
| C．To observe hummingbirds. | D．To give hummingbirds a home. |
| A．He is more battlesome. | B．He eats insects and spiders. |
| C．He sucks more nectar at a time. | D．He is particular about the material for his nest. |
| A．The joy of raising birds | B．Useful advice from a real birder |
| C．There are birds, and then there’s Noodle | D．Hummingbirds bring music to my garden |
10 . I once met a young woman who had dreams of swimming for the U.S Olympic team. She had to get up every morning at 4 a.m. to swim for 3 hours before going to school. She did not party with her friends on Saturday night. She had to study and keep her grades up, just like everyone else.
When I asked her what compelled her with such super-human ambition and sacrifice (牺牲). She simply said, “I do it for myself and the people I love. It’s love that gets me over the hurdles and sacrifices.”
A reason or a purpose is a combination of “wants” and “don’t wants”. When people ask me what my reason for wanting to be rich is, it is a combination of deep emotional “wants” and “don’t wants”.
I will list a few. First the “don’t wants”, for they create the “wants”. I don’t want to work all my life. I don’t want what my parents aspired for, which was job security and a big house. I don’t like being an employee. I hated it that my dad always missed my football games because he was so busy working on his career. I hated it when my dad worked hard all his life and the government took most of what he worked for at his death.
Now the “wants”. I want to be free to travel the world and live in the lifestyle I love. I want to be young when I do this. I want control over my time and my life. I want money to work for me.
Those are my deep-seated, emotional reasons. What are yours? If they are not strong enough, the reality of the road ahead may be greater than your reasons. I have lost money and been set back many times, but it was the deep emotional reasons that kept me standing up and going forward. I wanted to be free by age 40, but it took me until I was 47 with many learning experiences along the way.
I wish I could say it was easy. It wasn’t, but it wasn’t hard either. But without a strong reason or purpose anything in life is hard.
1. The passage is started by __________.| A．giving an example | B．explaining the causes |
| C．pointing out similarities | D．describing the differences |
| A．committed | B．inspired | C．forced | D．combined |
| A．the “wants” lead to the “don’t wants” |
| B．the “wants” come from the “don’t wants” |
| C．the “don’t wants” have little to do with the “wants” |
| D．the “don’t wants” are more important than the “wants” |
| A．The reality is greater than the deep emotional reasons. |
| B．With stronger emotional reasons, life must be much easier. |
| C．With deeper emotional reasons, the road ahead is likely to be harder. |
| D．In reality, we may meet many more obstacles without deeper emotional reasons. |
