1 . Art Builds Understanding

Despite the long history of scholarship on experiences of art, researchers have yet to capture and understand the most meaningful aspects of such experiences, including the thoughts and insights we gain when we visit a museum, the sense of encounter after seeing a meaningful work of art, or the changed thinking after experiences with art. These powerful encounters can be inspiring, uplifting, and contribute to well-being and flourishing.

    1     It contributes to facilitating a better understanding of ourselves, the human condition, and moral and spiritual concepts. The question is how that happens — what are the attributes of meaningful experiences of art?

According to the mirror model of art developed by Pablo P. L. Tinio, aesthetic reception corresponds to artistic creation in a mirror-reversed fashion. Artists aim to express ideas and messages about the human condition or the world at large.     2     This results in the build-up of layers of materials — from initial studies and sketches to the final, refined piece. A viewer’s initial interaction with an artwork starts where the artist has left off. Their interaction first involves the processing surface features, such as color, texture, and the finishing touches applied by the artist during the final stages of the creative process.     3    

In addition, art making and art viewing are connected by creative thinking. Research in a lab at Yale University shows that an educational program that uses art appreciation activities builds creative thinking skills. It showed that the more time visitors spent engaging with art and the more they reflected on it, the greater the correspondence with the artists’ intentions and ideas.     4    

Correspondence in feeling and thinking suggests a transfer — between creator and viewer — of ideas, concepts, and emotions contained in the works of art. Art has the potential to communicate across space and time.     5     What it takes for this to happen is active engagement with art in contexts that facilitate this engagement, especially museums.

A．The viewers gain a new perspective on the story.

B．The theory of aesthetic cognitivism describes the value of art.

C．This helps to create connections and insights that otherwise would not happen.

D．To do so, they explore key ideas and continually expand them as they develop their work.

E．After spending more time with the work, the viewer begins to access the ideas of the artist.

F．For example, in one activity, people are asked to view a work of art from different perspectives.

G．Participants were more original in their thinking when compared to those who did not take part in the program.

3 . Philosophers have a bad reputation for expressing themselves in a dry and boring way. The ideals for most philosophical writing are precision, clarity, and the sort of conceptual analysis that leaves no hair un-split.

There is nothing wrong with clarity, precision, and the like — but this isn’t the only way to do philosophy. Outside academic journals, abstract philosophical ideas are often expressed through literature, cinema, and song. There’s nothing that grabs attention like a good story, and there are some great philosophical stories that delight and engage, rather than putting the reader to sleep.

One of the great things about this is that, unlike formal philosophy, which tries to be very clear, stories don’t wear their meanings on their sleeve — they require interpretation, and often express conflicting ideas for the reader to wrestle with.

Consider what philosophers call the metaphysics (形而上学) of race — an area of philosophy that explorers the question of whether or not race is real. There are three main positions that you can take on these questions. You might think that a person’s race is written in their genes (a position known as “biological realism”). Or you might think of race as socially real, like days of the week or currencies (“social constructionism”). Finally, you might think that races are unreal — that they’re more like leprechauns (一种魔法精灵) than they are like Thursdays or dollars (“anti-realism”).

A great example of a story with social constructionist taking on race is George Schuyler’s novel Black No More. In the book, a Black scientist named Crookman invents a procedure that makes Black people visually indistinguishable from Whites. Thousands of African Americans flock to Crookman’s Black No More clinics and pay him their hard-earned cash to undergo the procedure. White racists can no longer distinguish those people who are “really” White from those who merely appear to be White. In a final episode, Crookman discovers that new Whites are actually a whiter shade of pale than those who were born that way, which kicks off a trend of sunbathing to darken one’s skin-darkening it so as to look more While.

Philosophically rich stories like this bring more technical works to life. They are stories to think with.

1. What does the author think of philosophical stories?

A．The meaning behind is very obvious.

B．They am extremely precise and formal.

C．They often cause conflicts among readers.

D．They are engaging and inspire critical thinking.

2. Which category might “Christmas” fall into according to paragraph 4?

A．Social constructionism.	B．Anti-realism.
C．Biological realism.	D．Literary realism.

3. What is Black No More in paragraph 5 mainly about?

A．Racial issues caused by skin colors.

B．A society view on race and self-image.

C．Black people accepted by the white society.

D．The origin of sun bathing among white people.

4. What is the best title of the text?

A．Stories Made Easy	B．Stories to Think with
C．Positions in Philosophy	D．Nature of Philosophical Writing

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

I’m smaller than everyone else my age. When I walk in the halls at school, I have to squeeze in between the bigger kids to get by. At the playground, sometimes even little kids try to boss me around. Mia, my best friend, is so tall that when she walks, I have to jog to keep up with her.

I used to try to make myself taller whenever I could. My posture was perfect, straight as an arrow. I hung from the tree in our backyard to stretch out my arms and legs. I even ate all my vegetables. Every day I measured myself, but I was the same height every time. Frustrating!

“Don’t worry,” Mom always said. “Being small has its advantages.” “Really? I could never notice any.”

One day, Mrs. Alvarez announced to the class that we’d be putting on a spring play. I practiced all the lines. But at the audition (试演), when I walked up to the stage, Mrs. Alvarez cried, “You’ll be perfect as the elf (小精灵)! You’re just the right size for the costume.” I even never got a chance to deliver the practiced lines. Back home I grumbled (咕哝) to mum that I was made an elf. But she bet I would be the best elf. To please her, I went to rehearsals (排练), though I only had two lines.

Mia got the lead role-a girl wandering through a magical fairy forest in search of her lost dog. In the last scene, she finds a box under a giant mushroom, and when she opens it, her dog jumps out. Mrs. Alvarez’s dog, Prince, played the dog role. She brought him to all the rehearsals, and when he wasn’t onstage, we got to play with him, but he seemed to like me best.

The night of the show, my first line came early, “Let’s ask the Fairy Queen!” Since my only other line was toward the end, I waited offstage, playing with Prince.

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。

Finally, the grand end came, and Prince was brought onstage inside the box.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“How can we get Prince out from beneath the stage?” Mrs. Alvarez asked.

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7 . Beating Burnout and Compassion Fatigue in the New Year

This year has continued to bring many of us closer to the pain, suffering and exhaustion of those experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue (疲倦). There is no doubt that 2021 has been filled with additional challenges.     1    

The data is clearly showing that our workforce shares feelings of burnout. A recent Gallup report indicated that 67% of us feel burned out either some or most of the time. At an organizational level, Hogan reports that burned out employees are 18% less productive and 2.6 times more likely to be actively seeking a different job.

Fatigue and burnout arise not when we fail to get sufficient rest but when we fail to appreciate the moments of purpose and joy in our lives.

There are a few myths around burnout and compassion fatigue:

Myth 1: Burnout is an individual's problem.

Many people believe that burnout is about an individual who needs to “figure it out”.     2     Team structure offers critical support and leaders should create environment where team burnout is addressed.

Myth 2:     3    

Surprisingly, the individuals most likely to experience burnout are committed employees and leaders who love their job and are highly engaged. These top performers are the people you are most likely to lose.

Myth 3: People who experience burnout are just less resilient.

Research shows a correlation between higher levels of resilience (复原力) and lower levels of burnout.     4     But resilience looks very different now from five years ago, and my guess is that it will continue to shift.

If 2021 has taught us anything, it is that we cannot separate burnout from our emotions, whether they may be fear, anger, shame or guilt.     5    

A．While fatigue is more sudden and results from carrying the pain and suffering of others, what we experience is similar.

B．Burnout results from lack of responsibility.

C．Burnout hurts individuals' enthusiasm and passion.

D．At this point, burnout and compassion fatigue has expanded into many aspects of our lives.

E．But burnout occurs at different levels and is the result from challenges to individuals, teams and organizations.

F．At one point, people believed resilience was established by “sucking it up”, or “just staying positive”.

G．And the path forward requires us to deepen the relationship with feelings of joy, passion, pride and fulfillment.