Whatever life threw at us each year, come Christmas our family had one constant tradition: our dog Pepper opened our presents for us. Watching our sweet dog unwrap gifts always warmed the holiday, which was often a little bittersweet because college, studying abroad, or work commitments often kept my two sisters and me away.
One year, everyone made it home for a Christmas together. I visited from college, Kaci flew in from Arizona, and Kara was back from Ireland. Mom’s jubilance kept her busy baking cookies for us all. Our Christmas season should have been perfect.
It couldn’t feel perfect, though, because Pepper’s health was deteriorating. Her life had already been longer than we expected —she was fourteen —and yet her mind was still sharp. Her enthusiasm for life made us feel better. But her body could not keep up with her spirit. She’d already shown the usual signs of deafness and stiffness. That year, her hips and back legs started giving out on her. We knew we would soon have to make a difficult decision.
It was likely Pepper’s last Christmas, so we decided to make sure she enjoyed it. On Christmas Eve, we gathered around the tree to open an early present. We each took a turn and then called Pepper to open one more. But her tangled legs could not navigate the boxes and shredded wrapping paper on the floor. She stumbled over the obstacles, and soon she disappeared into the next room. She crumpled back to the floor, as out of the way as she could get.
We were heartbroken. Could Pepper even participate in her last Christmas? Pepper stayed on the periphery of all our holiday activities. Throughout the day, we gave gifts but did not feel very giving. We shared stories over cinnamon rolls that tasted bland. We played games by the tree whose twinkles had dimmed.
That evening, Kaci said what we’d all been thinking: “I wish Pepper could have helped open presents this year.” We all put down our mugs of spiced tea. “Maybe she still could,” Kara said. “But there’s none left,” Mom reminded her. Kara jumped up and left the room. We heard her opening drawers and cabinets in the kitchen.
注意：(1)字数150左右，
(2)请按如下格式在答题纸上作答。
Kara returned with a box of dog biscuits, scissors, a pile of color paper, and a roll of tape.
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Soon, Pepper selected her first Christmas gift.
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2 . Generous billionaires are not hard to come by, but it is definitely a challenge to find a billionaire who spends all his fortune on charity just to end up broke. This is
Feeney, who grew up in a poor neighborhood of New Jersey, is a
Influenced by his own experience, Feeney decided to give away all his money to those in need in his lifetime. In 1984, the then 53-year-old Feeney
| A．truly | B．exactly | C．genuinely | D．absolutely |
| A．target | B．genius | C．crossing | D．professor |
| A．producing | B．presenting | C．optimizing | D．distributing |
| A．identified | B．determined | C．memorized | D．remembered |
| A．built | B．owned | C．formed | D．established |
| A．fame | B．status | C．honor | D．career |
| A．at all | B．at ease | C．in satisfaction | D．in comparison |
| A．put off | B．paid off | C．gave over | D．signed over |
| A．strength | B．abilities | C．properties | D．achievements |
| A．firm | B．agency | C．foundation | D．manufacture |
| A．campaigns | B．explorations | C．declarations | D．investigations |
| A．won | B．owed | C．praised | D．managed |
| A．Proving | B．Benefiting | C．Pioneering | D．Motivating |
| A．role | B．hint | C．icon | D．base |
| A．stroke | B．satisfied | C．completed | D．compromised |
3 . Monopoly (大富翁) is a very popular board game around the world today, but little is known about its American inventor, Elizabeth Magie, and the philosophy behind her invention.
Born in 1866, Magie was a rebel against the norms and politics of her times. Inspired by Henry George who believed that all men should have an equal right to use the land as they have to breathe air, she challenged the capitalist system of property ownership —in the form of a board game. In 1904, she patented her Landlord’s Game, which consisted of a circuit of streets and landmarks for sale.
Magie’s game contained two sets of rules: The Prosperity rules and the Monopolist rules. The Prosperity rules stated that every player should gain each time someone acquired a new property. The game was won (by all!) when the player starting with the least money doubled his or her fortune. Under Monopolist rules, on the other hand, each player advanced by acquiring properties and collecting rent from all who landed there later. Whoever managed to bankrupt the other players won the game. The purpose of the dual sets of rules, said Magie, was for players to understand how these different approaches to property can lead to different social outcomes: “all win” or “win all.”
The game soon became a hit on college campuses and among Quaker communities, and some people modified the game board. An unemployed player named Charles Darrow sold this modified version to the manufacturer Parker Brothers as his own. However, when the game’s true origin came to light, Parker Brothers bought the patent from Magie for only $500. They then re-launched the game as Monopoly, including only the rules leading to the triumph of one over all. Darrow was publicized as the inventor who had become a millionaire from selling the game. Thus a rags-to-riches myth was created, ironically exemplifying Monopoly’s implicit (含蓄的) values: Chase wealth and crush your opponents if you want to come out on top.
1. What is this passage mainly about?| A．The creation and modification of a board game. |
| B．A fight between patent owners of a popular game. |
| C．A socio-economic victory behind a landlord game. |
| D．The person who became a millionaire from a fun game. |
| A．To emphasize the value of the capitalist system. |
| B．To introduce different approaches to obtaining new land. |
| C．To advocate that all should be rewarded when one acquires wealth. |
| D．To challenge George’s idea that men should have an equal right to the land. |
| A．A modified version of Monopoly. |
| B．Darrow’s success after selling the game. |
| C．Parker Brothers’ purchase of Magie’s patent. |
| D．The popularity of the game on college campuses. |
| A．Excited. | B．Relieved. | C．Doubtful. | D．Displeased. |
4 . 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 |
5 . Some documents have been making the rounds lately — where people who work various positions in different industries share how much they’re paid.
Bravo! It’s about time we blew up that old belief that salaries have to stay secret. This is not just a matter of curiosity. Having information about salaries can help narrow the gender wage gap, which has barely changed for more than a decade. Recently released date from the US Census Bureau shows that, on average, women working full time still are paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man. And the gap is even wider for many women of color: Black women make 62 cents, and Latinas just 54 cents. What’s more, the pay gap even extends into her retirement. Because she earned less and therefore paid less to the social security system, she receives less in social security benefits.
Having greater access to salary information is helping to speed things up. A new research report by the American Association of University Women shows that the wage gap tends to be smaller in job sectors where pay transparency (透明) is a must. For example, among federal government workers, there’s just a 13 percent pay difference between men and women, and in state government, the gap is about 17 percent. But in private, for-profit companies, where salaries are generally kept under wraps, the gender wage gap jumps to 29 percent.
Fortunately, salary information is increasingly available on some websites. Certain companies and many human resources departments are pushing ahead with this practice. Of course, it’s going to take more than salary transparency to equalize earnings between women and men. But sharing salaries can and must be part of the solution. The more information women have about how jobs are valued — and what different people earn — the better they will understand their value in the labor market and be able to push for the pay they deserve.
1. Why are the figures mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To reveal the severity of gender wage gap. |
| B．To confirm the previous belief about salaries. |
| C．To satisfy readers’ curiosity about others’ salaries. |
| D．To appeal to readers to share their salary information. |
| A．The inequality between men and women. |
| B．The need to keep salary information a secret. |
| C．The advantage of working for the government. |
| D．The benefit of making salary information public. |
| A．Critical. | B．Favourable. |
| C．Unclean | D．Negative. |
| A．Why It Pays to Share How Much You Make |
| B．Where Salary Information Difference Lies |
| C．What It Takes to Realize Gender Equality |
| D．How Woman’s Value Improves at Work. |
6 . On a dark night, 11-year-old Joe was playing hide-and-seek with his friends in the backyard when he thought he saw Magellan—a huge housecat. However, when the cat suddenly jumped on his head, Joe found it turned out a young cougar. He backed away from the animal, then turned and ran inside the house.
Cougar encounters like this one are becoming increasingly common in the U.S. Most people assume that’s because cougar populations are growing, or because the big cats are coming into closer contact with the expanding web of human suburbs. But Professor Robert Wielgus at Washington State University argues that poorly designed hunting policies might be causing an increase in cougar-human conflicts.
Wielgus’s research teams have been fitting the big cats with radio collars and monitoring their movements. They find that the cougar population is actually declining rapidly and almost no male cougars are over four years of age. And a study shows that the heavily hunted area has five times as many cougar complaints as the lightly hunted area—even though the density of cougars is about the same in both areas.
Wielgus suspects that hunting policies, which allow older males to be killed to keep cougar populations in check, were the culprit and teenage cougars in the heavily hunted area may be responsible for most of the trouble. To test his theory, he adds two more groups of cougars to the tracking program—one in a heavily hunted area and another in a comparable but lightly hunted area. He concludes that heavy hunting indeed almost wipes out older males and the population structure in the heavily hunted area shifts toward younger animals.
With these findings, Wielgus believes without adults to keep them under control, the disorderly teens are more likely to come into conflict with humans, farm animals and pets.
Wielgus’s ideas don’t sit well with everyone. “Hunting definitely does cause lots of teenage males to flow in, but I don’t yet see solid proof that they are more likely to cause trouble than older cats,” says the University of Montana’s Robinson. “In many cases, the new arrivals have been squeezed out of remote wilderness habitat and forced into areas where they are more likely to encounter humans. I think humans are primarily responsible for all the interaction you see. We’re moving into these areas where cougars and deer are,” according to Alldredge, a researcher at the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
We may not understand what makes 18-year-old males more likely than 48-year-old men to do dangerous things, Wielgus says, but we know that the world would be a different place, if teenagers were in charge.
1. The passage begins with a story to ________.| A．lead into the topic | B．describe an incident |
| C．show the author’s attitude | D．warn of the dangers of cougars |
| A．effect | B．evidence | C．cause | D．target |
| A．Alldredge agrees hunting results in the arrival of lots of teens. |
| B．Robinson doubts whether age is a key factor in human-cougar conflicts. |
| C．Alldredge believes killing older males may cause a bigger threat. |
| D．Robinson holds humans are to blame for the fall of older males. |
| A．Driving teenage cougars back into their natural habitat. |
| B．Getting people to move out of the areas where cougars are. |
| C．Forbidding children to play in the backyard by themselves. |
| D．Changing hunting policies to ensure a healthy cougar population. |
