2 . My mother used to take me to my grandparents’ in Belgium during the school holidays. While I would play chess with my grandfather, he would tell me stories about growing up, falling in love, and travelling around the world.

I didn’t realize the importance of preserving memories until my grandfather passed away, which ultimately changed my outlook on remembering our loved ones and the stories we share. I thought about solutions to help other people record the precious memories for those they love—before it’s too late. So I began matching ghostwriters (代笔人) to clients to help them write a book as smoothly and beautifully as possible, and Story Terrace was born.

Since then, we have explored the power of stories and their ability to connect us with our past and make sense of the present. It has been documented that increased family connection is significantly linked to less loneliness. Learning more about one’s family history, however, has been linked to boosting emotional health, increasing compassion and providing a deeper sense of cultures and traditions.

What we have found through our own research is that so many of us have missed out on the opportunity to explore our origins. 56 percent of Brits agreed that much of their family history is lost because they are no longer able to speak with the person who knows the most about it. A further 51 percent expressed regret as they wished they could tell their younger self to document their family’s life story, feeling that most of it had been forgotten. But when it comes to telling these stories, many don’t know where to begin.

We have seen numerous times when people come to us with random journal entries and notes from over the years, and these can be developed into a wonderful work of art that can be passed down for generations to come.

Half of the projects we see at StoryTerrace are heritage stories, with family occupying a dominant theme for most stories. Alongside this, common themes we see are of course love, overcoming challenges, settling in new surroundings and so on. However, family is a thread that always ties these together.

1. What does Story Terrace do?

A．It boosts the mood of your family members.

B．It gives treatment to people with mental illness.

C．It links people from different cultures together.

D．It helps turn your beloved one’s stories into a book.

2. What does the author intend to show by listing the numbers in paragraph 4?

A．Why StoryTerrace matters.

B．How StoryTerrace functions.

C．What StoryTerrace focuses on.

D．Where StoryTerrace beings your story.

3. What can you infer about Story Terrace from the last paragraph?

A．It is part of the national heritage.

B．Its stories are mostly about family.

C．It dominates half of the market.

D．Its stories gain much popularity.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Family Stories Worth Telling

B．Create Your Own Story Books

C．Documents of Family History

D．Preserve Memories with StoryTerrace

5 . He passed away many years ago. Father of the year (年度最佳父亲), my dad was not. That said, in some ways, he was a better parent than many dads are today.

He loved to attend my hockey (曲棍球) games. He tied my skates for years when I was young. But he didn’t go to a single one of the hundreds of soccer games I played as a kid. I didn’t care. All I wanted from my parents was a ride to the game. I was there to see my friends, not perform for Mom and Dad.

That’s why I don’t understand helicopter parents, the ones who suffer from great guilt and shame if they can’t make every single piano practice or football game. Your kids probably don’t care. Let them go and have some fun. All that matters is that you drop them off and pick them up on time. Consistency is king.

Of course, when kids are really young, they want to spend time with you. And they want you, the parent, to be focused on spending time with them, not checking your phone. “Wherever you are, be there,” said the great Jim Rohn.

My dad never had a cell phone. He never used the Internet. I don’t even think he ever touched a computer. But even if he did have a phone, I can’t imagine him checking when we would play catch in the backyard.

He was present. Every day in the summer, right after lunch, we’d play catch. He’d teach me how to throw a curve ball (曲线球). Sometimes he’d pitch to me, and when he’d hit me with a fastball, he’d say, “That’ll toughen you up.” We’d play until we lost all of the balls in the garden, not until he was distracted by a cellphone. Jim Rohn would have approved of his presence, although perhaps not his attitude about fastballs.

1. What’s the author’s attitude towards his father?

A．Ashamed.

B．Satisfactory.

C．Critical.

D．Sympathetic.

2. What do the underlined words “helicopter parents” in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．The parents who can fly helicopters.

B．The parents who pick up their kids on time.

C．The parents who enjoy participating in sports.

D．The parents who focus too much on their kids.

3. Why are the great Jim Rohn’s words mentioned in paragraph 4?

A．To tell parents to stop using their cell phones.

B．To tell parents to keep in touch with their kids.

C．To tell parents to value the time with their kids.

D．To tell parents to follow their kids wherever they go.

4. What does the author intend to tell us in the last two paragraphs?

A．His father was low.	B．His father was rude.
C．His father was energetic.	D．His father was present.

6 . How to Teach Your Child to Be a Good Friend

Your child who struggles with making friends and maintaining friendships may exhibit some behavioral issues. Physical aggression and name-calling often arise. A quiet character and social anxiety can also lead to difficulty making friends    1    

Instill self-esteem(灌输自尊思想). The first step in teaching your child to be a good friend is to teach them to take pride in themselves.    2    Additionally, a child with a strong sense of self will build healthier friendships down the road.

Teach social skills.    3    Role-play with your child to teach them how to have polite conversations with others. Practise taking turns, sharing, respecting other people’s boundaries, and showing care for their feelings. Your child also needs to know how to apologize, argue with a friend respectfully and listen to others.

    4    From Frog and Toad to Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, children’s literature is filled with strong friendships. Use books as an opportunity to talk about what makes those friendships work, and what qualities the characters displayed to develop their friendships.

Find teachable moments. As a parent, you may run into situations where your child doesn’t act like the best friend they could be. Your child may have moments of conflict, drama and fights with their friends. Try to turn these moments into teachable moments.    5    Eventually, they’ll get the hang of it. With your guidance and a little practice, your child will turn into a caring, kind and trustworthy friend.

A．Read books about friendship to your child.

B．Encourage your child to share their favorite books.

C．Fortunately, it’s not difficult for you to be a good friend.

D．Appropriate social behavior isn’t what a person is born with.

E．Ask them how a good friend would have acted in the situations.

F．However,there are many ways to help your child develop friendship skills.

G．When a child has a strong sense of self, they won’t join in mean behaviors to fit in.

7 . When I was about seven years old, my mother often told me that pork needed to be cooked thoroughly-the harder, the better, because if there was even a little bit of pink in your pork，you could get Trichinosis (旋毛虫病).I didn’t know what Trichinosis was. However, it was described to me as a terrible disease that I didn’t want to get. Therefore, in my life, I hadn’t eaten any pork product before checking to see if it was fully cooked. On most days, I even refused to eat any pork.

Years later, I became a middle-aged father. I was eating dinner in a friend’s house and she was serving pork. I was terrified at some pink in it. I immediately explained to our host and the other guests the danger that was clearly present in this meal. I insisted that the pork should be cooked further, thinking that I had saved everyone with my quick-thinking and keen awareness.

It was only after I went home that evening that I decided to see how many people in our country actually got Trichinosis. I checked online and found out there were less than 15 cases in the entire country that year, and I wasn’t even sure those were from eating undercooked pork.

As adults, we may say things casually to children because we want them to be safe. We may make things seem more dangerous or worse than they actually are. After all, we want children to take what we say seriously. However, we can also overemphasize something and cause fear in children that they may carry with them for the rest of their lives. The bottom line is that our children are listening to us all of the time, and we are setting a good example to them about how adults communicate.

1. How did the author behave when he ate pork as a child?

A．Confusedly.

B．Casually.

C．Cautiously.

D．Curiously.

2. How did the author feel when expressing his opinion in his friend’s house?

A．Proud.

B．Angry.

C．Calm.

D．Foolish.

3. What did the author want to do online after getting home?

A．Check the quality of pork.

B．Give his explanation about pork.

C．Prove his data analysis of Trichinosis right.

D．Find the truth about people with Trichinosis.

4. What does the text mainly tell us?

A．Adults should set a good example to children.

B．Children’s behavior may cause fear in parents.

C．Children often do the opposite of what adults say.

D．Parents’ words may have lasting effects on children.

9 . When reading, my mother likes to slice a paragraph or a sentence out and attach it to the wall of her kitchen. She picks boring sentences that puzzle me. But I prefer copying favorite bright lines into a journal in soft, gray No. 2 pencil, word by word.

She doesn’t know any of this. There's nothing shocking: for our chatting. we seldom begin certain conversations though we talk on the phone weekly, sometimes making each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don't say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything that really upsets us.

My mother has never told me “I love you, Lisa.”—as if the four-word absence explains who I am—so I carry it with me, like a label on me. The last time she almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me a friend had been in hospital. I said, “I love you, Mom.” She stopped for a while and then said, “Thank you.” I haven't said it since, but I've wondered why my mother doesn't until I've found a poem that supplies words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations:

Don’t fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge.

My son, middle-aged, says: Did you really just say that to me?

What he doesn’t know is that when we’re walking together, I desire to reach for his hand.

It's humble, yet heartbreaking. After copying it down in my journal, I emailed it to mom, adding “This poem makes me think of you.” My mother doesn’t read poetry—or at least, she doesn’t tell me, and I felt nervous clicking “Send”.

She never mentioned the poem. But the next time I went home for vacation, I noticed something new in the kitchen fixed to an antique board: the poem. The board hung above the heater, the warmest spot in the kitchen. The poem still hangs there. Neither my mother nor I have ever spoken about it.

1. What's the function of paragraph 1?

A．To stress the theme.	B．To establish the setting.
C．To represent the characters.	D．To create the atmosphere.

2. Which of the following best describes the mother daughter relationship?

A．Shaky.

B．Distant.

C．Reserved.

D．Intense.

3. Why did the author send the poem to her mom?

A．It reminded her of mom's love.

B．She wanted to apologize to mom.

C．It suited mom's taste of literature.

D．She needed an interpretation from mom.

4. What does the poem mean to mom?

A．A memory of golden days.

B．Daughter’s gratefulness to her.

C．A decoration in the plain kitchen.

D．Daughter's understanding of her.

10 . Yesterday, after arriving in Madrid, I knocked on a stranger’s door. “I searched on the website. Will you give me lessons?” I asked. This was the reason I’d come to Spain. Because I once believed I was meant to be a female flamenco (弗拉门戈) guitarist.

Forty-five years ago, when I was two, my father also came to Madrid and knocked on strangers’ doors. A well-known classical guitarist, he admired flamenco a lot, and in Spain he learnt from anyone willing to teach him. He approached performers in bars, made friends with street musicians and managed to study with Paco de Lucia, the greatest flamenco guitarist of our time.

I started playing classical guitar when I was five. My father’s hands exploded across the strings like fireworks. I practised while he instructed and criticized. I played till I had sharp pain in my fingertips. By age seven, I was called a child genius.

Then, at 11, I quit. Heartbroken, my father distanced himself. Guiltily, I followed suit. Soon we spoke only when necessary. Our relationship didn’t rebound until, in my early 20s, I found myself pulled back to guitar.

When I was in my early 30s, he got sick. Before he died a few years later, my father told me there were almost no female flamenco guitarists in the world. If I kept practising, I could be one of the first. I promised, and he left me his guitar. But after he died, I couldn’t bear to play it. He’d spent so much time with his arms around that instrument, and it seemed an extension of his own body. Holding it gave my grief an unbearable tangibility (可触知). So for 13 years it sat mostly untouched, coming out only when my son Ellis begged to see it. He was careful with his grandfather’s instrument in a way that made me want to pass it down to him — both the guitar and the music. Problem was, I couldn’t really play anymore.

Now, Antonia is sitting with me in her living room, teaching me patiently. I have been here for only two days, and already my fingers hurt. It’s a sharp pain, like when a fallen-asleep limb (肢体) returns to life. The feeling delights me. It means I’m doing something right.

1. Which can best describe the father when he was learning flamenco?

A．Cautious.

B．Hopeless.

C．Depressed.

D．Devoted.

2. Which has the similar meaning with the underlined word “rebound” in paragraph 4?

A．Improve.

B．Break.

C．Suffer.

D．Blossom.

3. Why did the author leave the guitar untouched?

A．She intended to pass it down to her son.

B．It reminded her of her unpleasant past.

C．Deep sorrow drowned her at the sight of it.

D．Carrying it made her feel a sense of burden.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Guitar Lessons From Strangers

B．Love for Father on the String Again

C．Adventures for Music Lovers in Spain

D．Journey to Success as a Flamenco Guitarist