1 . Eliana Yi dreamed of pursuing piano performance in college, never mind that her fingers could barely reach the length of an octave (八度音阶). Unable to fully play many works by Romantic-era composers, including Beethoven and Brahms, she tried anyway — and in her determination to spend hours practicing one of Chopin’s compositions which is known for being “stretchy”, wound up injuring herself.
“I would just go to pieces,” the Southern Methodist University junior recalled. “There were just too many octaves. I wondered whether I was just going to play Bach and Mozart for the rest of my life.”
The efforts of SMU keyboard studies chair Carol Leone are changing all that. Twenty years ago, the school became the first major university in the U.S. to incorporate smaller keyboards into its music program, leveling the playing field for Yi and other piano majors.
Yi reflected on the first time she tried one of the smaller keyboards: “I remember being really excited because my hands could actually reach and play all the right notes,” she said. Ever since, “I haven’t had a single injury, and I can practice as long as I want.”
For decades, few questioned the size of the conventional piano. If someone’s hand span was less than 8.5 inches — the distance considered ideal to comfortably play an octave — well, that’s just how it was.
Those who attempt “stretchy” passages either get used to omitting notes or risk tendon (腱) injury with repeated play. Leone is familiar with such challenges. Born into a family of jazz musicians, she instead favored classical music and pursued piano despite her small hand span and earned a doctorate in musical arts.
A few years after joining SMU’s music faculty in 1996, the decorated pianist read an article in Piano and Keyboard magazine about the smaller keyboards. As Leone would later write, the discovery would completely renew her life and career.
In 2000, she received a grant to retrofit a department Steinway to accommodate a smaller keyboard, and the benefits were immediate. In addition to relieving injury caused by overextended fingers, she said, it gave those with smaller spans the ability to play classic compositions taken for granted by larger-handed counterparts.
Smaller keyboards instill many with new confidence. It’s not their own limitations that have held them back, they realize; it’s the limitations of the instruments themselves. For those devoted to a life of making music, it’s as if a cloud has suddenly lifted.
1. What is the similarity between Eliana Yi and Carol Leone?| A．Their interest in jazz extended to classical music. |
| B．Short hand span used to restrict their music career. |
| C．They both joined SMU’s music faculty years ago. |
| D．Romantic-era composers’ music was easy for them. |
| A．To reduce the number of octaves. |
| B．To incorporate Bach into its music program. |
| C．To provide fair opportunities for piano majors. |
| D．To encourage pianists to spend more hours practicing. |
| A．Confident. | B．Frustrated. | C．Challenging. | D．Determined. |
| A．Who Qualifies as an Ideal Pianist? |
| B．Traditional or Innovative Piano? |
| C．Hard-working Pianists Pays off |
| D．The Story behind Retrofitted Pianos |
2 . Baby Miloszek was born with a heart defect. His condition is too
Just a week after
Days later, a Polish convenience store called Zabka
“We were very touched by the extremely
| A．particular | B．optimistic | C．serious | D．common |
| A．Undoubtedly | B．Unfortunately | C．Additionally | D．Absolutely |
| A．expect | B．permit | C．ensure | D．afford |
| A．crowded | B．turned | C．brought | D．stepped |
| A．earning | B．declaring | C．battling | D．defeating |
| A．parcel | B．message | C．card | D．list |
| A．sold | B．returned | C．purchased | D．saved |
| A．expected | B．needed | C．accepted | D．commanded |
| A．health | B．dream | C．heart | D．story |
| A．transport | B．provide | C．cover | D．cost |
| A．kindness | B．news | C．sympathy | D．gratitude |
| A．secret | B．reputation | C．money | D．medal |
| A．flexible | B．noble | C．gentle | D．awkward |
| A．recovery | B．request | C．fundraiser | D．award |
| A．contribute | B．present | C．fight | D．change |
3 . I’m obsessed (迷恋) with music. As a teenager, I couldn’t leave the house without my
But one day last year something changed. I became aware of a faint tapping sound in my left ear. It wasn’t loud enough to be
I was then sent to see specialists. They said it was the mitochondrial disease that caused the
I was given hearing aids, but they didn’t work. I’ve signed up for a lip-reading course and am
Other deaf people have warned of feeling isolated (孤立) and I’m determined not to make that my
I’ve always preferred to
| A．assignments | B．headphones | C．schoolbags | D．uniforms |
| A．textbooks | B．toys | C．records | D．flowers |
| A．annoying | B．impressive | C．pleasant | D．heartbreaking |
| A．strike | B．clean | C．see | D．hear |
| A．pain | B．deafness | C．awareness | D．anxiety |
| A．technically | B．gradually | C．similarly | D．confidently |
| A．teaching | B．speaking | C．promoting | D．learning |
| A．great | B．curious | C．excited | D．awkward |
| A．withdraw from | B．leave behind | C．break off | D．adapt to |
| A．job | B．hobby | C．life | D．aim |
| A．reward | B．anxiety | C．criticism | D．pleasure |
| A．because | B．if | C．until | D．when |
| A．plan | B．contact | C．depart | D．write |
| A．memory | B．appetite | C．hearing | D．sight |
| A．promising | B．unbelievable | C．predictable | D．uncertain |
Once there lived a girl named Melanie. The little girl was living with a dream. She wanted to be a ballet dancer. Her body was very flexible and she had a strong will power. Melanie’s parents never knew of the great dancing skills their daughter had until one day, they saw the little girl dancing with the beautiful steps of a ballerina.
“Isn’t it strange? Melanie is dancing so well without any formal training!” the mother said.
“We must give her ballet lessons to help her improve her skills,” her father said.
The following day, Melanie’s parents took her to a local dance training school. The teacher asked Melanie to dance. The little girl was happy and showed some of her favorite dance steps. However, the teacher didn’t seem interested in her performance.
“That’s OK. You can leave now!”the teacher said.
Melanie was shocked to hear this. So were her parents. They couldn’t believe their ears.
“The girl is common. She does not have the possibility to become a ballerina, ”the dance teacher said. “Don’t let her waste her time dreaming of becoming a dancer.”
Disappointed, Melanie and her parents returned home. Tears rolled down Melanie’s face. Her dreams were broken within a matter of minutes. Without confidence, Melanie never attempted to dance again. She completed her studies and went on to become a teacher in school.Life was good and she kept herself busy with family and work. However, whenever she happened to pass the school’s ballet room, memories of childhood dreams danced before her eyes.
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。
One day, the ballet teacher in her school was late.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“What a performance, Melanie! You are a true ballerina!” said the ballet teacher entering the classroom.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5 . Last summer at a bookstore, my son Henry was fascinated by the cover of the first novel from Peter Brown’s middle-grade trilogy (三部曲). He then finished it in just two days. “Dad, why did The Wild Robot have to be so sad?” He tearfully asked me.
The story is set on a remote island, where a robot named Roz learns to survive and communicate with the island’s creatures, and becomes part of the community. For my son, it was the first book he discovered on his own; the first to impact him with the mix of tragedy (悲剧) and joy.
When I finished the book, I knew why Henry loved it. In our book club discussion, he described how Brown’s pictures and words had made the story feel real. When talking about its final scenes, where Roz leaves to find repairs for her injured body, Henry cried again. His previous reading experiences had cheerful, “happily-ever-after” endings, but this book introduced him to the beauty of complex emotions. I tried to explain how sadness can enhance the meaning of happy moments, but failed to fully convince him.
Once our discussion ended, Henry requested to buy The Wild Robot Escapes and instantly fell in love with it. He read the first two books repeatedly, so you can imagine his excitement when we finally got a copy of The Wild Robot Protects.
We both agree it is worth the wait. Roz leaves the island again to stop an underwater threat: “the poison tide.” Brown expertly balances between breathtaking adventure and unsettling ideas- not just happiness and sadness, but also, given the climate-change undercurrents, hope and despair.
And, here’s something special about Roz: her physical clumsiness and confusion about life, conveyed through her expressive eyes and downturned mouth. Her story reflects the challenges of surviving in a strange place, much like a child’s journey. Readers love Roz. They learn from her. Even better, they learn alongside her. Roz gave Henry the power to push through the first book’s sad parts, getting him ready to appreciate that, sometimes, sadness isn’t a bad thing to feel.
1. What drove the author to read The Wild Robot?| A．Its tragic ending. | B．Henry’s tearful recommendation. |
| C．Its attractive cover. | D．Henry’s emotional response to it. |
| A．Family and community. | B．Concerns of global issues. |
| C．Exploration of the ocean. | D．Man-robot relationship. |
| A．Her childlike expressions. | B．Her robotic power. |
| C．Her struggling experiences. | D．Her adventurous spirit. |
| A．Misfortune inspires great literary works. | B．Robot stories work like magic on children. |
| C．Book discussions help kids survive tragedies. | D．Reading literature facilitates personal growth. |
6 . Emest Owusu was 13 in 1980 when he was given the opportunity to appear in the audience of a BBC show, and ask Thatcher how she felt about being called the Iron Lady. This encounter re-emerged in a BBC’s programme recently.
At the time of their meeting, Owusu was on free school meals, living on a public estate in Brixton, south London, where he and his sister were being raised by their mother Rose, a struggling hairdresser.
Now 57, Owusu looks remarkably similar even with a greying beard. But his life has been transformed. The father of three is a human resources director, and the first black captain of the Addington golf club in its 110-year history. As a black guy, it is about breaking the glass ceiling.
Speaking in its clubhouse, Owusu describes his rise in social status (地位) as a “Thatcherite Journey”. And he says it began by asking the woman herself. “To this day it still has an impact. My confidence changed from that sliding-door moment. Something about her connected with me.”
Thatcher told Owusu she enjoyed being called the Iron Lady. “I think it’s rather a praise, don’t you?” she said, “Because so often people have said to me if you’re in your job you’ve got to be soft and warm and human, but you’ve got to have a touch of steel.” Owusu recalls the moment, “I just remember her eye contact. She was answering me, not the camera. She welcomed the question saying you’ve got to be firm in this world. And that stuck with me.”
After the show was broadcast, Owusu said he became “a little hero in Brixton for a good three months”. Owusu added, “It all gave me extra confidence. Doors might not have opened so quickly. It was one of those key moments to make you do things maybe you wouldn’t otherwise have done.”
1. What do we know about Owusu when he was 13?| A．He met with Thatcher twice. |
| B．He joined a famous golf club. |
| C．He hosted a BBC’s programme. |
| D．He lived at the bottom of society. |
| A．Turning point. | B．Important decision. |
| C．Social status. | D．Remarkable achievement. |
| A．Others’ treating him equally at work. |
| B．Others’ voting him a hero in Brixton. |
| C．Thatcher’s efforts to preserve his dignity. |
| D．Thatcher’s faith in the necessity of toughness. |
| A．The Art of Dialogue | B．The Power of Confidence |
| C．A Life-changing Meeting | D．A Status-improving Tale |
7 . Last year, my friend, Kydee Williams, and I started a non-profit project because we wanted to do charity work differently. Thus, The Pop-Up Care Shop was
TPUCS is a traveling shop of
From our experience, we learned smaller shelters, especially those in less-commercialized areas were often
While material things like food, clothes, money, and shelter can help people survive, what
| A．found | B．donated | C．born | D．purchased |
| A．cheap | B．free | C．value | D．messy |
| A．quit | B．chose | C．forbade | D．held |
| A．homeless | B．fearless | C．guiltless | D．restless |
| A．Ceasing | B．Highlighting | C．Starting | D．Monitoring |
| A．hard | B．fun | C．odd | D．core |
| A．crucial | B．unnecessary | C．impossible | D．logical |
| A．breaking down | B．giving back | C．keeping up | D．pulling through |
| A．ignored | B．emphasized | C．mentioned | D．estimated |
| A．harmful | B．relevant | C．opposed | D．open |
| A．shoppers | B．pioneers | C．officers | D．volunteers |
| A．reliable | B．selfless | C．creative | D．courageous |
| A．understand | B．satisfy | C．anticipate | D．illustrate |
| A．originally | B．slightly | C．truly | D．barely |
| A．identify | B．detect | C．reveal | D．make |
My teenage son, Jordan, always complained about having to be home earlier than all his friends. He would tell me that he was already seventeen, but still had a curfew (宵禁). He believed he was practically an adult. I pointed out that he was not an adult as he was still in high school.
“You don’t trust me!” he yelled. Before I continued, he rolled his eyes, slammed the door and walked away. I sighed. How could I make Jordan see that I only wanted to keep him safe?
I decided to go for a walk, hoping the December air would clear my head. I opened the front door and nearly stepped on her: a small black cat, just like a meatball. “Hi, Meatball,” I said, bringing her into my arms. I walked back in, touching her neck gently. Meatball seemed happy enough to come in the house, but after an hour or two, she sat by the door, meowing to go back outside.
“Why won’t she just stay in with us all the time?” Nathan, my youngest son asked.
I explained to him that she was happy here but she liked being able to come and go as she pleased.
“That must be nice,” Jordan muttered from the other room, complaining why the cat, not him, could come and go. He even asked me to give Meatball a curfew.
Meatball became a regular.
One night, temperatures were unusually low. Meatball stood at the door, meowing to go outside.
I shook my head at her, afraid that she might freeze to death. She stared at me and meowed again. I patted her head, “I know you’re not happy, but it’s for your own good.”
“Mom’s not being mean to you,” Nathan told the cat. “She’s just trying to keep you from turning into a frozen meatball.” We both laughed at his joke.
The next morning, I couldn’t find Meatball. I asked the kids if anyone had seen her.
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。
Jordan nodded, “I let her out last night.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As I drove to the animal hospital, Jordan sat in the back, holding Meatball inside his coat.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________9 . As the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other’s hand down onto the table. There was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro’s face. They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro’s hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched. The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro’s shadow was huge and it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.
The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeon, nearly three inches off balance. But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete, beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. The match had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday morning.
Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal Company.
Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.
For a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it.
Quoted from The Old Man and the Sea
1. Since the old man is the main character, in the hand game, why does Hemingway put more efforts in describing his opponent the negro?| A．Because Hemingway himself is an anti-racist who wants to support the colored race. |
| B．By doing so, he indirectly shows how strong and determined the old man is to readers. |
| C．He shifts readers’ attention to a new character to neutralize the nervous atmosphere. |
| D．There is no need to describe the old man because he is well-known to all readers. |
| A．spare | B．restrict | C．reduce | D．loose |
| A．Many bettors were afraid of losing their money so they wanted to call the game a draw. |
| B．The old man had owed his victory over the negro more to his will than to his strength. |
| C．The referee had been convinced by the bettors that the game be considered a draw |
| D．Regular hand games should be a good practice to enhance the old man’s fishing skills |
| A．The old man defeated the negro more than once in the matches with his will power |
| B．Many workers working on the docks had showed no respect towards the old man. |
| C．The old man had to self-feed himself a lot so as to stay competitive in the game. |
| D．The negro was not as strong and athletic as the old man had expected him to be. |
10 . In May 1987 the Golden Gate Bridge had a 50th birthday party. The bridge was closed to motor traffic so people could enjoy a walk across it. Organizers expected perhaps 50,000 people to show up. Instead, as many as 800, 000 crowded the roads to the bridge. By the time 250,000 were on the bridge, engineers noticed something terrible：the roadway was flattening under what turned out to be the heaviest load it had ever been asked to carry. Worse, it was beginning to sway（晃动）. The authorities closed access to the bridge and tens of thousands of people made their way back to land. A disaster was avoided.
The story is one of scores in To Forgive Design：Understanding Failure, a book that is at once a love letter to engineering and a paean（赞歌）to its breakdowns. Its author, Dr. Henry Petroski, has long been writing about disasters. In this book, he includes the loss of the space shuttles（航天飞机）Challenger and Columbia, and the sinking of the Titanic.
Though he acknowledges that engineering works can fail because the person who thought them up or engineered them simply got things wrong, in this book Dr. Petroski widens his view to consider the larger context in which such failures occur. Sometimes devices fail because a good design is constructed with low quality materials incompetently applied. Or perhaps a design works so well it is adopted elsewhere again and again, with seemingly harmless improvements, until, suddenly, it does not work at all anymore.
Readers will encounter not only stories they have heard before, but some new stories and a moving discussion of the responsibility of the engineer to the public and the ways young engineers can be helped to grasp them.
"Success is success but that is all that it is," Dr. Petroski writes. It is failure that brings improvement.
1. What happened to the Golden Gate Bridge on its 50th birthday?| A．It carried more weight than it could. |
| B．It swayed violently in a strong wind |
| C．Its roadway was damaged by vehicles |
| D．Its access was blocked by many people. |
| A．No design is well received everywhere |
| B．Construction is more important than design. |
| C．Not all disasters are caused by engineering design |
| D．Improvements on engineering works are necessary. |
| A．Failure can lead to progress. | B．Success results in overconfidence |
| C．Failure should be avoided. | D．Success comes from joint efforts. |
| A．A news report | B．A short story. |
| C．A book review | D．A research article. |
