1 . About 30 years ago, an acoustic neuroma (听神经瘤) was found inside my body. The removal of the neuroma caused my temporary balance issues and permanent hearing loss in one ear. Apart from this, I was fine.
Unexpectedly, the neuroma came back years later. It had to be removed again. Otherwise it would threaten the rest of my brain. When I awoke from the second operation, I had stroke-like symptoms. The whole right side of my body almost stopped functioning, and still does.
Overnight my whole identity had changed. I used to effortlessly leap up the stairs two at a time, but now it takes fifteen minutes to struggle. Attempts at the recovery of the old me proved to be fruitless. My family role also shifted from a father to a dependent child, and coupled with my communication problems, this led to increased frustration (沮丧) and anger.
There were concerns too about whether I would ever be accepted again in the wider world. Soon after this I just managed to swim in a pool. A ten-year-old boy I didn’t know came up and asked me if I had been on the water slide yet. As politely as possible, I said no, and we struck up a conversation about it. For the first time a stranger was speaking to me as an equal like before. Though insignificant then, it opened doors to a whole new way of being seen, and seeing myself.
To make sure the neuroma did not reappear, I received radiation treatment for two hours regularly, during which I loved listening to music by Tom Waits, an eccentric (古 怪的) singer most people dislike, but I don’t care. For me, life after brain injury is like Waits’ odd works. Out of failure, ugliness, and horror-the most unpromising raw material-a beautiful diamond can be created that shines out even more brightly because of its dark surroundings.
1. What happened to the author after his single-sided deafness?| A．He lost the ability to keep balance. |
| B．His acoustic neuroma regrew. |
| C．He underwent two operations in a row. |
| D．His vision was accidentally damaged. |
| A．The author’s efforts to rebuild his disabled body. |
| B．The author’s self-reflection on his cultural identity. |
| C．The different attitudes of the author’s family to him. |
| D．The considerable impact of the author’s brain injury. |
| A．Reasonable. | B．Engaging. | C．Life-changing. | D．In-depth. |
| A．Music is the universal language of mankind. |
| B．Suffering often leads to new self-discovery. |
| C．Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear. |
| D．Live for yourself, not for the approval of others. |
Long long ago, there was a little prince who was used to having everything he wanted. He was so badly behaved that he wouldn’t let anybody have a new toy if he didn’t have it first. If any child in the land wanted a new toy, they had to buy two and give one to him. Therefore, the little prince had no friends except for his toys.
One day a magic toymaker, who invented the most wonderful toys, came to the land. The little prince liked his toys so much that he invited him to spend an entire year in the palace, promising him great wealth if he made him a new toy every day. The toymaker set just one condition: “My toys are very special and need an owner who will play with them” he said. “Will you be able to devote a little time to each one every day?” “Of course, I will” the little prince replied impatiently.
From then on, every morning the little prince received a new toy. Every day the toymaker delivered a toy better than the previous ones. The little prince appeared very happy.
But the toy collection kept growing and, after a few weeks there were simply too many toys to play with all of them every day. So, one day the little prince put a few toys to one side, hoping that the toymaker wouldn’t notice. However, when it was night time and he was ready to go to bed. The toys that had been put away lined up in front of him and, one by one, demanded their daily playtime. The little prince couldn’t get to sleep until well past midnight because he had to play with every single toy.
Next day, tired after all his efforts, the prince slept very late. In the little time left of the day, he had to get to know a new toy and then play with all the others too. Once again, he finished very late and was so tired he could hardly stop yawning (打哈欠).
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。
Every day was a little bit worse than the one before, with the same amount of time but one extra toy to play with.
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The children saw the prince, wondering whether the prince would force them to hand over their toys just like before.
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3 . At the age of 12, I withdrew into my bedroom with my guitar. I had neither musical talent — many
The world favors achievement while
The seeking of accomplishment always
| A．added | B．tailored | C．expected | D．failed |
| A．Besides | B．Instead | C．Therefore | D．However |
| A．fruitless | B．matchless | C．effortless | D．senseless |
| A．wished | B．allowed | C．required | D．invited |
| A．masked | B．rooted | C．set | D．stuck |
| A．waited for | B．passed by | C．departed from | D．stayed with |
| A．exchange | B．reason | C．foundation | D．priority |
| A．relationship | B．difference | C．balance | D．similarity |
| A．ignoring | B．avoiding | C．assessing | D．defending |
| A．origin | B．process | C．decision | D．reward |
| A．lack | B．need | C．rush | D．dream |
| A．amazes | B．concerns | C．frightens | D．discourages |
| A．adventurous | B．dangerous | C．memorable | D．horrible |
| A．impression | B．performance | C．scene | D．harmony |
| A．pursued | B．accepted | C．interpreted | D．analysed |
No one is born a winner. People make themselves into winners by their own efforts. I learned this lesson from an experience many years ago. I took the head coaching job at a school in Baxley, Georgia. It was a small school with a weak football program. The school took part in the league matches every year. However, it never ended well. We were more of the audience, watching and cheering instead of sweating out in the fields.
Fortunately, the school held the tradition that the school’s old team was to play against the new team at the end of spring practice. For lack of resources, the old team bad no coach, and they didn’t even practice to prepare for the game.
I was assigned (指派) as the coach of the new team, which was why I was excited. I believed that we were going to win, but to my disappointment, we were defeated. I couldn’t believe I had got into such a situation. Thinking hard about it, I tried to figure out the reason and what I should do next.
It didn’t take long before I came to realize that my team was depending on me. Without proper guidance or previous experience, my team was at a loss what to do. I had to change my attitude so that I could bring out the best in them about their ability and potential.
I would let my action do the talking. First, I started doing anything I could to help them build a little pride. I could see their spirits lifted, with their head held high in great confidence. Most importantly, I began to treat them like winners. Only when they regarded themselves as winners could they willingly invest time and energy.
This summer, the other teams enjoyed their vacations.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Six months later, football season started.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . I ask every student I interview for admission to my institution, Pitzer College, the same question, “What do you look forward to the most in college?” I was astonished and delighted recently when a student replied, “I look forward to the possibility of failure.” Of course, this is not how most students respond to the question when sitting before the person who can make decisions about their academic futures, but this young man took a risk.
“You see, my parents have never let me fail,” he said. “When I want to take a chance at something, they remind me it’s not a safe route to take. Taking a more demanding course or trying an activity I may not succeed in, they tell me, will ruin my chances at college admission.”
I wish I could tell you this is an uncommon story, but kids all over the world admit they are under great pressure to be perfect. When I was traveling in China last fall and asked a Chinese student what she did for fun, she replied: “I thought I wasn’t supposed to tell you that? I wouldn’t want you to think I am not serious about my work!”
Students are usually in shock when I laugh and tell them I never expect perfection. Of course, this goes against everything they’ve been told. How could a dean (院长) of admission at one of America’s most selective institutions not want the best and the brightest? The reality is, perfection doesn’t exist, and we don’t expect to see it in a college application. In fact, admission officers tend to question students who present themselves as individuals without shortcomings.
We get the most excited when we read an application that seems real. It’s so rare to hear stories of defeat. If their perspectives are of lessons learned, these applicants tend to jump to the top at highly selective colleges. We believe an error in high school should not define the rest of your life, but how you respond could shape you forever.
1. What can we learn about the student in the first two paragraphs?| A．He is taught not to take risks. |
| B．He tries to avoid any chance of failure. |
| C．He cares little about his academic futures |
| D．He is seldom allowed to take part in activities. |
| A．To emphasize the importance of hard work. |
| B．To compare students from different countries. |
| C．To give an example of the students he favors. |
| D．To illustrate the widespread stress on students |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Confused. | C．Favorable. | D．Casual. |
| A．A desire for perfection |
| B．The ability to learn from defeats. |
| C．The opportunity of making mistakes. |
| D．An experience of defeat in high school |
6 . 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. |
| A．Social constructionism. | B．Anti-realism. |
| C．Biological realism. | D．Literary realism. |
| 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. |
| A．Stories Made Easy | B．Stories to Think with |
| C．Positions in Philosophy | D．Nature of Philosophical Writing |
7 . Sarah had just moved to a new town over the summer. She was
On the first day of school, Sarah arrived early. She was
Sarah was taken aback by Emma’s
Throughout the day, Sarah found other students were just as
As the day wore on, Sarah realized that she had made more friends in a single day than she ever thought possible. She felt a sense of
Looking back on that first day of high school, Sarah realized that she had learned a valuable lesson: no matter what
| A．confident | B．serious | C．nervous | D．honest |
| A．know | B．miss | C．leave | D．invite |
| A．refused | B．forgot | C．asked | D．decided |
| A．surprised by | B．proud of | C．thankful for | D．afraid of |
| A．believed | B．guessed | C．noticed | D．reported |
| A．give up | B．fit in | C．end up | D．break down |
| A．special | B．strange | C．fearful | D．unexpected |
| A．introduced | B．told | C．pushed | D．saw |
| A．manage | B．find | C．clear | D．fill |
| A．wisdom | B．courage | C．kindness | D．patience |
| A．different | B．simple | C．friendly | D．smart |
| A．teammates | B．family | C．students | D．classmates |
| A．connection | B．humor | C．peace | D．freedom |
| A．truth | B．opportunities | C．dangers | D．challenges |
| A．trust | B．encouragement | C．suggestion | D．service |
The year 2013 marked a turning point in my life. In June, my husband was offered a new Job in Ghana. Feeling that I had hit a career bottleneck as a photographer and copywriter (广告文字撰写人), I, without any hesitation, made the decision to relocate with him.
While my husband engaged in work, my visa didn’t grant me the same privilege. But that’s okay. I didn’t know what to do anyway. I was left isolated, homesick and lacking purpose. Our new home was a bungalow near a river that cut across expansive grasslands. With few people around our home, I turned to nature, which had been a fondness of mine since childhood. Every day, I would take my camera and wander around, photographing aimlessly.
It wasn’t long before September arrived, bringing the full flow of the rainy season. After one particularly bad thunderstorm, I found a finch (雀) — a poor little thing barely a month old with one wing broken — on the ground. Evidently, he had been abandoned by his flock, his nest blown from a tree. The sight was heartbreaking. He was the size of my lite finger. His eyes were tightly shut and he was shuddering, too young to survive alone. I somehow felt a connection with it. Immediately I scooped him up and cautiously placed him in a cardboard box with towels, mimicking a nest, and stayed up all night researching how to care for him.
The next day, he seemed to regain some energy. He woke with his mouth open, though still too weak to let out a call. I fed him some food and chirped (叽喳) at him. To my amusement, he chirped back and even climbed into my hand. I affectionately gazed at this adorable creature, who was now boldly pecking (啄) my fingers now and then. A surge of warmth ran through me. Tenderly stroking his feathers, I chirped a lullaby, singing him to sleep. Gradually, his eyes drooped and he drifted off. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene — as far as he was concerned, I was his mother.
Para 1. “I will take care of you.” I murmured, making my promise to him.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Para 2. At that moment I realized that as I dedicated myself to the finch’s care, something within me changed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Oh, this was terrible. “Thank you for volunteering to coach soccer…” the letter began. Coach? Soccer? Me? That was crazy. My knowledge of the sport began and ended with you-can’t-use-your-hands.
I have just graduated from high school. There was a summer holiday long enough to do something unusual, Father advised me to pick up a part-time job in our community, like teaching kids to swim or helping them with their subjects. “You’ll learn a lot,” he said. So, when Community Sports asked for volunteers, I signed up for data entry, which, I thought was helping to put data into a computer. Keyboards, I knew. Coaching? Impossible!
Realizing there must be something wrong, I quickly called the head coach about the misunderstanding. It did not go well. He had been away from home and would not be coaching at all. Panicked, I called the other assistant coach. He said, “It isn’t difficult to teach a bunch of first graders about soccer. Be confident.”
“Are you kidding me?” I hang up the phone, smiling bitterly.
I phoned a Community Sports officer about our dilemma. “I am sorry,” he said. “Not enough people are willing to volunteer. If you cannot coach, we will call your team and let them know they will not be playing this season.” Seriously, that was his solution? I hang up the phone, saying I would call back to let him know my choice.
That afternoon, when Father came back, I told everything to him, complaining how careless and ridiculous the community workers were. They should have suggested my “pretending” to be a coach.
Father stared at me, “Hey, listen! I remember you like watching soccer games.”
“Watching is one thing but coaching is another,” I protested.
“Why not learn the game with the kids? To those first graders, it’s just a game. Just make it fun. Besides, you’ll gain more than them.” I couldn’t imagine the kids’ disappointed faces when they were told their team wouldn’t play because they couldn’t find them a coach.
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。
The next morning, I called back.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then came the day when I would meet those kids for the first time.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10 . I was an obsessive (痴迷的) lover of books, who was
I am sick. My symptoms (症状) are odd, and no one really knows what my
Later, I met a technical nonfiction writer, who explained to me how to make a living
After
It turns out that in writing science fiction being unique can be a
| A．sleeping | B．reading | C．thinking | D．playing |
| A．increased | B．remained | C．appeared | D．thinned |
| A．quick | B．good | C．hard | D．popular |
| A．transformative | B．disappointing | C．informative | D．embarrassing |
| A．possibility | B．occupation | C．operation | D．disability |
| A．kept back | B．gave away | C．checked out | D．turned down |
| A．without | B．beyond | C．within | D．despite |
| A．writing | B．drawing | C．editing | D．recording |
| A．find | B．do | C．promise | D．change |
| A．finishing | B．adapting | C．translating | D．reviewing |
| A．settled down | B．fell apart | C．moved on | D．made sense |
| A．pay off | B．come back | C．run out | D．take off |
| A．nature | B．challenge | C．benefit | D．restriction |
| A．disease | B．science fiction | C．encouragement | D．business success |
| A．expressed | B．learned | C．created | D．accepted |
