1 . Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday. I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). The position—measuring soil quality in the Sahara Desert as part of an undergraduate research programme — had felt like the answer I had spent years looking for.
I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.
So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon, who was running the programme, invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked—and overjoyed—when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. What she proposed didn’t seem as exciting as the original project I had applied to, but I was going to give it my all.
I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.
When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. And I applied with the same anxious excitement as before. When I was rejected from one that had seemed like a perfect fit, it was undoubtedly difficult. But this time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.
Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.
1. How did the author feel upon seeing the email sender’s name?A.Anxious. | B.Angry. | C.Surprised. | D.Settled. |
A.criticise the review process | B.stay longer in the Sahara Desert |
C.apply to the original project again | D.put his heart and soul into the lab work |
A.demanding | B.inspiring | C.misleading | D.amusing |
A.An invitation is a reputation. | B.An innovation is a resolution. |
C.A rejection can be a redirection. | D.A reflection can be a restriction. |
2 . As a child, I was proud of my southern origin. My own voice reflected my family’s past and present-part northern Mississippi, part Tennessee, all southern. There was no sound I loved more than my grandmother’s accent: thick, sweet, warm.
While growing up, I began to realize outside of our region, southerners were often dismissed as uncultured and ignorant. I was ready to leave behind my tiny town in West Tennessee, starting a new life and jumping at big chances in some far-off cities. In that embarrassing space between “teen” and “adult”, my accent was a symbol of everything I thought I hated about my life in the rural South. I feared it would disqualify me from being a noted magazine writer. I would have to talk less “country”. So I killed a piece of myself. I’m ashamed of it, but I’m more ashamed that I tried to kill that part of someone else-change Emily’s accent.
I met Emily in college. She was determined to work for the student newspaper, which was where I spent most of my waking hours, and we became friends. She, unlike me, accepted her roots. Early in our friendship, her mother asked where I was from, assuming it was somewhere up north. Then I felt my efforts paid off and even wanted to ignore the mistake.
Emily is two years younger and she cared about my opinion. I advised her to be more like me and hide her signature Manchester accent. I stressed that throughout our college years, often by making fun of her vowel (元音) sounds. I told myself I was helping her achieve her dream of working as a reporter. Now, I see that it was actually about justifying my hiding part of myself.
Grandma Carolyn used to tell me, “Girl, don’t forget where you come from.” Now I truly understand that. Many things have faded from memory, but this sticks in my mind with uncomfortable clarity. Now that I am grown and have left the South, it’s important to me.
1. What made the author want to leave her hometown?A.Appeal of convenience in cities. |
B.Her dream of becoming a writer. |
C.Outside prejudice against southerners. |
D.Her desire for the northern accent. |
A.Upset. | B.Pleased. | C.Ashamed. | D.Surprised. |
A.To prove herself right. | B.To help Emily be a reporter. |
C.To make herself influential. | D.To protect Emily’s self-dignity. |
A.Stay true to your roots. | B.Never do things by halves. |
C.Hold on to your dreams. | D.Never judge a person by his accent. |
3 . I used to believe that only words could catch the essence of the human soul. The literary works contained such distinct stories that they shaped the way we saw the world. Words were what composed the questions we sought to uncover and the answers to those questions themselves. Words were everything.
That belief changed.
In an ordinary math class, my teacher posed a simple question: What’s 0.99 rounded to the nearest whole number? Easy. When rounded to the nearest whole number, 0.99=1. Somehow, I thought even though 0.99 is only 0.01 away from 1, there’s still a 0.01 difference. That means even if two things are only a little different, they are still different, so doesn’t that make them completely different?
My teacher answered my question by presenting another equation (等式): 1= 0.9, which could also be expressed as 1=0.99999.... repeating itself without ever ending.
There was something mysterious but fascinating about the equation. The left side was unchangeable, objective: it contained a number that ended. On the right was something endless, number repeating itself limitless times. Yet, somehow, these two opposed things were connected by an equal sign.
Lying in bed, I thought about how much the equation paralleled our existence. The left side of the equation represents that sometimes life itself is so unchangeable and so clear. The concrete, whole number of the day when you were born and the day when you would die. But then there is that gap in between life and death. The right side means a time and space full of limitless possibilities, and endless opportunities into the open future.
So that’s what life is. Objective but imaginative. Unchangeable but limitless. Life is an equation with two sides that balances itsef out. Still, we can’t ever truly seem to put the perfect words to it. So possibly numbers can express ideas as eually well as words can. For now, let’s leave it at that: 1= 0.99999... and live a life like it.
1. What does the author emphasize about words in paragraph 1?A.Their wide variety. | B.Their literary origins. |
C.Their distinct sounds. | D.Their expressive power. |
A.The repetition of a number. | B.The way two different numbers are equal. |
C.The question the teacher raised. | D.The difference between the two numbers. |
A.Measured. | B.Composed. | C.Mirrored. | D.Influenced. |
A.The Perfect Equation | B.Numbers Build Equations |
C.An Attractive Question | D.Words Outperform Numbers |
Sandy and Jane came to see the jobo tree on the hilltop again. Jobos were their favorite fruit, but the tree belonged to a lady who lived in the house by the hill. They heard she was difficult, but that sometimes she would give fruit in return for an errand(差使)
The girls finally gathered their courage to knock on her door. An elderly woman with a fierce look answered, staring down at the girls. “We heard …”said Sandy, her voice shaky, “that you give jobos in payment for running an errand.”
The lady raised one eyebrow, then went into the kitchen and took two baskets. She pushed them into the girls’ hands.“Go fill these with jobos, and come right back.”
The girls raced up the hill to the tree and filled the baskets with the ripest jobos. Back at the house, the lady filled a bag with rice and handed it to Sandy. “Take this bag and one basket of jobos to the Brown family. And ask them for the payment,” the lady added with a tight smile.“If you return without the payment, you won’t get the fruit.”
The girls struggled all the way with the bag and the basket. When they were there, Mrs. Brown answered the door. Inside on the floor were three little children, each painting something on papers.
Mr. Brown was lying sick in bed.Times were hard.
The girls handed her the food.“This is from the lady with the jobo tree, ” said Sandy.
“She asked for the payment, too.”Jane said awkwardly.
“The payment! The payment!” The children repeated, waving the paper in their hands happily.
Sandy and Jane looked at each other strangely. With a smile, Mrs. Brown handed Sandy a large sealed(密封的)envelope so full that it was almost starting to break open. The girls said goodbye and left quickly. “I wonder,” Sandy murmured, “whether Mrs. Brown can afford to pay for that food.”
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。
Worried, the two girls discussed what was in the envelope as they walked back.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The lady opened the envelope, took out a pile of papers, and smiled.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5 . “I can’t connect with your characters.”
I kept hearing the same feedback and was unable to understand why and not sure what to do. I was a character-driven writer. How could I mess up the one thing I was supposed to be good at? I was determined to convince my agent that these characters were real. After all, I knew they were real. My main character Lotus had lived inside me for years. I just needed to clarify her on the page.
I wrote and edited for a year, trying to respond to this agent’s feedback. But Lotus’ personality began to disappear. I tried to have her make “better” decisions, wear smarter fashion, and have more friends, as my agent said she acted “immature” and was “isolated”. And when this agent ultimately parted ways with me, I felt like I had failed. Now with time and distance, I realize I tried to fit Lotus into a neurotypical style to please my agent. And as a result, Lotus lost her Lotus-ness.
When that agent discouraged me from writing Lotus as autistic(自闭的), he said that would make Lotus seem more “vulnerable(脆弱的)” or an “obvious victim”. I didn’t want Lotus to seem vulnerable. Lotus’ autism is what makes her powerful, I tried to explain. But from a neurotypical perspective, Lotus’ autism could only be seen as a weakness.
Unsure of how to convince my agent of the strength and power autistic women hold, I began to write Lotus as “neurotypical”. And I failed miserably. After all, what do I know about being neurotypical? My whole life, autism was my default. Not being diagnosed until 2020, I assumed the way I saw the world was “normal”.
My current agent encourages me to write from my neurodivergent(神经多样性的) experience. With this invitation, I revisited Lotus and saw her the way I first wrote her. And when I did, the characters and the entire narrative began to make more sense.
Identifying my characters as neurodivergent not only gives me joy as a writer, but it has produced my strongest writing. For so long, I’ve combatted the advice to “write what I know”, in part because I didn’t know what I actually knew. I didn’t know I was neurodivergent. But as I mine the specificity of my lived experience, my writing is stronger. There is a power to our lived experience. It’s not a limitation on our craft, but a swinging open of the gates.
1. How did the author feel when receiving the repeated response from the first agent?A.Confused. | B.Convinced. | C.Determined. | D.Disappointed. |
A.Lotus no longer lived inside the author | B.the author attempted to please the agent |
C.the agent failed to sympathize with Lotus | D.Lotus was considered childish and lonely |
A.She regretted parting with the agent. |
B.She owed her success in life to autism. |
C.She was aware of her autism in the early years. |
D.She was empowered by her autistic experience. |
A.Stick to your dream despite discouragement. |
B.Be true to yourself and write from your heart. |
C.Giving in to authority is the barrier to success. |
D.Everyone is born an original instead of a copy. |
6 . Many years ago, I was living with my best friend and we had many happy moments together. But there was one night that
On the night of November 25, 2011, I got into a fistfight with my best friend in our kitchen. It all started because I was trying to help him. He was drinking a lot, arguing with everyone and
I thought alcohol
That Christmas my friend didn’t have any place to go, so I invited him home to my parents’ house in Lancaster. They
That year my friend and I both received gifts that we would
A.defined | B.inspired | C.created | D.changed |
A.defending | B.separating | C.protecting | D.locking |
A.communication | B.investigation | C.exploration | D.promotion |
A.put up | B.take away | C.break out | D.call off |
A.talking | B.crying | C.fighting | D.laughing |
A.access | B.addition | C.abuse | D.affection |
A.look | B.break | C.drive | D.carry |
A.time | B.holiday | C.gift | D.family |
A.happily | B.generally | C.formally | D.hurriedly |
A.awake | B.asleep | C.available | D.absorbed |
A.generosity | B.curiosity | C.ability | D.creativity |
A.admitted | B.realized | C.recognized | D.accepted |
A.exchange | B.present | C.treasure | D.appreciate |
A.day | B.test | C.skill | D.eye |
A.kind | B.grateful | C.blessed | D.healthy |
7 . Winter goes and summer comes. The tides
And how will I master these emotions so that each day will be
With this new knowledge I will make
A.advance | B.disappear | C.exist | D.fall |
A.native | B.colleague | C.supporter | D.part |
A.jokes | B.secrets | C.experiences | D.awards |
A.break in | B.wake up | C.take off | D.give out |
A.constantly | B.temporarily | C.casually | D.elegantly |
A.appear | B.blow | C.fade | D.spread |
A.anxious | B.natural | C.additional | D.productive |
A.sow | B.grow | C.separate | D.shelter |
A.fold | B.follow | C.carry | D.load |
A.react | B.review | C.recite | D.repeat |
A.obtains | B.regards | C.allows | D.observes |
A.chosen | B.seized | C.received | D.witnessed |
A.self-awareness | B.self-control | C.self-esteem | D.self-pity |
A.behind the scene | B.on the bottom line | C.at the end of the rope | D.out of sight |
A.insignificant | B.improper | C.impolite | D.unconscious |
A.concrete | B.inadequate | C.abstract | D.unmatched |
A.use | B.fun | C.sure | D.sense |
A.view | B.meeting | C.experiment | D.idiom |
A.limited | B.reserved | C.prepared | D.afraid |
A.salesman | B.player | C.architect | D.designer |
8 . Ben was bothered every time he went through the kitchen. It was that little metal contain on the shelf above his wife Martha’s cook stove, which he had been repeatedly
Ben never saw Martha cook a dish without taking the container of the shelf and sprinkling (洒)
Then one day Martha became ill and was kept overnight in the hospital. Feeling lonely and bored in the house after returning home, Ben
A.forbidden | B.told | C.inspired | D.threatened |
A.recipe | B.menu | C.herb | D.tobacco |
A.refilling | B.restoring | C.emptying | D.decorating |
A.pleased | B.concerned | C.puzzled | D.relieved |
A.valuable | B.previous | C.tasteless | D.messy |
A.yet | B.even | C.still | D.just |
A.failed | B.hurt | C.worked | D.changed |
A.wife | B.host | C.housekeeper | D.cook |
A.delightful | B.comforting | C.annoying | D.irresistible |
A.broke into | B.wandered into | C.ran out of | D.went back to |
A.opened | B.wetted | C.blinded | D.drew |
A.satisfied | B.calm | C.astonished | D.angry |
A.wrapped | B.unfolded | C.tore | D.wrinkled |
A.recognized | B.mentioned | C.treated | D.received |
A.stupidly | B.simply | C.cautiously | D.safely |
9 . Everyone tries their best in life, and sometimes a few kind words of encouragement can help people realize that their efforts are not in vain (徒劳).Ⅰ remember a time when I was in fifth grade, and I was a very shy girl.
There was a drawing competition at my school that day. As everyone started to use their creative ideas to draw, I was only trying to think of something creative that could express my thoughts and emotions. Lost in my own world, I was brought back to reality when my art teacher called my name from behind. She came to me and encouraged me, saying, “Don’t overthink it, just put whatever comes to your mind on the canvas (画布). Do your best, and you will do well.”
Taking her words of wisdom to heart, I started my painting. Time flew by, and soon the bell rang, signaling the end of the time limit. We all turned in our canvases for inspection (检查). The next day, the winners of the competition were announced in front of the whole school. To my surprise, I heard my name being called second prize. It was a bolt from the blue for me, as I had never dared to dream of winning any prize.
Later on, I expressed my gratitude to my art teacher for her words of encouragement and for believing in me. That day, I became aware of my talent and started painting more whenever I had free time. Sometimes, I think that if it weren’t for her words of encouragement, I may have never discovered the talent I have.
Overall, this experience taught me the importance of encouraging others and how a few kind words can make a significant impact on someone’s life.
1. What was the author doing when called by the art teacher?A.Organizing a drawing competition. | B.Trying to get some creative ideas. |
C.Painting her work on her canvas. | D.Trying to get help from others. |
A.Easy. | B.Interesting. | C.Challenging. | D.Encouraging. |
A.Addiction. | B.Puzzlement. | C.Disappointment. | D.Surprise. |
A.The Power of Encouragement |
B.The Importance of Art Competitions |
C.Overcoming Shyness Through Painting |
D.Discovering Your Great Natural Ability |
10 . When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed a financial exam, her heart sank. She’d
“Envy was eating me up,” recalls George. But anyway she
Finding
Too often, we think our friends
A.taken | B.passed | C.failed | D.prepared |
A.congratulated | B.forgave | C.blamed | D.ignored |
A.badly-behaved | B.over-burdened | C.short-sighted | D.green-eyed |
A.tough | B.honest | C.tolerant | D.optimistic |
A.imagine | B.understand | C.share | D.increase |
A.hope | B.passion | C.confidence | D.pleasure |
A.even if | B.as if | C.now that | D.so that |
A.platform | B.glue | C.booster | D.routine |
A.support | B.annoy | C.upset | D.need |
A.loss | B.change | C.interview | D.application |
A.look forward to | B.contribute to | C.get used to | D.react to |
A.envy | B.complaints | C.suffering | D.mistakes |
A.predict | B.produce | C.choose | D.measure |
A.fill | B.start | C.brighten | D.balance |
A.survival | B.success | C.recovery | D.generosity |