I am a Grade 11 student, and all my peers are obsessed with the future. 9 out of 10 conversations with my friends are about universities, dream jobs, or what we want to pursue after high school. My laptop is already plastered with stickers from universities I don’t know if I’ll even apply to yet, and my diary is filled with more notes about grades for admissions than personal thoughts. My best friend and I have already planned the fantasy apartment that we’ll rent together if we get into the same university.
However, I recently found that keeping my mind on the future is preventing me from living in the present. I selected courses I had absolutely no interest in just to boost my average. I found myself doing schoolwork with the intention of getting good grades for university admissions. At one time, I had thought of high school as nothing more than a highway to transport me from childhood to adulthood. I felt that way until last month when I attended my school’s semi-formal dance (半正式舞会).
As I danced with 200 sweaty teenagers in the venue, I felt a feeling I hadn’t felt for a long time: I was present, and we were all present. I wasn’t worried about my future because that wasn’t relevant at that moment. All that mattered was that we were young. We all lost ourselves in teenage bliss (幸福) on the dance floor without a single thought of our futures in our heads. What a wonderful feeling adolescence is.
That night changed everything. I understand now that high school is more than just a pathway to adulthood. High school is a rightful destination of its own. Ever since I’ve been trying to spend every second of my life living in the moment. Every time I catch myself going down the mental rabbit hole of the future, I take a step back and recenter myself. Instead of thinking years into my career, I try to think just one day at a time. Since my semi-formal, I’ve lived my life as an adolescent, not an adult-to-be.
1. Why did the author select courses he disliked?(no more than 5 words)2. What did the author use to think of high school?(no more than 10 words)
3. What does the underlined phrase mean in Paragraph 4?(no more than 2 words)
4. What’s the author’s new attitude towards high school?(no more than 10 words)
5. What’s the highlight or unforgettable moment of your high school life? Please explain it.(no more than 25 words)
It was a few years ago. A friend sent me a restaurant gift card for Christmas and I picked a pretty, sunny Sunday afternoon to use it. It felt good taking my two grown sons and daughter to a nice sit-down restaurant instead of the fast food places we usually ate at. The meal was delicious and we all had a good time. When the waitress brought the check, I looked down at it. The gift card covered almost all of it. I reached into my wallet to get enough cash to cover the rest. I saw two bills in my wallet. The first would cover the rest of the bill and give the waitress a nice tip. The second bill was much larger, so I reached down to pick out the first one.
At that moment, my mind flashed back to 30 years ago. I was working as a waiter in a restaurant much like the one we were in now. It was long hours of hard work for low pay. I went home just only making enough to feed my young family. I also remembered how more than once I saw the waitresses counting their meager tips while worrying about how they were going to pay the rent and buy their kids things they needed. I remembered the pain in their eyes and sadness in their faces at the end of the day.
I blinked (眨眼) and was back in the present again. My fingers touched the smaller bill in my wallet. I smiled, pushed it back down, and picked out the much larger bill. I folded it around the gift card and covered both of them with the check. As we all got up from the table, I handed them to the hard-working waitress. “You keep the change,” I said with a smile and a happy heart.
We are all one family in this world. We live together, laugh together, and suffer together. Do your best to be a good person and love others. Replace the suffering with joy.
1. Why did the author initially want to use the first bill to pay? (no more than 15 words)2. How do you understand the underlined word in Paragraph 2? (no more than 5 words)
3. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about? (no more than 10 words)
4. Which word would you use to describe the author’s personality or character? (1 word)
5. What can you learn from the story? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
3 . Most of us in the enterprising community are blessed—or harmed—with higher-than average ambition. Ambitious people strongly desire accomplishments and are willing to take more risks and spend more effort to get them.
Overall, this is a positive quality, especially for people trying to build their own businesses. Apparently, if you’re more naturally driven to set goals, you are more likely to succeed.
Actually, this isn’t always the case. In fact, in some cases, extreme ambition may end up doing more harm than good.
One major side effect of excessive ambition is the tendency to focus too determinedly on one particular vision or end goal. This is problematic because it prevents your ability to adapt to new circumstances, which is vital if you want to be a successful entrepreneur (创业者). If a new competitor emerges to threaten your business, you may need to change direction, even if that means moving away from your original vision. If you have too much ambition, you’ll find this hard, if not impossible.
Few people are successful when they try to build their first brand. Unfortunately, for the most ambitious entrepreneurs, a failure is seen as disastrous and impossible to recover from.
It’s a clear departure from the intended plan to ward the intended goal. For people with limited ambition, however, failure is viewed as something closer to reality. Remember, failure is unavoidable, and every failure you survive is a learning experience.
Ambitious people tend to be more successful in material wealth than non-ambitious ones. However, they’re only slightly happier than their less-ambitious counterparts, and tend to live significantly shorter lives. This implies that even though ambitious people are more likely to achieve conventional “success,” such success means nothing for their health and happiness—and if you don’t have health and happiness. what else could possibly matter?
Clearly, some amount of ambition is good for your motivation. Without any ambition, you wouldn’t start your own business, set or achieve goals and get far in life. But inappropriate ambition can also be dangerous, putting you at risk of burnout, stubbornness and even a shorter life.
1. What does the author think of most entrepreneurs?| A．They are more willing to risk their own lives. | B．They are more ambitious than ordinary people. |
| C．They achieve greater nonconventional success. | D．They have more positive qualities than most of us. |
| A．Ambitious people may not have a greater chance of success. |
| B．Ambitious people may not have more positive qualities. |
| C．Entrepreneurs’ ambition docs as much good as harm. |
| D．Entrepreneurs are more naturally driven to success. |
| A．Holding on to once’s original vision. | B．Being able to adapt to new situations. |
| C．Focusing determinedly on one particular goal. | D．Avoiding total change in one’s career direction. |
| A．It will awaken them to reality. | B．It is a lesson they have to learn. |
| C．It means the end of their career. | D．It will result in a slow recovery. |
| A．Distinguish between conventional success and our life goal. |
| B．Follow the example of the most ambitious entrepreneurs. |
| C．Avoid taking unnecessary risks when starting a business. |
| D．Prioritize health and happiness over material success. |
When I was a kid, there was only one way my parents would let me stay home from school and that was if I had a high fever. Most of my friends could stay home due to a stomachache or a mild fever — but not me… I had to be dying in order to stay home. By the way, my parents are both doctors. My parents used to say that they were teaching me how to have a good work ethic(职业道德). I didn’t understand the connection until last week.
The other day I was on the train and sat behind a young man who was complaining to his friend about his life. He went on for twenty minutes about how his passion in life was to make movies, but he wouldn’t pursue it because he had no clue if he could make enough money and he didn’t want to waste time because it would take years to make it big. He then admitted to thinking about buying stocks by borrowing money because he thought he could easily make six figures within one year. His friend agreed with him and said, “The stock is good because you can make tons of money and only work for a short time.”
I think they were indulging(沉溺) in the wildest fantasy. Many people these days don’t realize that when things seem to happen immediately, it is only because a lot of effort, determination and time have gone into them and it isn’t due to some miraculous(不可思议的) event. The easier it looks, the more hours go into it. There is no excuse for laziness.
Looking at the two young men, all of a sudden I was having a flashback of being ten years old and watching the television show Fame.
In the show the dance teacher told her students, “If you want fame, fame costs and here’s how you start paying for it … in sweat.” Every time we watched that show, my dad would proudly say how right the teacher was because in order to succeed you have to work hard.
1. When did the author’s parents allow her to stay home from school?(No more than 10 words)2. Why did the young man on the train give up his dream of making movies?(No more than 15 words)
3. What will it take to succeed immediately in author’s opinion?(No more than 10 words)
4. How do you understand the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?(No more than 10 words)
5. Do you agree with the author’s opinion? Please explain it in your own words.(No more than 25 words)
5 . My family moved into our home nine years ago. We spent a lot of time and energy in the yard to get it looking like the way it does today. In front of the house, the rocks appear to be just thrown up onto the dirt as if someone were in a hurry to finish. We called this area our “rock garden”. Denise and I would also plant some flowers between the rocks, just to bring some color to the area.
Last summer I found, in the rock garden, a tiny little plant that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either. We decided to let it continue growing until we could figure out what it was.
Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the strange plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. It looked thin and tall with only one head on it. I decided to baby it along and weed(除杂草)around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something unusual. The sunflower had not started where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the sun.
That’s when I realized that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t allow a big rock to stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability to do the same thing. Once we believe in ourselves like that little sunflower, we can attain the same nourishment(养分)for growth as well.
Stand tall like the sunflower and be proud of who and what we are, then the environment will begin to support us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to achieve our goals.
1. What can we know from the first paragraph?| A．The author finished building his house hurriedly. |
| B．The family has lived in this house for 9 years. |
| C．The author’s house is made of rocks. |
| D．The family don’t like gardening. |
| A．see how long it could live |
| B．see how big it could grow |
| C．find out what it actually was |
| D．know if his wife had planted it |
| A．the strange plant turned out to be the sunflower |
| B．the sunflower grew under and around a big rock |
| C．the sunflower had only one head on it |
| D．the sunflower was very thin and tall |
| A．Confident. | B．Devoted. | C．Delicate. | D．Modest. |
| A．rocks cannot prevent us from success |
| B．the sunflowers are able to grow everywhere |
| C．we should take good care of the rock gardens |
| D．we can get over difficulties if we trust ourselves |
6 . An unpleasant smell floated into my nose as the bowl of fried stinky tofu（臭豆腐） settled onto my grandmother’s dinner table. I immediately sat back. The smell ruined my appetite, and I pushed the dish away.
“It’s supposed to stink. Just give it a try!” my grandmother said.
Holding my breath, I unwillingly took a bite. To my surprise, the tofu beneath the fried skin was warm, soft, and mouthwatering. Since then, whenever I visited my grandmother’s house, I would rush to the kitchen for the stinky tofu with excitement. Thus, stinky tofu became more than a household tradition. It became my favorite dish.
Along with the stinky tofu, I would meet my Uncle Chan on every visit. As an immature boy, I never understood my uncle’s condition of Down syndrome（唐氏综合征）.
He was an unfriendly and terrible creature in my eyes. He constantly walked around the house, talking to himself. Whenever he was within view, I would run away in fear.
However, one day, my view of my uncle suddenly changed. I was just getting out of my bed when I heard soft steps approaching. It was my uncle. My muscles froze. He slowly sat next to me and touched my face gently, as a mother would stroke （抚摸）a baby.
A wide smile emerged from his blank expression. How beautiful his smile was! I could not help but smile back. My fear disappeared gradually, and my muscles relaxed. For the first time, I could see softness and warmth in his eyes.
My uncle very much resembles stinky tofu. Stinky tofu smells unpleasant on the outside, yet feels warm and soft in the inside. Like stinky tofu, my uncle’s Down syndrome made me keep my distance at first. Yet, I learned that deep inside, he is harmless and has a loving nature.
Some people tend to look down upon disabled people and regard them as unfit for a regular life. As I was able to see through the outer surface of the tofu, these people are unable to see through the surface of prejudice（偏见）. As a result, they judge the disabled with one glance.
The outside and inside of the stinky tofu exist as two extremely different worlds. Perhaps that is what makes it such a tasty dish. Not only is it delicious, stinky tofu offers a valuable lesson: never judge people at first glance, for true beauty comes from the inside.
1. Why did stinky tofu become the author’s favorite dish?| A．It was related to family tradition. |
| B．It turned out to be quite delicious. |
| C．Grandma encouraged him to try it. |
| D．His appetite for food had increased. |
| A．He was a quiet person. |
| B．He was an energetic guy. |
| C．He was an immature man. |
| D．He was a strange creature. |
| A．Chan’s footsteps woke up the author |
| B．Chan showed his friendliness to the author |
| C．Chan displayed his love towards his mother |
| D．Chan’s blank expression made the author smile |
| A．highlight the nature of Uncle Chan |
| B．analyze the family relationship |
| C．describe a childhood memory |
| D．introduce a traditional Chinese food |
| A．We shouldn’t judge by appearances. |
| B．A person’s taste changes over time. |
| C．Blood is thicker than water. |
| D．You are what you eat. |
