1 . I settled into my seat on a plane to Cuba feeling frustrated. When I planned the trip, I had assumed that my Cuban partner and I would go to the field directly to collect water samples from rivers. That’s how I’d done fieldwork in Namibia and Bolivia. But not in Cuba, it seemed. Five days earlier, a Cuban scientist had emailed to inform me that we would only be meeting to talk about our planned project. Sampling would happen during a later trip.

At the airport, one of my partners greeted me. We drove to the research center where he worked, and then toured every lab in the building. I met scientists, technicians, students and even the cook. I was impressed that I was introduced to each person. The lack of hierarchy (等级制度) was unlike anything I had experienced before in academia (学术界).

The next day, we met again to brainstorm. Together, we looked at maps to plan how we were going to collect samples. Had it not been for the Cubans, I would have been unaware that the map I had left out some new reservoirs (水库) Local involvement and knowledge were key — making me wonder what I’d missed working without such a team in other places.

Six months later, I flew back to Cuba and this time, we headed to the field. I was impressed again by the lengths to which my Cuban partners went to ensure that all team members were treated equally. We drove around Cuba in bright yellow minibuses, and each minibus had a mix of members at all seniority levels. In the field, all members sweated together.

On the last night of the trip, we searched for a restaurant that could seat all 14 of us at one table. When a restaurant couldn’t accommodate the team without separating us, my partners insisted that we move on and find a place with a large enough table.

In 26 years as a professor, I have never been a fan of academia’s hierarchy. I want everyone working with me to feel as though they are part of a team. But my Cuban partners take teamwork to another level entirely. They make it clear that all team members are valued, that everyone is equal, and that true teamwork makes for better science.

1. Why did the author feel frustrated in paragraph 1?

A．He was asked to host a meeting in Cuba.

B．He was told to change his planned project.

C．He couldn’t do his work in his usual way in Cuba.

D．He spent a long time waiting for his plane to Cuba.

2. What was wrong with the author’s map?

A．It was torn up.	B．It was outdated.
C．It was too old to read.	D．It was about another water area.

3. What can prove that the Cuban team didn’t have hierarchy?

A．They drove minibuses to the field.	B．They were friendly to the author.
C．They worked in different groups.	D．They had dinner at one table.

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

A．A fruitful trip in Cuba	B．Impressed by a Cuban team
C．Respect seniors in the team.	D．You’ll never know until you try

2 . Signs That You Are Growing

Growing is a lifelong process. Here are the signs that show that you are actually growing and not getting stuck in the process.

    1    

Often, we see how badly people look when they get overly upset due to unimportant things. So the first sign of maturity (成熟) is letting the small things go and not getting angry over a tiny detail that didn’t go as you planned.

You start forgiving and understanding other people

When we are young, we are often unforgiving. As we mature, we are better able to understand the world beyond black and white.     2    . It enables us to look beyond the obvious and let go of simple judgments. We begin to understand better that others have complex (复杂的) lives and personalities, and so we become more willing to forgive their mistakes.

You always complete things that matter

Immature people don’t know when to commit (承诺) themselves and their energy or resources are always not well employed.     3    . In this way, they can often keep their promises and honor their commitments.

You accept the possibility of being wrong

    4    . They are always able to accept the possibility that they are wrong, that they don’t know something, because there is always more to learn.

Being mature is knowing that you are always growing up. You are never done learning and developing. This means that you don’t set yourself up as the highest authority.     5    .

A．You follow the crowd

B．You let the small things go

C．Instead, mature people focus on completing things that matter

D．Immature and mature people can both have plans for their lives

E．Rather, you open your mind to other ideas and new possibilities

F．Becoming more understanding is a sign of strength, not weakness

G．Mature people appear more confident, however, they are not overconfident

3 . I am a professor of clinical psychology. Some time ago, I got halfway through a day of teaching before a co-worker pointed out to me I was quite carelessly wearing a pair of different shoes, one red and one black. I felt so embarrassed and upset but I would have to go teach my course like this. When I noticed how much I wanted to disappear and avoid this situation, I was determined to face it instead. I walked into class and announced to the students that I was wearing two shoes from different pairs, and directed their attention to my feet. Everyone laughed and we went on with class. Years later, a student in that class told me that this was the moment she first thought that maybe, just maybe, she could be a professor, too.

I shared my mistake because I realized that trying hide it was interfering with my ability to concentrate my mind on my teaching — but I had no idea that it would also help shorten the psychological distance between my students and myself.

Many contexts may punish or shame people for making mistakes. Our efforts to avoid them result from our desires for success, and how others will respond to our mistakes. We might feel self-criticism and shame if we do make some.

However, mistake making is part of learning new things, and it can draw us closer to others. It opens up the possibility of accepting mistakes gladly, letting us be more open and engaged in what we are doing.

We can say words of kindness and self-compassion to ourselves: Mistakes are natural and human; we can be kind to ourselves for this error and still try to do better next time; noticing our own imperfections can help us to be kind to others when we notice they are imperfect, too. When we practice our mistakes in this way, they can become opportunities to open up to others, learn about ourselves, and connect even more with what matters to us.

1. How does the author develop paragraph 1?

A．By giving some examples.	B．By following time order.
C．By doing scientific experiments.	D．By sharing personal experience.

2. What was the result of the author sharing his mistake?

A．Shameful.

B．Unexpected.

C．Punishable.

D．Unaccepted.

3. What does paragraph 3 mainly tell us?

A．Intentions to avoid mistakes.	B．Advantages of making mistakes.
C．Possibilities of making mistakes.	D．Efforts to avoid making mistakes.

4. What can we know about mistakes from the last paragraph?

A．They interfere with what we are doing.

B．They draw too much attention from us.

C．They are big opportunities to get us improved.

D．They make us feel irresponsible and defeated.

4 . The alarm rang in my ear. After silencing it, I remained in bed. My motivation to push ahead with my Ph. D. was disappearing, which made it hard to face each new day. Continuing would risk a total breakdown. With anxiety, I decided to cease my Ph. D. temporarily and take a 9-month position at a health care charity. Back when I looked for Ph. D. positions, I was unclear what I wanted to study. For me, the degree mostly served as a means to an end, securing more interesting and higher-paid positions in the private sector than my master’s degree would unlock. So I wasn’t picky and reasoned a variety of projects would provide the training and degree I wanted.

In hindsight (事后想来), I should have been more selective. I ended up working on a project I was technically capable of completing but over time felt full of disappointment. The purely academic research was intellectually interesting, yet I struggled to see how it would make an impact on the wider real world.

Some unexpected things amplified my trouble. I started my program in 2020, when meetings were virtual and in-person contact was actively discouraged, so I had few opportunities to form personal connections with co-workers. Research became my only focus, and when my interest in that faded, my project felt depressing.

After only 1 month at the charity, it became clear that I’d made the right decision. My mental health improved and I found it easier to come into work. Things 1 did could matter and energize me after all — if I chose wisely. That was exactly what I needed and desired. After that realization, I decided I wanted to return to my Ph. D. program and make changes. I told my teacher I wasn’t interested in the current research. To my relief, he was supportive, and we redesigned the project to better fit me. I will return to my program next month, optimistic that this time will be different. But if it doesn’t go as I hope, my charity experience has given me direction and confidence that I’ll live a satisfying life, with or without a Ph. D.

1. What did the author view the Ph. D. degree as at first?

A．A struggle for new days.	B．A way of getting a better job.
C．A breakthrough in his study.	D．A chance to build connections.

2. Why did the author become disappointed at his project?

A．It was of slight practical use.

B．It had a high degree of difficulty.

C．It failed to meet his social need.

D．It showed an unpromising future.

3. What does the underlined word “amplified” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Reflected.	B．Caused.
C．Solved.	D．Increased.

4. How did the charity work affect the author?

A．It inspired him to face challenges.

B．It made him regain self-confidence.

C．It helped him find a purpose in life.

D．It fueled his enthusiasm for his program.

5 . Not every man is cut out to be a father. If the thought of fatherhood fills you with fear, maybe it isn’t for you or maybe it’s a sign that you take the responsibility of fatherhood seriously.

As a parent, you are always going to have to trust your instincts (本能). There’s no comprehensive rule book on parenting. You’ll screw up sometimes. (Hopefully, your husband or wife will be there to nudge (用肘推) you in the right direction. ) And, as in many other aspects of life, doing the right thing will rarely make you popular. Your kids will need limits and discipline, and some days they will get angry with you for it. But the kids know on some level that they need limits and that the responsible parent who is setting and enforcing them is doing so because he or she cares. It’s the children whose parents allow them to do anything they want who often harbor doubts about whether they are really loved.

Certainly, we can find meaning in a lot of places in life. But for most of us who have seen the emergence of a small baby, fatherhood gives life unparalleled meaning. Parenthood, for a lot of us, may well be an antidepressant—not because you always feel good, but because you no longer have any time to sit around feeling bad. Your kids will always need you in one way or another—first for bottle-feeding, then as fellow pretend superheroes and to apply Band-Aids to skinned knees, and then, when they are teenagers, as a free personal Uber service or, once in a great while, for unexpected deep talks about the meaning of life.

I know what I did with my kids day after day, night after night, year over year, mattered so much. I won’t pretend to have everything figured out about life, but I did figure out the immeasurable value in being one link in a great chain of family, stretching back to our ancestors and continuing into the future, into whatever the world throws at us next.

1. What does the underlined phrase “screw up” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Mess up.

B．Feel down.

C．Stay strong.

D．Get inspired.

2. Which statement will the author probably agree with?

A．Parenting books are essential for parents.

B．Strict parents are popular with their kids.

C．Disciplining kids is a way to show love.

D．Kids seldom understand parents’ intentions.

3. Why does the author mention the things a parent does for kids in paragraph 3?

A．To share some parenting tips.

B．To stress the difficulty of parents.

C．To recall the growth of his kids.

D．To show the value of being a parent.

4. How does the author mainly feel about fatherhood?

A．Fearful.

B．Stressed.

C．Proud.

D．Amused.

6 . My smartphone gave me access to music, information and videos. I would repeatedly refresh my email, shop online and look through the latest bad news. I’d often complain. I felt trapped by it.     1     I bought a phone with no touch screen. I can’t get access to social media. The benefits are fantastic.

I am more connected in my relationships.

Earlier, while texting with a friend who had moved, I finally got frustrated (懊丧的) and called her. I realized I hadn’t spoken to her since her move.     2     I learned that when people connected voice to voice, they felt more bonded.

I consume news on my own.

    3     But that didn’t happen. Instead of spending hours sifting (筛) through feeds, I use my laptop to selectively visit a handful of news sources. With the saved time, I’m reading more books. I realized being “in touch” with society doesn’t require constant monitoring of the Internet.

    4    

During the lock-downs, I filled boredom by visiting stores sending newsletters to my email. I found myself repeating lines from department store copywriters. Every time I clicked “buy”, I’d get a dopamine (多巴胺) hit. Now I’m online about 10 times less, I’m more thoughtful about what I need and I’ve had the time to take up knitting and needling—making what I once would have “added to cart”.

I am calmer.

When I first quit using my phone, I’d search for it at times. I went through withdrawals. Thankfully, that sense of dependence is false. I’ve found you can find other ways to do all the things.     5    

A．I shop less online.

B．So I decided to change.

C．I spend my time with my family.

D．But over time, I became worried about its role in my life.

E．I worried that I would miss out important discussions of the day.

F．It made a difference to hear both the awe and sadness in her voice.

G．It’s not always convenient, but I’m much calmer without my smartphone.

7 . My mother-in-law asked me to climb a mountain in her rural village. We went through tall and weedy expanse of grass, pulling ourselves up with the help of smooth bamboo trees. Weathered gray rocks dotted tracks only visible to an experienced hiker. The view we were rewarded with halfway up the mountain, fixing our eyes upon the colorful pieces of fields and whitewashed homes set against the deep green hills and a sky so blue that it looked digitally polished, was a side benefit of being there.

Our eyes were mostly on the wild eatable plants that grew on the mountainside. We first came upon the wild mountain bamboo, a plant that was the main part in my mother-in-law’s salted bamboo shoots that, once preserved, could be used all year long in cooking. Along the way, we also encountered another precious wild food — fiddlehead ferns (蕨菜). Those delicate leaves, when stir-fired, were a tasty treat. Once I had purchased fiddleheads at a market in the US. Yet there we were, picking this prized vegetable on our own, with only our labor as the cost.

What we had collected that afternoon looked the same as any other wild mountain bamboo shoots and fiddlehead ferns I had seen before in my mother-in-law’s kitchen. And yet, they felt different to me because I had used my own hands to help pick them and carry them back down the mountain. Spending time and energy gathering these wild plants gave me a deeper appreciation for the food that ends up on the dinner table.

“Many generations have kept this natural lifestyle. We depend on the mountains for our life,” my mother-in-law says. Those mountains and rivers supporting her life aren’t some abstract concept. They are right there, outside her door and within her rural village. Once I saw them through her angle that afternoon, I realized they are closer to me than I ever imagined.

1. Why was the author asked to climb a mountain?

A．To pull some bamboo trees.	B．To enjoy its beautiful scenery.
C．To get some wild vegetables.	D．To lake some digital pictures.

2. What made the picked fiddlehead ferns different?

A．The fresh leaves.	B．The input of labor.
C．The rich nutrition.	D．The help from Mother-in-law.

3. What does the author want to show by quoting her mother-in-law?

A．Nature feeds villagers and sustains their life.

B．City people want to settle down in mountains.

C．Rural areas are inaccessible to some outsiders.

D．Farmers dream of changing the natural lifestyle.

4. How does the author sound when telling the story?

A．Humorous.

B．Anxious.

C．Satisfied.

D．Tolerant.

8 . Everyone knows that the choices we make affect our future. Suppose I am an intelligent student with good marks. However, being lazy, I do badly in my examinations. I am refused entry to university and cannot find a good job. The golden future will never be.    1    

However, your choices affect your future in a way that is more complicated.    2     Your character is displayed through your choices, but it is also formed by them. Whenever you make a choice, your character changes or grows, depending on whether the decision you made is wise or foolish.     3     And so, you become the sort of person who will make a certain kind of choice in a certain situation.

    4     After all, the field of human choice is a narrow one. Most of the things that form us in our lives are not subject to choice. We cannot choose when and where to be born, whether our families will be rich or poor, kind or cruel. We cannot even entirely control who we will meet in our lives. With so much that we cannot choose, how can we be said to be responsible for anything?

However, we do have some power of choice, and we do control the most important thing of all: how we respond to circumstances.    5     It is our key to having confidence in the future. It is human nature to fear the future, as the future is unknown. You cannot entirely control what will happen to you tomorrow. But if you have confidence in your character, then you do know one thing for certain about the future: no matter what happens, you will make a choice that you will be proud of.

A．Some will argue this is not true.

B．All these are from a bad choice!

C．Too many choices can be confusing.

D．This ability to choose how we behave is a great gift.

E．We can choose to keep struggling in hard times, or to give up.

F．Your character is being made by you, bit by bit, choice by choice.

G．This is because nearly all the choices you make affect your character.

9 . 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.

2. How did the author feel about the mistake of Emily’s mother?

A．Upset.

B．Pleased.

C．Ashamed.

D．Surprised.

3. Why on earth did the author try to change Emily’s accent?

A．To prove herself right.	B．To help Emily be a reporter.
C．To make herself influential.	D．To protect Emily’s self-dignity.

4. What message does the text want to convey?

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.

10 . Traveling itself is an experience hard to be described in words.     1     Especially the solo (独自) traveling experience is so transforming that it lives with you forever. Here I am sharing some lessons.

    2     Thinking how I would manage my entire day among strangers on campus, I pretended to be sick. Then I had the same feeling when I was planning to travel alone. Exploring a city on my own was a big fear for me but I successfully managed it all and now, I seek out new opportunities and experiences. I love to push myself.    3    

Having grown up and lived all my life in a single place, I had a small set of friends since my school days which continued till my college days.    4     I met a few very interesting people with whom I could feel an instant connect and got some new friends for life.

I totally agree that traveling with family and friends is fun and enjoying. But traveling alone is satisfying too. It’s among those few things that you do for yourself and nobody else.    5     During my solo travels I have explored my inner self and have expanded my boundaries which people around me have acknowledged at times.

A．I want to experience more.

B．But all this changed with my first solo trip.

C．I never thought I would travel alone in my life.

D．I was so scared when I went to school first time.

E．Every journey prepares you for the journey of life.

F．The farther you travel, the more independent you become.

G．After all you need to take care of yourself a bit too at times.