1 . I didn’t realize it, but during that short walk home I had lost a whole lot of weight and my eyes had grown dull and colorless. When my mom saw me she screamed out in surprise. Staring at me in disbelief, she asked, “Are you Fugui?”
Looking at my mom, I forced a smile and nodded my head. Shocked, she uttered something else, but I was no longer paying attention to her. I pushed the door open and went into my room. Jiazhen, in the middle of combing her hair, was also taken back when she saw me. She gazed at me with her mouth gaping. As soon as I thought of how I had beaten her when she came to persuade me to go home the night before, I fell to the ground and, kneeling before her, muttered, “Jiazhen, I’m finished.”
After speaking those words I began to cry out loud. Jiazhen rushed over to help me up, but being pregnant with Youqing, how could she support me? She called my mom over, and the two of them pulled me onto the bed. I looked like a corpse. They were scared to death and began patting me on the shoulder and rocking my head.
My mother appeared dumbstruck; she stared at me with a look of intensity and asked, “What did you say?”
“I’ve lost everything,” I repeated.
The look on my face convinced her. My mother sat down on the floor and, wiping her tears, said, “If the upper beam is no straight, the lower ones will not go straight either.”
Even then my mother still loved me. She didn’t blame me. Instead she blamed my father.
Jiazhen also cried. She patted me on the shoulder and tried to console me. “As long as you don’t gamble anymore, everything will be all right.”
I had nothing left. Even if I had wanted to gamble, I wouldn’t have had any money to stake a bet. I heard Dad in the next room shooting off his foul mouth. He still didn’t know that he was penniless — he was simply annoyed at being disturbed by the two women crying. As soon as she heard my father’s voice, Mom stopped crying. She stood up and walked out, with Jiazhen following her. I knew that they were going into my father’s room, and after a while I heard my dad begin screaming, “Bastard!”
It was just then that my daughter, Fengxia, pushed the door open and came in. She closed the door and in a shrill voice said, “Dad, hurry up and hide! Grandpa’s going to beat you.”
I just stared at her without moving a muscle. She then came over and tried pulling me away by the hand; when I wouldn’t budge she began to cry. Seeing Fengxia cry was like having a knife pierce my heart. Even at such a young age, Fengxia was trying to protect her dad. Just looking at her made me feel like I deserved to be cut to pieces.
Quoted from Yu Hua’s To Live
1. The underlined phrase “taken back” in paragraph 2 means ______.A.regretful | B.astonished | C.shameful | D.concerned |
A.wanted to gradually process the strong emotion and beg for their forgiveness |
B.pretended to lose his mind and go crazy so as to get away with the punishment. |
C.was afraid to face his father and wanted them to break the bad news to him |
D.believed that they might still lend him some money to gamble again |
A.Hard-work. | B.Bravery. | C.Self-discipline. | D.Compassion |
A.Fugui’s father was also addicted to gambling when he was young. |
B.Jiazhen would ask for a divorce from Fugui since he was penniless. |
C.Fugui’s mother and his wife decided to hide the truth from his father. |
D.Fengxia had more affection towards her father than her mother. |
Bob’s problems began during his formative years. His parents got divorced when he was young, and neither of his parents wanted to raise him or his brother and sister, so he
Unfortunately, his foster father was a strict authoritarian and often beat him. Bob rebelled against this strict upbringing, and by the time he was eight years old, he
This has raised some interesting questions about the modern family system.
In fact, many people believe that we
Paying Allowances for Completing Chores
The practice of paying children an allowance became popular in America about 100 years ago. Nowadays, American kids on average receive about $800 per year in allowance. But the vast majority of American parents who pay allowance tie it to the completion of housework. Although many parents believe that paying an allowance for completing chores benefits their children, a range of experts expressed concern that tying allowance very closely to chores may not be ideal. In fact, the way chores work in many households worldwide points to another way.
Suniya Luthar, a psychologist, is against paying kids for chores. Luthar is not opposed to giving allowances, but she thinks it’s important to establish that chores are done not because they will lead to payment, but because they keep the household running. Luthar’s suggested approach to allowance is compatible with that of writer Ron Lieber, who advises that allowances be used as a means of showing children how to save, give, and spend on things they care about. “Kids should do chores,” he writes, “for the same reason adults do, because the chores need to be done, and not with the expectation of compensation.”
This argument has its critics, but considering the way chores are undertaken around the world may change people’s thinking. Professor David Lancy of Utah State University has studied how families around the world handle chores. At about 18 months of age, Lancy says, most children become eager to help their parents, and in many cultures, they begin helping with housework at that age. They begin with very simple tasks, but their responsibilities gradually increase. And they do these tasks without payment. Lancy contrasts this with what happens in America. “We deny our children’s attempts to help until they are 6 or 7 years old,” Lancy says, “when many have lost the desire to help and then try to motivate them with payment. The solution to this problem is not to try to use money as a stimulus to do housework, but to get children involved in housework much earlier, when they actually want to do it.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 .
A.She needs to hurry. | B.The alarm clock didn’t ring. |
C.She broke the alarm clock. | D.She is late for school. |
A.Teacher and student. | B.Boss and secretary. |
C.Mother and son. | D.Husband and wife. |
A.She hopes he can stop reading. | B.She will turn it off at once. |
C.She is reluctant to turn it down. | D.She thinks reading is not important. |
7 .
A.He relies much on his family. | B.He will come to their home by himself. |
C.He enjoys sitting in the kitchen. | D.He will walk to the station. |
I have a lovely brother. He is 4 years younger than me. I still remember that day when he was born. He is
As time went by, he
Now,
We do a lot of secret things without informing our parents and if
More and more people live in large cities these days, which
Teenagers especially need their own personal space at home
You know what they say, marriage is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you are gonna get. My wife and I had a “ferocious” argument the other night
Our society
“Intimidated” by my rigorous logic, my wife purposefully shifted the focus of her argument to
However, things started to get much
At the end of the day, I exhibited my vulnerability as requested and she showed her mercy as expected. We just agreed to disagree and lived happily ever after.