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(1) When I was 14 years old, and very impressed with my teenage status, I set for myself a very special goal—a goal that so differentiated me from my friends that I don't believe I told a single one. As a teenager, I was expected to have deep, dark secrets, but I was not supposed to keep them from my friends.
(2) My secret was a project that I undertook every day after school for several months. It began when I stealthily made my way into the local elementary school— horror of horrors should I be seen; I was now in junior high. I identified myself as a graduate of the elementary school, and being taken under wing by a favorite fifth grade teacher, I was given a small bundle from a locked storeroom—a bundle that I quickly dropped into a bag, lest anyone see me walking home with something from the“little kids”school.
(3) I brought the bundle home—proudly now, for within the confines of my home, I was proud of my project. I walked into the living room, and one by one, emptied the bag of basic reading books. They were thin books with colorful covers and large print. The words were monosyllabic and repetitive. I sat down to the secret task at hand.
(4) “All right,”I said authoritatively to my 70-year-old yiayia.“Today we begin our first reading lesson.”
(5) For weeks afterwards, my yiayia and I sat patiently side by side, as she, with a bit of difficulty, sounded out every word, then read them again, piece by piece, until she understood the short sentences. When she slowly repeated the full sentence, we both would smile and clap our hands—I felt so pound, so grown up.
(6) My yiayia was born in Kalamata, Greece, in a rocky little farming village where nothing much grew. She never had the time to go to school. As the oldest child she was expected to take care of her brother and sister, as well as the house and meals, while her mother tended to the gardens and her father scratched out what little he could from the soil.
(7) So, for my yiayia, schooling was out. But she had big plans for herself. She had heard about America, about how rich you could be, how people on the streets would offer you a dollar just to smell the flower you were carrying, about how everyone lived in nice houses—not stone huts on the sides of mountains—and had nice clothes and time for school.
(8) So my yiayia made a decision at 14—just a child, I realize now—to take a long and sickening 30-day sea voyage alone to the United States. After lying about her age to the passport officials, who would shake their heads vehemently at anyone under 16 leaving her family, and after giving her favorite gold earrings to her cousin, saying“In America, I will have all the gold I want,”my young yiayia put herself on a ship. She landed in New York in 1916.
(9) No need to repeat the story of how it went for years. The streets were not made of gold. People weren't interested in smelling flowers held by strangers. My yiayia was a foreigner, alone, a young girl who worked hard doing piecework to earn money for meals. No leisure time, no new gold earrings—and no school.
(10) She learned enough English to help her in her daily business as she traveled about Brooklyn. Socially, the“foreigners”stayed in neighborhoods where they didn't feel like foreigners. English came slowly.
(11) My yiayia had never learned to read. She could make out a menu, but not a newspaper. She could read a street sign, but not a shop directory. She could read only what she needed to read as, through the years, she married, had five daughters, and helped my grandfather with this restaurant.
(12) So when I was 14—the same age that my yiayia was when she left her family, her country, and everything she knew—I took it upon myself to teach my yiayia something, something I already knew how to do, something with which I could give back to her some of the things she had taught me.
(13) And it was slight repayment for all she taught me. How to cover the fig tree in tar paper so it could survive the winter. How to cultivate rosebushes and magnolia trees that thrived on her little piece of property. Best of all, she taught me about my ethnic heritage and what it means to be Greek and so proud.
(14) Every afternoon, we would sit in the living room, my yiayia with an afghan covering her knees, giving up her crocheting for her reading lesson. I, with the patience that can come only from love, slowly coached her from the basic reader to the second-grade reader, giving up my telephone gossiping.
(15) Years later, my yiayia still hadn't learned quite enough to sit comfortably with a newspaper or magazine, but it felt awfully good to see her try.
(16) When my yiayia died and we faced the sad task of emptying her home, I was going through her night-table drawer and came upon the basic readers. I turned the pages slowly, remembering. I put them in a paper bag, and the next day returned them to the“little kids”school. Maybe someday, some teenager will request them again, for the same task. It will make for a lifetime of memories.
1. Which of the following words (or phrases) in the second paragraph is used metaphorically?
A. Stealthily.
B. Horror of horrors.
C. Under wing.
D. Bundle.
2. The author taught her yiayia to read because she wanted to __________.
A. differentiate herself from her friends
B. repay what her yiaya had taught her
C. make her yiayia's life free of regret
D. help her yiayia fulfill a childhood dream
3. Which of the following personality traits CANNOT be concluded from the life story of the author's yiayia?
A. Trustworthiness.
B. Adventurousness.
C. Adaptability.
D. Diligence.
4. Which of the following statements CANNOT describe the author's feeling?
A. Teaching her yiayia to read was a pleasant secret.
B. Teaching her yiayia to read was a memory of a lifetime.
C. Teaching her yiayia to read made her proud of herself.
D. Her yiayia's having not learned enough was a little pity.
5. Where did the girl get the books used to teach her yiayia?
6. What is the theme of this passage?
stealthily adv. 悄悄地
piecework n. 计件工作
take sb. under wing 庇护某人
directory n. 名录；目录
monosyllabic adj. 单音节的
afghan n. 阿富汗毛毯
yiayia n. （外）祖母（希腊语）
crocheting n. 钩编
vehemently adv. 激烈地
▼ 答案参见后文
(1) In politics, in the courts, even on the ubiquitous TV talk shows, it is a good form to pick an intellectual fight . People attack each other—hurl insults, even—and it counts as logical argument. I cannot understand it. It seems that our society favors a kind of ritualized aggression. Everywhere you look, in newspapers and journals, on television and on the Internet, issues are presented using the terminology of war and conflict . We hear of battles, duels and disputes . We see things in terms of winners and losers, victors and victims .
(2) The problem is society's unquestioning belief in the advantages of the debate as a way of solving disagreements, even proving right from wrong. Our brainwashing begins early at school, when the brightest pupils are invited to the debating system. They get there because they can think up a good argument to support their case. Once on the debate team, they learn that they earn bonus points for the skill with which they verbally attack, or insult, the opposing team. They win if they can successfully convince the audience that they are right, even if the case they are arguing is clearly absurd. They do this by proving themselves to be stronger, brighter, more outrageous, even. The training in this adversarial approach continues at our tertiary institutions. The standard way to present an academic paper, for instance, is to take up an opposing argument to something expressed by another academic. The paper must set out to prove the other person wrong. This is not at all the same thing as reading the original paper with an open mind and discovering that you disagree with it.
(3) The admiration for the adversarial approach spills over into all areas of life. Instead of answering their critics, politicians learn to sidestep negative comments and turn the point around to an attack on accusers. Defence lawyers argue the case for their clients even when they suspect they may be guilty. And ordinary people use the same tactics—just listen to your teenager next time you pick him up for coming home late. You can be sure a stream of abuse will flow about your own time-keeping, your irritating habits, your history of bad parenting.
(4) Unfortunately, the smarter your kid, the better his or her argument against you will be. You'll be upset, but you'll comfort yourself that those teenage monsters of yours will one day turn into mature, tough adults who can look after themselves—by which you mean, of course, they will be able to argue their way out of sticky situations.
(5) It's not that you should never use angry words, or take up a position in opposition to someone or something. There are certainly times when one should take a stand, and in such cases strong words are quite appropriate: if you witness injustice, for instance, or feel passionately about another person's folly. Mockery—so cruel when practised on the innocent—can be very useful in such situations. There is no better way to bring down a tyrant than to mock him mercilessly.
(6) What I dislike is the automatic assumption most people have when it comes to disagreements: they should attack, abuse, and preferably overpower their opponent, at whatever the cost. The approach is so ingrained that“compromise”has become a dirty word. We feel guilty if we are conciliatory rather than confrontational. We have trained ourselves, or been brainwashed into believing, that to be pleasant is a sign of weakness.
(7) But just think how easy it can be to persuade a“difficult”person to be considerate of you or your wishes when you are pleasant to them, and are not threatening. Give them a way out of a potentially aggressive situation without losing face, and they will oblige you willingly.
(8) Discuss a subject without taking an adversarial position and you will find the other person happy to explore the possibilities with you. I'm prepared to bet on it. You'll get closer to the truth of the matter than you would by going at each other hammer and tongs .
1. The style of this passage is __________.
A. descriptive
B. narrative
C. expository
D. argumentative
2. Which of the following words in Para. 1 does NOT refer to“debate”?
A. Intellectual fight.
B. Conflict.
C. Victims.
D. Disputes.
3. According to the author, you may use angry words __________.
A. if someone takes up a position in opposition to you
B. if you are angry at other people's folly
C. when you are the only innocent one
D. when you are in sticky situations
4. The author's main viewpoint is __________.
A. compromising
B. no debating
C. discussing
D. no fighting
5. Mention TWO commonly believed advantages of the debate.
6. What does the phrase“going at each other hammer and tongs”in Para. 8 mean?
ubiquitous adj. 到处存在的
bring down 使垮台
terminology n. 术语
preferably adv. 更合意地；最好是
case n. （在讨论中支持一方的）论据，理由；诉讼
overpower v. 压制
ingrained adj. 根深蒂固的
adversarial adj. 对抗性的
conciliatory adj. 调解的；意在和解的
tertiary institution 高等院校
confrontational adj. 对抗的
sidestep v. 回避（问题）
oblige v. （通过满足要求而）帮助
defence lawyer 辩护律师
willingly adv. 欣然地；乐意地
folly n. 愚蠢的事
▼ 答案参见后文
(1) There are known to be at least a thousand completely different languages in Africa. There are 200 in Nigeria alone. English has remained the official language in most countries which were once British colonies, because except for Swahili, spoken in East Africa, most African languages are local, or tribal. If people wish to do business in Lagos or any of the other big cities, they have to speak English—except in the north, where nearly everybody speaks Hausa.
(2) In fact, in business and politics and universities, English is the official language. Africans in ex-British colonies who go to live in the growing cities must learn English, and more and more country people are moving to the cities to find work. College students listen to lectures delivered in English by African as well as British lecturers, and in the city bookshops there is a wide variety of books and journals published in English as well as in Swahili and Hausa.
(3) Africans, particularly in Nigeria, are producing excellent writers, whose books—written in English—are read throughout the English-speaking world. The following are all known internationally: Chinua Achube, novelist, and Wole Soyinka, poet and dramatist, both of Nigeria; James Ngugi, Kenyan novelist; Amos Tutuola, a great Nigerian storyteller and very readable. Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
(4) The people of Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast and other ex-French colonies still speak French. Ever since the 18th century, when French was the lingua franca of Europe, the French have been jealous of the competition of English, which is the language of the commonwealth. At Commonwealth meetings, English is the only common language. English is valuable, too, at Pan-African meetings.
(5) In East Africa a completely different, non-European language has been the lingua franca of Africans for many centuries. This is Swahili, which is a mixture of Arabic and African languages. The word“Swahili”comes from the Arabic word“sawahili”, meaning“of the coast”. Swahili is used as the lingua franca of Kenya and Tanzania. The Portuguese traded on the East African coast for 200 years, but added no Portuguese words to Swahili.
(6) During the colonial drive of the late 19th century, each European power introduced its own language as the official language of its new colonies. But even where English is not the official language, it has remained an important link between people who speak different languages. The leaders and most members of the governments speak it fluently. Swahili, which all British officials in East Africa had to learn, has some strange grammatical rules. For example,“mtu”=“person”, but in the plural this becomes“wa-tu”=“people”. All of the other words then begin with“W-/wa-”. Swahili has borrowed a number of words from English. For example,“a traffic island”has become“kiplefiti”(from“keep left”), but the plural,“traffic islands”, obeys Swahili grammar. Singular words which begin with“ki”begin in the plural with“vi”, so“viplefiti”is the plural of“kiplefiti”.
(7) English and Afrikaans are the official languages of South Africa. South African English has a slight African accent, but is otherwise like Standard English. A few African words have found a place in the Oxford English Dictionary .“Trek”is used throughout the English-speaking world. Most of the Cape coloreds (people who are not whites or Africans) speak English. The Africans, who are known as the“Bantu”by South Africans, speak Zulu, Xhosa or one or more other African languages as well as English and/or Afrikaans.
(8) African languages have given very few words to European languages. On the other hand, since many Africans now live in closer contact with the European style of life, they have had to find words for common objects and common verbs. For example, in the Kxoe language of South West Africa, they call a watch“anmmuxo”which translated means“sun-see-on-thing”, and“kuru”is used for“drive”(a car), which translated means to“press the bellows”. In Kxoe there are words for one, two, three, but after that they have to use images.
1. From the passage we learn that Swahili is __________.
A. a language in East Africa
B. a local language in Africa
C. a tribal language in Africa
D. a language in North Africa
2. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
A. Africa owns at least 1,000 different languages.
B. English is a popular language in African cities.
C. French is widely used in some African countries.
D. A Kenyan writer won Nobel Prize for Literature.
3. In Swahili,“kiplefiti”means“a traffic island”while“viplefiti”means“__________”.
A. keep left
B. traffic islands
C. Swahili grammar
D. plural form
4. It can be learned from the passage that Afrikaans is __________.
A. accepted as Standard English in South Africa
B. an official language in South Africa
C. an official language in most African countries
D. a variety of Standard English
5. According to the passage, what does“lingua franca”mean?
6. What is the last paragraph mainly about?
Swahili n. 斯瓦希里语
bellows n. 风箱
▼ 答案参见后文
(1) “All right, boys and girls, who'd like to see some magic?”Twice a day the ferry Arahura —and it is greeted with cries of“Me!”from children, and with sighs of relief from parents, glad to find something to occupy their kids for at least half an hour of the three-hour trip.
(2) The parental saviour in question is Nigel Kennedy, a professional magician who has been working in the ferry for the past seven years. The facilities aren't great—there is no designated performance space, and he has to conjure more or less in a corridor—but there is room enough to wave a wand and wow a captive audience more than most.
(3) Kennedy, 53, thrives on the work, which guarantees him a level of exposure he would not readily find elsewhere. The Arahura carries thousands of people each day in the holiday season.“Every time I travel,”says Jonathan Morgan, manager of passenger services for the ferry line,“he is ringed with kids, like the Pied Piper.”
(4) The key to what Morgan refers to as Kennedy's stunning success is audience participation: every show, he persuades four kids to help, although they usually end up being the butt of his tricks. Wands are apt to wobble, droop, squeak or vanish; lossies and handkerchiefs turn up in unexpected places. Kennedy is a dab hand with balloons, too, twisting them at top speed into crowns, swords, worms, ducks and donkeys.
(5) The children's work, he says, is his bread and butter, although it is not without its hazards .“Adults are very predictable to perform for as an audience. They will always clap in the same place, always laugh in the same place. But kids, you can't predict what they're going to say or do. Sometimes you're going to have a little five-year-old who's going to sit there with his arms folded and say this trick's absolutely pathetic—some word he's learnt from his parents.”
(6) Kennedy was drawn to magic in the classic manner.“I got given a magic book when I was eight years old and that started me on it. From then on, I was putting on shows in Mom and Dad's garage and plastering up flyers on lampposts and letterboxes around the streets, probably to their embarrassment. And it just developed from there.”
(7) Since turning professional in 1989, Kennedy has made what he calls a good living from magic. But the business is not what it was . He can remember doing cabaret every Friday and Saturday night, plus a round of conferences, dine-and-dances and garden parties. He still does conferences, but these days,“rather than having a set stage show with illusions, they're more inclined to hire me for an hour or two, having me walk around the tables, do a little trick in somebody's hand, which is what they call close-up magic.”
(8) He increases his income by running an air order business for aspiring magicians, but admits that the average age of his clients is climbing: fewer and fewer children are taking up the craft.“It's the competition. Nowadays they can push a computer screen and a magic effect happens: why learn a magic trick? People come along to a magic club and, if they can't see a person in half on the first evening, they lose interest.”
(9) Kennedy's skill is acknowledged by fellow magicians who have recently voted him best children's entertainer. But—you have to ask—do people confuse him with the other Nigel Kennedy, the internationally famous violinist?
(10) Well, yes, and Kennedy shamelessly plays up to it:“Whenever Nigel is touring in this area, I make the most of it. I come on stage with a violin case while Vivaldi's The Four Seasons plays in the background. Then I pull out a magic wand from the violin case and everyone laughs.”
(11) There are no plans for a name change, and in any case the confusion is worth it to overhear, as Kennedy once did, someone say:“This must be what that violinist does in the off-season.”
1. Which of the following does NOT contribute to Kennedy's success?
A. Regular exposure.
B. Children's participation.
C. Performance space.
D. Professional skills.
2. What does the author mean by saying“it is not without its hazards”in Para. 5?
A. Kennedy may lose his livelihood someday.
B. Kennedy may accidentally hurt the children.
C. Children may lose interest in Kennedy's magic.
D. Children may disrupt Kennedy's performance.
3. “The business is not what it was”is reflected in that __________ (Paras. 7&8).
A. the form of magic performances has changed
B. the remuneration magicians receive has declined
C. close-up magic has replaced stage shows
D. competition among magicians gets more fierce
4. Regarding people's confusing him with a violinist, Kennedy __________.
A. feels disappointed by people's ignorance
B. feels himself to be inferior to the violinist
C. turns it into an ingenious trick to amuse people
D. regards it as a good opportunity to be known
5. What do the parents think of Kennedy's performance?
6. What is the key to Kennedy's success according to Morgan?
7. Why are there fewer children who want to become magicians?
saviour n. 救星
dab n. 熟手
captive adj. （观众）不能随意离开的
plaster v. 到处张贴（海报、图画等）
butt n. 笑柄
cabaret n. 卡巴莱表演（餐馆或夜总会中的歌舞或滑稽短剧等现场表演）
wobble v. 摇晃
squeak v. 嘎吱作响
play up to 迎合；讨好
▼ 答案参见后文
(1) Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way , as noted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universal sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
(2) Most investigators agree that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In a classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues more recently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
(3) Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. In fact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles (“feedback”) are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state. Consider Darwin's words:“The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions.”Can smiling give rise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
(4) Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report more positive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being more humorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
(5) What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles, such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses). The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that the so-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by“crow's feet”wrinkles around the eyes and a subtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward the eyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
(6) Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression“keep a stiff upper lip”as a recommendation for handling stress. It might be that a“stiff”lip suppresses emotional response—as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response.
1. “Baring the teeth in a hostile way”is mentioned to show some facial expressions __________.
A. can prove the theory of evolution
B. have multiple meanings worldwide
C. can be widely understood
D. have survival value
2. What did Darwin believe would happen to human emotions that were not expressed?
A. They would become less intense.
B. They would last longer than usual.
C. They would affect mental health.
D. They would become more negative.
3. According to the passage, what can heighten arousal?
A. Facial expressions.
B. Preparedness for activity.
C. High level of fear.
D. Intense contraction of facial muscles.
4. Which of the following effects may stiffening the upper lip have?
A. It first suppresses stress, then intensifies it.
B. It may cause fear and tension in those who see it.
C. It can damage the lip muscles.
D. It may either heighten or reduce emotional response.
5. What can we conclude from the performance of the Fore people of New Guinea in the research (Para. 2)?
6. What has Ekman found about Duchenne smile (Para. 5)?
despondent adj. 沮丧的
hypothesis n. 假说
bare v. 使露出
arousal n. 唤醒
disgust n. 厌恶
neurotransmitter n. 神经传导物质
▼ 答案参见后文