Dear Daughter,
As we drove off from Columbia, I wanted to write a letter to you to tell you all that is on my mind．
First, I want to tell you how proud we are．Getting into Columbia is a real testament of what a great well-rounded student you are．It is in college that you will truly discover what learning is about．I encourage you to be curious, but I also want to tell you “Education is what you have left after all that is taught is forgotten”．That is really what learning in college is about–this will be the period where you go from teacher-taught to master-inspired, after which you must become self-learner．So do take each subject seriously, and even if what you learn isn’t critical for your life, the skills of learning will be something you cherish forever．
There is no single simple answer to any question．Remember during your high school debate class, I always asked you to take on the side that you don’t believe in? I did that for a reason– things rarely “black and white”, and there are always many ways to look at a problem．You will become a better problem solver if you recognize that．This is called “critical thinking”, and it is the most important thinking skill you need for your life．This also means you need to become tolerant and supportive of others．I will always remember when I went to my Ph．D．advisor and proposed a new thesis topic．He said “I don’t agree with you, but I’ll support you．”
Do your best in classes, but don’t let pressure get to you．Your mother and I have no expectations for your grades．If you graduate and learn something in your four years, we would feel happy．Please don’t be worried．The only thing that matters is that you learned．The only metric you should use is that you tried．Grades are just silly letters that give the vain people something to brag, and the lazy people something to fear．You are too good to be either．
College is the four years where you have:·the greatest amount of free time．·the first chance to be independent．·the most flexibility to change．·the lowest risk for making mistakes．
So please treasure your college years．
Love,
Dad (& Mom)
(A letter from Kaifu Lee)
1．According to Kaifu Lee, the underlined sentence in the second paragraph means_________．
A．you should learn by yourself instead of learning from your teachers．
B．the knowledge isn’t as important as the ability to learn．
C．the knowledge from college is of less worth than that acquired after college．
D．education is nothing but what you have remembered．
2．Kaifu Lee expects his daughter to _________．
A．agree with those who hold the opposite opinions．
B．find out the difference between ‘right and wrong’．
C．think of more ways to solve a problem critically．
D．step into others’ shoes and think from others’ positions．
3．Based on the letter, it can be inferred that ________．
A．high grades are not important for people．
B．Kaifu Lee and his wife don’t care about their daughter’s grades or college life．
C．Kaifu Lee doesn’t expect her daughter to make any mistakes in her life．
D．Kaifu Lee’s daughter is a freshman in Columbia University．
4．We can conclude that Kaifu Lee’s daughter is _________．
A．dependent and curious B．tolerant and supportive
C．well-rounded and worried D．excellent and hard-working
This March is a busy month in Shanghai. There’s a lot to do. Here are the highlights.
Live Music—Late Night Jazz
Enjoy real American jazz from Herbie Davis, the famous trumpet player. He’s coming with his new 7-piece band, Herbie’s Heroes. Herbie is known to play well into the early hours, so don’t expect to get much sleep. This is Herbie’s third visit to Shanghai. The first two were sold out, so get your tickets quickly.
Scottish Dancing
Take your partners and get ready to dance till you are tired. Scottish dancing is fun and easy to learn.
Instructors will demonstrate the dances. The live band, Gordon Stroppie and the Weefrees, are also excellent.
Exhibitions—Shanghai Museum
There are 120,000 pieces on show here. Your can see the whole of Chinese history under one roof. It’s always interesting to visit, but doubly so at the moment with the Egyptian Tombs exhibition. There are lots of mummies and more gold than you’ve ever seen before. Let us know if you see a mummy move!
Dining –Sushi chef in town
Sushi(寿司) is getting really big in Shanghai. In Japan, it’s become an art form. The most famous Sushi ‘artist’ is Yuki Kamura. She’s also one of the few female chefs in Japan. She’ll be at Sushi Scene all of this month.
For a full listing of events, see our website.Suppose you are going to attend an activity at 8:00p.m. on Saturday, which one can you choose?
| A．Live Music—Late Night Jazz |
| B．Scottish dancing |
| C．Exhibitions –Shanghai Museum |
| D．Dining—Sushi chef in town |
Which of the following is true according to the advertisements?
| A．Scottish dancing is so interesting and easy that it never tires you out . |
| B．The performance given by the American jazz band won’t last long . |
| C．Sushi is not popular in Shanghai as it is a kind of Japanese traditional food. |
| D．It is more interesting to visit Shanghai Museum for the exhibits from Egypt. |
From the text we may learn that Kamura is _________.
| A．a cook | B．a waitress |
| C．an musician | D．an artist |
I found out one time that doing a favor for someone could get you into a lot of trouble. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and we were having a final test. During the test, the girl sitting next to me whispered something, but I didn’t understand. So I leaned over her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had an extra pen. She showed me that hers was out of ink and would not write. I happened to have an extra one, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on her desk.
Later, after the test papers had been turned in, the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students were dismissed（解散）. As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant to grow up; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet and be responsible (负责任) for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and emphasized（强调） the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really cheating themselves. She made me promise that I would think seriously about all the things she had said, and then she told me I could leave. I walked out of the room wondering why she had chosen to talk to me about all those things.
Later on, I found out that she thought I had cheated on the test. When she saw me lean over to talk to the girl next to me, it looked as if I was copying answers from the girl’s test paper. I tried to explain about the pen, but all she could say was it seemed very very strange to her that I hadn’t talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me right after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl a favor by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued to believe that I had cheated on the test.The story took place（发生）exactly ____________ .
| A．in the teacher’s office | B．in an exam room |
| C．in the school | D．in the language lab |
The girl wanted to borrow a pen, because ____________ .
| A．she had not brought a pen with her |
| B．she had lost her own on her way to school |
| C．there was something wrong with her own |
| D．her own had been taken away by someone |
The teacher saw all this, so she asked the boy ____________ .
| A．to go on writing his paper |
| B．to stop whispering |
| C．to leave the room immediately |
| D．to stay behind after the exam |
The boy knew everything ____________ .
| A．the moment he was asked to stay behind |
| B．when the teacher started talking about honesty |
| C．only some time later |
| D．when he was walking out of the room |
Energy independence. It has a nice ring to it. Doesn’t it? If you think so, you’re not alone, because energy independence has been the dream of American president for decades, and never more so than in the past few years, when the most recent oil price shock has been partly responsible for kicking off the great recession(经济衰退).
“Energy independence” and its rhetorical (修辞的) companion “energy security” are, however, unreliable concepts that are rarely thought through. What is it we want independence from exactly?
Most people would probably say that they want to be independent from imported oil. But there are reasons that we buy all that oil from elsewhere.
The first reason is that we need it to keep our economy running. Yes, there is a trickle(涓涓细流) of bio-fuel(生物燃料) available, and more may become available, but most biofuels cause economic waste and environmental destruction.
Second, Americans have basically decided that they don’t really want to produce all their own oil. They value the environmental quality they preserve over their oil imports from abroad. Vast areas of the United States are off-limits to oil exploration and production in the name of environmental protection. To what extent are Americans really willing to tolerate the environmental impacts of domestic(国内的) energy production in order to cut back imports?
Third, there are benefits to trade. It allows for economic efficiency, and when we buy things from places that have lower production costs than we do, we benefit. And although you don’t read about this much, the United States is also a large exporter of oil products, selling about 2 million barrels of petroleum products per day to about 90 countries.
There is no question that the United States imports a great deal of energy and, in fact, relies on that steady flow to maintain its economy. When that flow is interrupted, we feel the pain in short supplies and higher prices. At the same time, we get massive economic benefits when we buy the most affordable energy on the world market and when we engage in energy trade around the world.What does the author say about energy independence for America?
| A．It sounds very attractive. |
| B．It will bring oil prices down. |
| C．It ensures national security. |
| D．It has long been everyone’s dream. |
What does the author think of bio-fuels?
| A．They keep America’s economy running healthily. |
| B．They cause serious damage to the environment. |
| C．They prove to be a good alternative(substitute) to petroleum. |
| D．They do not provide a sustainable energy supply. |
Why does America rely heavily on oil imports?
| A．It wants to expand its storage of raw oil. |
| B．Its own oil reserves are quickly running out. |
| C．Its own oil production falls short of demand. |
| D．It wants to keep its own environment untouched. |
What does the author say about oil trade?
| A．It makes for economic recession． |
| B．It brings benefit only to the sellers． |
| C．It improves economic efficiency． |
| D．It saves the cost of oil exploration． |
What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
| A．To explain the increase of international oil trade. |
| B．To raise Americans’ awareness of the energy crisis. |
| C．To argue for America’s dependence on oil imports. |
| D．To stress the importance of energy protection. |
If you saw another kid ride her bike too fast around a corner and fall down, you might ride your bike more slowly on that turn. Yes, we humans are very sensitive to others’ mistakes. And the same is true for other animals. Animals mess up all the time. They might eat poisonous leaves, fall off a tree or let their prey(猎物) slip away. By watching others fail, an animal can avoid making the same mistakes, thus improving its chance of survival.
Scientists suspected that one part of the brain helps animals process information about others’ errors. Cells in that part appear to become more active when a person sees someone else making a mistake. But researchers didn’t know whether individual cells in this part of the brain play different roles in detecting errors.
To investigate the brain’s response to errors in more detail, the researchers taught a game to two macaques, a type of monkey. One monkey could press a yellow or green button while the other watched. If the first monkey pressed the right button, the team gave both animals a treat. Every couple of rounds, the two monkeys switched roles. Meanwhile, the scientists monitored individual cells in the animal’s brains.
When the first monkey messed up the game by pressing the wrong button, a group of cells in the second monkey’s brain fired. But if the second monkey also made the wrong choice during its turn, some of the cells in that group didn’t respond. Those unresponsive cells reacted specifically to mistakes made by others, not to the monkey’s own mistakes.
Scientists believe other parts of the brain also might help people process information about another’s errors. “You start to think about this other person and see things from his angle.” Ellen de Bruijn told Science News. She studies the brain at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.According to Paragraph l, animals’ ability to learn from others’ mistakes .
| A．used to be ignored by humans |
| B．helps them to survive better |
| C．is being lost because of humans |
| D．ensures that they will never fail |
The underlined word “detecting” in Paragraph 2 probably means “ ”.
| A．correcting | B．making | C．drawing | D．sensing |
From the game the scientists taught to two macaques, we can see .
| A．animals can avoid the same mistakes |
| B．which part of the brain is more active |
| C．how the brain responds to mistakes |
| D．how the brain processes information |
In the experiment mentioned, those unresponsive cells are only sensitive to .
| A．others’ mistakes | B．the same buttons |
| C．one’s own mistakes | D．the monkey’s brain |
What’s the main idea of the passage?
| A．Animals can learn from mistakes like human beings. |
| B．An interesting experiment by scientists surprised us. |
| C．Monkeys can avoid making mistakes by learning from us. |
| D．The brain cells are always sensitive to others’ information. |
Have you ever wanted to achieve a goal and ended up doing tons of research on how to achieve the goal? As you learn more and more, it feels like you know less and less because when you learn something new, you find that there is a lot to know about those things.
Sometimes, people will get stuck in this needing to gather more and more information. There’s nothing wrong with learning a lot, but when you let learning get in the way of doing, you will never get going. When you never get going, you still never start having the things you want. Too much learning can paralyze you in terms of taking action.
A better way to go about achieving a goal is to gather some information and immediately start taking action on the information you have gathered. Many times you will feel unprepared, and that’s OK. The best way to learn is to take action and learn from the results you get from those actions.
When you are able to get past the fear of not being perfect and just take the first step, you will be further ahead than the majority of people who are still in the preparation stage. It’s good to be prepared especially in situations such as a pilot and crew making sure the plane is ready to take off, but over-preparation in trying to reach a goal won’t give you any results. The knowledge and skills you will need will be picked up along the way.
If a baby wants to learn how to walk, it will never be able to do it by sitting there and analyzing how to walk. The best way for a baby to walk is to actually stand up and start walking. Sure it may fall, but with every fall, it will learn what is working and what is not and adjust to it. By doing this over and over again, it will eventually learn to walk. This is the approach you need to take when you want to achieve your goals as well. It works. Learning more is great but if all you’re doing is learning and not taking action, it’s time to change. Just take the first step! The author thinks that learning __________.
| A．stops us from doing things |
| B．prevents us from achieving a goal |
| C．should be combined with practice |
| D．means gathering more and more information |
According to the passage, we'd better learn from_____.
| A．our experiences |
| B．adequate preparations |
| C．other people who have succeeded |
| D．the information we have gathered |
The passage implies that the more we learn,_____.
| A．the less we will know |
| B．the more we want to explore |
| C．the more likely we are to succeed |
| D．the better preparations we will make |
What does the underlined word “it” (in the last paragraph) refer to?
| A．Walking | B．Falling | C．Learning | D．Analyzing |
Why does the author mention how a baby learns to walk?
| A．To prove another point is wrong. |
| B．To encourage readers to change. |
| C．To introduce a learning approach. |
| D．To support a conclusion. |
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