About30yearsago,IleftCubaforth

更新 2022-09-03
科目英语
题型阅读理解
难度中等
浏览 1947

About 30 years ago, I left Cuba for the United States with my son. After getting settled finally in Brunswick, New Jersey, I enrolled(注册) my son in kindergarten. Several weeks later, my son’s teacher asked me to meet him at his office.
In the teacher’s office, an exchange of greetings was followed by his questions: “Is your son mentally retarded(弱智的)? Does he suffer from any kind of mental disability?”
Was he talking about my wonderful Scola? No, no, it can’t be. What a helpless, lonely moment! I told him that Scola was a quiet, sweet little boy, instead. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions.
My son could not follow the teacher’s directions, he told me, and thus, Scola was disrupting the class. Didn’t he know my son did not speak English yet?
He was angry: “Why hasn’t your son been taught to speak English? Don’t you speak English at home?”
No, I didn’t speak English at home, I replied. I was sure my son would learn English in a couple of months, and I didn’t want him to forget his native language. Well, wrong answer! What kind of person would not speak English to her son at home and at all times? “Are you one of those people who come to this country to save dollars and send them back to their country, never wanting to be a part of this society?”
Needless to say, I tried to tell him I was not one of “those people.” Then he told me the meeting was over, and I left.
As I had expected, my son learned to speak English fluently before the school year was over. He went on to graduate from college and got a job, earning close to six figures. He travels widely and leads a well-adjusted, contented life. And he has benefited from being bilingual(双语的).
Speaking more than one language allows people to communicate with others; it teaches people about other cultures and other places — something very basic and obviously lacking in the “educator” I met in New Jersey.
The teacher asked the author to his office ______.

A．to discuss Scola’s in-class performance

B．to get Scola enrolled in kindergarten

C．to find a language partner for Scola

D．to work out a study plan for Scola

What does the underlined word “disrupting” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Breaking	B．Following
C．Attending	D．Disturbing

The author’s attitude towards being bilingual may best be described as ______.

A．critical

B．casual

C．positive

D．passive

This text is likely to be selected from a book of _______.

A．medicine

B．education

C．geography

D．History

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Collections were the inspiration(灵感) for a project at Thomas Tallis School, which formed part of the Imagine Children's Literature Festival last autumn. Each child (aged 12-13) beautified a box and wrote a story on the subject of collections to throw inside it. The boxes were spread within the Royal Festival Hall's Ballroom. Some were left empty to encourage visitors to write their own stories.
The subject chosen by Lauren was an imaginative one. "It's a sort of Cinderella (灰姑娘) story," she told me, inspired by a collection of letters from her cousin, In the story these become love letters, burned by a cruel stepmother. Lauren's best friend Charlotte is the stepmother. "I'm in Charlotte's story too," says Lauren, "and I get run over." Charlotte's tale was inspired by the girls' coin collection. "We've collected foreign coins for years – since our families went on holiday to Tenerife." she explains. "That was before the Euro, so we put pesetas in." Lauren continues: "I find a coin in the road, go to get it and get run over. I'm in hospital and then I die." Charlotte adds: "Or she might not die. I haven't decided yet."
Millie Murray, who is a teen-novel author, thinks that setting the subject of collections was a useful inspiration to their creativity rather than a restriction(限制). "In the beginning I thought, 'Will the children be able to do it?"she says. "But it's been fruitful. Some have their own collection, some have parents who do, and some have written complete stories. It's made them think about something they wouldn't have otherwise, which can only be a good thing."
59. What were the children asked to do in the project?
A. To meet friends at Thomas Tallis School. B. To write stories on the subject of collections.
C. To encourage visitors to write their own stories.
D. To have their friends for characters in the stories.
60. The underlined word "pesetas" in Paragraph 2 is a kind of _____.
A. story             B. collection           C. inspiration     D. foreign coin
61. From the stories by Lauren and Charlotte, we know that _____ .
A. Charlotte hurt herself when getting a coin
B. both of them developed their imagination
C. both of them will die in each other's stories
D. Lauren's cousin posted her some love letters
62. Millie Murray thinks ________.
A. collections could inspire writing creativity
B. it was good for parents to have collections
C. inspirations were very useful in writing stories
D. setting collection subjects restricted inspirations

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From the moment that an animal is born it has to make decisions. It has to decide which of the things around it are for eating, and which are to be avoided; when to attack and when to run away. The animal is , in fact , playing a very dangerous game with its environment , a game in which it must make decision—a matter of life or death .
Animals’ ability to act reasonably is believed to come partly from what we may call “genetic (遗传性的)learning” , which is different from the individual (个体的) learning that an animal does in the course of its own lifetime . Genetic learning is learning by a
species —animals of the same kind—as a whole , and it is achieved by selection of those members of each generation that happen to act in the right way . However, the role of genetic learning depends upon how similar the future environment is to the past. The more important individual experience is likely to be, the less important is genetic learning as a means of getting over the problems of the survival game. Because most animals live in ever changing environments from one generation to the next, it is not surprising to find that very few species indeed depend wholly upon genetic learning.
In the great majority of animals , their particular ways of acting in a new environment are a compound (复合体) of individual experience added to the action patterns animals are born with .That is why animals can survive.
72．The animal’s life will come to an end         .
A．if the animal makes a wrong decision        B．if the animal plays a dangerous game
C．when the animal attacks its enemy             D．when the animal runs too slowly
73．Very few species depend entirely on genetic learning because         .
A．each generation has its own way of learning
B．their environments change all the time
C．they can act reasonably on their own
D．it takes their whole life to learn
74．When the environment doesn’t change much,         .
A．animals cannot act in a right way
B．genetic learning is less important for animals
C．individual learning plays a less important role
D．animals cannot get over problems on their on their own
75．Animals’ living on generation after generation depends on         .
A．their natural action pattern with their own experience
B．the lessons they have learnt during their lifetime
C．their experience in particular environments
D．the knowledge passed on by their parents

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Here’s How to Get Your 6 Movies for 1￠Each
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A．13 times B．12 times C．4 times D．17 times
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A．Special Selection and Director’s Selection
B．lower-priced cassettes and movies
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D．Director’s Selection and a number of lower-priced cassettes
67．We can learn from the passage that the members of the Club ________.
A．cannot cancel their membership anytime
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Language as a System of Symbols
Of all systems of symbols(符号), language is the most highly developed. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything stand for anything. Human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual(相互的)dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce with their lungs, throats, tongues, teeth, and lips systematically stand for certain happenings in their nervous systems. We call that system of agreements language.
There is no necessary connection between the symbol and that which it stands for. Just as social positions can be symbolized by feathers worn on the head, by gold on the watch chain, or by a thousand other things according to the culture we live in, so the fact of being hungry can be symbolized by a thousand different noises according to the culture we live in.
However obvious these facts may appear at first glance, they are actually not so obvious as they seem except when we take special pains to think about the subject. Symbols and the things they stand for are independent of each other, yet we all have a way of feeling as if, and sometimes acting as if, there were necessary connections. For example, there are people who feel that foreign languages are unreasonable by nature; foreigners have such funny names for things, and why can’t they call things by their right names? This feeling exhibits itself most strongly in those English and American tourists who seem to believe that they can make the natives of any country understand English if they shout loud enough. Like the little boy who is reported to have said: “Pigs are called pigs because they are such dirty animals,” they feel that the symbol is inherently(内在地) connected in some way with the things symbolized.
69. Language is a highly developed system of symbols because human beings ______.
A. have made use of language for centuries         B. use our nervous systems to support language
C. have made various noises stand for any events
D. can make anything stand for anything by agreement
70. What can we conclude from Paragraph 2?
A. Different noises may mean different things.
B. Our culture determines what a symbol stands for.
C. The language we use symbolizes our social positions.
D. Our social positions determine the way we are dressed.
71. In Paragraph 3, “take special pains” probably means “_____”.
A. try very hard     B. take our time     C. are very unhappy      D. feel especially painful
72. The example of the little boy is used to show that _____.
A. adults often learn from their young
B. “pig” is a dirty word because pigs are dirty
C. words are not connected with the things they stand for
D. people sometimes have wrong ideas about how language works

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Have you ever received a gift that was so clearly not your taste that you wondered if perhaps it had been handed to you by mistake? Worse, have you ever given a present and watched your friend look as though she had opened the wrong box? Maybe she responded with a polite "Why, thank you," but you knew you had missed the mark. Why do presents sometimes go wrong? And what do your choices (good and bad) reflect about your personal qualities?
Choosing the right gift is an art, I believe. It calls for empathy — the ability to put yourself into someone else's head and heart .We're all able to do this; in fact, we're born with a kind of natural empathy. After the earliest period of childhood, however, it needs to be reinforced (加强)—by our parents, teachers, friends. When it isn't, we're not able to understand other people's feelings as sharply. This can show in the gifts we select, and so can many other emotional (情感的) qualities.
Think back to the presents you’ve given over the past year, the time and effort you put into your selection, how much you spent, your thoughts while you were shopping, and your feelings when the receiver opened the package. Keep in mind that what you choose displays your inner world. Of course, you may express yourself differently with different friends, relatives, and other people you know.
We live in a society where exchanging presents is an important part of communication. Ignoring the tradition won't make it go away. If you really dislike such a tradition, tell your friends ahead of time.
60. The underlined expression "you had missed the mark" means "you had failed to _____'.
A. make her feel better                        B. keep your friendship
C. receive a present in return                       D. get the expected effect
61. Which of the following is the main idea of the second paragraph?
A. Natural empathy needs to be reinforced.
B. Emotional changes influence one's choice of gifts.
C. Selecting the right gift is an ability people are born with.
D. Choosing gifts requires one to understand the receivers.
62. In the third paragraph, the author tells us that________..
A. attention should be paid to the receivers' responses
B. one learns from what he did in the past
C. the choice of gifts reflects one's emotional qualities
D. one should spend more time choosing gifts
63. The best possible title for this passage is “_______”.
A. Ways of Choosing Gifts                        B. An Important Tradition
C. Exchanging Presents                            D. Message in a Gift

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