Phillida Eves and her husband Tedd Hamilton weren’t unhappy living in the Galway countryside with their sons, Cian and Oisín, and their daughter, Soracha. “We had a lovely home, a car, lots of friends, and weekends sailing our boat,” says Phillida. “But there’s a line from a poem that goes: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ That says it all for me. We felt there was more to life.”
So they quit their jobs, , took their sons, then aged six and nine, out of school and went to southern Spain where they bought a 15-metre yacht(游艇) and headed up the coast to Barcelona. Soracha was not even three. And they brought along Poppy, the family dog. Now, two and a half years and 10,000km later, they don’t intend to stop. Tedd is a yacht engineer and can find work in ports. But, says Phillida, a supply(代数) teacher, “any family could do this.”
The children are home-schooled using a correspondence(函授) course. “My son had a recent project on the weather. The weather is vital to us. My son knows more than most adults about weather systems, compasses, maps and directions. The weather, for him, means life or death.”
Other subjects have become equally vivid.“They’re living geography and history all the time. We’ve sailed round Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, and seen tiny islands we didn’t know. The kids learned about ancient Romans by visiting Rome.”
But what about social development? Again, Phillida is sanguine. “The children have become much more socially confident since we set out. They play with tones of families of all nationalities on other boats we meet.”
Living for the moment, they believe, is a huge life lesson. “Our children never say they’re bored.” The other day they stopped mid-ocean and the kids swam, 110km from land. “That’s the kind of freedom we want for them,” says Phillida. “That’s the kind of freedom they’ve got.”The couple quit their jobs and took their children travelling because .
| A．their children wanted to make friends of all nationalities. |
| B．they wanted to experience more in their life. |
| C．their children wanted complete freedom. |
| D．they are unhappy with their lives. |
The family made a living during their tour from .
| A．writing their own stories |
| B．doing temporary jobs |
| C．selling their possessions |
| D．teaching English |
The underlined word “sanguine” in paragraph 5 is closet in meaning to “ ”.
| A．patient | B．curious |
| C．excited | D．optimistic |
What we can learn about the family from the text?
| A．They plan to stop for a rest. |
| B．They have toured for more than three years. |
| C．They believe any family can do the same thing as they do. |
| D．They have made several geographical and historical discoveries. |
The HOPE IS A GAME--CHANGER PROJECT will deliver unbreakable soccer balls to kids who, all too often, see things horrible, broken and not survive the simplest of circumstances. The project started taking form well before anyone knew where it would lead –which is to test the power of like-minded people working together to turn inspiration into action.
Four years ago Bobby was in Rwanda offering help to the people there and taking photos of a child soldier named Moise with his “soccer ball”，which was a pile of rubbish tied together with a string. This “ball” was the only thing Moise could call his own --- no family, no home, no place to go. Forced to fight in the Congo and having killed three people at the unbearably young age of seven, the boy’s spirit was broken. And Bobby knew, as he took one photo after the next, that he’d never forget him. In fact, he returned the following year to tell Moise he had stayed deep within his heart ---but he was gone.
I recently helped Bobby launch his new book The Power of the Invisible Sun which features a photo of Moise, his ball, and kids from war-torn areas around the world. All of his earnings go towards the HOPE IS A GAME-CHANGER PROJECT for the kids he visited over the past decade. They caught the emotional landscape from heartbreak to joy, but share the undeniable longing for recovery and hope.
Bobby and I share the unchangeable belief that delivering hope is really a game-changer, especially to a child. We believe that each indestructible ball will come to represent a lasting symbol of hope. A light no matter how small---The Power of the Invisible Sun.
This holiday season, I ask you to think about whether you are doing enough to help someone else in the world. Or as Bobby likes to put it, consider “taking a concrete baby step”, which added together, can create transformational change. It’s my great hope that the HOPE IS A GAME-CHANGER PROJECT will change the lives of children the world over --- one book, one ball at a time.In the first sentence of the passage, the writer implies that .
| A．kids live an unsafe life in parts of the world |
| B．the balls sent to kids should be of good quality |
| C．young kids can not overcome the difficulties |
| D．kids intend to break their toys into pieces |
The purpose of The HOPE IS A GAME-CHANGER PROJECT is to .
| A．send ball gifts to kids in poor countries |
| B．collect money to help kids in need |
| C．comfort kids in war-torn areas |
| D．offer kids help to change their lives |
How may Bobby feel about Mosie?
| A．He was very proud of Mosie’s bravery. |
| B．He felt sorry for Mosie’s ruined childhood. |
| C．He thought money could solve Mosie’s problem. |
| D．He felt happy to tell him what was in his heart. |
Which of the following about Bobby’s new book is TRUE?
| A．It earned a lot of money to help kids like Mosie. |
| B．The photos inside reflected the kids’ hopeless life. |
| C．Its title shows the author’s belief to change the world. |
| D．It changed the life of the kids recorded in the book. |
The underlined part in the last paragrph probably means .
| A．starting the first step as a baby does |
| B．taking an active action from now on |
| C．making great changes step by step |
| D．doing some small but good deeds |
I once had my Chinese MBA students brainstorming on “two-hour business plans”. I separated them into six groups and gave them an example: a restaurant chain. The more original their idea, the better, I said. Finally, five of the six groups presented plans for restaurant chains. The sixth proposed a catering(餐饮) service. Though I admitted the time limit had been difficult, I expressed my disappointment.
My students were middle managers, financial analysts and financiers from state-owned enterprises and global companies. They were not without talent or opinions, but they had been shaped by an educational system that rarely stressed or rewarded critical thinking or inventiveness. The scene I just described came in different forms during my two years’ teaching at the school. Papers were often copied from the Web and the Harvard Business Review. Case study debates were written up and just memorized. Students frequently said that copying is a superior business strategy, better than inventing and creating.
In China, every product you can imagine has been made and sold. But so few well-developed marketing and management minds have been raised that it will be a long time before most people in the world can name a Chinese brand.
With this problem in mind, partnerships with institutions like Yale and MIT have been established. And then there’s the “thousand-talent scheme”: this new government program is intended to improve technological modernization by attracting top foreign-trained scientists to the mainland with big money. But there are worries about China’s research environment. It's hardly known for producing independent thinking and openness, and even big salary offers may not be attractive enough to overcome this.
At last, for China, becoming a major world creator is not just about setting up partnerships with top Western universities. Nor is it about gathering a group of well-educated people and telling them to think creatively. It’s about establishing a rich learning environment for young minds. It’s not that simple.Why does the author feel disappointed at his students?
| A．Because there is one group presenting a catering service. |
| B．Because the six groups made projects for restaurant chains. |
| C．Because all the students copied a case for the difficult topic. |
| D．Because the students’ ideas were lacking in creativeness. |
Which of the following scenes is NOT considered as lack of creation?
| A．Papers were often downloaded from the Internet. |
| B．Students often said that copying is a preferable business strategy. |
| C．Students combine knowledge and critical thoughts to solve a problem. |
| D．Case study debates were written up as well as recited. |
The underlined word “scheme” in the forth paragraph means__________.
| A．timetable | B．theme | C．project | D．policy |
We can infer from the passage that ___________.
| A．China can make and sell any product all over the world |
| B．high pay may not solve the problem of China’s research environment |
| C．cooperation with institutions has been set up to make a Chinese brand |
| D．the new government program are aimed at encouraging imagination |
Which is the best title of the passage?
| A．Look for a New Way of Learning | B．Reward Creative Thinking |
| C．How to Become a Creator | D．Establish a technical Environment |
Can you believe your eyes? A recent experiment suggests that the answer to that question may depend on your age.
Martin Doherty, a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland, led the team of scientists. In this experiment, Doherty and his team tested the perception(观察力) of some people, using pictures of some orange circles. The researchers showed the same pictures to two groups of people. The first group included 151 children aged 4 to 10, and the second group included 24 adults aged 18 to 25.
The first group of pictures showed two circles alone on a white background. One of the circles was larger than the other, and these people were asked to identify the larger one. Four-year-olds identified the correct circle 79 percent of the time. Adults identified the correct circle 95 percent of the time.
Next, both groups were shown a picture where the orange circles, again of different sizes, were surrounded by gray circles. Here’s where the trick lies in. In some of the pictures, the smaller orange circle was surrounded by even smaller gray circles — making the orange circle appear larger than the other orange circle, which was the real larger one. And the larger orange circle was surrounded by even bigger gray circles — so it appeared to be smaller than the real smaller orange circle.
When young children aged 4 to 6 looked at these tricky pictures, they weren’t fooled — they were still able to find the bigger circle with roughly the same accuracy as before. Older children and adults, on the other hand, did not do as well. Older children often identified the smaller circle as the larger one, and adults got it wrong most of the time.
As children get older, Doherty said, their brains may develop the ability to identify visual context. In other words, they will begin to process the whole picture at once: the tricky gray circles, as well as the orange circle in the middle. As a result, they’re more likely to fall for this kind of visual trick.Doherty and his team of scientists did an experiment to evaluate .
| A．children’s and adults’ eye-sight |
| B．people’s ability to see accurately |
| C．children’s and adults’ brains |
| D．the influence of people’s age |
When asked to find the larger circle, .
| A．children at 6 got it wrong 79 % of the time with no gray ones around |
| B．only adults over 18 got it right 95% of the time with gray ones around |
| C．children at 4 got it right about 79 % of the time with gray ones around |
| D．adults got it right most of the time with gray ones around |
According to the passage, we can know that .
| A．a smaller orange circle appears bigger on a white background |
| B．an orange circle appears bigger than a gray one of the same size |
| C．a circle surrounded by other circles looks bigger than its real size |
| D．a circle surrounded by bigger ones looks smaller than its real size |
Visual context may work when children get older than .
| A．4 | B．6 | C．10 | D．18 |
Why are younger children not fooled?
| A．Because they are smarter than older children and adults. |
| B．Because older people are influenced by their experience. |
| C．Because people’s eyes become weaker as they grow older. |
| D．Because their brain can hardly notice related things together. |
阅读下面短文,并按照题目要求用英语回答问题.
Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart（购物手推车）. They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who it was that invented them.
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging（吃力地携带） groceries around in baskets they had to carry.
One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.
But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.
After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied.
But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony（假冒的） customers.
As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come—those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.
Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart.The underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to ______.
（No more than 3 words）What was the purpose of Goldman’s invention? （No more than 10 words）
Why was Goldman disappointed at first? （No more than 10 words）
Why did Goldman hire people to push carts around his market? （No more than 10 words）
What do you think of Goldman? Please give your reasons. （No more than 20 words）
The first time I remember noticing I remember noticing the crossing guard was when he waved to me as I drove my son to school. He1me with a puzzle ---- all because he waved to me like someone does2seeing a close friend. A big,3smile accompanied his wave. For the next few days I tried to4his face to see if I knew him. I didn't. Perhaps he had5me for someone else. By the time I contented myself with the6that he and I were strangers, we were greeting each other warmly every morning like old friends.
Then one day the7was solved. As I8the school he was standing in the middle of the road9his stop sign. I was in live behind four cars.10the kids had reached the safety of the sidewalk, he lowered his sign and let the cars11. To the first he waved and12in just the same way he had done to me over the last few days. The kids already had the window down and were happily waving their reply. The second car got the same13from the crossing guard, and the driver, a stiff-looking（表情刻板的） businessman, gave a brief, almost14wave back. Each following car of kids on their way to school15more heartily.
Every morning I continued to watch the man with16.So far I haven't seen anyone17to wave back. I find it interesting that one person can make such a（n）18to so many people's lives by doing one simple thing like waving and smiling warmly. His19armed the start of my day. With a friendly wave and smiling face he had changed the20of the whole neighbourhood.
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