I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed away.

I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom’s, but it also holds some bad memories.

You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now you never know what number it will ring.

When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing the hours count down really angered and frightened her.

Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours we had with her.

I took it to a local clock shop the other day.

“I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom’s and I need to get it fixed,” I said to the shop owner.

I went on to describe the problem.

“We get a lot of these in,” he told me. “Here’s what I do. We remove the clock works (機(jī)件) and replace it with a battery-operated movement (機(jī)芯) that chimes electronically,” he told me.

“You can’t fix this?”

“No, we don’t have the time nor the parts.”

I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing.

“How incredibly sad,” I told the last one disappointedly.

How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate (復(fù)制); we don’t originate (發(fā)明).

Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself.

Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to develop our own.

We are wannabes (崇拜別人的人) rather than hey-world-look-at-mes.

We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else.

1. Why did the author decide to get the clock fixed?

A．Because it was a really old and valuable clock.

B．Because it was the only thing that her mother had left her.

C．Because it brought her memories of being with her mother.

D．Because it left the author with mixed feelings.

2. What did the clock shop owners tell the author?

A．The parts that the clock needed were electronic.

B．It would cost a lot to repair the clock.

C．They had never repaired a clock like this before.

D．They could only make the clock electronic.

3. The author intends to ________.

A．criticize the irresponsible clock shop owners

B．criticize people who do not value things with a history

C．criticize people who do not have a creative attitude toward life

D．criticize people’s ignorance of traditional craftsmanship

請(qǐng)認(rèn)真閱讀短文，并根據(jù)所讀內(nèi)容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一個(gè)最恰當(dāng)?shù)膯卧~。每個(gè)空格只填一個(gè)單詞。
Back to School: Why Grit(毅力) Is More Important than Good Grades?
The back-to-school season is upon us, and once again, parents across the country have loaded their kids’ backpacks up with snack packs and school supplies. It’s a good moment to reflect on what else we should be giving our kids as they head off to school.
American parents are feeling particularly anxious about that question this year. The educational process feels more than ever like a race, one that starts in pre-school and doesn’t end until your child is admitted to the perfect college. Most parents are more worried than they need to be about their children’s grades, test scores and IQ. And what we don’t think about enough is how to help our children build their character—how to help them develop skills like perseverance, grit, optimism, conscientiousness, and self-control, which together do more to determine success than S.A.T. scores or I.Q.
There is growing evidence that our anxiety about our children’s school performance may actually be holding them back from learning some of these valuable skills. If you’re concerned only with a child’s G.P.A., then you will likely choose to minimize the challenges the child faces in school. With real challenge comes the risk of real failure. And in a competitive academic environment, the idea of failure can be very scary, to students and parents alike.
But experiencing failure is a critical part of building character. A recent research by a team of psychologists found that adults who had experienced little or no failure growing up were actually less happy and confident than those who had experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood. “Overcoming those obstacles,” the researchers assumed, “could teach effective coping skills, help engage social support networks, create a sense of mastery over past adversity, and foster beliefs in the ability to cope successfully in the future.”
By contrast, when we protect our children from every possible failure—when we call their teachers to get an extension on a paper; when we urge them to choose only those subjects they’re good at—we are denying them those same character-building experiences. As the psychologists Madeline Levine and Dan Kindlon have written, that can lead to difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood, when overprotected young people finally confront real problems on their own and don’t know how to overcome them.
In the classroom and outside of it, American parents need to encourage children to take chances, to challenge themselves, to risk failure. In the meantime, giving our kids room to fail may be one of the best ways we can help them succeed.

Why are so many people so afraid of failure? Quite simple because no one tells us how to fail so that failure becomes an experience that will lead to growth. We forget that failure is part of the human condition and that every person has the right to fail.

   Most parents work hard at either preventing failure or protecting their children from the knowledge that they have failed. One way is to lower standards. A mother describes her child’s hastily made table as “Perfect!” even though it doesn’t stand still. Another way is to shift(轉(zhuǎn)移)blame. If John fails science, his teacher is unfair or stupid.

   The trouble with failure prevention is that they leave a child unequipped for life in the real world. The young need to learn that no one can be best at everything, no one can win all the time and that it’s possible to enjoy a game even when you don’t win. A child who’s not invited to a birthday party, who doesn’t make the honour roll on the baseball team, feels terrible, of course. But parents should not offer a quick comfort, prize or say “It doesn’t matter.” because it does. The young should be allowed to experience disappointment and be helped to master it.

Failure is never pleasurable. It hurts grownups and children alike. But it can make a positive contribution to your life once you learn to use it. Step one is to ask “Why did it fail? Don’t blame someone else. Ask yourself what you did wrong, how you can improve. If someone else can help, don’t be shy about inquiring. Success, which encourages repetition of old behaviour, is not nearly as good a teacher as failure. You can learn from a bad party how to give a good one, from an ill-chosen first house what to look for in a second. Even a failure that seems definitive can cause fresh thinking, a change of direction. After twelve years of studying ballet, a friend of mine applied for a professional company. She asked. That ballet master shook his head. “You will never be a dancer,” he said,” you haven’t the body for it.”

In such cases, the way to use failure is to take stock bravely asking “What have I left? What else can I do?” My friend put away her shoes and moved into dance treatment center, a field where she’s both able and useful. Failure frees one to take risks because there’s less to lose. Often there is recovery of energy — a way to find new possibilities.

1.The first paragraph tells us ______.

  A. failure is very natural for every person

  B. the reason why we don’t know how to fail

  C. the reason why so many people are afraid of failure

  D. one should be ready to face failure at any time

2.How many preventions may parents use when a child fails according to the passage?

  A. only two  B. no more than three  C. less than three  D. more than three

3. Which statement below does the writer support?

  A. Failure is as good an experience as success.

  B. Failure is the mother of success.

  C. Failure is far from a good teacher like success.

  D. Definitive failure gives us nothing but fresh thinking.

4. We can learn from the last paragraph that _______.

  A. failure is the recovery of energy

  B. failure makes one free to do something dangerous

  C. failure should be forgotten in our life

  D. failure is likely to do us good in life

第三部分  閱讀理解（共20小題；每小題2分，滿分40分）

從A、B、C、D四個(gè)選項(xiàng)中，選出最佳選項(xiàng)。

    A group of graduates，highly established in their careers，got together to visit their old university professor．

    The conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and in life．offering his guests coffee，the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and a variety of cups——plastic，glass，crystal(水晶)，some plain—looking，some expensive，some fine——telling them to help themselves to the coffee．

    When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand，the professor said：“If you noticed，all the nice—looking，expensive cups were taken up，leaving behind the plain and cheap ones．While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves，that is the source of your problems and stress．”

    “What all of you really wanted was coffee，not the cup，but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other’s cups．”

    “Now consider this：Life is the coffee and the jabs，money and position in society are the cups.They are just tools to hold and contain life，and do not change the quality of life．Sometimes，by concentrating only on the cup，we fail to enjoy the coffee．So，don’t let the cups drive you．．．enjoy the coffee instead．”

56．Why did the conversation soon turn into complaints?

    A．Because there was no coffee to drink．

    B．Because there was nothing to talk about except complaints

    C．Because life was not easy for everyone．

    D．Because there was nothing better than to complain．

57．The professor brought in a variety of cups because            ．

    A．he was richer than his students

    B．he was fond of collecting cups

    C．there were too many people to drink coffee

    D．the cups would play an important part in his talk

58．In the author’s opinion           ．

    A．it is necessary to have a variety of cups to meet the needs of different guests

    B．one should concentrate on main things in life

    C．the students liked drinking coffee mole than anything else

    D．cups are more important than coffee

59．We can infer that        ．

    A．in our daily life most people want only the best for themselves

    B．coffee was as important as a cup

    C． a teacher should have a11 kinds of cups at home

    D．whether coffee is nice to drink depends on the cup

請(qǐng)認(rèn)真閱讀短文，并根據(jù)所讀內(nèi)容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一個(gè)最恰當(dāng)?shù)膯卧~。每個(gè)空格只填一個(gè)單詞。

Back to School: Why Grit(毅力) Is More Important than Good Grades?

The back-to-school season is upon us, and once again, parents across the country have loaded their kids’ backpacks up with snack packs and school supplies. It’s a good moment to reflect on what else we should be giving our kids as they head off to school.

American parents are feeling particularly anxious about that question this year. The educational process feels more than ever like a race, one that starts in pre-school and doesn’t end until your child is admitted to the perfect college. Most parents are more worried than they need to be about their children’s grades, test scores and IQ. And what we don’t think about enough is how to help our children build their character—how to help them develop skills like perseverance, grit, optimism, conscientiousness, and self-control, which together do more to determine success than S.A.T. scores or I.Q.

There is growing evidence that our anxiety about our children’s school performance may actually be holding them back from learning some of these valuable skills. If you’re concerned only with a child’s G.P.A., then you will likely choose to minimize the challenges the child faces in school. With real challenge comes the risk of real failure. And in a competitive academic environment, the idea of failure can be very scary, to students and parents alike.

But experiencing failure is a critical part of building character. A recent research by a team of psychologists found that adults who had experienced little or no failure growing up were actually less happy and confident than those who had experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood. “Overcoming those obstacles,” the researchers assumed, “could teach effective coping skills, help engage social support networks, create a sense of mastery over past adversity, and foster beliefs in the ability to cope successfully in the future.”

By contrast, when we protect our children from every possible failure—when we call their teachers to get an extension on a paper; when we urge them to choose only those subjects they’re good at—we are denying them those same character-building experiences. As the psychologists Madeline Levine and Dan Kindlon have written, that can lead to difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood, when overprotected young people finally confront real problems on their own and don’t know how to overcome them.

In the classroom and outside of it, American parents need to encourage children to take chances, to challenge themselves, to risk failure. In the meantime, giving our kids room to fail may be one of the best ways we can help them succeed.

       Back to School: Why Grit Is More Important than Good Grades?

Common phenomena       ◆Parents throughout America(1)     their kids’ backpacks up with snacks and school supplies.

                       ◆Many American parents don’t(2)    enough importance to their kids’ character building.

The writer’s(3)             ◆Parents should pay more attention to their kids’ character building.

(4)    and research findings   ◆Parents’ anxiety about their kids’ performance may(5)                        them from learning some valuable skills.

                       ◆Parents concerned only with a kid’s G.P.A. are (6)    to minimize the challenges the child faces.

                       ◆Adults who have experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood are (7)    and more confident than those who haven’t.

                       ◆Denying kids character-building experiences can(8)    in difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood.

The writer’s suggestions    ◆(9)    kids to be risk-takers.

                       ◆Give kids room to experience(10)    .