出自:山东第一医科大学2022年下半年英语2（本）在线考试
“... The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty...It gave me one big advantage: none of my troubles or problems as an adult could throw me.”
Sophia Loren was born in a charity ward for unmarried women in Rome in 1934. Her father Riccardo Scicolone officially recognized the child, but refused to marry the mother. Though her mother had a hard time raising her, Loren still has vivid memories of her younger years. “When I was a child, fear was common to my life — fear of having nothing to eat, fear of other children taunting me at school because I was illegitimate (私生的), and particularly fear of the big bombers appearing overhead and dropping their deadly burst from the sky.”
Loren was a very young girl, when she saw the first Hollywood films. “I was filled with the feeling that that’s what I was put on earth to do, to act, to let out whatever feelings I had inside.”
However, it took a long time before Sophia was offered her first role in a film. She failed the screen tests one after the other, and it seemed as if there was no way for her to become an actress. What the cameramen could not see at first, was that her inner beauty made her stunning. Remembering the difficulties of the early days of her career, Sophia said, “I was so boldly confident about myself... I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I would get to wherever I was destined to go and try to alter my fate.”
Sophia’s acting career began at the age of eighteen in 1952 with her role in a film “ Africa Under the Seas”. The film did not make a sensation, but did give a good start to the young actress. The dream of a skinny little girl, sitting in a dark movie house, was finally to come true.（10分）
Many students believe that math is an inherited ability—either they have the math gene, or they don’t. but a recent research shows that inborn talent might not be as important as we think. In the long run, the most successful students are often those who work the hardest, not those with the highest IQ’s. These students believe that perseverance, not an innate gift, is the key to achievement. In her book Mindset, The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck argues that a positive mindset is what makes some students push themselves when others give up. Students with a “fixed” mindset believe that they were born with a certain set of talents. They see challenges as a sign that they’ve reached the limit on their potential, and view challenges as a chance to learn and improve. They know that their intelligence can be built through experience and effort, and are not held back by the idea of inborn restrictions. Geoff Colvin delivers a similar message in his book, Talent Is Overrated. He demonstrates that success is almost always the result of what he calls “deliberate practice”, a concentrated effort to improve one’s skills through focused effort. Inborn talent might make a difference when a subject is first tackled, but years later it’s the hard workers who are the most successful. Math teacher Kim Callan agrees: “It is rare for a hard-working student to fail my class.”
Having the right mindset is critical to success. Children need to believe in their ability to overcome challenges through concentrated effort. If you place your child in the right math class and encourage her to work hard, there’s no limit to what she will be able to accomplish.（10分）
The aim of the teacher is to get his pupils as quickly as possible over the period in which each printed symbol is looked at for its shape, and arrive at the stage when the pupil looks at words and phrases, for their meaning, almost without noticing the shapes of the separate letters.When a good reader is at work he does not look at letters, nor even at words, one by one however quickly; he takes in the meaning of two, three, or four words at a time, in a single moment. Watch carefully the eyes of a person who is reading, and it will be seen that they do not travel smoothly along the lines of print, but they move by jumps separated by very short stops. The eyes of a very good reader move quickly, taking long jumps and making very short halts (停顿); the eyes of a poor reader move more slowly, taking only short jumps and stopping longer at each halt. Sometimes, when he meets a difficulty, he even goes backwards to see again what has already been looked at once.The teacher’s task is therefore clear: it is to train his pupils to take in several words at a glance (one eye-jump’) and to remove the necessity for going backwards to read something a second time.This shows at once that letter-by-letter, or syllable-by-syllable, or word-by-word reading, with the finger pointing to the word, carefully fixing each one in turn, is wrong. It is wrong because such a method ties the pupil’s eyes down to a very short jump, and the aim is to train for the long jump. Moreover, a very short jump is too short to provide any meaning or sense; and it will be found that having struggled with three or four words separately, the pupil has to look at them again, all together and in one group, in order to get the meaning of the whole phrase.（10分）
In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopt and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic—and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No. 3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.You can imagine how fully occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8. Our home was a complete zoo — a joyous zoo. Not surprising, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree！
I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you’re looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you’re in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won’t arrive in your life on one day. It’s a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.（10分）
Grandma Moses is among the most famous twentieth-century painters of the United States, yet she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said of herself：” I would never sit back in a rocking chair, waiting for someone to help me.” No one could have had a more productive old age.
She was born Anna Mary Robertson on a farm in New York State, one of five boys and five girls. At twelve she left home and was in domestic(家庭的) service until, at twenty—seven, she married Thomas Moses, the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of their lives, first in Virginia and then in New York State, at Eagle Bridge. She had ten children , of whom five survived ; her husband died in 1927.
Grandma Moses painted a little as a child and made embroidery (刺绣) pictures as a hobby, but only changed to oils in old age because her hands had become too stiff (硬的) to sew and she wanted to keep busy and pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the local drugstore(杂货店) and at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought everything she painted . Three of the pictures exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1940 she had her first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930’s and her death she produced some 2,000 pictures： detailed (详细的)and lively portrayals(描绘) of the country life she had known for so long, with a wonderful sense of color and form. “I think really hard till I think of something really pretty, and then I paint it.” she said.（10分）
In looking back over the past 18 years as my son grew up, I find it interesting to think about the process of maturation. When my son was a baby, he looked up to my wife and me as the all-powerful, all-knowing sources of the necessities of his life. I expect that this sort of attitude is instinctive in any species, a natural outgrowth of the process known as “imprinting”. While he was growing up, I made every effort to live up to the trust he put in me, giving him all the training I could think of for handling life in this complex, heartless world -- just as any loving parent ought to do. One of the hardest parts of this progress for me was the fact that I was viewed by my son as something like a god. For the first several years, most of what I said was accepted as laws. Still, I tried to keep in mind that I had a goal to reach: helping my son become a man capable of handling life on his own by the time he reached college age. With this goal in mind, I made efforts to help him learn how to think for himself. It wasn.t an easy task, and there were many times when I found myself being upset that my child didn’t think or act independently. Still, I managed to keep my reactions under control most of the time. In the last year of high school, he wanted to be increasingly independent and moved out. This put me into a dilemma: while I knew I should start letting him go, I found myself instead wanting to turn back the clock, to regain the control and absolute trust I had got used to when he was younger. There were conflicts over the breaking of rules, as one would pretty much expect when dealing with a teenager. In some cases, these conflicts were unavoidable, as I could see my son moving on a path that I know would be right. Overall, I think we have gone through the process of maturation successfully. The most important part of this is that he is not dependent upon his parents for the basic ability to make decisions and get along in life.（10分）
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is the traditional code of conduct associated with the medieval institution of knighthood. Chivalry arose from an idealized German custom. It was originally conceived of as an aristocratic warrior code — the term derives from the French term “chevalerie”, meaning horse soldiery — involving gallantry, and individual training and service to others. Over time its meaning has been refined to emphasize more ideals such as the knightly virtues of honor, courtly love, courtesy, and less martial aspects of the tradition. The Knight.s Code of Chivalry was a moral system that stated all knights should protect others who cannot protect themselves, such as widows, children, and elders. All knights needed to have the strength and skills to fight wars in the Middle Ages; they not only had to be strong but they were also extremely disciplined and were expected to use their power to protect the weak and defenseless. Knights vowed to be loyal, generous, and "of noble bearing". Knights were required to tell the truth at all times and always respect the honor of women. Knights not only vowed to protect the weak but also vowed to guard the honor of all fellow knights. They always had to obey those who were placed in authority and were never allowed to refuse a challenge from an equal. Knights lived by honor and for glory. Knights were to fear God and maintain His Church. Knights always kept their faith and never turned their back on a foe. Knights despised pecuniary reward. They persevered to the end in any enterprise begun. Historian Johan Huizinga remarks in his book The Waning of the Middle Ages, "The source of the chivalrous idea is pride aspiring to beauty, and formalized pride gives rise to a conception of honor, which is the pole of noble life."
In the 19th century, there were attempts to "revive" chivalry for the purposes of the gentleman of that time. Kenelm Henry Digby writes his The Broad-Stone of Honour for this purpose, offering the definition: “Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.”
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The year was 1932. Amelia Earhart was flying alone from North America to England in a small single—engine aeroplane. At midnight, several hours after she had left Newfoundland, she ran into bad weather. To make things worse, her altimeter (高度表) failed and she didn’t know how high she was flying. At night, and in a storm, a pilot is in great difficulty without an altimeter. At times, her plane nearly plunged (冲) into the sea.Just before dawn, there was further trouble. Amelia noticed flames coming from the engine. Would she be able to reach land? There was nothing to do except to keep going and to hope.In the end, Amelia Earhart did reach Ireland, and for the courage she had shown, she was warmly welcomed in England and Europe. When she returned to the United States, she was honored by President Hoover at a special dinner in the White House. From that time on, Amelia Earhart was famous.What was so important about her flight? Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean alone, and she had set a record of fourteen hours and fifty—six minutes.In the years that followed, Amelia Earhart made several flights across the United States, and on each occasion (时刻) she set a new record for flying time. Amelia Earhart made these flights to show that women had a place in aviation (航空) and that air travel was useful.（10分）
An idea that started in Seattle’s public library has spread throughout America and beyond. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as promoting reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools.The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched (发起）the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.In Chicago, the mayor (市长）appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program. As a result, reading clubs and neighborhood groups sprang up around the city.Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity can be achieved. Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.Ultimately as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process, or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.（10分）
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March 3, 1847. When he was only eleven years old, he invented a machine that could clean wheat. Graham studied anatomy and physiology at the University of London, but moved with his family to Quebec, Canada in 1870. Bell soon moved to Boston, Massachusetts. In 1871, he began working with deaf people and published the system of Visible Hearing that was developed by his father. Visible Hearing illustrated how the tongue, lips, and throat are used to produce vocal sounds. In 1872, Bell founded a school for the deaf which soon became part of Boston University. Alexander Graham Bell is best known for his invention of the telephone. While trying to discover the secret of transmitting multiple messages on a single wire, Bell heard the sound of a plucked string along some of the electrical wire. One of Bell.s assistants, Thomas A. Watson, was trying to reactivate a telephone transmitter. After hearing the sound, Bell believed he could send the sound of a human voice over the wire. After receiving a patent on March 7, 1876 for transmitting sound along a single wire, he successfully transmitted human speech on March 10. Bell.s telephone patent was one of the most valuable patents ever issued. He started the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Bell went on to invent a precursor to the modern day air conditioner, and a device called a “photophone” that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light and on which today.s fiber optic and laser communication systems are based. In 1898, Alexander Graham Bell and his son-in law took over the National Geographic Society and built it into one of the most recognized magazines in the world. Bell also helped found Science Magazine, one of the most respected research journals in the world. Alexander Graham Bell died August 2, 1922. On the day of his burial, in honor of Bell, all telephone services in the United States were stopped for one minute.（10分）
Long before the first Europeans arrived in America, a strange looking animal lived on the western plains. It looked somewhat like a water buffalo. It had a hump like a camel and a mane(鬃)like a lion. It preferred to eat the rich grass of the plains. The official name of the strange animal is the American Bison. However, nearly everyone calls it a buffalo.In the early days, millions of buffalo moved freely across the continent. They were powerful animals and ran with great speed. The Indians hunted them for food and clothing.In the 19th century, white men hunted the bison for their skins. They seldom killed the bison for meat. One famous frontiersman, however, Buffalo Bill Cody hunted buffalo for meat. The railroads used the meat to feed their workers.The American buffalo could run at a speed of almost 75 kilometers an hour. He was difficult to hurt because he was always for a fight. There were times when five or six bullets would not kill him, and buffalo hunters sometimes had a lot of trouble killing the animal. The buffaloes were hard to control and the hunters would get confused or feel helpless. Finally, in the west the expression, to buffalo, came to mean to make one helpless or to confuse and trick.It is still used today. When a person has you “buffaloed”, he has you in his power. You’re helpless!
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Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson in the back of a New York City taxi cab．Here’s what happened．I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station．We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us．My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car’s back end by just inches! The driver of the other car, who almost caused a big accident, started yelling bad words at us．My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy．And I mean he was friendly．So, I said, “Why did you just do that？This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital！” And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call “The Law of the Garbage Truck．” Many people are like garbage （rubbish） trucks．They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment．As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it．And if you let them, they will dump it on you．When someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally．You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on．You will be happy with what you did． I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets? It was that day. I said, “I’m not going to do anymore．” Successful people do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day．What about you? If you let more garbage trucks pass you by, you will be happier．Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets．So, Love the people who treat you right．Forget about the ones who don’t．
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