信息匹配 Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on your Answer Sheet. The Perfect Essay A) Looking back on too many years of education, I can identify one truly impossible teacher. She cared about me, and my intellectual life, even when I didn’t. Her expectations were high impossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my mother. B) When good students turn in an essay, they dream of their instructor returning it to them in exactly the same condition, save for a single word added in the margin of the final page: ”Flawless.” This dream came true for me one afternoon in the ninth grade. Of course, I had heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I was only slightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at the tender age of14. Obviously, I did what any professional writer would do; I hurried off to spread the good news. I didn’t get very far. The first person I told was my mother. C) My mother, who is just shy of five feet tall, is normally incredibly soft-spoken, but on the rare occasion when she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if she was more upset by my hubris(得意忘形) or by the fact that my English teacher had let my ego get so out of hand. In any event, my mother and her red pen showed me how deeply flawed a flawless essay could be. At the time, I am sure she thought she was teaching me about mechanics, transitions(过渡), structure, style and voice. But what I learned, and what stuck with me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a deeper lesson about the nature of creative criticism. D) Fist off, it hurts. Genuine criticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as a writer, also leaves an existential imprint(印记) on you as a person. I have heard people say that a writer should never take criticism personally. I say that we should never listen to these people. E) Criticism, at its best, is deeply personal, and gets to the heart of why we write the way we do. The intimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able to give it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your mental life is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they are also the people who care enough to see you through this painful realization. For me it took the form of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block—I was not able to produce anything for three years. F) Franz Kafka once said:” Writing is utter solitude(独处), the descent into the cold abyss(深渊) of oneself. “My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the cold abyss, and when you make the introspective (内省的) decent that writing requires you are out always pleased by what you find.” But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutoring suggested that Kafka might be wrong about the solitude. I was lucky enough to find a critic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of writing with me. “It is a thing of no great difficulty,” according to Plutarch, “to raise objections against another man’s speech, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I am sure I wrote essays in the later years of high school without my mother’s guidance, but I can’t recall them. What I remember, however, is how we took up the “extremely troublesome” work of ongoing criticism. G) There are two ways to interpret Plutarch when he suggests that a critic should be able to produce “a better in its place.” In a straightforward sense, he could mean that a critic must be more talented than the artist she critiques(评论). My mother was well covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch is suggesting something slightly different, something a bit closer to Marcus Cicero’s claim that one should “criticize by creation, not by finding fault.” Genuine criticism creates a precious opening for an author to become better on this own terms—a process that is often extremely painful, but also almost always meaningful. H) My mother said she would help me with my writing, but fist I had myself. For each assignment, I was write the best essay I could. Real criticism is not meant to find obvious mistakes, so if she found any—the type I could have found on my own—I had to start from scratch. From scratch. Once the essay was “flawless,” she would take an evening to walk me through my errors. That was when true criticism, the type that changed me as a person, began. I) She criticized me when I included little-known references and professional jargon(行话). She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures of speech. “Writers can’t bluff(虚张声势) their way through ignorance.” That was news to me—I would need to find another way to structure my daily existence. J) She trimmed back my flowery language, drew lines through my exclamation marks and argued for the value of restraint in expression. “John,” she almost whispered. I learned in to hear her: “I can’t hear you when you shout at me.” So I stopped shouting and bluffing, and slowly my writing improved. K) Somewhere along the way I set aside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed something important in my mother’s lessons about creativity and perfection. Perhaps the point of writing the flawless essay was not to give up, but to never willingly finish. Whitman repeatedly reworded “Song of Myself” between 1855 and 1891.Repeatedly. We do our absolute best wiry a piece of writing, and come as close as we can to the ideal. And, for the time being, we settle. In critique, however, we are forced to depart, to give up the perfection we thought we had achieved for the chance of being even a little bit better. This is the lesson I took from my mother. If perfection were possible, it would not be motivating. 1. The author was advised against the improper use of figures of speech. 2. The author’s mother taught him a valuable lesson by pointing out lots of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay. 3. A writer should polish his writing repeatedly so as to get closer to perfection. 4. Writers may experience periods of time in their life when they just can’t produce anything. 5. The author was not much surprised when his school teacher marked his essay as “flawless”. 6. Criticizing someone’s speech is said to be easier than coming up with a better one. 7. The author looks upon his mother as his most demanding and caring instructor. 8. The criticism the author received from his mother changed him as a person. 9. The author gradually improved his writing by avoiding fact language. 10. Constructive criticism gives an author a good start to improve his writing.
举一反三
- When I was born, my grandfather 1) ________(name) me after a rich man who was famous during his time, and 2)______ (tell) me that all my life, I would love my name. When I 3) _____(be) in elementary school, my teachers only called me by my last name. When I was seven, my father 4)______ (give) me an English name, but I didn’t like my new name — it 5) _______(sound) very strange to me. When I was nine years old, my father 6) ______(change) my English name. I’ve recently changed my name again because I 7) ______ (get) married. To be honest, I would really like a name that expresses my dreams better. Maybe in the future I 8) ______(change) my name again.
- I had been sitting by myself in my usual compartment (车厢) for at least ten minutes, waiting for the train to start. The trains from Brighton never seemed to start on time and I often thought that I could have lain in bed a little longer or had another cup of tea before leaving home. Suddenly I heard someone shouting on the platform outside. A young girl was running towards the train. The man on duty put out his hand to stop her but she ran past him and opened the door of my compartment. Then the whistle blew and the train started. “I nearly missed it, didn’t I?” the girl said, “How long does it take to get to London?” “It depends on the engine driver,” I said. “Some days it’s much slower than others.” “I’ll have to have my watch repaired so as not to be late again tomorrow,” she said. “Today is my first day to work with a new firm and they told me that the man I’ m going to work for is very strict. I haven’t met him yet so I don’t know what he is like, but he sounds a bit of frightening to me.” She talked about her new job on the way to London and soon I realized that she was going to work for my firm. My own secretary had just left so I must be her new boss. It was only fair to tell her. “Oh, dear,” she said. “What a terrible mistake! I wish I had known.” “Never mind,” I said. “At least you’ll know that when your train’s late, mine will be too.”
- Daddy and I met 20 years ago. Back then, I thought I needed someone who met all of the items on my "checklist" and your dad met none of those items. We were friends, but I was too silly to give in to the idea of being more. One very hot and wet day, after having told your dad the night before that I needed a couch for my apartment, he showed up at my door. A neighbor of his was throwing away their couch and he not only asked for it for me, but also carried it (a full couch), by himself, and drove it to me and carried it, by himself, up two flights of stairs to my apartment. When he got to my door, he was proud, but also nervous as if he had gone too far and a bit embarrassed as he was sweaty, and worried I'd hate it (because, frankly, that couch was being thrown away for a reason). Luckily for me, it was the first time that I actually was smart enough to look into his eyes and see something that I had failed to realize. And it was of the utmost importance to me, and that was a deep kindness. I fell in love with him in that moment on a passage of an apartment building in Virginia and have never looked back. We aren't a perfect couple, because, my kid, there isn't such a thing. But we work hard to stay in love. Your dad shows me every single day that there is nothing more important to him than the two of you and me. Like the way he can't wait to teach you something new when you ask a question. Or the way he supports my career, my interests, my activities and me with all that he has. I hope that you will find love and friendship as amazing and wonderful as what Daddy and I have. It makes all the difference in the world.
- 中国大学MOOC: Dear Mom,Thanks for having me over last weekend to continue our discussion. I think we are close to an understanding, but I’m still a bit discouraged by your response. Even though you didn’t come right out and say it, you let me know just how you feel. I know how much you want me to be an independent adult, living on my own. I’m working toward this goal but need to move home for a while. It seems that Dad and Sheila welcome the idea, but I have to convince you. So here goes.First, you still need a lot of help around the house, and you know me: Housework is my favorite pastime. Dad and Sheila are such slobs, and you spend a lot of time cleaning up after them that you could be using for something more interesting. What about that drawing class you always talk about? Take it! Let me keep house! I might even be able to teach Dad and Sis to pick up after themselves for a change.Second, since I got my new job, I can help with the budget. I won’t be paying $850 a month to rent an apartment, so I’d be glad to give half that amount to you and Dad as rent. I could also buy my own food or give you a percentage toward your grocery bill. If I do contribute in these ways, I could still save close to $600 every month so that I can start college in the fall of next year. Since your house is close to my job, I could walk to work and save the gas money, which is killing me right now.Third, I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, and furthermore, I don’t want one for a long time to come. You won’t have to worry about my relationships this year. As I told you this weekend, I need to get serious about my future and get ready to go to school.Despite these huge advantages, I know you’ll say the same old thing: “Lisa, you’re 34. When are you going to settle down on your own and stop moving back home? This is the sixth time in 10 years.” The point, Mom, is that this time I’m preparing for the future. I think I’m finally growing up and realizing what it takes. This will be the last time—I promise. Just think: When I go off to college, Sheila will be a high school graduate, and we can go to school together. You and Dad will finally be empty nesters. Won’t that be fun? Please give it some more thought, Mom. How can you say no?Love,Lisa
- __________I didn’t know,and __________my brother had kept from me, was that our mother passed away when I was studying abroad.