阅读理解
"You know, these cups bring to mind a tea quote (说法) I heard. " Mary's aunt said.
She poured tea. There were four of them and there were four totally different cups on the table. They
grabbed their tea cups.
"What quote?" Mary asked.
"Well, maybe I should rather say it is a story," Aunt said, "I heard there was this wise teacher who
took all his students for tea. They were surprised that all the cups on the table were different. They all
took a cup and started drinking their tea, each looking at the cups of others. The teacher let them do that
for a while and then said: "Do you notice your behaviors? You are all looking at each other's tea cup and
I can see some of you with the chipped (残缺的) ones are even envious of the finer cups of others. Is
this not so?" The students agreed, amused by their own behaviors.
"You may have wondered why you all had different cups, but I put them here on purpose. You see —
they represent life itself. Life is, like that tea — and the cups are like the physical circumstances of your
life. You all got the same thing in your cup — tea. And yet you cannot truly enjoy it in your envy of
another's cup. It's just the same with life. You forget to enjoy your own life when you concentrate on
envying the circumstances of someone else's life.
So now, close your eyes, and taste your own tea. Really taste it. And tell me — Did it matter from
which cup it came?"
Aunt finished telling her short tea story and they all sat in silence for a while, savoring (品味) their tea. A sleepy fly buzzed past; a bird sang in the tree. And it really did not matter one bit from which tea cup
they drank.
1. When the students found that they had different tea cups, they ______.
A. were satisfied with their own cups
B. were angry about the chipped cups they had been given
C. asked the teacher to get new cups for them
D. were curious about the difference between the cups
2. From the text, we can conclude that ______.
A. the teacher prepared different tea cups for each student
B. the teacher should have given the students the same tea cups
C. the chipped tea cups were actually made of better materials
D. each student took their rime to choose a cup they liked
3. By comparing the cups to the physical circumstances of people's lives, the teacher meant that people
______.
A. shouldn't focus on the physical circumstances only
B. can't change their physical circumstances
C. should try different ways of life
D. should always be prepared for strange things in life
4. The teacher's message to the students was that ______.
A. life is actually hard and boring for everyone
B. it is natural to be envious of the lives of others
C. everyone should learn to enjoy life
D. people act differently in different circumstances
