Without an oversized calendar tacked to their kitchen wall, Fern Reiss and her family could never keep track of all the meetings, appointments, home-schooling lessons, and activities that fill their busy days. "I’m not sure they make a calendar large enough for us," says Ms. Reiss of Newton, Mass. , explaining that her life revolves around "two companies, three children, a spouse, a lot of community involvement, a social life, the kids’ social life, and volunteering in a soup kitchen every week." "Everybody we know is leading a frenetic life," she adds. "Ours is frenetic, too, but we’re spending the bulk of our time with our kids. Even though we’re having a crazy life, we’re having it in the right way."
Although extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed attention from researchers. "A good life has to do with life having a direction, life having a narrative with the stories we tel1 ourselves," Chuck Darrah, an anthropologist, says. "Busyness fragments all that. We’re absolutely focused on getting through the next hour, the next day, the next week. It does raise questions: If not busyness, what If we weren’t so Busy, what would we be doing If people weren’t so busy, would they be a poet, a painter"
For the Reisses, part of living a good life, however busy, means including the couple’s children in volunteer work and community activities. "We want the kids to see that that’s a priority," she says,
Between working full time as a publicist, caring for her home, spending time with her husband and extended family, and helping her grandmother three times a week, a woman .says, "I am exhaust- ed all the time." Like others, she concedes that she sets "somewhat unrealistic expectations" for what she can accomplish in a day,
Being realistic is a goal Darrah encourages, saying, "We can do everything, but we can’t do everything well and at the same time." He cautions that busyness can result in "poor decisions, sloppy quality, and neglect of the things and people that matter most in the long run." He advises: "Stop taking on so much, and keep in perspective what’s most important to you." Darrah’s own schedule re- mains full, but he insists he does not feel busy. His secret Confining activities to things he must do and those he wants to do. He and his wife do not overschedule their children. To those with one eye on the calendar and the other on the deck, Darrah offers this advice: "Before you take anything on, ask yourself: Do you have to do this Do you want to do this Live with a kind of mindfulness so you don’t wake up and discover that your life is a whirl of transportation and communication, and you’ve hollowed yourself out./
What does the author mean by saying "If people weren’t so busy, would they be a poet, a painter"

A:It will take pains to become an artist as poet or painter. B:Life will become tedious if people are not so busy. C:Poets and painters are usually considered to be idle. D:People may fulfill their personal dreams if not so busy.

The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands of visitors in Hamburg and The Hague, may come as a surprise to many. Few outside the Nordic world would recognise the work of this Finnish artist who died in 1946． More people should.
The 120 works have at their core 20 self-portraits, half the number she painted in all. The first, dated 1880, is of a wide-eyed teenager eager to absorb everything. The last is a sighting of the artist’s ghost-to-be; Schjerfbeck died the year after it was made. Together this series is among the most moving and accomplished autobiographies-in-paint.
Precociously gifted, Schjerfbeck was 11 when she entered the Finnish Art Society’s drawing school. "The Wounded Warrior in the Snow", a history painting, was bought by a private collector and won her a state travel grant when she was 17．Schjerfbeck studied in Paris, went on to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where she painted for a year, then to Tuscany, Cornwall and St Petersburg.
During her 1887 visit to St Ives, Cornwall, Schjerfbeck painted "The Convalescent". A child wrapped in a blanket sits propped up in a large wicker chair, toying with a sprig. The picture won a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and was bought by the Finnish Art Society. To a modern eye it seems almost sentimental and is redeemed only by the somewhat stunned, melancholy expression on the child’s face, which may have been inspired by Schjerfbeck’s early experiences. At four, she fell down a flight of steps and never fully recovered.
In 1890, Schjerfbeck settled in Finland. Teaching exhausted her, she did not like the work of other local painters, and she was further isolated when she took on the care of her mother (who lived until 1923). "If I allow myself the freedom to live a secluded life", she wrote, "then it is because it has to be that way. " In 1902, Scherfbeck and her mother settled in the small, industrial town of Hyvinkaa, 50 kilometers north of Hetsinki.
Isolation had one desired effect for it was there that Schjerfbeck became a modern painter. She produced still lives and landscapes but above all moody yet incisive portraits of her mother, local school girls, women workers in town (profiles of a pensive, aristocratic looking seamstress dressed in black stand out ). And of course she painted herself. Comparisons have been made with James McNeill Whistler and Edvard Munch. But from 1905, her pictures became pure Schjerfbeck.
"I have always searched for the dense depths of the soul, that have not yet discovered themselves", she wrote, "where everything is still unconscious-there one can make the greatest discoveries. " She experimented with different kinds of underpainting, scraped and rubbed, made bright rosy red spots; doing whatever had to be done to capture the subconscious-her own and that of her models.
In 1913, Schjerfbeck was rediscovered by an art dealer and journalist, Gosta Stenman. Once again she was a success. Retrospectives, touring exhibitions and a biography followed, yet Schjerfbeck remained little known outside Scandinavia. Th_at may have had something to do with her indifference to her renown. "I am nothing, absolutely nothing", she wrote. "All I want to do is paint". Schjerfbeck was possessed of a unique vision, and it is time the world recognised that.
What does "More people should" in the first paragraph mean

A:More people should be able to recognise the work. B:More people will not be able to recognise the painter. C:More people should go to the exhibition. D:More people should know the painter is Finnish.

Without an oversized calendar tacked to their kitchen wall, Fern Reiss and her family could never keep track of all the meetings, appointments, home-schooling lessons, and activities that fill their busy days. "I’m not sure they make a calendar large enough for us," says Ms. Reiss of Newton, Mass. , explaining that her life revolves around "two companies, three children, a spouse, a lot of community involvement, a social life, the kids’ social life, and volunteering in a soup kitchen every week." "Everybody we know is leading a frenetic life," she adds. "Ours is frenetic, too, but we’re spending the bulk of our time with our kids. Even though we’re having a crazy life, we’re having it in the right way."
Although extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed attention from researchers. "A good life has to do with life having a direction, life having a narrative with the stories we tel1 ourselves," Chuck Darrah, an anthropologist, says. "Busyness fragments all that. We’re absolutely focused on getting through the next hour, the next day, the next week. It does raise questions: If not busyness, what If we weren’t so Busy, what would we be doing If people weren’t so busy, would they be a poet, a painter"
For the Reisses, part of living a good life, however busy, means including the couple’s children in volunteer work and community activities. "We want the kids to see that that’s a priority," she says,
Between working full time as a publicist, caring for her home, spending time with her husband and extended family, and helping her grandmother three times a week, a woman .says, "I am exhaust- ed all the time." Like others, she concedes that she sets "somewhat unrealistic expectations" for what she can accomplish in a day,
Being realistic is a goal Darrah encourages, saying, "We can do everything, but we can’t do everything well and at the same time." He cautions that busyness can result in "poor decisions, sloppy quality, and neglect of the things and people that matter most in the long run." He advises: "Stop taking on so much, and keep in perspective what’s most important to you." Darrah’s own schedule re- mains full, but he insists he does not feel busy. His secret Confining activities to things he must do and those he wants to do. He and his wife do not overschedule their children. To those with one eye on the calendar and the other on the deck, Darrah offers this advice: "Before you take anything on, ask yourself: Do you have to do this Do you want to do this Live with a kind of mindfulness so you don’t wake up and discover that your life is a whirl of transportation and communication, and you’ve hollowed yourself out."

What does the author mean by saying "If people weren’t so busy, would they be a poet, a painter"（）

A:It will take pains to become an artist as poet or painter. B:Life will become tedious if people are not so busy. C:Poets and painters are usually considered to be idle. D:People may fulfill their personal dreams if not so busy.

Text 2

What does "More people should" in the first paragraph mean

A:More people should be able to recognise the work. B:More people will not be able to recognise the painter. C:More people should go to the exhibition. D:More people should know the painter is Finnish.

Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something which has not been said before. He hopes the public will listen and understand—he wants to teach them, and he wants them to learn from him.
What visual artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experiences into shapes and colors, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions possible, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular shapes and colors, or have felt the delight which they brought to the artist.
Most artists take their shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and repose (安息); their choices indicate that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Contemporary artists might say that they merely choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without reference to the character of their subjects.
If one painter chooses to paint a gangrenous (坏疽) leg and another a lake in moonlight. Each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world, each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something—all of which means that, consciously or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.

It is hard to explain what a painter is saying, because （　）

A:most painters do not express themselves well B:a painter uses unusual words and phrases C:a painter uses shapes and colors instead of words D:many painters do not say anything

Van Gogh was （） painter at that time.

A:the unique B:a more unique C:a unique D:a better unique

Van Gogh was ______ painter at that time.

A:the unique B:a more unique C:a unique D:a better unique

Van Gogh was ______ painter at that time.

A:the unique B:a more unique C:a unique D:a better unique