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【阅读理解】Reading: Four Attempts
At 2:14 a.m., the bus stopped at a checkpoint near Dongguan, and the driver switched off the engine.
Beside me sat Lin Yue, a twenty-nine-year-old quality inspector who had just finished an eleven-hour shift checking capacitors.
Her phone showed fourteen missed calls from her mother, but she did not call back.
Lin left her village in Hunan in 2016, at nineteen, with 1,200 yuan.
A recruiter had promised easy money and a clean dormitory; the reality was noise, overtime, and a room whose walls seemed to close in.
Her older brother, Lin Wei, a forklift operator, told her the job was a hurdle, not a home.
The company put names on a whiteboard and let bonuses rise and fall with output.
A supervisor would condemn anyone who fell below quota.
Lin saved 23,000 yuan in two years, but she wanted assurance that her effort meant something.
In 2019, a foreign client's audit required a process the workers called the inversion: night-shift workers had to pretend they were on the day shift.
Lin refused to lie, and the supervisor threatened to notify her family and accuse her of theft.
She quit in March 2020, three weeks before the borders closed.
Jobs evaporated, and she moved to Shenzhen, living in a room so small she could touch both walls.
She began to study English with Mr. Feng, a sixty-seven-year-old retired consulate translator who was discourteous in a way she found oddly encouraging.
He made her transcribe BBC reports and read literature aloud until her throat hurt.
She scored 6.5 in 2021, but needed 7.5.
Her third attempt in 2022 ended in a 7.0, and she cried in the stairwell of the test centre.
Her brother had been injured by a forklift and now walked with a limp.
Lin sent home 3,000 yuan every month, sometimes 4,000, and began to tutor younger workers for 60 yuan an hour.
"I want to edify," she said. "I want to revive whatever they still believe in."
Last December, I met her near Huaqiangbei after a virtual interview with a logistics company in Guangzhou.
The salary was 11,000 yuan a month, contingent on a final English test.
She was preparing for her fourth IELTS attempt and had transcribed 214 model sentences in a notebook with a comic helicopter on the cover.
Inside, she had written one line in Chinese: 别回头. Don't look back.
On the bus, Lin fell asleep against the window, and her phone lit up again.
The driver turned on the radio, low: a Cantonese pop song from 1994.
Questions
1. What did Lin Yue do before she left her village in Hunan?
A. She worked as a quality inspector in Dongguan. B. She was a forklift operator like her brother. C. She was a student with no work experience. D. She had a job in her village.
2. What does the word "edify" in the passage mean?
A. To entertain B. To criticize harshly C. To instruct or improve morally D. To ignore completely
3. Why did Lin Yue refuse to participate in the "inversion" process in 2019?
A. She was too tired from the night shift. B. She did not understand the instructions. C. She was afraid of the foreign client. D. She did not want to lie during the audit.
4. What can be inferred about Lin Yue's feelings when she wrote 'Don't look back' in her notebook?
A. She is angry at her brother for his advice. B. She regrets leaving her village. C. She plans to return to her factory job. D. She is determined to move forward despite difficulties.
5. What is the best title for this passage?
A. Life in a Shenzhen Room B. Four Attempts C. A Forklift Operator's Injury D. The Inversion Audit