Now it is becoming more and more popular to chat over the Internet, because you can find it _______ expensive to do that than to make a long distance call. This makes Internet chatting
_______ attractive option if you live far away from family and friends,
______ you are on a budget.
You can also complete _______ tasks while chatting over the Internet. For example, you can read and reply to emails, finish typing a document, or have a conversation
______ someone who is in the room. This can be an advantage
______ you are busy and don’t have much time for personal chatting. This can also be a disadvantage because you aren’t giving the other person or task your full attention.
Because you can do kinds of tasks _______ chatting on the Internet, it can become easy to lose track of time. You can end up chatting longer than you intended to,
______ can make it difficult to complete other tasks.
The back-to-school season is upon us, and once again, parents across the country have loaded their kids’ backpacks up with snack packs and school supplies. It’s a good moment to reflect on what else we should be giving our kids as they head off to school.
American parents are feeling particularly anxious about that question this year. The educational process feels more than ever like a race, one that starts in pre-school and doesn’t end until your child is admitted to the perfect college. Most parents are more worried than they need to be about their children’s grades, test scores and IQ. And what we don’t think about enough is how to help our children build their character—how to help them develop skills like perseverance, optimism, responsibility, and self-control, which together do more to determine success than S.A.T. scores or I.Q.
There is growing evidence that our anxiety about our children’s school performance may actually be holding them back from learning some of these valuable skills. If you’re concerned only with a child’s G.P.A., then you will likely choose to minimize the challenges the child faces in school. With real challenge comes the risk of real failure. And in a competitive academic environment, the idea of failure can be very scary, to students and parents alike.
But experiencing failure is a critical part of building character. Recent research by a team of psychologists found that adults who had experienced little or no failure growing up were actually less happy and confident than those who had experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood. “Overcoming those obstacles,” the researchers assumed, “could teach effective coping skills, help engage social support networks, create a sense of mastery over past adversity, and foster beliefs in the ability to cope successfully in the future.”
By contrast, when we protect our children from every possible failure—when we call their teachers to get an extension on a paper; when we urge them to choose only those subjects they’re good at—we are denying them those same character-building experiences. As the psychologists Madeline Levine and Dan Kindlon have written, that can lead to difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood, when overprotected young people finally confront real problems on their own and don’t know how to overcome them.
In the classroom and outside of it, American parents need to encourage children to take chances, to challenge themselves, to risk failure. In the meantime, giving our kids room to fail may be one of the best ways we can help them succeed.
| Back to School: Why Perseverance Is More Important than Good Grades? |
|
| Common phenomena |
☺Parents throughout America |
| ☺Many American parents don’t |
|
| The writer’s |
Parents should pay more attention to their kids’ character building. |
| Evidence and |
☺Parents’ anxiety about their kids’ performance may |
| ☺Parents concerned only with a kid’s G.P.A. have a |
|
| ☺Adults who have experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood are |
|
| ☺Denying kids character-building experiences can |
|
| The writer’s suggestions |
☺ |
| ☺Give kids room to experience |
I used to be the messiest person alive. Over theyears, through watching others and by trial and error,I have finally found ways to come up with plans,organize them and follow through with them.
Make an outline of everything you need to haveand do to make your plan happen. Make a list of allof the steps that need to be accomplished and thinkabout what needs to be done.
Detail everything thoroughly and read over it soyou can start coming up with some mental solutionsof how to carry out your plans.
You should ensure that if for some reason wayone doesn't work, you have way two and way three tolean back on. Therefore, different ways are needed athand. It's just a matter of being organized. Chancesare that there is always more than one way of doingthings, and chances are that if one of those waysdoesn't work,one of the others will.
Committing yourself to finishing at least part ifnot all of your plan at once is also necessary. It willshow that you not only have initiative to get thingsrolling, but that you are interested in the resultsobtained with making the move to get everythingdone.
If you make a commitment to finish before aspecific time, make sure that you carry that out, andbe sure to do everything in the way you said youwould, within the time-frame you set for yourself.
Don't try to tackle (处理) more things all at atime. All that does is delay your progress, distract youand make you lose your interest, motivation andenergy.
Carrying out an effective plan requires being asorganized as possible. You will only achieve this bysticking to the order of the plan and not deviating ortrying to do more at a time.
Last but not the least, you should never abandonthings mid-project. It will only annoy everyonearound you including yourself. Unfinished plans are awaste of time, energy and, in some cases，evenmoney.
So,don't be afraid of organization. The older weget,the more necessary it becomes to have the skills to follow through with confidence and to be able tocarry through plans in an organized and manageableway. It pays to be organized, after all.
| Title: Tips on how to be __ |
||
| Tips |
Details |
__ |
| __ |
List everything you need List __ |
To make your plan happen |
| Prepare three __ |
|
To __ |
| __ |
Do everything __ |
To show yourself you are determined to get things stared and caring about the results |
| Do one thing at once |
Stick to the order of you plan |
To save your interest, motivation and energy |
| Finish what you have started |
|
To get your plan __ |
| __ |
||
| You shouldn’t be afraid of organization because it’s really worthwhile. |
Travelling to all corners of the world gets easier and easier. We live in a global village, but this doesn't mean that we all behave in the same way.
How should we behave when you meet someone for the first time? An American shakes your hand firmly while looking you straight in the eye. In many parts of Asia, there is no physical contact () at all. In Japan, you should bow, and the more respect you want to show, the deeper you should bow. In Thailand, people greet each other by pressing both hands together at the chest. In both countries, eye contact is avoided as a sign of respect.
Many countries have rules about what you should and shouldn't wear. In Korea, you should takeoff your shoes when entering a house. Remember to place them neatly together where you came in.
In Spain, lunch is often the biggest meal of the day, and can last two or three hours. For this reason many people eat a light breakfast and a late dinner. In Mexico, lunch is a time to relax, and many people prefer not to discuss business as they eat. In Britain, it's not unusual to have a business meeting over breakfast.
In most countries, an exchange of business cards is necessary for all introductions. You should include your company name and your position. If you are going to a country where your language is not widely spoken, you can get the back side of your card printed in the local language. In China, you may present your card with the writing facing the person you are giving it to.
| Title: Good |
||
| Aspect |
Country |
Custom |
| ·America ·Japan · |
·Shaking hands firmly · ·Pressing both hands together at the chest |
|
| Dressing |
·Korea |
·Taking off your shoes at the |
| Eating |
·Spain ·Mexico · |
·Having a light breakfast and a late dinner ·Relaxing while having ·Holding a business meeting over breakfast |
| Doing business |
·Most countries ·China |
·Exchanging business card when yourself ·Presenting a card to a person |
| Conclusion: When travelling |
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Since the earliest civilizations, people have controlled rivers to meet society’s demands. Today, rivers are controlled for many reasons, primarily to maintain reliable water supplies for daily, agricultural and industrial needs, for power generation, for navigation(航行), and to prevent flooding.
River control is achieved by channelization, a term that covers a range of river engineering works, including widening, deepening, straightening and stabilization of banks, and by the construction of dams.
An important period of channelization took place in Europe during the 19th century, when many large rivers were straightened and their beds deepened. One of the most dramatically changed was the Tisza River, a branch of the Danube that flows through Hungary. The controlling of the Tisza, designed to reduce flooding and make land for agriculture, included cutting off more than 100 meanders(河曲), shortening the river’s length by nearly 400 kilometers.
One of the most common ways in which people control rivers is by damming them. The past 50 years or so has seen an increase in dam construction worldwide, and at the beginning of the 21st century, there were about 800,000 dams globally, some towering more than 200 meters in height.
Despite their successes, many dams also cause significant environmental changes that prove harmful. Some particularly deep reservoirs(水库)can bring about earthquakes due to the stress on their bottom rocks caused by huge volumes of water. Downstream of a reservoir, the river is certainly influenced in many ways: water volume, speed and quality are all affected, leading to changes in the landscape and among plants and animals.
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
Simon Sinek is naturally shy and doesn’t like speaking to crowds. At parties, he says he hides alone in the corner or doesn’t even show up in the first place. He prefers the latter. Yet, with some 22 million video views under his belt, the optimistic ethnographer also happens to be the third most-watched TED Talks presenter of all time.
Sinek’s unlikely success as both an inspirational speaker and a bestselling author isn’t just dumb luck. It’s the result of fears faced and erased, trial and error and tireless practice, on and off stage. Here are his secrets for delivering speeches that inspire, inform and entertain.
Don’t talk right away.
Sinek says you should never talk as you walk out on stage. “A lot of people start talking right away, and it’s out of nerves,” Sinek says. “That communicates a little bit of insecurity and fear.”
Instead, quietly walk out on stage. Then take a deep breath, find your place, wait a few seconds and begin. “I know it sounds long and tedious and it feels excruciatingly awkward when you do it,” Sinek says, “but it shows the audience you’re totally confident and in charge of the situation.”
Show up to give, not to take.
Often people give presentations to sell products or ideas, to get people to follow them on social media, buy their books or even just to like them. Sinek calls these kinds of speakers “takers,” and he says audiences can see through these people right away. And, when they do, they disengage.
“We are highly social animals,” says Sinek. “Even at a distance on stage, we can tell if you’re a giver or a taker, and people are more likely to trust a giver — a speaker that gives them value, that teaches them something new, that inspires them — than a taker.”
Speak unusually slowly.
When you get nervous, it’s not just your heart beat that quickens. Your words also tend to speed up. Luckily Sinek says audiences are more patient and forgiving than we know.
“They want you to succeed up there, but the more you rush, the more you turn them off,” he says. “If you just go quiet for a moment and take a long, deep breath, they’ll wait for you. It’s kind of amazing.”
Turn nervousness into excitement.
Sinek learned this trick from watching the Olympics. A few years ago he noticed that reporters interviewing Olympic athletes before and after competing were all asking the same question. “Were you nervous?” And all of the athletes gave the same answer: “No, I was excited.” These competitors were taking the body’s signs of nervousness — clammy hands, pounding heart and tense nerves — and reinterpreting them as side effects of excitement and exhilaration.
When you’re up on stage you will likely go through the same thing. That’s when Sinek says you should say to yourself out loud, “I’m not nervous, I’m excited!”
Say thank you when you’re done.
Applause is a gift, and when you receive a gift, it’s only right to express how grateful you are for it. This is why Sinek always closes out his presentations with these two simple yet powerful words: thank you.
“They gave you their time, and they’re giving you their applause.” Says Sinek. “That’s a gift, and you have to be grateful.”
| Passage outline |
Supporting details |
| ●He is by ●Through his |
|
| Tips on delivering speeches |
●Avoid talking ●Keep calm and wait a few seconds before talking, which will create an |
| ●Try to be a giver rather than a taker because in ●Teach audience something new that they can |
|
| ●Speak a bit slowly just to help you stay calm. ●Never speed up while speaking in case you |
|
| ●Switch nervousness to excitement by |
|
| ●Express your |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号