【推荐1】4 Things to Expect from Your Peer Tutoring Session

Peer tutoring is one of the most helpful tools to use during your college years. Sometimes you will not have all the answers and that you may need help from time to time. There is probably no better way to get some academic assistance than that from your fellow students.     1    

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This will probably be the most uncomfortable part of the session. However, we simply want you to be the best of the best to your best ability. Accept that you are not perfect and that you will make mistakes. Feel fortunate that your peer tutor is recognizing your defects frankly and giving you a chance to repair them.

● Expect change

    3    . Every tutor has a different learning style that is unique to them, but it’s up to you to employ what they teach you to your best ability. Use any different methods that work for you. Change is good. It is by no means something to be afraid of. Embrace it!

●Expect discipline (sometimes)

Sometimes we all try to get by with a little less. We are human, after all. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

    4    . They want you to use your potential to do the great things that they know you are capable of.

●Expect improvement

Last but not least, expect to improve. Peer tutoring can be difficult and intimidating (令人胆怯的), but ultimately the goal is for you to improve as a student in a variety of areas.

    5    . If you ask me, I think that is completely worthy of an A+.

【推荐2】In most adults, learning and thinking begin to decline as early as age 30. People start to perform slightly worse in tests of cognitive abilities such as the rate at which someone does a mental task.     1    

These changes are often considered normal aging. But they may instead represent something more like the “summer slide” that some schoolchildren experience in academic progress during summer break. Recent research suggests that a pause of learning is indeed a problem causing cognitive reduction.    2    

In a three-month intervention, the researchers provided an encouraging learning environment for 24 older adults. They took at least three classes to learn three new skills. They also discussed issues related to learning barriers and motivation. Over the course these participants’ cognitive scores for memory and flexibility significantly improved. In a follow-up study, the researchers discovered amazingly that they had improved further:    3     In other words, giving these seniors a multicourse routine seemed to bring up their abilities to levels similar to those of college students.

The researchers are still investigating why cognitive scores continued to climb after the program’s end, but one possibility is that the experience encouraged these older participants to continue learning and practicing new skills. Older adults are often assumed to be on a downward slide with unrecoverable loss. “Use it or lose it,” the saying goes.    4     Decline, as we so often see it, may not be certain. That’s why we need to create enriched learning environments for adults after their formal education and job training end.

    5     Educators know how to educate children and adolescents, and we can adapt that knowledge to develop learning opportunities for adults. Societies could also provide resources and paths toward lifelong learning to ensure that everyone can benefit. Let’s shift the conversation about adults from avoiding loss and decline to learning and growing.

【推荐3】Talk to someone (parents, teachers, or another trusted adult) if you’re having problems with schoolwork.     1         2     They might be able to show you how to do a tough math problem or help you think of a subject to write about for English class. But they also can be helpful by finding that perfect spot in the house for you to do your homework and keeping supplies, like pencils, on hand. Parents also can cut down on distractions, like noisy younger brothers and sisters!

Teachers also are important resources for you because they can give you advice specific to the assignment you’re having trouble with. They can help you set up a good system for writing down your assignments and remembering to put all the necessary books and papers in your backpack. Teachers can give you study tips and offer ideas about how to do your homework.     3    

You can also use the Internet to visit online homework help sites. These sites can direct you to good sources for research and offer tips and guidance about many academic subjects. But be cautious about just copying information from an Internet website.     4     Therefore, talk with your teacher about how to use these sources properly.

Another option is a private tutor. This is a person who is paid to spend time going over schoolwork with you. If cost is a concern, this can be less expensive if a small group of kids share a tutoring session.

【推荐1】For some it is the sound of a bouncing basketball. For others the clearing of a throat. For Dr. Jane Gregory the list includes pigeons, ticking clocks and the sound of popcorn being eaten. “I cried on the plane the other day because I couldn’t figure out the volume on my new headphones and so I couldn’t block out the sound of a guy sniffing,” she says. Gregory is among those who experience misophonia, a phenomenon in which particular sounds can prove unbearable, triggering(引起)emotions from anxiety and panic to shame and anger. Now in her book, Sounds Like Misophonia, the academic is on a mission to explore what’s behind it, and to help those affected cope.

Gregory, a clinical psychologist at the University of Oxford, suggests misophonia is far from being a simple sensitivity to sound. It can be fed by a complex interplay of factors, including a lower ability to filter out certain noises, the association of negative meanings with particular sounds, and the burden of feelings associated with an emotional response to them.

Yet, the phenomenon was largely unknown until the 2010s. In one study, researchers asked people with high and low traits of misophonia to listen out for a “trigger” sound in the presence of a masking sound. Both groups detected the trigger just as easily. “The person with misophonia had a more intense reaction, but only after they identified what the sound was,” adds Gregory. Those results, she says, suggest that people with misophonia are not inherently better at detecting particular sounds, such as a sniff or a rustle—rather they might be listening out for them more, or not be as good as others at tuning them out. This is a trait, Gregory speculates, that might have offered our ancestors an evolutionary advantage, such as helping them to detect hiding predators. Another implication of the research, Gregory says, is that it is not just the auditory features of the sounds that cause negative reactions but the meaning attached to them. An example would be a reaction to the jingling of a dog’s collar after being frightened by an aggressive dog.

Gregory hopes her book will support those too often told to ignore sounds. She says: “The emotional reaction is much more complex than just being annoyed... They feel trapped and helpless when they encounter these sounds. If you think it’s nothing, then you’re not experiencing what this person is experiencing.”