【推荐1】For many, public speaking can be quite challenging, but it doesn’t mean we can’t improve. Here, a professor offered three tips to help.

Do not over prepare

    1     When speakers over prepare their speeches, it can be attractive to include too much information and material. Sometimes young speakers will try to analyze a topic from an adult’s perspective, using complex words they don’t understand.

Listen to the questions or topics carefully

Though speeches can be prepared in advance, there is still the challenge of answering questions from judges.    2     Here the professor gave an example: A contestant talked about her dog’s bravery, and the judges asked if she could offer an example. Instead of talking about bravery, she rambled on (漫谈) about different types of dogs such as guide dogs and police dogs. It was not to the point, and not an effective answer.

    3    

Compassion (同理心) is important for public speakers.    4     The professor offered another example: When a contestant mentioned that hitting a snowman is fun, the judge asked,“ Have you ever thought about the snowman’s feelings?”Without consideration, the boy replied, “Snowmen do not have emotions. ”

If the contestant had given a humorous answer, he could have a much better interaction with the audience.    5    

A．Put yourself in others’ shoes.

B．It helps the audience relate to the speaker.

C．Practing is of great help to a speaker.

D．Listening carefully can help you be an effective, focused speaker.

E．Therefore, he was not a good speaker.

F．As the professor put it, “Communication is the final purpose of public speaking.”

G．Practicing may help speakers not feel as nervous, but over-preparing can be a pitfall (隐患).

【推荐2】Failure is an unavoidable part of life. Though science has named some life skills that promise success, we're told over and over again that no great success was ever achieved without failure -- or many failed attempts. One of life's most important lessons, therefore, has to be how to handle failure best. But what is the message?

For starters, ignore advice from anyone that tells you, “Don't beat yourself up about it,” no matter how well-meaning they are. According to the new research from the University of Kansas, we absolutely should be beating ourselves up when we fail. Marketing professor Noelle Nelson and her team found that the more emotional a person's response is to failure, the more likely they are to achieve better results the next time they deal with a related task.

The researchers carried out two experiments in which undergraduate students were required to perform specific tasks. In one experiment, they were asked to search online for a squeezer and report the lowest price they could find with the possibility of winning a $50 cash prize. However, the task was controlled, and all participants were told (by a computer) that the lowest price was $3.27 less than their reported price. Consequently, no participant won the cash prize. When the results were announced, some participants were asked to focus on their emotional response, and others on their cognitive (认知的) response. During the next similar task, participants who focused on their emotional response to failure made more effort than those who focused on a cognitive response.

Everybody has their own unique challenges, responsibilities, duties, and projects, but these findings are related to all of us. Your personal failure may be a cake that fails to rise, a presentation that goes wrong, or a deadline that gets missed—it doesn't matter. What matters is how you react to it. Instead of thinking about the failure, let yourself feel bad about it. Then follow this advice on how to bounce back after your failure.

1. What's the relationship between failure and success?

A．Failure promises success.	B．Failure is the key to success.
C．Failure does damage to success.	D．Well-handled failure is good for success.

2. Why does the writer support beating oneself up when failing?

A．It's a well-meaning suggestion for failure.

B．It's been proved by the study of a university.

C．Being emotional is good for his future success.

D．It can make people less emotional about failure.

3. Which can be the best title for the passage?

A．Personal Failure Is a Cake That Fails to Appear

B．The Most Productive Way to Handle Any Failure

C．Different Methods to Change Failure into Success

D．The Reason Why Failure Is the Mother of Success

【推荐3】Are you simply moving through your day without fully living? I think many of us have done this. Everyone wants to fully live every day.    1     So I’ve decided to share with you some ways to help you enjoy every moment.

Sit in the morning. When you wake up in the quiet of the morning, sit on the floor. I often use this opportunity to stretch. I feel every muscle in my body..    2    

    3    I like to take breaks from work, and go outside for a slow walk. Pay attention to your breathing, to everything around you, to the sounds and light of objects.

Read in silence. Find a quiet time, and a quiet place, and read a good novel. Have no television or computers on nearby.     4     It might seem difficult to let your mind move from the present into the time of novel more than almost anything else.

Look at someone in a grateful way.     5     If you want, you can tell that person how thankful you are to him.

A．Work with force.

B．Walk slowly.

C．But this is easier said than done.

D．And just put yourself in the world of the novel.

E．It’s a way of building something good into your life.

F．I also just sit, and focus on my breathing going in and out.

G．Find someone you care about and be grateful for his existence.