It’s interesting that technology often works as a servant for us, yet frequently we become a servant to it. E-mail is a useful tool but many feel controlled by this new tool. The average business person is getting about 80e-mails per day and many feel that about 80% of the messages in their “Inbox” are of little or no value. So, I have four suggestions to help you to become better at “Erasing E-mail”.
1.Get off the lists. The best way to deal with a problem is to never have it. If you are receiving a lot of unwanted e-mails, ask to be removed from the various lists. This would include your inclusion in unwanted lists.
2.“Unlisted address”. Just as you keep an “unlisted” telephone number that you share only with those whom you want to have direct access to, you might want to get a separate e-mail address only for the important communications you wish to receive.
3.Check it once or twice per day. Many I speak with are becoming chained to their email server, monitoring incoming email continuously. Maybe this is because e-mail creates its own sense of urgency, but most of thecommunications are not all that urgent. I respond to them a couple of times per day.
4.Deal with it. As you open each e-mail, do one of the following:
a. If it requires a quick response, respond to it and delete it.
b. If it requires a response but is not the best use of your time, try to find someone else to do it.
c. If it is going to take any serious amount of time to respond, schedule it for action in your Day Planner andthen download the message, save it, or print it out for future action.
I personally receive about 250 e-mails per day and by practicing the suggestions above, I can handle thatvolume in about an hour, taking advantage of this fantastic tool but not being controlled by it to make sure I’mdoing more important tasks in my day.
1. For the important communications, the writer suggests that you ________.A.have a direct access for them |
B.have several e-mail servers for them |
C.get a separate e-mail address for them |
D.get an unlisted phone number for them |
A.respond urgent ones only |
B.reply to all of them at the same time |
C.handle them a couple of times daily |
D.keep replying to e-mails all day long |
A.responding right away if it’s urgent |
B.downloading every e-mail before you reply |
C.scheduling it for later reply if it takes much time |
D.asking someone else to reply to it if it’s not at your convenience |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Why you shouldn't punish your kids for lying
Getting your children to stop lying is challenging. There are many influences(TV,movies and video games)in which lies are common. Children see parents lie to others,if only to be polite. Most parents add to that with tales about the lives and activities of Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.
The most common reactions to children who lie are explaining why it is wrong and punishments.
Give praise: You could ask your child to say something that happened at school that is true. When your child obeys, praise him enthusiastically. Be specific.
Act as a model: Explicitly(明确地)tell the truth. This could be about something that happened when you were a child or something that happened during the day. It need not be dramatic. Another option is to play a game at dinner. Each person tells one thing that was true that day. Again,give a little praise to the child who normally lies if she plays along.
Decrease punishments and moralizing(说教):They are unlikely to change behavior or develop the conduct you want.
A.It is not what that is,but about practice. |
B.As ways of changing behavior,these are ineffective. |
C.That does not mean ignoring,lying or letting it go. |
D.“That was great!You told me what happened just like I asked. Wow!” |
E.Try these procedures for two to three weeks and see where you are. |
F.“You did a good job,but what you said was not what I'd like to know!” |
G.Parents do this out of love,but for some children,lying can become a problem. |
【推荐2】The healthy adolescent boy or girl likes to do the real things in life,to do the things that matter.He would rather be a plumber’s mate and do a real job that requires doing than learn about hydrostatics(流体静力学)sitting at a desk, without understanding what practical use they are going to be.A girl would rather look after the baby than learn about child care.Logically we should learn about things before doing them and that is probably why the experts enforce this in our educational system.But it is not the natural way---nor,in my view,the best way.The adolescent wants to do things first for only then does the appreciate the problems involved and want to learn more about them.
They do these things better in primitive life,for there at puberty(青春期) the boy joins his father in making canoes,patching huts,going out fishing or hunting.He is serving his apprenticeship in the actual accomplishments of life.It is not surprising that anthropologists(人类学家) find that the adolescents of primitive communities do not suffer from the same neurotic(神经质的) “difficulties” as those of civilized life.This is not,as some assume,because they are permitted more sexual freedom,but because they are given more natural outlets for their native interests and powers and are allowed to grow up freely into a full life of responsibility in the community.
In the 19th century this was recognized in the apprenticeship system,which allowed the boy to go out with the master carpenter,or ploughman,to engage in the actual work of carpentry or roof-mending,and so to learn his trade.In some agricultural colleges at the present time young men have to do a year’s work on a farm before their theoretical training at college.The great advantage of this system is that it lets the apprentice see the practical problems before he sets to work learning how to solve them,and he can therefore take a more intelligent interest in his theoretical work.
Since more knowledge of more things is now required in order to cope with the adult world,the period of growing-up to independence takes much longer than it did in more primitive community,and the responsibility for such education,which formerly was in the hands of the parents,is now necessarily undertaken by experts at school. But that should not make us lose sight of the basic principle,namely the need and the desire of the adolescent to engage responsibly in the real pursuits of life and then to learn how—to learn through responsibility,not to learn before responsibility.
1. According to the author,what is the natural way of education?A.Doing things while learning. | B.Doing things before learning. |
C.Doing things as an apprentice. | D.Learning practical knowledge first. |
A.can learn the trade through solving problems at work |
B.can work with their masters throughout their learning |
C.are given opportunities to develop their interest first |
D.are given more freedom in doing things and learning |
A.the kind of skills boys learned from their father |
B.the difficulties modern adolescents experience |
C.the amount of freedom in learning in primitive life |
D.the way of learning in primitive communities |
A.The apprenticeship system was effective in learning. |
B.Learning to solve problems is learning through responsibility. |
C.Students develop their interest through learning. |
D.Students should be given more freedom in learning. |
【推荐3】Picture this: You’re searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They’re actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad is to get you to buy something. How do you, the reader, tell the difference between a news story and an ad?
Back when I was growing up, it was easier. We got most of our information from newspapers. Big news stories appeared on the front page, and ads were boxed off and clearly labeled. But on the Internet, the two are often presented together. It can be hard to tell which is which.
That’s why the research group I direct conducted a study. My research team showed kids like you the home page of a popular digital magazine. We asked them to tell us what was a news story and what was an ad. Most were great at identifying certain types of ads. “It has a coupon code, a big company logo, and the words limited time offer,” one student wrote about an ad on the site. So where did kids get stumped?
Some ads seem the same as real news stories. They have headlines and contain information. But they may also include the words sponsored content. Sponsored means “paid for,” and content refers to the information in the story. “Sponsored content” is a way of saying that something is an ad. Most kids in our study, even if they used the Internet often, didn’t know this.
Just because something is sponsored doesn’t necessarily mean it’s false. It means someone paid money for it to appear. Companies pay so that readers will see their stories, buy their products, and like what the company stands for.
As a reader, you have a right to know who’s behind the information you’re consuming. So look for the phrase sponsored content. (And look carefully. Sometimes, it will be written in tiny letters.) The Internet is a vast sea of information. To use it well, we not only have to know how to swim but also how to avoid the sharks. Learning to tell the difference between an ad and a news story is an important step to becoming Internet smart.
1. The purpose of the first paragraph is to ______.A.tell the difference between a news story and an ad |
B.criticize the websites for too many ads on them |
C.show the writer’s preference for newspapers |
D.make readers interested and involved in what is going to be talked about |
A.the website gets paid for allowing something to appear on it |
B.something is false |
C.something isn’t necessarily an ad |
D.readers have to buy the products advertised on the website |
A.Fierce sea animals. |
B.Very bad people on the Internet. |
C.Unwanted information. |
D.Websites which contain ads. |
A.Watch Out for Traps on the Internet |
B.Make the Most of the Internet |
C.Be Internet Smart |
D.Be Aware of Your Rights |
【推荐1】Google, one of the world’s outstanding tech companies, was attacked. It wasn’t its search engine that was attacked or its advertising platform or even its social network, Google+. Instead, it was a building.
Two web security experts hacked (侵入) into its Wharf 7 office in Sydney, Australia, through Google’s building management system (BMS). One of them, Billy Rios, says, “My colleague and I have a lot of experience in web security, but it is not something that people couldn’t learn. Once you understand how the system works, it is very simple.”
They found the system on Shodan, a search engine that lists devices connected to the Internet, and then ran it through their own software to identify who owned the building. In the case of the Google hacking, the researchers had no immoral purpose and just informed Google about what they found.
According to Mr. Rios, Who runs security company Whitescope, there are 50,000 buildings currently connected to the Internet, including research institutes, churches and hospitals, and 2,000 of those are online with no password protection. Martyn Thomas, a professor of IT at Gresham College in the UK, says, “It is beyond doubt that attempts to attack building management systems are happening all the time.”
Making a building smart generally means connecting the systems that control heating, Hating and security to the Internet and the wider corporate network. There was a strong reason for doing this, said Andrew Kelly, principal security consultant at defence company Qinetiq.
“Energy savings are the biggest factor in connecting building management systems to the corporate network,” he says. “It gives those who run the building better control and offers between 20% to 50% in energy savings,” he adds.
But it also makes them less secure. And if any of these feels like a Hollywood film, think again.
1. How did Billy Rios and his colleague hack Google’s building?A.They invented a search engine and connected it to Google’s building. |
B.They connected their own software to the building to run Google. |
C.They worked for Google and mastered how the building worked. |
D.They used Google’s BMS to find out the owner of the building. |
A.telling Google about the Wharf 7 office’s hidden danger |
B.entering Google’s building to save more energy |
C.explaining the reasons for energy savings |
D.analyzing some immoral problems |
A.There are many researchers contributing a lot to web security. |
B.The attack on building management systems happens all over the world. |
C.The building management systems of some buildings are in danger. |
D.There are too many buildings connected to the Internet to be managed well. |
A.Favorable. | B.Ambiguous. |
C.Indifferent | D.Negative. |
【推荐2】India's richest man is rolling out a $20 billion mobile network that could bring lightning-fast Internet to hundreds of millions of people. Indian consumers are already celebrating the arrival of Mukesh Ambani's new Reliance Jio service, seizing on the billionaire's promise to deliver rock bottom prices and download speeds that will enable streaming video.
The 4G network, which reaches more than 80% of the country, officially went live Monday with a set of generous introductory offers. Indians will be able to use Jio for free until the end of 2016, and pay as little as 149 rupees ($2.25) a month for data after that. "Anything and everything that can go digital is going digital -- at an exponential rate," Ambani told investors last week at his company's annual general meeting. "Life is going digital."
Only one fifth of adults in India have access to the Internet. Few public Wi-Fi spots exist, and fast broadband connections require infrastructure that is rarely found in poorer urban areas, much less rural ones. But that is changing fast. If the Jio network succeeds, Ambani will be able to capitalize on a seismic shift that could see hundreds of millions of Indians come online in the coming years -- in most cases via a smartphone.
Google has installed free Wi-Fi at train stations across India, and Facebook tried to offer a free version of its platform. Many other international companies are also trying to share the great market in India. Ambani has invested billions constructing nearly 100,000 telecoms(电信)towers across India. He estimates that Jio already covers some 18,000 cities and 200,000 villages. By March 2017, his aim is to reach 90% of the population.
Building a national 4G network from scratch represents a major risk for Ambani, who got out of telecoms about 15 years ago after a dispute with his brother, Anil Ambani, who controls Reliance Communications. The brothers, who together are estimated to be worth $26 billion, have patched things up in recent years. Jio will be able to use radio frequencies owned by Reliance Communications.
Rival(对手)networks have responded to the launch of Reliance Jio with special offers of their own, making a price war a near certainty. Airtel has reduced its prices for 3G and 4G service by 80%, and Vodafone has boosted the amount of data in its plans by nearly 70%.
1. What's the main idea of the passage?A.India's richest man supplies free service to streaming videos. |
B.India's richest man gains the wealth of $20 billion. |
C.India's richest man offers free Wi-Fi to the whole country. |
D.India's richest man provides 1 billion people with free 4G. |
A.One fifth of the adults in India would lose the Internet they now use. |
B.People in poorer areas would set up more infrastructure. |
C.Most Indians' online experience would be greatly changed. |
D.The rich Indians would share their own Wi-Fi with others. |
A.It's a market that many tech industry giants want to take up. |
B.It's a market where Google failed in making much money. |
C.It's a market where Facebook has already taken up for years. |
D.It's a market that Ambani has been controlling with his brother. |
A.Been broken apart from each other. |
B.Stopped quarreling with each other. |
C.Had something to do with each other. |
D.Kept in touch with each other. |
【推荐3】After dinner, my family sat in the living room, chatting about a hit. Thousands of people spent Thursday—a Valentine’s Day of sorts in China—searching not only for Mr. or Mrs. Right, but also for Mr. and Mrs. Left.
My father informed us that second goods App Xianyu, owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, organized “blind dates” pairing users who had misplaced one of their wireless earphones with others who had lost the opposite earbud. “Your cousin, an overseas student, participated in the activity,” he added.
Afterwards, my dad surfed the Internet over the iPhone and showed a video in the App Xianyu to us. “Dear friends, it’s a special day today,” read the event’s announcement, referring to May 20, a date associated with romance in China because its pronunciation sounds similar to “I love you” in Mandarin. In a twinkling, Bullet screen (弹幕) appeared in the video. With the rising popularity of wireless earphones such as Apple’s AirPods, over 130,000 earpieces went missing in 2020, resulting in their owners having no choice but to sell the remaining one. This year, the figure of abandoned earbuds stood at a whopping 100,000 by mid-May. On the Internet I browsed some information. Right-side earbuds are apparently more faithful to their owners: In 56% of cases, sellers had lost their left Carphone.
Dad told us that the idea came from the lighthearted way Xianyu users have described their single earbuds, saying they were looking for an “in-law” for their “son” or “daughter”. Those, particularly with a charging case, said they already owned an “apartment” for the future couple.
“The young generation are good at making full use of their possessions and refuse to be wasteful,” my mother commented to us. “Besides single earphones, there’s also huge demand and supply for reuniting single gaming controllers, earrings, and gloves into a pair.”
With the passage of time, younger generations no longer see secondhand items as shabby.
1. Why did the author’s cousin take part in the activity?A.To attend blind dates. | B.To pair the earbud. |
C.To make some friends. | D.To collect big data. |
A.Right earbuds. | B.Left earbuds. | C.AirPods. | D.Applications. |
A.A son-in-law can be provided with accommodation. |
B.A daughter-in-law can be provided with accommodation. |
C.The pairing earbuds can be charged fully in the apartment. |
D.Xianyu users can learn about some useful in formation. |
A.Mean. | B.Curious. | C.Committed. | D.Economical. |
The most popular sport in England is football. Football is played on Saturday afternoon in most towns and the supporters(球迷)of a certain team will travel from one end of the country to the other to see their team play. There are four divisions(级别)of the football league.Not surprisingly the best teams are in the first division. But the best supporters are often in the fourth division. You have to be a good supporter to watch the fourth division football!
Many other sports are also played in England, such as golf, in which you try to knock a ball into a hole; basketball, in which you try to got a ball through a net(篮筐); tennis, in which you try to hit a ball so that your opponent(对手)can not hit it. As you see, if the ball had not been invented, there would have been no sport.
Actually(其实), that is not quite true. Athletics(田径)isn’t played with a ball; nor horseracing(赛马). Perhaps that is why they are not so popular as football!
1. ________ is the most popular sport in England.
A.Basketball | B.Football | C.Golf | D.Tennis |
A.the first | B.the second | C.the third | D.the fourth |
A.They are too busy. |
B.They like watching sport on TV. |
C.They would like to be fat. |
D.They prefer to be thin. |
A.They have their football team. |
B.The sport games are played on Saturday afternoon. |
C.They like the idea of sport. |
D.They like the famous players. |
【推荐2】Astronauts in America who fly into space need special training. First they go to Huston, Texas. That is the home of the Johnson Space Center. There they are tested to see how strong and smart they are.
The first test is for the heart. The people walk or run, and then the space doctors see how fast their hearts beat.
Another important test is performance. In this test, the person must curl (蜷曲) his body up in a ball. When he is in that position (姿势), he is put into a round cloth bag. The doctors give him no idea how long he will have to stay in the bag. If a spaceship broke down in space, the astronauts would get into bags like this. Then they would have to wait and curl up in darkness until help could arrive. You can see that an astronaut must not be afraid of tight space or darkness.
After the tests, only the best people are chosen to start astronaut training in a training center. The astronauts in training learn many other things. They learn how to jump out of a moving airplane. They learn to blow up a lifeboat and get into it while they are in the ocean. The astronauts also have to learn how to get lifted out of the ocean by helicopter. That seems fun, but it can be dangerous.
After they finish training, the astronauts continue to work. They stay in good shape by running and doing exercise. They read about their special jobs. In this way, they can learn new facts about space travel. Then the big day comes. The astronauts are told to go to work on a flight into space.
1. Why don’t the astronauts know how long they will stay in the bags in the test?A.Because the doctors need to know how strong they are. |
B.Because the astronauts need to know how smart they are. |
C.Because good astronauts mustn’t be afraid of darkness or tight space. |
D.Because nobody knows when help will come if the spaceship breaks down. |
A.walk or run in space |
B.jump out of a moving plane |
C.blow up a lifeboat |
D.get lifted out of water by helicopter |
a. Doctors do tests on the astronauts.
b. The astronauts go to the Space Centre.
c. The astronauts learn new facts about space travel.
d. The best people are chosen for training.
e. The astronauts go to work on a flight into space.
A.a, b, c, d, e | B.d, a, e, b, c |
C.b, a, d, c, e | D.c, d, e, b, a |
A.After the tests, the best people are chosen to start astronaut training in a training center. |
B.After they finish training, the astronauts continue to work. |
C.When the astronauts are told to go to work on a flight into space. |
D.After they are tested to see how strong and smart they are. |
【推荐3】Newcastle University research is helping to prepare for and relieve storm damage before extreme weather occurs. Climate experts and engineers have created a new model to predict the damage caused by extreme weather. This new framework for “consequence forecasting” enables first responders to effectively target resources before an extreme weather event comes, such as Storm Eunice.
The pre-event decision-making model works by first developing relationships between wind speed and faults on the electricity network. The relationships are then used to estimate faults of electricity networks and potential customer interruptions. This model can be used as early as 24 hours before extreme weather events.
Published in the journal Climate Risk Management, the study findings can enable effective first response to manage infrastructure (基础设施) systems smitten by dangerous weather. Having the forecasting tools to predict and prepare for storm damage will reduce the social consequences of extreme weather, including power loss for customers and fines for electrical distribution companies.
Dr Wilkinson said, “Our model has the potential to change the way we manage weather and climate risks to our infrastructure networks. While electricity network operators already prepare extra resources when a storm approaches, predicting how many power lines may be blown down and where these are likely to be located will allow them to better target the necessary resources to more quickly repair any damage. This is likely to become even more important in the future as our changed climate is predicted to produce more frequent and more intense storms and some of these may be beyond the experience of the people tasked to deal with them.”
Study co-author, Professor Hayley Fowler, of Newcastle University’s School of Engineering, added, “This consequence forecasting is so important for planning emergency response in fast-evolving storms like Eunice. Our model could be used to regularly update energy companies and other infrastructure operators on the potential consequences of approaching storms as forecasts are updated in real-time.”
1. What can the new framework do?A.Prevent extreme weather from happening. |
B.Help rescuers effectively find resources before extreme weather. |
C.Rid people of the possible extreme weather. |
D.Help climate engineers create more models. |
A.Attracted. | B.Inspected. |
C.Attacked. | D.Impressed. |
A.The significance of the model. | B.The potential risks of the model. |
C.The downsides of the model. | D.The working principle of the model. |
A.Prevent extreme weather occurring frequently |
B.Provide electricity network operators extra resources |
C.Update energy companies and other infrastructure operators |
D.Predict and prepare for the impact of approaching storms |