【推荐1】How to Disagree with Your Boss

Lots of bosses think their employees don’t tell them the truth, and lots of employees think they can’t tell their boss the truth.    1    ,there are a few tricks. You can use to politely and respectfully tell your boss you disagree with them without putting your job or your reputation in danger.

Start with common ground.    2    . Begin by discussing that aspect of the plan, and then move the conversation toward the part of his idea that you disagree with.

Disagree for the right reason. Really examine your motives behind bringing up your disagreement. If any part of you is disagreeing in order to try to gain power or authority, you might need to reconsider.    3    .

Make an argument, but don’t argue. The difference here is very subtle(微妙的). Don’t be argumentative, attack other people’s views, or complain.     4    . Explain the logic behind your point of view, but don’t defame your boss’s point of view or anyone else’s.

    5    . Don’t wait until your boss is about to go into a meeting or leave for the day to tell them your thoughts. Pick a time of day when you know they are less likely to be stressed out. Particularly if you work for a large company, think about scheduling a meeting to talk.

Last but not least, be a good employee. Your boss is much more likely to listen to you if you have established a reputation as a valuable employee.

【推荐2】When it comes to hobbies and career, all of us have our own stories. As a little girl, my favorite thing to do was read — same as today. So I figured I’d be a librarian when I grew up.     1     The library had a two-book limit, but she knew I’d blow through those in just a few days, so she always let me check out a big stack.

Time passed quickly and I was in fourth grade. Our school librarian, Mrs. Ketelsen, sent some poems I’d written about dinosaurs to Highlights magazine.     2    

At the University, though majoring in journalism, I quickly learned that I did not want to be a newspaper reporter.     3     It amuses almost everyone who knows me and thinks I’m outgoing. (I am, but only with people I know!) So I was thrilled when I was selected for a summer internship at Reader’s Digest.

Ten years after that, I came back to RD to work as an editor.     4     I’ve worked at other magazines too, but I’ve spent most of my career here, reading magazines, newspapers, websites, and books for stories we could condense (简缩); writing articles; even choosing jokes.

    5     “The Tractor War” takes me home to the Midwest. “Something to Sneeze At” reminds me of all the sneezing I did when I moved to New York City and was suddenly allergic to grasses and trees... I relate to lots of our stories this month, and I hope you do too. Enjoy!

【推荐1】Everyone learns a little bit differently. Finding out your learning style will show you how to best improve your understanding of different topics.

Read about and experiment with different learning styles. There are many ways you can use to research a topic. Head to your local library and ask the reference librarian.     1     Then, start experimenting with different learning styles. It can be useful to try a new method of learning to figure out which one is your style.

Take several self-assessments and identify which style is best for you. You can find a number of websites offering free, online quizzes (测试) to help analyze your preferred learning styles based on your responses. Search the web for a reliable site, and take several quizzes, as it’s common to get different results.     2    

Reflect on your experiences. The results of your self-assessments can give you a good idea of which learning style applies to you.     3     Combine what you know about yourself with the results of your quizzes.

    4     It can be helpful to get some additional feedback to determine your learning style. Talk to your current or past teachers. Ask them for tips about how to improve your quality of learning.

Put your findings to the test. Once you’ve determined your learning style, you can adapt your educational experiences so that you can learn more quickly and easily.     5     As you get to know yourself better, you’ll figure out the best way for you to access and remember information.

【推荐3】If you want better grades, you need more effective study habits. The key to effective studying isn’t studying longer, but studying smarter. You can begin studying smarter with these effective study habits.

Study in a quiet place.

A place with a lot of distractions makes for a poor study area. If you try and study in your dorm room, for instance, you may find the computer, TV more interesting than the reading material you’re trying to digest. The library is a good place to check out.

Bring everything you need, nothing you don’t.

Unfortunately, when you find an ideal place to study, sometimes you bring things you don’t need. For instance, while it may seem ideal to type notes into your laptop to refer back to later, computers are a powerful distraction for many people because of their convenience. Keep your phone in your purse or bag to keep distraction at bay as much as possible. Your phone is a potential time-sink and one of the worst enemies of concentration.

Don’t forget the things you need to study for the class, exam, or paper you’ re focusing on for the study session. Nothing is more time-consuming and wasteful than having to run back and forth regularly because you forget an important book, paper, or some other resource you need.

Outline and write your notes.

It may be helpful to use as many senses as possible when studying, because information is retained more readily in people when other senses are involved. That’s why writing notes works in the first place—it puts information into words and terms you understand. Mouthing the words out loud while you copy the notes before an important exam can be one method for involving another sense.

Practice with friends.

Some people enjoy reviewing their materials with a group of classmates. Such groups work best when they’ re kept small. Some groups like to work through chapters together, quizzing one another as they go through it. Others like to compare class notes and review materials that way, ensuring they haven’t missed any critical points. Such study groups can be helpful for many students, but not all.

【推荐1】   

ChatGPT, a powerful AI chatbot tool, has swept the world in the past months. While it has been dominating social media with its frighteningly good essays, ChatGPT has also caused both excitement and worries in education.

According to a US survey of more than 1,000 students, over 89 percent of them had used ChatGPT to help with a homework task. Some students even got high scores thanks to papers written by ChatGPT.

Some universities and schools have banned the use of ChatGPT, such as public schools in New York City, CNN reported. The move comes out of growing concerns that the tool could make it easier for students to cheat on schoolwork and be used to spread inaccurate (不精确的) information. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic (学术的) and lifelong success,” Jenna Lyle, said in a statement.

Apart from strict bans, teachers are redesigning their courses in an attempt to block the use of ChatGPT. Some college professors in the US are now including more oral exams and handwritten papers instead of typed ones, The New York Times reported.

However, not all educators are saying “no” to ChatGPT. Some Canadian universities are not planning on banning the tool. Instead, they are working on policies (政策) about its proper usage, for both students and lecturers.

Bhaskar Vira, pro-vice-chancellor for education at University of Cambridge in the UK, said that bans on AI software like ChatGPT are not sensible. “I’m of the opinion that we have to recognise that AI is a tool people will use but then adapt our learning, teaching and examination processes so that we can continue to have integrity (诚信) while recognizing the use of the tool,” he told Varsity, the school newspaper of the university.

Vira’s opinion on ChatGPT is shared by Peter van der Putten, assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “It’s there, just like Google is there. You can write it into your policies for stopping cheating but it’s a reality that the tool exists,” he told Sky News.

【推荐2】Wikipedia (维基百科) started in 2001 and has quickly gone from having just a few pages to having millions of pages with all kinds of information. It is even an ad-free website as it receives money from donations (捐赠).

Wikipedia is one of the most useful sites for students across the world. But because Wikipedia allows the public to freely edit (编辑) pages, should teachers allow their students to use the site to help them with their studies?

History teacher Luca Signore said, “I think it has good information and it is great for a starting point as you can quickly find information. I use it myself. However, it still gets edited by people who are not experts. You have no way of knowing whether something is completely true for certain.”

Students agree that Wikipedia may be the easiest site to get information from and it is especially helpful in history classes. Junior Alison Snyder believes, “You can use it for general background information, but as much as I’d like to, we shouldn’t be able to cite (引用) Wikipedia.”

Teachers should be able to allow students to use the site on a regular basis as the site is an amazing tool for students to quickly and easily get information for a class. However, it is clear that students shouldn’t be allowed to cite sources as some of the information might be a little bit incorrect.

Junior Maxine Moss agrees. “Yes, students should be able to use it on a regular basis because it is probably the easiest site to find information, but it is hard to tell if certain things are totally true.”

It is agreed that students should be allowed to use the website to get information as pages are, for the most part, fairly correct. However, citing items is a totally different story as the pages used on Wikipedia could have incorrect information and there are so many other sources out there with similar information from experts on certain subject matters.