3 . In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

I have taught many children who held the belief that their self­worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life­and­death affairs. In their single­minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self­respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve can we discover a new meaning in competition.

4 . Do you know what Fear and Faith have in common? Fear believes in a negative future. Faith believes in a positive future. Both believe in something that has not yet happened. So I ask you, if neither the positive nor negative future has happened yet then why not choose to believe in the positive future?

I believe during these challenging times we have a choice between two roads: the positive road and the negative road. And our bus can’t be on two roads at the same time. So we have to make a choice and this choice determines our belief about the future and the attitude and actions we bring to the present.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any fear. There are times when fear is a gift. A healthy dose(剂量) of fear causes us to examine our situation and plan for the future. It moves us to smell the cheese and expect change. When used wisely it allows us to manage risk and make better decisions. Some fear is good.

However, what I have observed lately is a supersized, huge dose of fear that is spreading the hearts and minds of far too many people. This oversized fear is causing leaders and their organizations to either act unreasonably or to not act at all. They are either hurrying in a million different directions because of fear. In both cases, fear is leading them to take the negative road to failure.

The answer is the positive road paved (铺满) with faith and a belief that your best days are not behind you but ahead of you. With this belief you make the right choices and actions today that will create your positive future tomorrow. You stay calm, focused and committed to your purpose. You look for ways to save money and cut costs without making unreasonable fear-based decisions that sacrifice your future success. You identify opportunities in the midst of the challenges and you focus on solutions instead of problems.

Your faith and belief in a positive future leads to powerful actions today. The future has not happened yet and you have a say in what it looks like by the way you think and act. Fear or Faith. The choice is yours.

5 . Brian arrived at the San Francisco airport two hours before the flight to Paris.He was wearing three shirts, a jacket, two pairs of socks, a pair of shorts, and two pairs of jeans. He was carrying one small backpack, which was very full, but he didn’t have any other luggage. Brian needed to meet a man named Tony before he checked in for his flight. He found Tony near the Air France counter. Tony gave him a round­trip ticket and a small package.

“Give this package to Jean­Paul at the airport in Paris. He will have a sign with your name on it.I think you can find him easily,” Tony said. “You don’t have any luggage, right?”

“Only this backpack,” Brian answered. “You said I could bring one carry­on bag.”

“That’s right.One carry­on bag is fine. Have a good trip.”

“Thanks.”

Is Brian a criminal(犯罪)? Not at all. He is an air­courier. And he paid only $110 for the round­trip ticket to Paris. Air­couriers get cheap airline tickets because they take important packages and papers to foreign countries. Businesses sometimes need to get packages and papers to people in foreign countries by the next day. Often, the only way they can do this is to use an air­courier company. It is not cheap for a business to send a package with an air­courier, but it is quick.

Every year about 80,000 people worldwide travel as air­couriers. The number of tickets for the air­courier travel is growing by about 10 percent a year. However, air­courier travel isn’t for everyone. But if you have very little money, can be flexible(灵活的) about your travel plans, and don’t mind wearing the same clothes for a week, it can be a great way to take a vacation!

6 . Almost no young people today know who the cartoon character Oswald the Rabbit is, but they certainly recognize his successor, Bugs Bunny.Oswald，Bugs, and hundreds of other characters were created by Walt Disney, perhaps the most famous cartoonist in history.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Walt Disney always wanted to be an artist.After returning from World War Ⅰ, in which he drove an ambulance, Disney worked as a commercial artist.He enjoyed drawing cartoons more than anything else, and decided to try his hand at a technology that was new at the time, moving pictures.

In the 1920’s, he produced several films where he made cartoon characters move as if by magic.The technique Disney used was painstaking. He made hundreds or even thousands of repeated drawings of the same character. In each drawing, the character was changed just a bit.A film was taken of the series of drawings, and when it was shown, the characters appeared to move. The process, called animation, is still used today, although computers have made the process much easier.

In 1928, Disney created his most famous character, Mortimer Mouse, who we know today as Mickey.The mouse starred in a cartoon called Steamboat Willie, which was unusual because it involved the use of a sound track. Within the next few years, Disney invented many of his other characters.

The list of Disney’s animation successes is long and memorable. It includes Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, and Peter Pan.Perhaps his most remarkable animated film is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.Created in 1937, it was an immediate success. Today, more than fifty years later, it is still one of the most popular films for children.

7 . There was once a professor of medicine, who was very strict with his students. Whenever he took the chair on the exam committee(担任考试委员会主席), the students would be in fear, because he was seldom pleased with the answers they gave. A student would be lucky enough if he or she could receive a good mark from him. At the end of the term, the students of medicine would take their exam again. Now a student entered the exam room and got seated before the committee. This student was a little nervous as he knew it would not be so easy to get through the exam at all.

The professor began to ask. The student was required to describe a certain illness, his description of which turned out to be OK.

Then the professor asked about the cure(药剂) for the illness, and the student, too, answered just as right.

“Good, ” said the professor, “and how much will you give the patient?”

“A full spoon, ”answered the student.

“Now you may go out and wait for what you can get, ” said the professor. At the same time, the committee discussed carefully the answers the student had given. Suddenly the student noticed that there was something wrong with his last answer.“A full spoon is too much, ” he thought to himself. Anxiously he opened the door of the room and cried, “Mr. Professor, I’ve made a mistake! A full spoon is too much for the patient. He can take only five drops.”

“I’m sorry, sir, ” said the professor coldly, “But it’s too late. Your patient has died.”

8 . If you see someone drowning, speed is very important.Once you get him out of the ______ , if he isn’t ______ , you have four minutes before his brain is completely ______. Support his neck, tilt (使翘起) his head back and press his chin (下巴) upwards.This ______ the tongue blocking the airway in the throat and is sometimes enough to get him breathing again. If that doesn’t ______ , start mouth­to­mouth breathing. Press his nostrils (鼻孔) together with your ______. Open your ______ wide and take a deep breath. Blow into his lungs until his chest ______. Then remove your mouth and watch his chest fall. Repeat twelve times a minute. Keep doing ______ help arrives.

To bring a child back to ______ , keep your lips around his mouth and nose and gently ______ his mouth. Give the first four breaths as quickly as possible to ______ the blood with oxygen. If, ______ your efforts, he starts turning a blue grey color, you can ______ no pulse, then pressing is the ______ chance of saving his life.

With arms straight, rock (摆动) forwards pressing down on the lower half of the breastbones. Don’t be too hard ______ you may break a rib (肋骨). Check how effective you are seeing if his color ______ or his pulse becomes independent to your chest ______ . If this ______ , stop the pressing. Otherwise ______ until the rescue arrives.