1 . During a visit to the United Arab Emirates, I was invited to speak to college students to learn more about how the country is preparing the next generation for the future. I met with students who were required to present their final projects in a three-minute presentation to members of the ruling family. Now, that is pressure. But learning the art of public speaking is no longer an option to succeed in the 21st century; it is fundamental.
Educators who I have met across the Middle East, Europe and Asia say that they are elevating the art of public speaking to a core requirement along with math and science. Chris Anderson, the curator (负责人) of TED, encourages schools in the United States to make “presentation literacy” a requirement in elementary schools. There is a wrinkle, however. According to an article in The Atlantic, some American middle-school and high-school students are advocating for the elimination (取消) of mandatory (强制的) in-class, presentations.
Their anxiety is real. Psychology professor Matthew Lieberman writes in book, “Our brains crave the positive evaluation of others almost to an embarrassing degree.” That’s why most of us get anxious about public speaking. Anxiety can turn into full-blown panic attacks or create lifelong fears.
As an author whose books are used in public speaking classes around the world, I will explain why public speaking skills are more important than ever. Persuasion — one person convincing another to change their mind — is now responsible for 25 percent of Americas total income, according to Deirdre McCloskey at the University of Illinois. The percentage will rise to 40 percent soon, she assured me. It is a terrible idea to reduce public speaking opportunities in class at a time when students need the skills it can give them to succeed. Today anyone who is better at presenting their ideas can see a sudden, massive increase in wealth that is unprecedented in human history.
In the age of ideas, public speaking is one of the greatest skills that students need in order to learn, grow, and inspire the rest of us to dream bigger. If students enjoy the process of building the necessary skill set, they will learn to love public speaking.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．Public speaking is essential in preparing for the future. |
| B．Students don’t have to choose the course of public speaking. |
| C．The ruling family plays a key role in judging the presentation. |
| D．College students are under pressure in preparing the introduction. |
| A．Simple case. | B．New idea. |
| C．Small problem. | D．Strong belief. |
| A．we long for the positive judgment terribly |
| B．good public speaking skills can promote our confidence |
| C．we feel embarrassed when expecting positive evaluation |
| D．public speaking can make us feel scared rather than anxious |
| A．It can help persuade others to change their mind. |
| B．Good speakers can see huge rise in their income. |
| C．It will offer students skills to make a great success. |
| D．It encourages students to live a wealthy life in the future. |
| A．It scares students to make a speech publicly. |
| B．Presentations is a steppingstone for student’s future. |
| C．We can improve speaking skills in many effective ways. |
| D．Confidence in presentation increases if one is well prepared. |
2 . There are so many different methods claiming to predict marathon performance. But these are not always very accurate because predicting marathon performance is difficult. However, in our new study, we found it's possible to calculate a critical speed that we can use to predict a runner's marathon time with a good degree of accuracy.
Many things determine how fast you can run a marathon, your physical quality plays a huge role in your performance. For example, excellent marathon runners tend to be slim with long limbs. Fast marathon runners also tend to have a higher maximum rate of oxygen use (vo2 max) and can operate at a high percentage of this maximum for a long time without developing tiredness. The right shoes can make running more economical in terms of how much energy you use. And of course, choosing a flat course with ideal weather conditions can help too.
Endurance (耐久力) running is essentially determined by the fastest speed you can sustain for a given distance. or how long you can run at a given speed. This suggests there is a critical speed which, in theory, we can sustain for quite a long time. It is quite possible that the critical speed is useful for predicting endurance performance.
By analyzing training data from 25,000 athletes, we found we could estimate their critical speeds and predict their marathon performance with 92% accuracy.
We also found that, on average, runners ran the marathon at speeds around 85% of their critical speeds. Faster athletes ran their marathons at close to 93% of their critical speeds, but slower runners did so at 79% of their critical speeds. This means that using training data to estimate your critical speed, certain fitness apps on your smart watch or phone may soon be able to predict your finish time at an even higher degree of accuracy, as well as providing real-time advice about how best to pace your race.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?| A．Differences between excellent runners and average runners |
| B．Conditions to consider before running a marathon |
| C．Characters of successful marathon runners. |
| D．Factors affecting runners' performance. |
| A．By listing key data | B．By telling personal stories |
| C．By quoting famous runners | D．By explaining causes and effects |
| A．Different marathon runners always run at different speeds. |
| B．Marathon runners will run better with the help of some apps. |
| C．Critical speeds for runners given by fitness apps are useful. |
| D．It'll be easy to predict runners' performance with some app |
| A．A standard critical speed for marathon runners. |
| B．The inspiration gained from a marathon. |
| C．A way to predict marathon runners' performance. |
| D．The value of hard and scientific training. |
