1 . If the test is already set, the best way to prepare for it is with a battery of activities that most closely look like the test itself. And so as the Big Standardized Tests have spread, publishers have cranked out varieties of coaching workbooks that are all collections of short excerpts accompanied by a set of multiple choice questions. Instead of teaching students how to read a whole book, we teach them how to take a standardized test.

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3 . Terri Bolton is a dab hand when it comes to DIY (do-it-yourself). Skilled at putting up shelves and piecing together furniture, she never pays someone else to do a job she can do herself.

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4 . As soon as I started pedaling again, my pants got caught in the chain, and I fell flat on my face and hit my nose. Since that happened t my granddad decided to call it a day and try again the next morning. The next morning I woke up bright and early, and was very eager to try to ride my bike. My nose felt better, so I wasn’t that afraid of falling anymore.

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5 . When you need a job very much, you may end up taking

Of course, you may seek tasks and responsibilities that force you to learn something new or to work harder. “You may be operating on autopilot（习惯性地）right now, but chances are that people above you are stressed,” Sarah Hathorn says. “ Take things off your boss’s plate and let him know which projects or tasks you want to learn more about.”

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6 . In early 2021, I hit a rut in my studies. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago in Illinois, I worked to design safer, more effective materials for vaccine delivery. Although I had been productive early in my graduate career, my long hours and hard work were no longer translating into success in the laboratory, and I felt hopeless about achieving my goals. Something had to change.

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7 . She programmed an IBM 7030 Stretch computer, providing faster calculations for an accurate Earthmodel. This detailed mathematical model of the shape of the Earth was a building block for what would become the GPS orbit.

9 . When I volunteered as a social worker at a domestic violence shelter in a developing country, I imagined the position for which my university experience had prepared me. I imagined conducting intake interviews and walking around from organization to organization seeking support that the women would need to rebuild their lives. When I arrived, I felt as if I already had months of experience, experience gained in the hypothetical situations I had invented and subsequently resolved single-handedly. I felt thoroughly prepared to tackle the situation I assumed was waiting for me.

I arrived full of zeal. Within moments, my reality made a sharp break from which I had expected. The coordinator explained that the shelter’s need for financial self-sufficiency had become obvious. To address this, the center was planning to open a bakery. I immediately enthused about the project, making many references to the small enterprise case studies I had researched at the university. In response to my impassioned reply, the coordinator declared me in charge of the bakery. At that moment, I was as prepared to bake bread as I was to run for political office. The bigger problem, however, was that I was completely unfamiliar with the for-profit business models necessary to run the bakery. I was out of my depth in a foreign river with only my coordinator’s confidence to keep me afloat.

10 . They now touch base via video app Zoom. Geoff said, “I have this new thing called Zoom to chat with her, but I leave all the technology to younger people. They’re much better at pressing all the buttons.”