注意：每个空格只填一个单词。
If we agree that the function of education is to prepare us for life, then there is very little time to waste. So, while we can, we ought to concentrate on teaching children something really useful. Here is what our school should teach.
Politeness is a mark of civilazation. The sooner children learn this, the better. In any case, a lot can be accoplished by a smile and good manners.
Like it or not, our adult lives will be consumed by the struggle for money, but we don’t make an effort to teach children how to manage it. So our schools have a duty to teach them this ability from the beginning.
We’re likely no accept something we are told, but that’s not what educated people do. Educated people are reasonable and they look at facts. If our schools teach nothing else, they should at least teach critical(批判性的)thinking.
Children should learn to take care of their health. They should know that if they eat junk food(垃圾食品), they will become fat and unhealthy. They should be very clear about what happens to their bodies when they drink or smoke.
All of us are part of society. We have rights and responsibilities. We ought to understand what they are. We have to know a little bit of history and geography, because we need to hava an environment in which to relate to the people around us.
How will we test students on these? We can’t. But that’s not a reason to avoid teaching what is important. Our schools should spend every moment they have telling this to our children:“This is life, this is what you are going to face, and this is how you deal with it.”
| Title | Very Useful |
| Introduction | Education should be a |
| Advice | Important things should be taught in |
| Teaching | ●How to behave ●The basic skill of ●How to ●How to keep ●The rights and responsibilities one has in |
| Conclusion | Children should be taught what |
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Humor
If you see humor as an optional form of entertainment, you’re missing some of its biggest benefits: Humor makes average-looking people look cute and uninteresting people seem entertaining. Studies show that a good sense of humor even makes you seem smarter.
Best of all, humor raises your energy, and that can have an effect on everything you do at school, at work, or in your personal life. The increase of energy will even make you more willing to exercise, and that will raise your overall energy even more.
Humor also transports your mind away from your daily troubles. Humor lets you better understand life and sometimes helps you laugh at even the worst of your problems.
In my experience, most people think they have a sense of humor, and to some degree that’s true. But not all senses of humor are created equal. So I thought it would be useful to include some humor tips for everyday life.
You don’t have to be the joke teller in the group in order to show your sense of humor. You can be the one who directs the conversation to fun topics that are ripe for others to add humor. Every party needs a straight person. You’ll appear fun and funny by association.
When it comes to in-person humor, effort counts a lot. When people see you trying to be funny, it frees them to try it themselves. So even if your own efforts at humor fall short, you might be freeing the long kept humor in others. People need permission to be funny in social settings because there’s always a risk that comes with humor. For in-person humor, quality isn’t as important as you might think. Your attitude and effort count a lot.
Some people--and I was one of them--believe that humorous complaints about the little problems of life make humor, and sometimes that is the case. The problem comes when you start doing too much complaint-based humor. One funny observation about problem in your life can be funny, but five is just complaining, no matter how smart you think you are. Funny complaints can wear people out.
Self-deprecating(自嘲式) humor is usually the safest type, but here again you don’t want to overshoot the target. One self-deprecating comment is a generous and even confident form of humor. You have to be at least a bit self-assured to laugh at yourself in front of others. But if you do it too often, you can transform in the eyes of others from a confident joker to a Chihuahua dog.
Humor | |
Benefits of humor | ●Humor is form of ●Humor can make one ●Humor has a positive |
● ●Quality counts | |
Traps to | ●One humorous complaint makes funny person. But too many complaints will ●Self-deprecating comments show one’s assurance. But too much deprecation will make a Chihuahua dog. |
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The Cost of Thinking
Despite their many differences, all human beings share several defining characteristics, such as large brains and the ability to walk upright on two legs.
The first unique human characteristic is that humans have extraordinarily large brains compared with other animals. It seems obvious that evolution should select for larger brains. Mammals(哺乳动物) weighing sixty kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cm2. Modern man has a brain averaging 1200-1400 cm2. We are so fond of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to brain power, more must be better. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
The fact is that a huge brain is a huge drain—consumption of energy—on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when boxed inside a massive skull(倾骨). It’s even harder to provide energy. In modern man, the brain accounts for about 2-3% of total body weight, but it consumes 25% of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of apes(类人猿) require only 8% of rest-time energy. Early humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles grew smaller and weaker. It’s hardly an obvious conclusion that this is a good way to survive. A chimpanzee(黑猩猩) can’t win an argument with a modern man, but it can tear the man apart like a rag doll.
Another unique human characteristic is that we walk upright. Standing up, it’s easier to find food or enemies. In addition, their arms that are unnecessary for moving around are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signaling. As a result, humans can perform very complex tasks with their hands.
Yet walking upright has its disadvantage. The bone structure of our ancestors developed for millions of years to support a creature that walked on all fours and has a relatively small head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, especially when the bones had to support an extra-large skull. Humankind paid for its broad vision and skillful hands backaches and painful necks.
We assume that a large brain makes huge advantages. It seems obvious that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, lived in constant fear of meat-eating animals.
The Cost of Thinking | |
Introduction | • Large brains for their bodies and the ability to walk upright are two |
The | • The larger brains may not be better because of the cost. • The big brains make it harder for the body to move around and consume more energy. • The animal brain requires less • Large human brains consume more food, and weaken muscles. |
The | • Walking upright makes it easy to find food or • Freed hands can serve some |
| • Walking upright challenges the human bone structure, and • Walking upright results in | |
Conclusion | • With a large brain, human beings • Weak and marginal, human beings remained |
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How Arts Promote Our Economy
When most people think of the arts, they imagine the end product, the beautiful painting, a wonderful piece of music, or an award-winning performance in the theater. But arts groups bring broader value to our communities. The economic impact of the arts is often overlooked and badly judged.
The arts create jobs that help develop the economy. Any given performance takes a tour bus full of artists, technical experts, managers, musicians, or writers to create an appealing piece of art. These people earn a living wage for their professional knowledge and skills.
Another group of folks is needed to help market the event. “If you build it they will come” is a misleading belief. Painters, digital media experts, photographers, booking agents and promoters are hired to sell tickets and promote the event. According to the Dallas Area Cultural Advocacy Coalition, arts agencies employ more than 10,000 people as full-or part-time employees or independent contractors.
A successful arts neighborhood creates a ripple effect（连锁反应）throughout a community. In 2005, when the Bishop Arts Theatre was donated to our town, the location was considered a poor area of town. After investing more than $1 million in reconstructing the building, we began producing a full season of theater performances, jazz concerts, and year-round arts education programs in 2008. Nearly 40 percent of jazz lovers live outside of the Dallas city limits and drive or fly in to enjoy an evening in the Bishop Arts District.
No doubt the theater has contributed to the area’s development and economic growth. Today, there are galleries, studios, restaurants and newly built work spaces where neighbors share experiences, where there is renewed life and energy. In this way, arts and culture also serve as a public good.
TeCo Theatrical Productions Inc. made use of Bloomberg’s investment of $35,000 to get nearly $400,000 in public and private sector support during the two-year period. Further, Dallas arts and arts-based businesses produce $298 for every dollar the city spends on arts programming and facilities. In Philadelphia, a metro area smaller than Dallas, the arts have an economic impact of almost $3 million and support 44,000 jobs, 80 percent of which actually lie outside the arts industry, including accountants, marketers, construction workers, hotel managers, printers, and other kinds of art workers.
The arts are efficient economic drivers and when they are supported, the entire small-business community benefits.
It is wrong to assume arts groups cannot make a profit. But in order to stay in business, arts groups must produce returns. If you are a student studying the arts, chances are you have been ill-advised to have a plan B. But those who truly understand the economic impact and can work to change the patterns can create a wide range of career possibilities.
Arts as an economic driver | Our communities |
Arts activity demands a(n) ★Artists make a living through their creative work. ★Others get paid by marketing the event. | |
Arts have a gradually spreading ★Besides tickets, some jazz lovers will pay their ★Arts contribute to cultural development when people gather together to share their experience and renew their energy. | |
Investment in arts could produce potential ★TeCo used a $35,000 art investment to attract an overall support of $400,000. ★In Dallas, one dollar invested in arts could harvest and extraordinary return of nearly $300. ★In Philadelphia the arts have created about 35,000 job opportunities for workers | |
Art students making a good living | With these |
5 . 请认真阅读下面短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入
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Population Change
Why is the world’s population growing? The answer is not what you might think. The reason for the explosion is not that people have been reproducing like rabbits, but that people have stopped dropping dead like flies. In 1900, people died at the average age of 30. By 2000 the average age was 65. But while increasing health was a typical feature of the 20th century, declining birth rate could be a defining one of the 21st.
Statistics show that the average number of births per woman has fallen from 4.9 in the early 1960s to 2.5 nowadays. Furthermore, around 50% of the world’s population live in regions where the figure is now below the replacement level (i.e. 2.1 births per woman) and almost all developed nations are experiencing sub-replacement birth rate. You might think that developing nations would make up the loss (especially since 80% of the world’s people now live in such nations), but you’d be wrong. Declining birth rate is a major problem in many developing regions too, which might cause catastrophic global shortages of work force within a few decades.
A great decline in young work force is likely to occur in China, for instance. What does it imply? First, China needs to undergo rapid economic development before a population decline hits the country. Second, if other factors such as technology remain constant, economic growth and material expectations will fall well below recent standards and this could invite trouble.
Russia is another country with population problems that could break its economic promise. Since 1992 the number of people dying has been bigger than that of those being born by a massive 50%. Indeed official figures suggest the country has shrunk by 5% since 1993 and people in Russia live a shorter life now than those in 1961. Why is this occurring? Nobody is quite sure, but poor diet and above all long-time alcoholism have much to do with it. If current trends don’t bend, Russia’s population will be about the size of Yemen’s by the year 2050.
In the north of India, the population is booming due to high birth rates, but in the south, where most economic development is taking place, birth rate is falling rapidly. In a further twist, birth rate is highest in poorly educated rural areas and lowest in highly educated urban areas. In total, 25% of India’s working-age population has no education. In 2030, a sixth of the country’s potential work force could be totally uneducated.
One solution is obviously to import foreign workers via immigration. As for the USA, it is almost unique among developed nations in having a population that is expected to grow by 20% from 2010—2030. Moreover, the USA has a track record of successfully accepting immigrants. As a result it’s likely to see a rise in the size of its working-age population and to witness strong economic growth over the longer term.
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The expression, “everybody’s doing it,” is very much at the center of the concept of peer pressure. It is a strong influence of a group, especially of children, on members of that group to behave as everybody else does. It can be positive or negative. Most people experience it in some way during their lives.
People are social creatures by nature, and so it is hardly surprising that part of their self-respect comes from the approval of others. This instinct (天性) is why the approval of peers, or the fear of disapproval, is such a powerful force in many people’s lives. It is the same instinct that drives people to dress one way at home and another way at work, or to answer “fine” when a stranger asks “how are you?” even if it is not necessarily true. There is a practical aspect to this: it helps society to function efficiently, and encourages a general level of self-discipline that simplifies day-to-day interaction.
For certain individuals, seeking social acceptance is so important that it becomes like an addiction; in order to satisfy the desire, they may go so far as to abandon their sense of right and wrong. Teens and young adults may feel forced to use drugs, or join gangs that encourage criminal behavior. Mature adults may sometimes feel pressured to cover up illegal activity at the company where they work, or end up in debt because they are unable to hold back the desire to buy a house or car that they can’t afford in an effort to “keep up with the Joneses.”
However, peer pressure is not always negative. A student whose friends are good at academics may be urged to study harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of influence can also get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups and class projects are examples of positive peer groups that encourage people to better themselves.
Schools try to teach kids about the dangers of negative peer pressure. They teach kids to stand up and be themselves, and encourage them to politely decline to do things that they believe are wrong. Similarly, it can be helpful to encourage children to greet the beneficial influence of positive peer grou
7 . A person searches various websites for different reasons, such as school, work, or entertainment. For teenagers, many informative resources on the Internet can be used. As a matter of fact, there are educational, music and art websites that are truly helpful to teenagers, because they can help make one’s life easier.
Educational websites are helpful to a teenager in doing school work and searching for a college. Some can help studying for tests, explaining a lesson, and doing homework. Some can help find the right schools based on one’s interests. And still others have pages devoted to the social life at each of the colleges or the specific activities that occur at a certain school.
Some free music sites enable a teenager to diversify their musical tastes. On these sites, all types of music are available such as pop, cock, jazz, and country. One can type in a song, category or artist and his or her entire catalog appears. Then, the listener can make multiple playlists without creating an account (账户) with the site.
There are various art websites that can help students to appreciate and create art pieces. On these sites, a student can view numerous photos and art pieces from different mediums or create an account with the website to upload them art pieces for people to see. In addition, one can enjoy various art projects that people have created on display for the rest of the world.
Truly informative resources are offered on the Internet. The best suggestion one can receive is to try to look for new websites that can help in the educational, music, or art area so one can become well-rounded and informed.
Truly Helpful Websites for Teenagers
Many
I. Educational sites: helping one
● Study for tests, explain a lesson, and do homework
● Find the right school that one
● Learn information about college school life and
II. Free music sites:
● Listen to all types of music
● Type in a song, category, or artist to get an entire catalog
● Make multiple playlists
III.
● View photos and works from mediums
●
●
Helpful websites can make teenagers
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For more than twenty years scientists have been seeking to understand the mystery of the “sixth sense” of direction. By trying out ideas and solving problems one by one, they are now getting closer to one answer.
One funny idea is that animals might have a built-in compass(指南针).
Our earth itself is a big magnet(磁体). So a little magnetic needle that swings freely lines itself with the big earth magnet to point north and south. When people discovered that idea about a thousand years ago and invented the compass, it allowed sailors to navigate (航海)on ocean voyages, even under cloudy skies.
Actually the idea of the living compass came just from observing animals in nature.
Many birds migrate twice a year between their summer homes and winter homes. Some of them fly for thousands of kilometers and mostly at night. Experiments have shown that some birds can recognize star patterns. But they can keep on course even under cloudy skies. How can they do that?
A common bird that does not migrate but is great at finding its way home is the homing pigeon. Not all pigeons can find their way home. Those that can are very good at it, and they have been widely studied.
One interesting experiment was to attach little magnets to the birds’ heads to block their magnetic sense—just as a loud radio can keep you from hearing a call to dinner. On sunny days, that did not fool the pigeons. Evidently they can use the sun to tell which way they are going. But on cloudy days, the pigeons with magnets could not find their way. It was as if the magnets had blocked their magnetic sense.
Similar experiments with the same kind of results were done with honeybees. These insects also seem to have a special sense of direction.
In spite of the experiments, the idea of an animal compass seemed pretty extraordinary. How would an animal get the magnetic stuff for a compass.
An answer came from an unexpected source. A scientist was studying bacteria that live in the mud of ponds and marshes. He found accidentally little rod-like bacteria that all swam together in one direction—north.
Further study showed that each little bacterium had a chain of dense particles inside, which proved magnetic. The bacteria had made themselves into little magnets that could line up with the earth’s magnet.
The big news was that a living thing, even a simple bacterium, can make magnetite. That led to a search to see whether animals might have it. By using a special instrument called magnetometer, scientists were able to find magnetite in bees and birds, and even in fish. In each animal, except for the bee, the magnetic stuff was always in or closer to the brain.
Thus, the idea of a built—in animal compass began to seem reasonable.
The Magnetic Sense — The Living Compass | |
| Passage outline | Supporting details |
| The existence of the earth magnet and the invention of the navigating compass | ◇Our earth is a big magnet and a little freely ◇ |
| The possibility of birds’ built-in compasses | ◇ One piece of evidence is the ◇ Birds can recognize star patterns on clear nights and keep on course |
| The | ◇Little magnets were tied to the pigeons’ heads to ◇The pigeons’ magnetic sense seemed to be affected on ◇Similar things with the same results were done with bees. |
| The | ◇Little rod-like bacteria were found by chance to swim together in the direction of ◇Some animals had a chain of dense magnetic particles in or close to the |
When difficult people express themselves orally, they generally want at least two things: they’ve been heard and they’ve been understood. As a good communicator should be a good listener, five steps are advocated toward good listening.
The first step is cooperating(合作). How does a difficult person know that you’re listening and understanding? In fact, it’s through the way you look and sound while he is talking. You may help him to fully express his thoughts and feelings. You do this by nodding your head in agreement, making certain sounds of understanding.
When the peron begings to repeat what’s been said, it’s a two: turning that you repeat some words he is using, sending a clear signal that you’ve listening carefully and that you think what he is saying is important.
Having heard what he has to say, the next step is clarifying. At this point, you start to gather information about what is being communicated. Ask same open-ended questions, which will allow you to figure out what intention he is hoping to satisfy.
The fourth step is to summarize(概括)what you’ve heard.This allows you to make sure that both you and the difficult person the same page. When you do this, two things happen. First, if you’ve twisses something, he can fill in the (细节). Second you’ve shown that you’re making an effort to understand completely. This increases possibility of gaining cooperation from him.
Having listened carefully, you’ve now arrived at the point of confirming with the person that he feels satisfied that this thoughts have been fully voiced. Ask if he feels understood.
Then enough sincere listening, questioning, and remembering are brought together, understanding is usually achieved and a difficult person he comes less difficult and more cooperative.
| Topic | |
| Reason | Difficult people hope they have been heard and |
| ◆ ◆Repeat some ◆Collect information about the person’s expressions and find his ◆Give a ◆Confirm that the person gains | |
| Result | A difficult person will be |
| Comment | You may unlock the doors to difficult people’s |
阅读下面短文，根据所读内容在文后第76至第85小题的空格中填上适当的单词或短语。
注意：每空不超过3个单词。
Host family accommodation, or living with host families, remains popular among language travel students for its unique advantages. These days, host families are trying to offer more in terms of quality, for they still have something to worry about.
Host family accommodation is often seen as the number-one choice for its advantages in language study, cultural communication and cost of living. Staying alongside host families enables students to get enough practice for the short time of their studying so that their language acquisition is likely to become faster. Living in host families also has the advantage of students of being able to spend a lot of time communicating with their “host parents”, and get to know the local way of life, people and culture. Another advantage is that host family accommodation can sometimes be the least expensive. It attracts students for it ensures them a family type of living at a low cost.
The advantages, however, have not prevented host families from worrying. On one hand, some host families are losing their unique selling point. The problem is that the majority of boasts in big cities, now generally single and young, have less time available for students, but the selling point for host family accommodation is communication practice. On the other, students’ expectations have risen. They are becoming more demanding and asking for more than ever from their accommodation, as they come mainly from high socio-economic groups in their own countries.
To get out of the difficult situation, host families are now making efforts to improve the quality of service. They are trying to make living conditions better, including broadband Internet service, private bathroom, and access to plenty of hot water for long showers. They are also providing students with structured family activities.
It is believed that host family accommodation will keep the popularity vote with language travel students.
