A friend of mine whose name was John Smith had a bad memory, which made him famous. He was so forgetful that he sometimes forgot what he was talking about in the middle of a sentence. His wife had to constantly remind him about his meetings, his classes - even his meals! Once he forgot he had eaten breakfast twice, at home and at school. His wife liked to remind her neighbors, "If John didn't have his head tied on, he would forget that too!" Since Smith was a professor at a well-known university, his forgetfulness was often an embarrassment to him. It wasn't that he was not clever, as some critical people tended to say, but just very very absent-minded.
One hot summer day, Professor Smith decided to take his children to a seaside town about a three-hour train ride away. To make the trip more interesting for his young children, he kept the name of the town a secret. However, by the time they arrived at the station, Smith forgot the name of the town he was planning to visit. Luckily, a friend of his happened to be in the station. He offered to take care of the children while Smith hurried back home to find out where he was going.
The professor's wife was surprised to see him again so soon.
"Oh, my dear, I forget the name of the town."
"What? You forget the name? Maybe one day you will forget my name! Now I'll write the name of that town on a piece of paper, and you put it in your pocket and please, please don't forget where you put it."
Satisfied that she had solved the problem, she sent her husband off again. Ten minutes later she was astonished to see him outside the house for the third time.
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Paragraph 1:
"What is the matter now?" asked his wife.
Paragraph 2:
Hearing the cry, out rushed their neighbors, trying to find out what had happened.
An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade(铲) his potato garden, but it was hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:
Dear son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my trouble would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you were not in prison.
Love, Dad
Shortly, the old man received this telegram:
"For Heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!!"
At 4 am the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns.
Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what had happened, and asked him what to do next.
His son's reply was :"Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad. It's the best I could do for you from here."
No matter where you are in the world, if you have decided to do something deep from your heart, there is nothing that can stop you from doing it. It is the thought that matters, not where you are or who you are.
Once there was a piano player in a bar. People came just to hear him play. But one night, a lady asked him to sing a song.
"I don't sing," said the man.
But the lady told the waiter, "I'm tired of listening to the piano. I want the player to sing!"
The waiter shouted across the room," Hey, friend! If you want to get paid, sing a song!" So he did. He had never sung in public before. Now he was singing for the very first time! Nobody had ever heard the song Mona Lisa sung so beautifully!
He had talent he was sitting on! He may have lived the rest of his life as a no - name piano player in a no - name bar. But once he found, by accident，that he could sing well, he went on working hard and became one of the best - known singers in the US. His name was Nat King Cole.
You, too, have skills and abilities. You may not feel that your talent is great, but it may be better than you think. With hard work, most skills can be improved. Besides, you may have no success at all if you just sit on your talent.
If you easily make mistakes when in a hurry, a new study from Michigan State University-the largest of its kind to date-found that meditation(冥想)could help you improve the situation.
The research tested how open monitoring meditation(OMM)-or, meditation that focuses awareness on feelings or thoughts as they unfold in one's mind and body-altered brain activity in a way that suggested increased error recognition.
"People's interest in meditation is outpacing what science can prove in terms of effects and benefits,"said Jeff Lin, MSU psychology doctoral candidate and study co-author. "But it's amazing to me that we were able to see how one session of a guided meditation could produce changes to brain activity in non-meditators."
"Some forms of meditation have you focus on a single object, commonly your breath, but open monitoring meditation is a bit different," Lin said. "It has you tune inward and pay attention to everything going on in your mind and body. The goal is to sit quietly and pay close attention to where the mind travels without getting too caught up in the scenery."
Lin and his MSU co-authors-William Eckerle, Ling Peng and Jason Moser-hired more than 200 participants to test how open monitoring meditation affected how people detect and respond to errors.
The participants, who had never meditated before, were taken through a 20-minute open monitoring meditation exercise while the researchers measured brain activity through electroencephalography (脑电图or EEG. Then, they completed a computerized distraction(分
"The EEG can measure brain activity at the millisecond level, so we got precise measures of brain activity right after mistakes compared to correct responses," Lin said. "A certain neural signal occurs about half a second after an error called the error positivity, which is linked to conscious error recognition. We found that the strength of this signal is increased in the meditators relative to controls."
"These findings show what just 20 minutes of open monitoring meditation can do to improve the brain's ability to detect and pay attention to mistakes," Moser said.
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, was born in Kingfish, Oklahoma on March 29, 1918. He was raised in Missouri where he worked in his father’s store while attending school. This was his first retailing (零售业) experience and he really enjoyed it. After graduation, he began his own career as a retail merchant.
He soon opened his first Wal-Mart store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart specialized in name brands at low prices and Sam Walton was surprised at the success. Soon a chain of Wal-Mart stores sprang up across rural America.
Walton’s management style was popular with employees and he founded some of the basic concepts of management that are still in use today.
After taking the company public in 1970, Walton introduced his “profit sharing plan”. The profit sharing plan was a plan for Wal-Mart employees to improve their income dependent on the profits of the store. Sam Walton believed that “individuals don’t win, teams do”. Employees at Wal-Mart stores were offered stock options (认股权) and store discounts. These benefits are commonplace today, but Walton was among the first to implement (实现) them. Walton believed that a happy employee meant happy customers and more sales. He also believed that by giving employees a part of the company and making their success dependent on the company’s success, they would care about the company.
By the 1980s, Wal-Mart had sales of over one billion dollars and over three hundred stores across North America. Wal-Mart’s unique decentralized (分散的) distribution system, also Walton’s idea, created the edge needed to further encourage growth in the 1980s during growing complaints that the “superstore” was stopping smaller and traditional stores from developing. By 1991, Wal-Mart was the largest US retailer with 1,700 stores. Walton remained active in managing the company, as president and CEO until 1988 and chairman until his death. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom shortly before his death.
61. What does the underlined word “it” in Para. 1 refer to? (No more than 5 words)
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62. How did Walton’s first Wal-mart store achieve success? (No more than 10 words)
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63. What’s the purpose of Walton’s carrying out “profit sharing plan”? (No more than 15 words)
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64 Why were employees at Wal-mart stores offered stock options? (No more than 10 words)
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65. Are you in favor of Walton’s management style? And Why? (No more than 20 words)
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The new supermarket announced that the first to purchase goods on the opening day get a big prize.
A. must B. will C. shall D. need
I had worried myself sick over Simon’s mother coming to see me.I was a new 21 , and I gave an honest account of the students’ work. In Simon’s case, the grades were awfully low. He couldn’t read his own handwriting. 22 he was a bright student. He discussed adult subjects with nearly adult comprehension. His work in no way reflected his 23 .
So when Simon’s mother entered the room, my palms(手掌心) were sweating. I was completely 24 for her lisses on both my cheeks. “I came to thank you,” she said, surprising me beyond speech. 25 me, Simon had become a different person. He talked of how he 26 me, he had began to make friends, and for the first time in his twelve years, he had 27 spent an afternoon at a friend’s house. She wanted to tell me how grateful she was for the 28 I had nurtured(培养) in her son. She kissed me again and left.
I sat, stunned (惊呆), for about half an hour, 29 what had just happened. How did I make such a life-changing difference to that boy without 30 knowing it? What I finally came to 31 was one day, several months before, when some students were 32 reports in the front of the class, Jeanne spoke 33 , and to encourage her to raise her voice, L had sai, “Speak up. Simon’s the expert on this. He is the 34 one you have to convince, and he can’t hear you in the 35 of the room.” That was it. From that day on, Simon had sat up straighter, paid more attention, 36 more, and became happy. And it was all because he 37 to be the last kid in the last row. The boy who most needed 38 was the one who took the last seat that day.
It taught me the most 39 lesson over the years of my teaching career, and I’m thankful that it came 40 and positively. A small kindness can indeed make a difference.
【小题1】 A. cleaner B. reporter C. monitor D. teacher
【小题2】A. Or B. And C. But D. So
【小题3】 A. courage B. abilities C. feelings D. dream
【小题4】 A. desperate B. responsible C. unprepared D. unsuitable
【小题5】 A. Because of B. In spite of C. Apart from D.As for
【小题6】 A. loved B. envied C. pleased D. criticized
【小题7】 A. gradually B. constantly C. recently D. obviously
【小题8】A. self-respect B. self-doubt C. self-pity D. self-defence
【小题9】 A. imagining B. observing C. wondering D. regretting
【小题10】 A. also B. even C. always D. still
【小题11】 A. expect B. remember C. believe D. accept
【小题12】 A. writing B. reviewing C. editing D. giving
【小题13】 A. quietly B. repeatedly C. quickly D. firmly
【小题14】 A. lucky B. lonely C. only D. likely
【小题15】 A. entrance B. middle C. front D. back
【小题16】 A. slept B. smiled C. shouted D. quarreled
【小题17】 A. intended B. pretended C. refused D. happened
【小题18】 A. change B. praise C. thanks D. visits
【小题19】 A. difficult B. painful C. valuable D. enjoyable
【小题20】A. early B. slowly C. frequently D. occasionally
So far, educationists have still failed to design anything more efficient(有效的) and reliable than examinations. Some people say examinations test what you know. 71 . They may be a good means of testing memory, or the skills of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person’s true ability and talent.
72 .
Then what is a good education? 73 . The examination system does anything but that. The student is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge. Meanwhile, they lower the standards of teaching. 74 .Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they only train their students in exam techniques.
Are there any simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person’s true abilities?
75 . Educationists, of course, should take the responsibility to face the challenge and come up with wise solutions.
A. The answer is absolutely yes.
B. In a word, it’s not a good education.
C. Your whole future may be decided on one fateful day.
D. Because they deprive(剥夺) the teacher of all freedoms.
E. However, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite.
F. A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself.
G. Examiners are only human: they get tired and hungry; they make mistakes.
Mary went to the box office at lunch time, but all the tickets ____ out.
A.would sell B. had sold C. have sold D. was selling
The two nurses ________ 100，000 yuan by the police but donated it to victims of the explosion.
A．rewarded B．would be rewarded
C．have been rewarded D．had been rewarded
---I can’t find Mr. Brown. Where did you meet him this morning?
---It was in the hotel _______he stayed.
A that B which C where D when
