We can all think of times when people didn't make remembering easy. Directions given at machine-gun speed. New people introduced in a flood of names and handshakes. Whenever information is passed between people, it's all too easy for it to go in one ear and straight out of the other. Thankfully, the opposite is also true. Look around you, and you'll see parents who can get their children to remember exactly what they were told; advertisers who know how to imprint their sales messages on our brains.
So, how do they do? Their secrets can be summed up in four simple words: focus, imagery, reasons and engagement.
FOCUS means ensuring that the person you're talking to can concentrate on learning. Choose your moment carefully. Check that they can properly hear or see the information. Communicate slowly and clearly enough for their memory to cope.
IMAGERY helps information to stick. Do everything your can to make other people "see" the ideas you're giving them. Add visual details to directions, and illustrate abstract concepts with metaphors.
REASONS to remember help people to put in the mental effort. So, make it clear that your words are important, and be explicit about why. Maybe this information will save them time, protect them from embarrassment, or let them enjoy a particular experience or event.
EMGAGEMENT requires you to ask questions. Point out links between new concepts and things listeners already know. Activate their senses, spark their curiosity, get them doing something physical, or simply make them laugh.
The next time you've got an important message to pass on, put some of these techniques to the test. You'll discover that there are benefits on both sides when you know how to FIRE people's memories into action.
Special boxes lie at the bottom of my locked filing cabinet. Deposited there are important letters and cards collected throughout my life, from my grandparents, school friends, parents, wife and son. Since the invention of e-mail though, they've been few and far between.
Tonight is New York's Eve 2029 and there's a very special box of letters I want to look at. But first there's something I have to do – The Ritual (惯例).
I go to my trusted computer and start. I begin to type: Dear -- . I leave the name blank for now, anticipating the thrill of typing it in. "I hope you are well and I wonder how this will find you. And you still planning to move to that villa in Portugal? Did your son marry Fiona? Is your mother still alive? Questions surge into my mind.
For the next two hours I sit writing. About what I've been doing for the last year, my failing health, my increasing wealth and sometime difficult marriage. Then about my goals and ambitions. Will he be interested? Do I climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? Do I get that novel published? the one that's been rejected more times than I carte to think about.
Finally, it's finished. 11:30 pm. I fill in the recipient's name, print my letter, sign and address it and then seal it up with tape. I then delete the document and empty the trash folder – to avoid the possibility of temptation. That completes the ritual!
I walk over to my "special box". It contains ten long, white, thick envelopes, all with the same handwriting. I place the one I have just written in at the back and take out the one at the front. It's dated 2019, and labelled "to be opened 31st December 2029".
The cycle is finally complete! I open it, trembling with anticipation. I begin to read, my eyes tearing up a little as I do so. Throughout the last ten long, eventful years, of life, death, joy and heartbreak, it has been waiting patiently in this box for me, though I now have no memory of ever having written it.
Texas rancher (牧场主) Charles Goodnight had a problem. He needed skilled cowboys to drive his herd of two thousand longhorn cattle to New Mexico to be sold. He couldn't offer high wages. He couldn't promise easy jobs or even nice weather. But he decided that decent, warm meals might entice men to work for him.
In the mid-to-late 1800s, cattle drives sometimes took three to four months, and once the drive began, there were no stores for hundreds of miles. All the food and supplies needed for the trip were carried on two-wheeled carts. Usually, the cowboy's food was boring and unappetizing.
Goodnight went to work and solved the problem. His invention of a mobile kitchen, the chuck wagon (四轮马车), got its name from the cowboy word for food, "chuck." Goodnight took an old army wagon and rebuilt it with Osage orange, a wood so tough that Indians used it to make bows. The wagon's iron axles were stronger than the wooden ones found on standard wagons, and the wider wheels lasted longer. Besides food, coffee sugar and eating utensils, it held everything from first-aid supplies to needles and thread. It even contained cooking stove.
The first chuck wagon was an instant success. Eighteen cowhands joined Goodnight and his partner, Oliver Loving, to drive the cattle to New Mexico for a handsome profit. The route they took—later called the Goodnight-Loving Trail—became one of the most heavily used cattle trails in the Southwest.
The chuck wagon soon was the backbone of all successful cattle drives. Other ranchers created their own moving kitchens, and eventually the Studebaker Company produced chuck wagons that sold for $75 to $100 apiece, about $1,000 today.
The chuck wagon was much more than a mobile kitchen. Sometimes called "the trail drive's mother ship," it was like a magnet that drew the men together. The wagon and the ground around it were the cowboy's home. There he enjoyed hot meals, a warm fire, and good companionship. He could also get a bandage, a haircut, or horse liniment for his sore muscles. And there, under the stars and around the chuck wagon, he crawled into his bedroll each night.
Depending on what language you speak, your eye perceives colours – and the world – differently than someone else.
The human eye can physically perceive millions of colours. But we don't all recognise these colours in the same way. Some people can't see differences in colours – so called colour blindness – due to a defect or absence of the cells in the retina that are sensitive to high levels of light: the cones. But the distribution and density of these cells also varies across people with ‘normal vision', causing us all to experience the same colour in slightly different ways.
Language affects our colour perception too. Different languages and cultural groups also categorize colours differently. Some languages like Dani, spoken in Papua New Guinea, and Bassa, spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone, only have two terms, dark and light. Dark roughly translates as cool in those languages, and light as warm. So colours like black, blue, and green are glossed as cool colours, while lighter colours like white, red, orange and yellow are glossed as warm colours. Other cultural groups have no word for "colours" at all.
Remarkably, most of the world's languages have five basic colour terms. As well as dark, light, and red, these languages typically have a term for yellow, and a term that refers to both blue and green. That is, these languages do not have separate terms for "green" and "blue" but use one term to describe both colours. Also, Russian, Greek, Turkish and many other languages have two separate terms for blue – one referring exclusively to darker shades, and one referring to lighter shades.
The way we perceive colours can also change during our lifetime. Greek speakers, who have two fundamental colour terms to describe light and dark blue, are more likely to see these two colours as the same after living for long periods of time in the UK. There, these two colours are described in English by the same fundamental colour term: blue.
Different languages can influence our perceptions in all areas of life, not only colour. Scientists are now investigating how different languages changes the way we perceive everyday objects. Ultimately, this happens because learning a new language is like giving our brain the ability to interpret the world differently
Tropical Cyclones
Have you ever seen a TV weatherperson pointing to a large, white spiral of storm clouds spinning over the Earth on their video screen? If so, then you've gotten a small look at what the most powerful storm in the world looks like: a tropical cyclone. (热带风暴)
The warm air and water at the equator(赤道) rise into the atmosphere, cool off, and then sink back down. As this cycle repeats itself over and over again, the storm begins to grow and the winds around the storm begin to move faster.
Depending on where a tropical cyclone is in the world, it is called either a hurricane, a typhoon, or a cyclone. If tropical cyclones move over the northwestern Pacific Ocean, they're called typhoons. In the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, they're called cyclones.
The center of a tropical cyclone is called the "eye". Most of the strong winds do not reach the eye of the storm, so the eye is the calmest part.
A storm that is rated as a Category 1 is the weakest. A Category 5 tropical cyclone is the strongest, which has winds of over 300km per hour, can cause catastrophic damage.
Once these storms come onto land, they no longer have the warm ocean water they need to grow larger. This means that they begin to grow weaker. This doesn't stop them from causing a lot of damage before they go away.
A. They still may produce strong rain and tornadoes.
B. Tropical cyclones are categorised based on their strength.
C. They withdraw as quickly as they arrive and leave the land untouched.
D. The rest of the storm moves in a circle around the eye at incredibly high speeds.
E. Tropical storms with wind speeds that reach 74 miles per hour are called hurricanes.
F. Tropical cyclones start as tropical storms that form in warm ocean waters near the Earth's equator.
G. Such storms moving over the northeastern Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean are termed hurricanes.
In today's world, we find ourselves communicating more through online channels such as messaging, social media and video calls, often at the 1 of face-to-face dialogue. There are certain situations where online communication is 2 but others where we opt for virtual over a real-life conversation. Which begs the 3: is online communication 4 in today's world?
To begin with, I'd like to outline the advantages of online communication. One of the main arguments in its 5 is that it opens up the possibility of communicating with people in different places around the globe. This has considerable benefits in the workplace as 6 can take place via video conferencing between Stockholm, San Francisco and Shanghai without the need for 7 , exhausting, long-haul business trips. 8 , it provides opportunities for long-distance families and friends to keep in touch on a daily basis. Another point is that written online communication gives us the option of responding either 9 or at a time that suits us as well as allowing us to 10 and polish our message.
On the other hand, there are several significant 11 to over-reliance on online communication. Some experts are 12 that a lack of face-to-face interaction 13 the development of vital social skills such as empathising and reacting to situations in 14 time. Also, the very nature of conversation is 15 in the virtual world. If short messages decorated with emoticons 16 longer stretches of direct conversation with 17 expressed on real faces, we are running the risk of 18 the art of real conversation.
19, I believe that online communication brings an overall advantage in today's fast-paced, global society. However, we shouldn't 20 the benefits of engaging in face-to-face dialogue.
It's just another day for William Lindesay. It begins by spending some time with his sons… and the Great Wall of China. He has lost count of the number of times he (climb) the wall. However, he still remembers the day he first saw .
The UK native came back to China in 1986 with (plan) to run the wall's entire (long) – but it didn't quite work out that time. He came back a year later and fulfilled his dream, before finally settling in China in 1990. Lindesay has had eight books on the Great Wall (publish) over the years. He has completed three photo projects that show it has changed with the passage of time and led conservation efforts to protect it. Now he and his Chinese friends are using drones (无人机) (film) the Great Wall, which provides a (complete) new and fascinating perspective.
In many ways, the Great Wall has defined Lindesay's life. His solo adventure (describe) as "the most successful foreign exploration of the Great Wall". He even received a medal the Chinese government for his conservation efforts.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：
1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Flowing through the centre of Guangzhou, the Pearl River plays an important role in the life of city. Each day, boats take people in and from work, and ships transport goods to factory and markets. The river is also a great source of entertain. Along the river banks, where you can see people walking, exercising and enjoy beautiful views. In recent years, locals had worked hard to improve the river environment. Among their efforts are planting trees along the banks or creating several new parks. Most important, they've reduced river pollution, making the water so clean as people can now fish in the river.
注意：
1）词数100左右；
2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
