Too often we accuse others of not listening, pretending that we ourselves are faultless, yet in our hearts we know that many of the mistakes we make come about because we haven't listened carefully enough. We get things wrong because we haven't listened carefully enough. We get things wrong because we haven't quite understand what someone meant when they were talking to us. Anyone who has ever taken the minutes of a long meeting will know how hard it is to remember—despite the benefit of notes—exactly what everyone says. But success depends on getting right—and that means listening.
Listening is not the same thing as hearing; it is not an effort actively. It demands attention and concentration. It may mean quizzing the speaker for additional information or for clarification—it is always better to ask than to continue regardless and get things wrong. However, if you allow your mind to wander onto something else, even for a few minutes, you'll miss what the speaker is saying—probably at the very moment when he or she is saying something critical. And not having heard, you won't know you've missed anything until it's too late.
The most common bad habit we have is to start thinking of what we are going to say about the subject long before the other speaker has finished. We then stop listening. Even worse, this often adds rudeness to inattentiveness, as once you have decided what to say there is a fair chance you will interrupt to say it. Good listeners don't interrupt. In fact it is often worth explaining the main idea of what you have listened well.
Above all, be patient and accept that many people are not very good communicators. It's helpful to remember that the ways people move and position themselves while they are speaking can reveal a great deal about what they are saying. Equally important you should put yourself in the other person's place, both intellectually and emotionally; it will help you to understand what they are getting at and form a response. But don't be too clever. Faced with a know-all, many people keep quiet because they see no point in continuing.
Every man wants his son to be somewhat of a clone, not in features but in footsteps. As he grows you also age, and your ambitions become more unachievable. You begin to realize that your boy, in your footsteps, could probably accomplish what you hoped for. But footsteps can be muddied and they can go off in different directions.
My son Jody has hated school since day one in kindergarten. Science projects waited until the last moment. Book reports weren't written until the final threat.
I've been a newspaperman all my adult life. My daughter is a university graduate working toward her master's degree in English. But Jody? When he entered the tenth grade he became a "vo-tech" student(技校学生). They're called "motorheads" by the rest of the student body.
When a secretary in my office first called him "motorhead", I was shocked. "Hey, he's a good kid," I wanted to say. "And smart, really."
I learned later that motorheads are, indeed, different. They usually have dirty hands and wear dirty work clothes. And they don't often make school honor rolls(光荣榜).
But being the parent of a motorhead is itself an experience in education. We who labor in clean shirts in offices don't have the abilities that motorheads have. I began to learn this when I had my car crashed. The cost to repair it was estimated at $800. "Hey, I can fix it," said Jody. I doubted it, but let him go ahead, for I had nothing to lose.
My son, with other motorheads, fixed the car. They got parts(零件）from a junkyard, and ability from vo-tech classes. The lost was $25 instead of $80.
Since that first repair job, a broken air-conditioner, a non-functioning washer and a non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbors and co-workers trust their car repairs to him.
These kids are happiest when doing repairs. They joke and laugh and are living in their own relaxed world. And their minds are bright despite their dirty hands and clothes.
I have learned a lot from my motorhead: publishers need printers, engineers need mechanics, and architects need builders. Most important, I have learned that fathers don't need clones in footsteps or anywhere else.
My son may never make the school honor roll. But he made mine.
What is it that makes people laugh? More than two thousand years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined (定义) jokes as the pleasure that results from a feeling of triumph(胜利) by showing we're better than someone else in a certain way. According to Aristotle and many other philosophers，all jokes depend mainly on showing inferiority in another person or group of persons—that is，putting it clearly，on showing that they are worse off than ourselves. Jokes raise our good opinion of ourselves at someone else's expense.
Showing how much better than other people we are is only one reason we like jokes. Someone may also use a joke to express their anger or their cruelty or any other kind of action that is not acceptable to us. We feel free to laugh when we hear about someone sliding on a banana skin. The joke lets us express those attitudes which are usually unacceptable to society. This is probably the reason why some of the jokes，especially those involving cruelty，are so popular with certain people.
Besides，all jokes depend on our enjoyment of laughing at something that is strange and out of place because it's different from things which are happening around it. The same situation can be either sad or pleasant，depending entirely on how strange and out of place it is. If a girl in a bathing suit falls into a swimming pool，we don't laugh because nothing unusual has happened. But if a man in a smart suit falls in，the situation is at once unusual in a pleasant way and we laugh. A good joke-teller will always try to build up a situation in which one thing is expected until something unexpected suddenly happens，and so we laugh.
It was a quiet village in which there was a military camp(军营).It was far from the towns and cities and there were some high mountains around. Of course it was a good place for training the new soldiers. But it was difficult for the young men to go outside. Mr White, an officer of forty, was strict with them and he hardly let them leave the camp.
Once Mr White was ill in bed. He couldn't work and a young officer, Mr Hunt, began to train the new soldiers instead of him. He knew the young men well and let nine soldiers go to the nearest town to have a holiday. But night fell and none came back to the camp. He was worried about it and stood at the gate. It was five to twelve when Mr Hunt decided to go to the town and see what was happening to the young men. He started the car quickly and set off. At that moment the nine soldiers came back. It seemed they drank wine. Of course they found the officer was angry.
"I'm sorry, sir," said the first soldier. "I left the town on time. But something was wrong with my bus on my way here. I had to buy a horse and made it run fast. Bad luck! It died and I had to run back."
And the other seven soldiers said they were late for the same reasons. It was the last soldier's turn. He said, "I'm sorry, sir. I got on a bus on time, but...."
Having heard this, the officer became even angrier and stopped him at once. He called out, "If you say something was wrong with your bus, I'll punish you at once!"
"No, no, sir," said the young man. "My bus was all right, but the dead horses were in its way!"
Not everyone is good at remembering names. What's worse is that someone else is with you and you know you'll have to introduce the two of them to each other. Here are some strategies that may help you remember names easily.Listen attentively. Listen attentively to the name and concentrate on the face. Don't look at the person's clothes or her jewelry(首饰). If you did not hear the name clearly, ask the name to be repeated.Find connections. The person you are introduced to may be a doctor, a mother of five or a cancer survivor. The details may come out during your conversation or another person may provide them at a later time.Repeat the name. If the conversation is short, once should be enough. For a longer conversation, you can repeat her name two or three times, but never use her name in every sentence.Refer the name to another person. You can tell a friend or a family member that you met, for example, Anna Smith at a party. Describe a little about Anna. However, this is an exercise for you to remember the person's name.
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A. Write down the name when necessary. B. You'd better connect the details about the person to her name. C. Of course your friend may not care so much for this information. D. Pronounce and spell the name so that you can remember it. E. Whenever you are introduced to someone, keep your mind on it. F. During the course of your conversation with anyone new to you, use her name once in a while. G. You may have been in situations where you see a familiar face but you just can't remember her name. |
Our life has been taken over by modern technology, for good of course. Young people celebrate the fast speed that technology can move at. But there is a group of people who cannot1.
It is the group of people who are caught up between traditional and2society, sort of like the middle child in technological advancement — not exactly old and resisting change, but trying very hard to become modernized, ending up being stuck in the middle. They are 40 to 60 years old and3the latest iPhone or Samsung phone or Huawei. They buy an iPad just4they can afford to, and play the same games on a larger screen.
They are almost like the teenagers five years ago,5on their phones playing a game or using social media. They're everywhere. And I saw something today that made me extremely6.
On a train, a mother was7playing a Candy Crush like game. Her daughter was sitting beside her. The little girl, about five years old, was talking to her mother about her day,8the next stop's name cheerily—with obviously desperate attempts to get her mother's9.
The mother? All she did was nod and say the occasional "mmhm". With her eyes on the10 ， she concentrated on completing the level. I watched the girl make a final attempt to get her mom to look at her, and when she failed, she sighed and fell silent and defeated.
It broke my heart, and got me11：What kind of game can make you12that you have the most beautiful thing in the world, a person you love with all your heart? What does it13when you won't even look into her eyes or listen to her?
The scene was so familiar years ago when parents14that their children were too interested in their mobile devices. Look at how the tables have turned now. I'm15whether to laugh or to cry. But all I can do now is hope that this storm will pass.
I travelled to Shanghai last year. This big city left an extremely deep(impress) on me.
Shanghai is the home of the second (tall) building in the world and its unique architecture will keep you feel (excite). The city is full of hidden pockets of culture that I was lucky enough (explore). Art galleries (画廊）and shops fill the streets such as Tianzifang, No.50 Moganshan Road and 1933 Shanghai. My adventures included shopping, people watching and getting lost in the culture shock between modern society Chinese history.
One of my favorite (part) of Shanghai is learning about the food. A good way of(gain) the insider's cooking tips is to take a foodie(美食家) tour of the city. My local guide taught me to eat the local dish xiaolongbao. He told me to take small bite of the dumpling to suck out the soup, and then enjoy the whole dumpling. This kind of local knowledge that I (provide) with just topped off (圆满完成) the cultural experience in Shanghai.
要点提示：
1）合理规划你的时间；2）远离电子游戏，选择合适的学习地点；3）上网课时,……
注意：1）词数 80词左右
2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3）文中不能出现与本人相关的信息；
4）开头已为你写好，不计入总词数。
This spring, we had classes online at home for a long time. I got better results because of good habits. Here is my experience for you.
Have you ever had to overcome an extreme challenge in your life?
My teenage years had been insane. From schoolwork to athletics, I had always been running around. Everything was so difficult.
Throughout my hectic teenage years I have been faced with many extreme challenges that have required extreme focus and hard work to overcome. If it hadn't been for hard work, none of these challenges that I faced would have been conquered.
Two years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, I dealt with an extremely significant injury. This took place in my tennis tournament in January. In the climax of my match, I jolted my back to the left and soon after felt a sharp, painful shock run through my spine. I knew at that difficult moment I seriously injured my back. I was rushed off the court and my parents made an appointment with an orthopedist (矫形外科医生) for the next morning.
I walked into the office extremely nervous and suffering from excruciating pain. My tennis season for school started in three months and I absolutely needed to build up the strength.
After about twenty minutes of waiting in the office, which felt like an eternity，the doctor walked in to examine my X-rays. With a sorrowful face, the doctor looked into mine and my mother's eyes and said," There is a 50/50 chance that Lucas will be able to participate in this years tennis season. Lucas broke his L5 vertebrae in his lower back." My heart dropped and I felt a sadness come over me. The doctor said that I would be sitting out of physical activity for two and a half to three months.
Those three months were the longest three months of my life. I was so eager to get back to practices for the season. Every day, I would think about how it was going to be when I was fully healthy. I asked myself," Am I going to be out of shape? Should I even play this year? I probably won't have a successful season."
From that dreadful day on, I decided that I was going to put in the work to be back in top form and have a successful season.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Paragraph 1：
After I got the" all clear" from my orthopedist I was going to get to work.
Paragraph 2：
My hard work proved to be very effective.
