I will never forget the lesson that I learned when I was in my primary school.
One day, my 1 teacher, Mr. Brown came into the classroom. Without saying anything,he drew a line on the blackboard. Looking at the confused students, he. asked,"Who can make the line 2 ?"
Before he finished what he wanted to say, all of us laughed and cried,"That's too easy."
"But there are some 3 . You can't remove the existing(己有的) line. You can't crase any part of it. 4 you can't even touch it."Mr. Brown added.
We had never 5 that the line needed to be shortened without doing anything to it! All at once, the whole class fell into 6 . We were just looking at each other, but 7 of us came up with any idea. All our mind seemed to go blank. When I looked at Tom, the smartest student in the class, I noticed him quietly 8 his head.
After a while, complaints could be heard everywhere.
"It's impossible. It can't be done."
"9 can we do that without touching the line?"
Mr. Brown didn't say anything. Slowly he 10 a piece of chalk, and carefully drew on the board another line that was longer than the first one. Then he 11 ,"We can't make the line shorter, but we can draw a longer line to make it look shorter."
For some time there was dead silence. Then smiles of 12 appeared on every young face.Finally we shouted and applauded(鼓掌) 13 as we realized we had learned a useful lesson.
For many people, when they are faced up with competition, the first idea that will come into their mind easily is to cut others' line short. However, the art teacher showed his primary students in a 14 way that it is the wrong way to win a competition 15 cutting the line short. The right way is to make your own line longer.
