How To Learn English Effectively
Have you ever tried to study English, but it turned out it’s too difficult for you? Well, let me tell you that the language is easy once you keep in mind these golden rules:
▲ Always study and review phrases, not individual words.
Did somebody give you a dictionary when you started learning your native language as a child? No? Then why do you keep using it when studying a foreign language? Memorizing individual words has absolutely no sense without the context. 1.
▲ Don’t study grammar.
When you start thinking 
about what construction to use, you begin to stammer, stop sounding natural. Your responses should become automatic to master the language, so instead of studying theory – take more practice! When you speak, you don't have time for considering what tense is appropriate, one hundred percent correct. 2. Grammar is important in writing, not in speaking.
▲3.
One of the most common mistakes when studying a foreign language is relying solely on textbooks. Thanks to them you may know a lot of grammar and vocabulary, but you're still not capable of conducting a conversation. It is because you should learn English by listening and not by reading. If you listen more, you'll grasp useful vocabulary and grammar without even realizing it and without memorizing!
▲ Learn English deeply.
Remember it's always about quality, not about quantity. 4. When memorizing the phrases (remember the first rule!) slowly, you put them into the deeper parts of your brain so they don't fade away quickly.
▲ Listen and answer, not listen and repeat.
5.If you practice listening with a podcast or a video, pause it every 20 – 30 second and summarize what has been said. You have to think quickly, so you stop bothering yourself with useless grammar and start to speak the real, living language!
A. Studying grammar is the quickest way to slow down your progress.
B. Instead of learning dozens of new words in a short time, try repeating one, but dozens of times.
C. But you don't need to think about that.
D. Learning whole phrases is much more effective.
E. You should answer the questions asked by the speaker instead of mindlessly retelling his words.
F. Use only authentic English materials.
G. Learn with your ears, not with your eyes.
“Regardless of social class, race and age, men say they hate to shop,” says Zukin, City University of New York sociology professor. “Yet when you ask them deeper questions, it turns out that they like to shop. Men generally like to shop for books, music and hardware. But if you ask them about the shopping they do for books or music, they'll say, ‘Well, that's not shopping. That's research.’”
In other words, what men and women call “buying things” and how they approach that task are different.
Women will wander through several 1,000squaremetre stores in search of the perfect party dress. Men will wander through 100 Internet sites in search of the perfect digital camcorder. Women see shopping as a social event. Men see it as a special task or a game to be won.
“Men are frequently shopping to win,” says Ann, a marketing professor at Loyola University of Chicago. “They want to get the best deal. They want to get the best and latest one and if they do that, it makes them happy. When women shop, they're doing it in a way that they want everybody to be very happy,” says Ann. “They're kind of shopping for love.”
“Teenage girls learn to shop from their mums and elder sisters, and they also learn to shop by examining articles in magazines like Seventeen,” Zukin says. “And although men's magazines such as GQ and Esquire have long had shopping articles, it's TV that has the eye of young male shoppers,” say Ann and Zukin.
“Television shows are used by young men in the same way Seventeen or Lucky is used by girls,” says Zukin, “to help make clothing and toiletry choices.”
“Of course, there are men who love to shop and are proud of it,” Ann says. And that is important no matter whether you buy a car or a frying pan. All men love to buy but don't want to get cheated. Ann adds, “There actually are men who are interested, for example, in cooking or shopping or chinaware or things around the home—they become kind of girl magnets. Women like it.”
1.From the first paragraph we can find that .
A. men are all dishonest B. men like to shop in fact
C. men hate to shop actually D. men are all booklovers
2.Compared to women, men usually treat shopping .
A. honestly B. frequently
C. seriously D. foolishly
3.As is shown in this passage, teenage girls go shopping .
A. only with their sisters B. often following magazines
C. only with their mums D. often following TV shows
4.The underlined word “magnets” in the last paragraph means “ ”.
A. vegetables that make women beautiful
B. magazines that attract young women
C. persons that have a powerful attraction
D. tools that can help housewives much
Mrs. Obama spoke to the graduates of Martin Luther King Jr. High School on Saturday in her only high school commencement (毕业典礼) speech this year. The ceremony took place in the gymnasium of Tennessee State University.
The first lady told the 170 graduates that she spent too much of her time in college focusing on academic achievements. While her success in college and law school led to a highprofile job, she said, she ended up leaving to focus on public service. “My message to you today is that don't waste a minute living someone else's dream,” she said. “It takes lots of real work to discover what brings you joy and you won't find what you love simply by checking mailboxes or surfing the Internet.”
She said MLK reminded her of her own high school experience in Chicago.“My No.1 goal was to go to a high school that would push me and challenge me,” she said. “I wanted to go somewhere that would celebrate achievements.” “Unfortunately, schools like this don't exist for every kid,” she said. “You are blessed.”
The first lady told the graduates that failure may be a part of their college careers, and that how they respond to difficulties determines what they will become. “That's when you find out what you're really made of in those hard times,” she said. “But you can only do that if you're willing to put yourself in a position where you might fail. Overcoming difficulties has been a mark of many great people,” she said. “Oprah Winfrey was demoted(降职) from her first job as a news reporter, and now she doesn't even need a last name,” she said of media giant Oprah Winfrey. “And then there's this guy Barack Obama. I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures. He lost his first race for Congress,” the first lady joked, “and now he gets to call himself my husband.”
1.When choosing her high school, Mrs Obama .
A. wanted to study law
B. was pushed to make a choice
C. failed to find an ideal school
D. was willing to meet challenges
2.By mentioning Oprah's example, Mrs Obama wanted to tell the graduates .
A. to be brave enough to risk failing
B. to work hard to get promoted
C. to start as a news reporter
D. not to waste time doing what they dislike
3.Where can you probably find this text?
A. In a news report.
B. In a politics book.
C. In a graduation paper.
D. On Mrs Obama's blog.
4.What do we know about Mrs Obama from the text?
A. She is a graduate of Tennessee State University.
B. This is the first time she has given a speech to graduates.
C. She complained about her school life in her speech.
D. She is enthusiastic about public service.
Heads turned, tears dropped, and gossip-filled whispers went on and on from the hospital passages to the house windows. There was a problem: a daughter had been born. She wasn’t the first disappointment born to her family. Although my aunt didn’t care about giving birth to a girl, her mother-in-law constantly reminded her of the criticism she would have to face if she gave birth to a daughter. In India, most people held these views.
When I visited my relatives during the summer, one sentence managed to fill me with anger and start arguments with my so-called relatives. “You are a girl, stay within your limits.” They simply don’t know how different it is living in the US. Anyway, comparisons to my cousins led me to end the arguments for the moment and accept the way they lived their lives.
My words didn’t make sense to them so my mind was set on proving them wrong.
Although their words didn’t tear me apart, their actions managed to. The amount of sexism(性别歧视) in this culture, especially my hometown, made me feel bad. It was the 21st century, yet women had to eat after the men at family gatherings. They had to cook all the family meals and were asked to take jobs that required little skill or education. It was time to change these views.
As I was growing older, the same relatives repeatedly questioned me about my future: “What do you want to be?” And the answer was always the same：electrical engineer. I have a passion for electronics; as clichéd(陈词滥调的) as it sounds, I was born to do it. When I connect wires together to repair something, I can’t contain my excitement. But when I tried to explain this to my relatives, all of them, except for my parents and grandparents, would be shocked and laugh at me — laugh because they didn’t think I could live up to my goals, being a “girl and all”. It was time to change these views.
In my world, being a girl is not a problem. Rather, it is an opportunity to allow passion, not stereotypes(成见), to shape my future. I decided to channel my relatives’ views into positive energy. Rather than letting them bring me down, I let them be motivation to achieve my goal of becoming an engineer. I, a female, will become a successful engineer.
1.The first paragraph was mainly written to .
A. describe how bad the author’s aunt felt for having a baby girl
B. describe the pressure the author’s aunt had to face when she was going to have a baby
C. show that most Indian people are strongly prejudiced against women
D. show that the author’s aunt’s generation is fighting against prejudice against women
2.From the second and third paragraphs, it can be concluded that .
A. the author realized that just using words couldn’t change the relatives’ sexism
B. the author’s friends and relatives were jealous about her life in the US
C. the author got used to being reminded to stay within her limits after she was born
D. the author often argued with her relatives because she believed US lifestyles were right
3.According to the text, the author decided to change her relatives’ views by .
A. achieving her ambition of changing her hometown
B. using her relatives’ comments as motivation
C. letting stereotypes influence her future decisions
D. achieving her dream of becoming an engineer
4.In the article, in what way does the author show how serious the amount of sexism was in her hometown?
A. By describing feeling defeated after arguments.
B. By describing people’s words, behavior and common practices.
C. By stressing the conflicts she had with her relatives.
D. By giving examples of how her goals were laughed at repeatedly.
The Score: Looking for Jobs Online
Analysis shows that record numbers of Americans are visiting Job Search sites; younger women make up the biggest audience. The recent flood of advertisements from Monster.com and Career Builder has reminded us that the New Year is a time to re-evaluate one's current job and perhaps seek a better career.
In Search of Skilled Workers, Employers Go to Summer Camp
With skilled-labor shortages looming, some employers are moving to solve the problem by winning the hearts and minds of the young -- the very young. In an effort to tap future workers in middle school or earlier, big employers, including IBM and Boeing, are increasing their backing of career-driven summer camps. The camps promote kids' interest in all kinds of fields. The efforts are yielding new opportunities for families, and insights into how to help kids explore promising careers.
More Women Decide to Extend Careers
Three years ago, after a long career with FedEx, Anne made a difficult decision: She accepted an early retirement offer when the company was downsizing.
"It was a bit of an identity crisis for me," says Anne, who is in her early 60s and divorced. "I wasn't sure what I wanted to do." After a lengthy search, she found another position in public relations at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. "I needed the structure of a full-time job, the stimulation of working with others, and the reward of being productive," she says. "The income was also welcome.”
1.On the website “Monster.com” we can see lots of advertisements about .
A. clothes B. foods
C. monsters D. jobs
2.In order to get skilled workers for the future, most big companies .
A. go to world-famous universities to hire employees
B. begin to support the career-driven summer camps
C. begin to train middle school students even earlier in many ways
D. spend much money on training their employees
3.From the last paragraph we can know that .
A. Anne really didn’t want to retire early
B. Anne enjoys a higher salary than before
C. Anne was very happy to retire and found a new job
D. Anne found the present job easily
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Everybody loves self-improvement. That’s why we’re such enthusiastic consumers of “top 10” lists of things to do to be a more productive, promotable, mindful— you name it—leader. But these lists seldom work. What if we didn’t think of self-improvement as work? What if we thought of it as play—specifically, as playing with our sense of self?
Traditionally, people work on themselves, committed to doing everything in their power to change their leadership style. You set your goals and objectives, you are mindful of your time, and seek efficient solutions. You’re not going to deviate(偏离) from the straight and narrow. You focus on what you should do, especially as others see it, as opposed to what you want to do. It’s all very serious and not whole of fun. There is one right answer. Success or failure is the outcome. We judge ourselves.
In contrast, no matter what you’re up to, when you’re in “play” mode, your primary drivers are enjoyment and discovery instead of goals and objectives. You’re curious. You lose track of time. Like in all forms if play, the journey becomes more important than a pre-set destination.
Much research shows how play develops creativity and innovation. Play with your own idea of yourself is similar to playing with future possibilities. So, we stop evaluating today’s self against unachievable ideal of leadership that doesn’t really exist. We also stop trying to will ourselves to “commit” to becoming something we are not even sure we want to be—what we call the “feared self”, which is composed of images negative role models. And, we shift direction from submitting to what other people want us to be to becoming more self-authoring. As a result, when you play, you’re more creative and more open to what you might learn about yourself.
Unfortunately, we don’t often get —or give ourselves—permission to play with our sense of self. In life, we equate playfulness with the person who dips into a great variety of possibilities, never committing to any. We find inconsistency distasteful, so we exclude options that seem too far off from today’s “authentic self”, without ever giving them a try. This kills the discontinuous growth that only comes when we surprise ourselves.
Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips once said, “people tend to play only with serious things—madness, disaster, other people.” Playing with your self is a serious effort because who we might become is not knowable or predictable at the start. That’s why it’s as dangerous as it is necessary for growth.
Lead-in |
|
2.between the two mode | In work mode |
In play method | |
The8.with application of play mode | We usually regard playfulness as equal to non-professional. |
9. | 10.danger, playfulness is a must for our self-growth. |
