The sun was shining and Clare felt like doing something active. She'd had enough of the moment of living in the past. What she really wanted was some skiing if she could get herself organized. She walked into the ski school office and within ten minutes had arranged a private class for the whole afternoon. One of the ski teacher would meet her at the ski lift station at the end of the village at midday. The ski hire shop next door rented her some skis and boots and she carried them back to the hotel. There she changed into some more or less suitable clothes and took the hotel's electric taxi down to the lift station. She was a bit early and had time to look around, and get nervous. She hadn't skied for about ten years, though she'd been quite good at that time. Everyone said it was liking riding a bike - you didn't forget how to do it. She stood there looking up at the mountains, trying to remember what to do.
Madam Newton?" Yes," she said. And there was her ski teacher, looking exactly like all the other ski teachers she remembered ― sun-tanned, handsome and totally self-confident. Half an hour later all thoughts of the unhappy days had disappeared as she skied behind Bruno and concentrated on staying on her feet.
"Upper body still, make your legs do the work, Madame",shouted Bruno over his shoulder. "Call me Clare, please" she said. "OK. Lean forward a bit more, Clare. That's it. Good. You are remembering now, en?" "Yeah, I am ... slowly. It's great. I'd forgotten what an amazing buzz skiing gives you".
They skied down some different runs with Bruno being wonderfully encouraging, and she really did begin to feel confident on the skis. Going up in the lifts, Clare and Bruno chatted — just the usual "where are you from, what do you do" sort of chat, but it was pleasantly relaxing. In the middle of the afternoon, they stopped at an old farmhouse for coffee and apple cake. There were lots of other skiers doing the same. Clare felt as if she belonged - something about being part of a group, all with a shared interest, she supposed. It was a feeling she'd not had for a long time.
Bruno said hello to a few people, and went over to talk to one of the waiters. Clare took the opportunity to study him a bit. Up until now, she'd just been skiing behind a man in a red ski suit, so it was interesting to see that he was quite tall, with curly brown hair and eyes to match. From the colour of his face he looked as if he'd spent his whole life in the open air. She guessed he was about forty.
"Are you in Zermatt for long, Clare?" asked Bruno, after he'd been sitting with her a few minutes, "No, only a few days probably. Just a short break to get away from everything at home", replied Clare. She didn't feel like explaining the real reason. People looked at her differently when they knew. "But I'd like to do some more skiing. Would you be able to do anything tomorrow?"
"I think so. But you'll have to book it through the ski school office. I can't arrange anything with you directly",said Bruno, putting on his gloves and standing up. "Come on. Let’s do a bit more now." "Great," replied Clare. After another hour, Clare said, "Time to stop, I think,"Bruno agreed. "You should have a sauna tonight. It'll help your body relax. Not so stiff ( 僵硬的）tomorrow, you know." Clare didn't care about stiff she was going to be tomorrow. She hadn't felt quite as good as this for months — full of fresh air, physically tired but in her mind — alive. Happy! Yes, that was how she felt.
1.Why did Clare feel nervous at the ski lift station?
A.The ski teacher arrived earlier than her.
B.It was a long time since her last skiing.
C.She had hardly learned how to ski properly.
D.She was inappropriately dressed for skiing.
2.What did Clare do after 30 minutes' skiing?
A.She couldn’t help thinking about the past few days.
B.She got a bit upset due to her inability to ski.
C.She didn’t understand Bruno's instructions.
D.She asked Bruno to call her tomorrow.
3.What does the underlined part "an amazing buzz” in paragraph 3 mean?
A.A sudden memory.
B.A beautiful sound.
C.A strong feeling of excitement.
D.An interesting topic of conversation.
4.Clare felt enjoyable at the farmhouse in that .
A.she met some old friends
B.she felt she was better than other skiers
C.she thought the food and drinks there were wonderful
D.she found she had something in common with others
5.Why didn't Clare tell Bruno the real reason she was in Zermatt?
A.She thought he might think negatively about the truth.
B.She wanted a different ski teacher the next day.
C.She hated to let him know she was leaving soon.
D.She felt he had a bad opinion on her.
6.What can be inferred about Clare from the last paragraph?
A.She discovered a way of taking her mind off her problems
B.She told her secret to another person for the first time.
C.She seemed to have been living a hard time tor years.
D.She found a lifelong friend in the skiing held.
By now you've probably heard about the "you’re not special" speech, when English teacher David McCullough told graduating seniors at Wellesley High School: “Do not get the idea you're anything special, because you're not." Mothers and fathers present at the ceremony 一 and a whole lot of other parents across the Internet — took issue with McCullough's ego-puncturing （伤自尊的） words. But lost in the uproar （喧嚣）was something we really should be taking to heart: our young people actually have no idea whether they're particularly talented or accomplished or not. In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities, a crucial requirement for getting better at anything from math to music to sports. In fact, it's not just privileged high-school students: we all tend to view ourselves as above average.
Such inflated self-judgments have been found in study after study, and it's often exactly when we're least competent at a given task that we rate our performance most generously, in a 2006 study published in the journal Medical Education, for example, medical students who scored the lowest on an essay test were the most charitable in their self evaluations, while high-scoring students judged themselves much more strictly. Poor students, the authors note, "lack insight" into their own inadequacy. Why should this be? Another study, led by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning, offers an enlightening explanation. People who are incompetent, he writes with coauthor Justin Kruger, suffer from a “dual burden": they're not good at what they do, and their very clumsiness prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.
In Dunning and Kruger's study, subjects scoring at the bottom on tests of logic, grammar and humor -extremely overestimated'' their talents. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile (百分位数).they guessed they were in the 62nd. What these individuals lacked (in addition 9 clear logic, proper grammar and a sense of humor) was “meta cognitive skill” :the capacity to monitor how well they're performing. In the absence of that capacity, the subjects arrived at an overly hopeful view of their own abilities. There's a paradox here, the authors note: The skills that lead to competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that field? In other words, to get better at judging how well we're doing at an activity, we have to get better at the activity itself
There are a couple of ways out of this double bind. First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others. Train yourself to recognize excellence, even when you yourself don't possess it, and compare what you can do against what truly excellent individuals are able to accomplish. Second, seek out feedback that is frequent, accurate and specific. Find a critic who will tell you not only how poorly you're doing, but just what it is that you're doing wrong. As Dunning and Kruger note, success indicates to us that everything went right, but failure is more ambiguous: any number of things could have gone wrong. Use this external feedback to figure out exactly where and when you screwed up.
If we adopt these strategies — and most importantly, teach them to our children — they won't need parents, or a commencement (毕业典礼)speaker, to tell them that they're special. They’ll already know that they are, or have a plan to get that way.
1.The author thinks the real problem is that .
A.no requirement is set up for young people to get better
B.we always tend to consider ourselves to be privileged
C.we don't know whether our young people are talented or not
D.young people don't know how to assess their abilities realistically
2.We can infer from the passage that those high-scoring students
A.know how to cultivate clear logic and proper grammar
B.tend to be very competent in their high-scoring fields
C.don’t view themselves as competent because they know their limits
D.don't know how well they perform due to their strict self-judgement
3.The strategies of becoming special suggest that .
A.we need internal honesty with ourselves and external honesty from others
B.the best way to get better is to carefully study past success and failure
C.through comparison with others, one will know where and when he fails
D.neither parents nor a commencement speaker can tell whether one is special
4.Which can be the best title of this passage?
A.Tip On Making Ourselves More Special
B.Let’s Admit That We Are Not That Special
C.Special or Not? Teach Kids To Figure It Out
D.Tell The Truth: Kids Overestimate their Talents
Two heads are better than one. After all, when trying to make decisions, it's good to have a second opinion. But what about a third, fourth — even twelfth? What group size is best for making decisions quickly? For ants, four to six heads surpass one ― and also outperform 12 or 24. That's what Sylvia Zamescu now reports.
The 18-year-old senior at Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson, Arizona isn't generally into ants. She's interested in decision-making, especially by people. Last summer, Sylvia read that social insects such as ants and bees can be used to model decision-making. Ants, for example, forage for food. When an ant finds it, it takes a bite and heads back to the nest. On the way; the ant leaves a scented trail for other ants to pick up. Back at the nest, the ant vomits up its meal into the mouth of other ants. Those nest-mates then decide with the first ant whether the food is good enough to deserve a trip back for more. If it is, they follow the first ant's scented trail to lunch.
When there are too few ants, it could take a long time for one ant to spread the word If there are too many, it's hard to “tell" each about the find. What's the right number for foraging success? Sylvia decided to find out. She contacted professors at the University of Arizona in Tucson to look for someone who would let her study decision-making by ants in their lab. Professor Wulfila Gronenberg answered her email.
Working with one of Wulfila's graduate students, Sylvia set up an experiment She tested the behavior of one, two, four, six, twelve and twenty-four ants. Each group was placed in a large box al taped "starting line". At the other end of the box were two bricks of sweetened gelatin （动物胶） one contained only 3 per cent sugar, and the other 30 per cent. Sylvia timed how long it took each group of ants to find the food. She also measured how much time they spent around each sweet treat.
When there were just one or two ants, the discovery was slow. The same was true when she set twelve or twenty-four ants loose. But four to six ants? Perfect! These medium-size groups found the food forest. They also figured out quickly that the sweeter food was better.
Similar work has been done on bighorn sheep, fish and fruit flies. "It may not be four to six animals, but it's the same principle," Sylvia says. A medium-size group "is optimal". So when faced with a new decision, two heads are better than one. But too many heads are too much. Like the ants, a good decision may just require a happy medium.
1.What gave Sylvia the idea for her research?
A.Her interest in social insects.
B.An article about social animals.
C.A university professor's invitation.
D.Her doubt about a science report.
2.What do we know about Sylvia's experiment?
A.She set it up with Professor Wulfila Gronenberg.
B.There were two large boxes at the "starting line".
C.There were several kinds of foods for the ants.
D.She divided the ants into six different groups.
3.What did Sylvia find out about ants?
A.They make decisions faster in medium-sized groups.
B.They are better at finding food in smaller groups.
C.They perform much more smartly in larger groups.
D.They make better decisions when working together.
The Best Way to See Singapore. See More for Less!
City Sightseeing
$33/A, S23/C, FREE/T
24 hrs of Unlimited Touring — 9 am to 6 pm
Duration: 1 Day （unlimited rides）
Attractions: Civic District Orchard Road, Botanic Gardens, Little India, Chinatown & along the City & Heritage routes
It is easy to enjoy Singapore with the City Sightseeing open-top touring system Spot an interesting place or sight? Simply hop off and walk around and you can continue the tour later by hopping on the. next bus. With I bus arriving every 20 minutes, the City Sightseeing system links you to major sights attractions and hotels!
Guests Helpline: 6338-6877
DUCK
S33/A, S23/C, S2/T
Daily: 9:30 am — 5:30 pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Ride the original DUCK! Hop on this amphibious（两栖的）craft for a sightseeing tour which covers both land and sea!
♦ Free bus transfer, most popular tour; 1st and original DUCK; unique land & sea adventure
♦ For More Information, call 6338-6859
Night Safari（旅行）
S49/A, $33/C, FREEST
Tour Time: 6:00 pm — 10:00 pm
Duration: 4 hours observe the night activities of the 1,000 over noctumal（夜行的）animals in the Night Safari – the world's first wildlife night park, for an adventure you'll never forget. |
* Free & Easy with 2-way bus transfer
* For More Information, call 6338-6826
Flyer
$53/A,$37/C,FREE/T
Open HoursoursHow: Daily 9:00 am — 9:00 pm
Duration: 30 minutes
Feast your eyes on Singapore's magnificent cityscape from a height of 165m on the world's largest observation wheel. Get your cameras ready as you experience a 360-degree panoramic view of the city and the Manna Bay area.
* Free bus transfer free river transfer
* For More Information, call 6338-3311
☆ A — adult, C — children (3- 12), T — toddler (2 & below)
1.Mr Smith is going to lake his wife, his 13-year-old daughter and his 1-year-old son to visit Singapore at their own leisurely pace, he should get at least ready.
A.$89 B.$99
C.$91 D.$101
2.If David and his 9-year-old son are both animal lovers, they had better dial for more information before their tour.
A.6338-6877 B.6338-6859
C.6338-3311 D.6338-6826
Having a friend who is bright can do you good in many ways.
A bright friend can share your problems and help you _____ them properly. Are you overwhelmed? He can show you the order to ____ them on schedule. Are you having problems with someone? Tell him and he will find the best way to ____ both you and your friend. Let’s imagine you were stuck in an elevator. You might be very _____and not know how to get out of it.
The situation could change ________if you had a bright friend beside you. He could help you keep calm and quickly find a way to_____ you.
A bright friend is also a good ____ for you to learn from. In fact, you can get many interesting and _____things from a knowledgeable friend. You can better yourself by ______ his unique way of thinking and handling things. 1 have a bright friend who can solve problems in a way that I could never_____. Having had him as my close friend for ages, I have learnt so many things from him that may____ me much in my life. He has taught me many ways of solving problems, and even _____unchangeable situations in some bright ways.
Indeed, having a bright friend can give you the _____to keep on trying to be his equal. This makes you _____in some positive ways. You may have thought, “Why can he do that and not me? ” And so you will try your best to be as____ as your friend. You then will change your______wav of thinking and doing things, becoming open-minded to learn new things and develop your true ______.
All of these ____ things a bright friend brings to you can of course be the ____ a long-lasting friendship. However, friendship ____ a thorough and mutual understanding. So, you should also make every effort to make it last forever.
1.A.allocate B.enquire C.address D.identify
2.A.postpone B.accumulate C.finish D.decline
3.A.reform B.settle C.answer D.satisfy
4.A.upset B.clumsy C.delicate D.exhausted
5.A.frequently B.considerably C.practically D.unexpectedly
6.A.adjust B.trap C.reward D.rescue
7.A.example B.expert C.follower D.leader
8.A.additional B.unsure C.useful D.creative
9.A.accepting B.learning C.imagining D.approaching
10.A.give up B.get across C.believe in D.think of
11.A.impress B.assist C.attract D.amaze
12.A.changing B.considering C.continuing D.undertaking
13.A.excuse B.permission C.responsibility D.motivation
14.A.competitive B.committed C.ambitious D.courageous
15.A.energetic B.sensitive C.excellent D.essential
16.A.independent B.narrow C.casual D.liberal
17.A.potentials B.acknowledgment C.success D.purpose
18.A.logical B.superior C.adventurous D.wonderful
19.A.desire B.basis C.tool D.cure
20.A.allows B.offers C.requires D.reflects
—I just found out from my coach that I made the boys’ basketball team. Did you make the girls’ basketball team?
— ________.I was on the girl’s team last year. Maybe I am not the best player, but I am not the worst.
A.Not exactly. B.You got me. C.Most likely. D.You there.
