How to Speak in Meetings
Making your voice heard is one way to gain respect in your school or workplace. Yet, you may feel like you have nothing new to say or contribute. Here are some ways to make you feel ready for a meeting.
1.Having some ideas about what you want to say already planned out can help you to feel more confident in a meeting. Try writing down a few ideas for questions you can ask or ideas you can bring up in the meeting2.
Be the first speaker. If you want to speak yet somehow talk your way out of it, try being the first to say something. 3.Make a point to jump in first and create discussion instead of delaying your comments.
Speak confidently. 4.Make your words meaningful. Even if you don’t feel confident, show confidence in what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Speak clearly and try to avoid fillers like “ uh” or “um”.
Make a brief point. There’s no need, to ramble on (啰嗦地说) to make sure that you’re heard or that people understand you. 5. Make what you say memorable, not time-wasting. Take some time to form your thoughts and ideas, and then say it in a clear and effective way.
A.Make sure you turn to your teachers for help.
B.Focus on speaking clearly and with fewer words.
C.Plan out a few talking points before the meeting.
D.Speaking first means you have less time to doubt yourself.
E.Use these notes to guide you when you are ready to speak.
F.Surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself.
G.You don’t need to shout or talk over people to say something confidently.
After bikes and umbrellas are made sharable across China, some companies started eyeing the fitness market, so shared gym rooms have hit the streets in Beijing.
Unlike regular gyms that provide large, open spaces for many members to share at the same time, the newly built shared gym rooms are small, stand-alone rooms for a person to use, often set up near living communities.
Every four-square-meter room is equipped with a treadmill (跑步机), an air cleaner, a mirror, a television and an air conditioner, and users can let down the curtains for privacy. When exercising, users can listen to music, watch movies and check emails by connecting to the Internet by the screen fixed on the treadmill. There’s no shower or washbasin.
Similar to using a shared bike, users can locate a shared gym room by smartphone application, book a room in advance and then need to scan (扫描) a QR code for use. A refundable deposit (保证金) of 99 yuan is required, and users are charged 0.2 yuan per minute.
The shared gym rooms are created by Misspao, a Beijing-based technology company founded in July. Within two weeks since it was founded, the company has already got two rounds of funding valued over 100 million yuan, Yicai Global reports. The idea of the shared fitness experience is not entirely nascent. Last December, the Shanghai-based technology company VRUN set up shared treadmills in office and apartment buildings.
The sharing economy is still becoming popular in China. According to Yicai Global, confident investors are pouring millions into sharing start-ups. In March, the State Information Center published a report which predicts that the total value of China’s sharing economy will see a yearly growth of 40% in the coming years, and it is expected to contribute around 10% to the country’s GDP by 2020.
1.What makes the shared gym room different from the regular one?
A.Offering open spaces. B.Standing in the living zone.
C.Holding one person at a time. D.Having some advanced equipment.
2.What can we learn about the shared gym room from the text?
A.Users can have a shower in it after exercise.
B.Users who want to use it need a smartphone.
C.Users who use it first need to pay for 99.2 yuan.
D.Users’ privacy can’t be protected while they are exercising.
3.What does the underlined word “nascent” probably mean in Paragraph 5?
A.Simple. B.Popular. C.Satisfying. D.New.
4.What is the author’s purpose of writing the text?
A.To introduce shared gym rooms.
B.To advertise a technology company.
C.To predict the future of the sharing economy.
D.To persuade people to support the sharing economy.
Elon Musk has expressed his company – Neuralink is close to announcing the first brain-machine interface (接口) to connect humans and computers. Musk told followers in Twitter the technology would be “coming soon” – though he failed to provide details.
Neuralink was set up in 2016 with the ambitious goal of developing hardware to strengthen the human brain. However, little about how this will work has been made public. Neuralink describes the interface as an extremely high-speed connection between the human brain and computers.
Musk has frequently claimed the rapid rise of artificial intelligence poses an existential risk to humanity. Such an interface, he says, is essential if humans are to compete with such technology in the future. At a technology conference in 2016, Mr Musk said humans risked being treated like house pets by AI machines if a brain-computer interface was not built. Last year on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Musk said Neuralink’s technology would allow humans to “effectively combine with AI”.
A paper published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2015 described a concept for this connection, explaining how a flexible circuit (回路) could be injected into a living brain. “We’re trying to lessen the distinction between electronic circuits and neural circuits,” said Harvard researcher Charles Lieber, who co-authored the study. Despite the technology’s potential to increase the human brain, experts have warned that brain-computer interfaces risk being controlled by vicious (恶意的) artificial intelligence.
Such an action could lead to AI controlling the thoughts, decisions and emotions of a person using a brain-computer link. “Technological developments mean that we are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to discover people’s mental processes and directly operate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decision,” stated a Nature comment piece written by 27 scientists and machine intelligence engineers. “The possible medical and social benefits in it are vast. But we must guide their development in a way that respects, protects and enables what is best in humanity.”
1.What message did Musk convey about his Neuralink?
A.It sells brain-machine interfaces.
B.It offers rich data about interfaces.
C.It has followers to connect humans and computers.
D.Its new technology will be accessible to the public soon .
2.What can we know from Paragraph Two?
A.Neuralink aims to know the human brain better.
B.How the hardware functions is already known.
C.The brain-machine interface was invented in 2016.
D.The interface is expected to link the human brain and computers rapidly.
3.According to Musk, why are brain-machine interfaces important?
A.Because they may treat human like house pets.
B.Because they may make AI serve human better.
C.Because they build neural circuits in human brains.
D.Because they rapidly develop artificial intelligence.
4.What is the attitude of Nature to brain-machine interfaces?
A.Objective B.Favorable
C.Opposed D.Indifferent
The average American family will spend somewhere around $637 on back-to-school supplies for each elementary school child this year and twice that for a high school student. Add to that the fact that both children and parents feel anxious about the transition (过渡) of going back to school at the end of summer. For this, Jermaine Smith of Cleveland and four other barbers decided to cut hair for about 40 kids and teens for free last Saturday.
In fact, Smith has been giving back to the community in other ways long before this weekend. He cuts hair by day, but in the evenings, after bringing his daughter home from school, he goes to work as a police officer.
“A lot of parents bring their kids to me for haircuts because I’m a police officer. They trust me because they think that I teach kids to do the right things in the barber shop. I always tell young men that they always get to stay neat and attractive, and people tend to treat them with respect,” Smith says. “When you get your hair cut, you look good and feel good.”
Maybe a service that would only cost $15 regularly seems like just a drop in the bucket, but child and teen psychologist Dr. Barbara Greenberg sees this as more than just a one-time free service. Other free haircut and school supply events have appeared unexpectedly all across the country this month, as organizers have recognized how much parents can use this extra help.
Greenberg says, “One of the ways to make a transition easier is to make it fun and introduce something new or unusual, so the whole idea of getting a haircut makes kids feel special and important.” The haircuts were just part of the Start School on the Right Foot event, which also handed out about 50 backpacks full of school supplies.
1.Why did Jermaine Smith and other barbers cut hair for kids?
A.To improve the community service.
B.To prepare children for the competition.
C.To help children and parents reduce anxiety.
D.To provide back-to-school supplies for children.
2.Which of the following can best describe Jermaine Smith?
A.Honest and generous. B.Creative and friendly.
C.Grateful and thoughtful. D.Reliable and responsible.
3.What does Jermaine Smith want young people to do?
A.Form a healthy lifestyle. B.Treat people with respect.
C.Get along well with others. D.Leave a good impression on people.
4.What is Dr. Barbara Greenberg glad to see?
A.More parents are willing to work together.
B.More people take action to help kids in school.
C.People amuse the little kids in school regularly.
D.People try to make kids feel special and important.
Although many countries love their tea,UK citizens are particularly proud of being"tea people". The average UK citizen consumes nearly 2 kilograms of tea each year.
Tea only made its way to England in large quantities in the first years of the 17th century.Tea from China and a few other Asian countries was being sold more widely in England at that time. Then tea was getting more and more popular among different social classes.
There are many varieties of tea. Black tea mixtures are still the most common type drunk in the UK. Black tea is dark in colour, because the leaves have been allowed to oxidize(氧化)before drying. This is why we usually serve it with milk, although it is not uncommon to drink it black or with lemon. You may still find tea made with loose tea leaves, served up in a pot, and poured into the best china cups with saucers(茶托)for visitors.
Tea is still a large part of daily life in the UK today,but it seems to be on the decrease.The amount of tea sold in the UK fell by more than 10%in the five years leading up to 2002,and has been dropping ever since.Tea sales fell by 6%in 2014 alone,and most restaurants report selling more than twice as many cups of coffee as they do tea. More than £ 1 billion was spent on coffee in high street stores in 2013,more than twice what was spent on tea bags.
Still, what goes around comes around; it's sure to become fashionable again.
1.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A.UK citizens take pride in being “tea people”.
B.The UK seldom serves black tea with lemon.
C.Tea made its way to England in the early 16th century.
D.Tea from China is being sold more widely in England now.
2.What can we learn from paragraph 4?
A.Tea sales have fallen by 6%since 2014.
B.Most restaurant like selling tea than coffee.
C.In 2013, the money spent on tea was f 3 billion.
D.Since 2002, the sales of tea have been on the decrease.
3.What does the underlined sentence mean in the last paragraph?
A.It can never succeed again. B.The tea will become popular again.
C.Coffee is more popular than tea. D.The tea is becoming less popular.
阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。续写的词数应为150左右。
“Congratulations, man!” exclaimed my buddy Alex when he greeted me at my locker. “Today’s the big day, right？”
“Yeah!” I said, giving him a huge grin. “I’ve been waiting forever for this!”
I pushed my books into the locker and grabbed my racket and ran away. As I sprinted toward the tennis courts, because I was confident that in a few minutes I’d be wearing a dark red varsity jersey to become a member of the team I have been dreaming to join.
When I got to the court, Coach Webber was in the middle of the big announcement.
“Three new guys will be joining the team this year,” he said. He threw the first jersey to Jack and the next to Rick. I held my hands in the air, all set to grab my own jersey as it sailed through the air. But I watched as the last jersey finally landed in Dylan’s hands.
What just happened？I thought, completely confused. Coach Webber had promised that he’d put me on. Had he forgotten？Was he mad at me？
Just then Coach Webber came up to me.
“Sorry, Josh,” he said, lowering his voice. “But I really think it would serve you and the other players better if you remained on the JV team for another year.” And with that, he walked away.
That afternoon when I got home from school, I threw my racket across the yard and screamed, “It’s so unfair!”
Then I complained to Mom, who ran out to see what was wrong.
“Coach didn’t tell me why he changed his mind!” I said through clenched teeth. “His excuse was so lame! It would ‘serve’ the JV team better. What does that even mean!”
“I don’t blame you for being so upset, but try to look at the situation from the coach’s perspective,” Mom suggested. “He wants what’s best for the team, right? Maybe he sees something you can’t.”
“Like what!” I asked, angry that Mom seemed to be siding with my coach. “I’m so much better this year! And I did everything he asked me to. That’s not fair! Forget it. I’m sick of this. Tomorrow I’m quitting!”
Para1:
I dropped to the ground, totally drained and feeling completely defeated.
Para2:
I thought, maybe Mom was right.
