Some people seem easy to understand: their character appears obvious on first meeting. Appearances, however, can be deceptive. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first impressions of a person are always right. For my own part I find that the longer I know people, the more they puzzle me. I read in this morning's paper that Edward Hyde Burton had died. He was a businessman and he had been in business in Japan for many years. Once he gave me a great surprise. Unless I had heard the story from his own lips, I'd never have believed that he was capable of such an action. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in accordance with his age and position. He didn't talk much, but what he said was sensible. You couldn't imagine he'd possibly raise his voice in anger. Here was a man who attracted you because you felt in him a real love for his fellows. He'd tell with point a good and spicy story, and in his youth he'd been something of an athlete. He was a rich man and he'd made every penny himself. I suppose one thing that made you like him was that he was so weak; he aroused your instincts of protection. You felt he couldn't bear to hurt a fly. One afternoon Burton told me a "funny" story in a quiet, dry humour: "There was a namesake of mine, who was the best bridge player I ever met. He seemed to have a fantastic instinct about the cards. He won a good deal of my money by card-playing." "One day he came to me when he lost all his fortune. He came to see me in my office and asked me for a job. I asked him how old he was." " 'Thirty-five', he said." " 'And what have you been doing ever since ?' I asked him." " 'Well, nothing very much.' he said." " 'I'm afraid I can't do anything for you just yet' I said. 'Come back and see me in another thirty-five years, and I'll see what I can do.' " "He didn't move. He went rather pale. He hesitated for a moment and then he told me that he had had bad luck at cards for some time. He lost... We can infer from Burton's story that his namesake_. A) never saw through his trick B) annoyed him by playing cards C) could not do any job well D) intended to cheat him with a lie
A
(Question)
Not everyonewhoteaches in acollegeor university is a professor. Many are instructors or lecturers. In fact, not even all professors are full professors. Many of them are assistant or associate professors or adjunct professors. So what do all of these different academic titles mean at American colleges and universities? Get ready for a short lecture, especially if you are thinking of a career in higher education. Professors usually need a doctoral degree. But sometimes a school will offer positions to people who have not yet received their doctorate. This person would be called an instructor until the degree has been completed. After that, the instructor could become an assistant professor. Assistant professors do not have tenure. Tenure means a permanent appointment. This goal of greater job security is harder to reach these days. Fewer teaching positions offer the chance for tenure. Teachers and researchers who are hired into positions that do offer it are said to be "on the tenure track." Assistant professor is the first job on this path. Assistant professors generally have five to seven years to gain tenure. During this time, other faculty members study the person's work. If tenure is denied, then the assistant professor usually has a year to find another job. Candidates for tenure may feel great pressure to get research published. "Publish or perish" is the traditional saying. An assistant professor who receives tenure becomes an associate professor. An associate professor may later be appointed a full professor. Assistant, associate and full professors perform many duties. They teach classes. They advise students. And they carry out research. They also serve on committees and take part in other activities. Other faculty members are not expected to do all these jobs. They are not on a tenure track. Instead, they might be in adjunct or visiting positions. A visiting professor has a job at one school but works at another for a period of time. An adjunct professor is also a limited or part-time position, to... In which column of a newspaper can the passage probably appear? A) Education B) Entertainment C) Politics D) Sports
(Answer)
A
Recently the barbican museum in London held an exhibition called the rain room. During the time this exhibition was open, my twitter stream was filled with photos of people standing in the rain room, accompanied by the caption "rain room@ the barbican!" and a location attachment to prove that they were indeed in the rain room. This got me thinking. What were people actually saying by Tweeting about their visit? I think all they were doing was fulfilling the obligation that we have to share. Not sharing in the sense of treasuring a moment with people close to us, but sharing in the sense of "tell the world that I am doing a thing". It's not sharing; it's showing off. When we log in to Facebook or Twitter we see an infinitely updating stream of people enjoying themselves. It's not real life, because people only post about the good things whereas all the dull or deep stuff doesn't get mentioned. But despite this obvious fact, it subconsciously makes us feel like everyone is having a better time than us. This is the curse of our age. We walk around with the tools to capture extensive data about our surroundings and transmit them in real-time to every friend we've made. We end up with a reduced understanding of reality because we're more concerned about choosing a good Instagram filter for our meal than how it tastes. I don't think that it's inherently wrong to want to keep the world updated about that you're doing. But when you go through life robotically posting about everything you do, you're not a human being. You're just a prism that takes bits of light and sound and channels them into the cloud. The key thing to remember is that you are not enriching your experiences by sharing them online; you are detracting from them because all your efforts are focused on making the look attractive to other people. Once you stop seeing things through the eyes of the people following you on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, you can make your experiences significant, because you were there and you saw the sights and... By talking of "a good Instagram filter for our meal" (Line 3-4, Para.4), the author wants to show _ . A) we are surrounded by various tools to capture our daily data B) we are more concerned about how our life seems to be to others C) we transmit our experience immediately to everybody we know D) we gain more extensive perception of reality with digital tools
B