Fourteen - year - old Richie Hawley had spent five years studying violin at the Community School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles when he took part in a violin contest. Ninety two young people were invited to the contest and Hawley came out first. The contest could have been the perfect setup for fear, worrying about mistakes, and trying to impress the judges.But Hawley says he did pretty well in staying calm. "I couldn't be thinking about how many mistakes I'd make--it would distract me from playing," he says."I didn't even remember trying to impress people while I played. It's almost as if they weren't there. I just wanted to make music." Hawley is a winner. But he didn't become a winner by concentrating on winning. He did it by concentrating on playing well. "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part," said the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin."The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." A characteristic of high performers is their intense, pleasurable concentration on work, rather than on their competitors or future glory or money, says Dr.Charles Garfield, who has studied 1,500 achievers in business, science, sports, the arts, and professions."They are interested in winning, but they're most interested in self-development, testing their limits." One of the most surprising things about top performers is how many losses they've had and how much they've learned from each. "Not one of the 1,500 I studied defined losing as failing," Garfield says."They kept calling their losses 'setbacks'." A healthy attitude toward setbacks is essential to winning, experts agree. "The worst thing you can do if you've had a setback is to let yourself get stuck in a prolonged depression. You should analyze carefully what went wrong, identify specific things you did right and give yourself credit for them." Garfield believes that most people don't give themselves enough praise. He even... The passage tells us that "praise" in times of trouble _ . A) helps people deal with their disappointment B) makes people forget their setbacks C) makes people regret about their past D) helps people realize their goals
A
(Question)
One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said, "I am blind. Please help me." There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote something on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Are you the one who changed my sign this morning? May I know what you wrote?" The man said, "I only wrote the truth, I said what you said but in a different way." What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it." Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was a blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. It reminded you to be thankful for what you have. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1,000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear. The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling. It can be inferred that the boy was _ after he found out what the man had written. A) moved B) amazed C) excited D) worried
(Answer)
A
Ques: There was once a blind man, who did a lot of traveling alone. He was making his first trip to Texas and happened to be seated next to a Texan on the flight. The Texan spent a lot of time telling him how everything was bigger and better in Texas. After the blind man reached his destination, a large resort hotel, he was very excited about being in Texas. The long trip had worn him out a little so he decided to stop at the bar for a small soda and a light snack before going up to his room to sleep. When the waitress set down his drink, it was in a huge cup. "Wow, I had heard everything in Texas is bigger," he told her. "That's right," she replied. The blind man ate his snack and finished his drink. After drinking such a large amount, it was natural that his next stop was to be the restroom. He asked the waitress for directions. She told him to turn left at the corner, and then take the second door on the right. He reached the first door and continued. A few steps later he stumbled slightly and missed the second door and ended up going through the third door instead. Not realizing he had entered the swimming area he walked forward and immediately fell into the swimming pool. Remembering that everything was bigger in Texas, he had his head above water and started shouting "Don't flush ! Don't flush!" If the passage is taken from a website, which part of the website does it belong to? A) Travel services. B) Hotel services. C) Funny stories. D) Health problems.
Ans: C
Where do dogs come from? Gray wolves are their ancestors. Scientists are pretty consistent about that. And researchers have suggested that dogs' origins can date back to Europe, the Near East, Siberia and South China. Central Asia is the newest and best candidate, according to a large study of dogs from around the world. Laura M. Shannon and Adam R. Boyko at Cornell University, and an international group of other scientists, studied not only purebred dogs, but also street or village dogs. Dr. Shannon analyzed three different kinds of DNA, Dr. Boyko said, the first time this has been done for such a large and diverse group of dogs from 38 countries. And that led them to Central Asia as the place of origin for dogs in much the same way that genetic studies have located the origin of modern humans in East Africa. The analysis, Dr. Boyko said, pointed to Central Asia, as the place where "all the dogs alive today" come from. The data did not allow precise dating of the origin, he said, but showed it occurred at least 15,000 years ago. Greger Larson of Oxford University, who is leading a large international effort to analyze ancient DNA from fossilized bones, said he was impressed by the study. "It's really great to see not just the number of street dogs, but also the geographic breadth and the number of remote locations where the dogs were sampled," he said in an email. He also praised the sampling of different kinds of DNA and the analytic methods. Dr. Larson, who was not involved with the study, said he thought the Central Asia finding required further testing. He said he suspected that the origins of modern dogs were "extremely messy" and that no amount of sampling of living populations will be definitive. He said a combination of studies of modern and ancient DNA is necessary. Who wasn't engaged in the study of dogs' origins? A) Laura M. Shannon B) Adam R. Boyko C) Shannon and Boyko D) Greger Larson
D