全新版大学英语快速阅读2原文

快速阅读2

全新版大学英语

快速阅读2

Unit 1

How to Study

There is a lot of misunderstanding about studying. Most students

have not been taught the principles behind really effective working. Imagine a graph showing the amount a person learns against the number of hours he works in a day. If he doesn't do any work, he learns nothing (point 0). If he does an hour 's work he learns a certain amount (point 1). If he does two hours' work he learns about twice as much (point 2). If he does more work he'll learn still more (point 3). However, if he tries to do twenty-three and a half hours' work in one day, he'll be so tired that he'll hardly remember anything: what he learns will be very little (point 4). If he did less work he 'd learn more (point 5).

Now whatever the exact shape of the graph 's curve, made by

joining these points, it must have a high point. Point \is the very maximum anyone can learn in the day. And this represents the optimum, the best,amount of work to do. It is the best possible compromise between adequate time at the books and fatigue. Fatigue is an absolutely real thing;

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one can't escape it or ignore it. If you try to ignore it and press yourself to work past the optimum, you will only get on this downward slope and achieve less than the best—and then become very tired and lose your power of concentration.

The skill in being a student consists of getting one 's daily study as

near the optimum point as possible. I cannot tell you what the optimum is. It differs with the type of work, it differs from person to person, and even in the same person it varies from week to week. You must try to find your own. Every day you study, bear this principle of the optimum in mind. When you feel yourself getting fatigued, if you find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again and not taking it in, that's a pretty good sign you 've reached your highest point for the day and should stop. Most ordinary students find their optimum at about five hours a day. Yours may be a little more or a little less—but if you get in five hours' good work a day, you will be doing well.

Now, what are you doing with yourself when you aren't working?

Before examinations some students do nothing at all except sit in a chair and worry. Here is another misunderstanding. People often think that the mind works like the body; it does not. If one wanted to save one 's physical energy in order to cut the maximum amount of firewood, one would lie flat on a bed and rest when one wasn't chopping. But the mind cannot rest. Even in sleep you dream, even if you forget your dreams. The mind is

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always turning. It gets its relaxation only by variety. That is what makes the mind rest.

When you 've finished your optimum number of hours you must

stop. You must not then sit around in the chair thinking about the work—that only tires without any learning. You must get out and do something. It doesn't matter what—anything so long as you are actively doing something else but work.

Learning to Keep You Cool During Tests

Have you ever felt so anxious during an examination that you

couldn't even put down the answers you knew? If so, you were suffering from what is known as test anxiety.

According to psychologist Ralph Trimble, test anxiety is a very real

problem for many people. When you 're worried over your performance on an exam, your heart beats faster and your pulse speeds up. These reactions start others: You may sweat more than normal or suffer from a stomachache or headache. Your field of vision narrows and becomes tunnel-like. Before you know it, you 're having difficulty focusing.

\I hear students say over and over again,\says Dr. Trimble,

who is working at the Psychological and Counseling Center at the University of Illinois, \

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For a number of years, Dr. Trimble helped many students learn how

to perform better during exams and to bring up their grades. Some of these students were interested in sharing what they learned and, with Trimble 's help, began holding workshops on overcoming test anxiety. For many students, just being in a workshop with other sufferers made them feel better. They realized that they were not the only ones who had done poorly on tests because of tension.

The workshops were so successful that they are still given. In the workshops, students are taught that anxiety is normal. You

just have to prevent it from getting the best of you. The first step is to learn to relax. If before or during an examination you start to panic, stretch as hard as you can, tensing the muscles in your arms and legs; then suddenly relax all of them.

This will help relieve tension. But keep in mind that you don't want

to be too relaxed. Being completely relaxed is no better than being too tense. \you are so calm you don't care how you do on an examination, you won't do well,\Trimble says. \is an optimum level of concern when you perform at your best. Some stress helps. There are people who can't take even slight stress. They have to learn that in a challenging situation, being anxiously excited is good and will help them to do better. But if they call it anxiety and say, 'It's going to hit me again,' that will make them nervous and worried.\

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As a student you must also realize that if you leave too much

studying until a day or two before the examination, you can't do the impossible and learn it all. Instead, concentrate on what you can do and try to think what questions are likely to be asked and what you can do in the time left for studying.

When you sit down to study, set a moderate pace and vary it by

reading, writing notes, and going over any papers you have already written for the course, as well as the textbooks and notes you took in class. Review what you know. Take breaks and go to sleep early enough to get a good night 's rest before the exam. You should also eat a moderate breakfast or lunch, avoiding drinks like coffee and stay away from fellow students who get tense. Panic spreads easily.

Get to the exam room a few minutes early so that you will have a

chance to familiarize yourself with the surroundings and get out your supplies. When the examination is handed out, read the directions twice and underline the significant instructions, making sure you understand them. Ask the teacher to explain if you don't. First answer the easiest questions, then go back to the more difficult.

On essay questions, instead of starting right away, take a few

minutes to organize your thoughts, make a brief outline, and then start off with a summary sentence. Keep working steadily, and even when time starts to run out, don't speed up.

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\'m afraid you can't withdraw it for two days, sir. Not until the

check has been cleared.\

I stared at her in great surprise. I was trusting her bank with my

money. It seemed only fair that they should trust my check.

\I said in shock. \I burst out angrily. Silence fell

over the entire bank as everyone turned to see what was happening. I decided to leave with my self-respect safe and sound.

\my check, would you be so kind as to return it

immediately. Your passbook,\I said as confidently as I could. Miss Lee seemed really surprised. The bank manager must have been listening to every word. He came out once again from behind the barriers of steel and chrome. He held my check by a corner and presented it to me as if it were a wet fish. I handed him his little red pass book in a similar fashion, turned around and left. As the doors closed behind me, I clearly heard the sound of laughter.

The accounts department and I have managed to come to an

arrangement about the way in which my salary is paid to me at the end of each month. I now keep my savings in a sock, as did my father before me, which I hide, as did my father before me, under my bed at home.

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Unit 2

Remembering My Grandparents

When memory began for me, my grandfather was past sixty—a

great tall man with thick hair becoming gray. He had black eyes and a straight nose which ended in a slightly flattened tip. Once he explained seriously to me that he got that flattened tip as a small child when he fell down and stepped on his nose.

The little marks of laughter at the corners of his eyes were the

product of a kindly and humorous nature. The years of work which had bent his shoulders had never dulled his humor nor his love of a joke. Everywhere he went, \made friends easily. At the end of half an hour you felt you had known him all your life. I soon learned that he hated to give orders, but that when he had to, he tried to make his orders sound like suggestions.

One July morning, as he was leaving to go to the cornfield, he said,

\you can pick up the potatoes in the field today if you want to do that.\

The day passed, and I did not have any desire to pick up potatoes.

Evening came and the potatoes were still in the field. Gramp, dusty and tired, led the horses to get their drink.

\ \

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\ \ \

\ In the next few minutes I learned a lesson I would not forget: when

Gramp said I could if I wanted to, he meant that I should want to.

My grandmother (\Gram\worked hard all day, washing clothes,

cleaning the house, making butter, and even working in the field when help was scarce. In the evening, though, she was not too tired to read books from the community library. For more than forty years Gram read aloud to Gramp almost every evening. In this way she and Gramp learned about all the great battles of history and became familiar with the works of great authors and the lives of famous men.

Gram hated cruelty and injustice. The injustices of history, even

those of a thousand years before, angered her as much as the injustices of her own day.

She also had a deep love of beauty. When she was almost

seventy-five, and had gone to live with one of her daughters, she spent a delightful morning washing dishes because, as she said, the beautiful patterns on the dishes gave her pleasure. The birds, the flowers, the clouds—all that was beautiful around her—pleased her. She was like the

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father of the French painter, Millet, who used to gather grass and show it to his son, saying, \

In a pioneer society it is the harder qualities of mind and character

that are of value. The softer virtues are considered unnecessary. Men and women struggling daily to earn a living are unable, even for a moment, to forget the business of preserving their lives. Only unusual people, like my grandparents, manage to keep the softer qualities in a world of daily struggle.

Such were the two people with whom I spent the months from June

to September in the wonderful days of summer and youth.

Leaf and Loaf

Leaf

At last we went out and stood on the lawn and watched the sun go

down, and my father said, \the face of the earth long ago.\

What art really is, though, and what a human being really is, and

what the world really is. I just don't know, that's all.

Standing there, watching the sun go down into the sea, my father

said, \

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things are placed, so that everybody in that house might look at the things very carefully, and see them.\

\

\

An apple. An egg. A pebble. A flower. A dead insect. A shoe.\

\

\course. But nobody looks at them, and that's what art is. To

look at familiar things as if they had never before been seen. A plain sheet of paper with typing on it. A necktie. A pocketknife. A key. A fork. A cup. A bottle. A bowl. A walnut.\

\

\

The next morning you would take it away, and put something else there—anything, for there is nothing made by nature or by man that doesn't deserve to be looked at particularly.\

Now, the sun was gone all the way into the sea. There was a lot of

orange light on the water, and in the sky above the water. Legion of Honor Hill grew dark, and my father brought out a cigarette and lighted it and inhaled and then let the smoke out of his nose and mouth, and he said, \

\

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\

all over the world?\

Loaf

We loafed through the whole town, because that was what we had

planned to do. It was nothing more than just another little town with another bunch of people living in it. We saw some of the people. All of a sudden I noticed their eyes.

This made me laugh.

\

\ \

He began to sing, \ Pretty soon he stopped singing and began to breathe deeply. \'s baking bread somewhere. Would you like some fresh

bread?\

\

We walked to the corner, then around the corner, but we didn't find

a bakery there, so we went back to where we had been, and near there we found the place, but the door was locked.

My father knocked, and then we saw a man in a baker 's white coat

with flour on his hands and face come to the door and open it.

\

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\ \

\don't often get a chance to eat

freshly baked bread.\

\want to come in, then?\the baker said, so my father and I

went in. We followed the man to where he and his wife were baking bread. It was clean and warm back there. The metal racks had new loaves on them and new rolls.

\

My father took a loaf of French bread from among half a dozen

that the baker 's wife brought out of the oven on a long wooden spade and held out to him, and then she brought him a lot of rolls on the spade. My father took half a dozen rolls, too. He gave me one, and he took a bite out of another. The big loaf he put in his coat pocket just the way it was.

\

little table. Help yourself.\

My father and I went to the little table where the baker and his wife

sat and ate bread and cheese, and we sat there.

\ \

The baker came over and broke open a roll and put some cheese in

it. I thought he was going to bite into it himself, but he handed the roll to

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me and said, \remember bread and cheese. When everything else looks bad, remember bread and cheese, and you'll be all right.\

\

\

this is the work for me.\

The True Story of a Young Man

When Reginald Lindsay received a scholarship to Morehouse College

in Atlanta, Georgia, what he wanted most was a good job with a good salary. But soon he became interested in the civil rights movement. At present he has a plan which he hopes will take him to Congress as a southern representative.

Now in his first year at Harvard Law School, Reg is making careful

plans. After earning his degree, he expects to return to the South to practice law among the poor. \rights are and to help them achieve them,\says. Then he hopes to run for political office at the local and state level until he is ready to try for Congress.

Reg grew up in a low-income Negro section of Birmingham,

Alabama. Brought up by his grandparents after his parents were divorced while he was very young,. Reg has been living through a period of

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far-reaching progress in race relations. In the summer of 1968 Reg himself became a good example of this progress when he became the first Negro student appointed to a special new program. The program introduces bright young students to the workings of the Georgia State government and encourages them to seek employment there after finishing their education. \'ve been lucky,\he says. \seem to have been in the right place at the right time.\

But luck is only part of Reg 's story, for he has made the most of

opportunities that came his way. He learned to read in kindergarten and began visiting the public library regularly to borrow books. His grandparents encouraged him, though neither of them had much education, and they bought him a set of encyclopedias. \loved those books,\he remembers. %used to come downstairs before breakfast and read short articles. I enjoyed reading about famous men, and then I would pretend to be one of them. I guess it was partly a childish game and partly an escape. It wasn't too much fun to be a Negro when I was a kid.\

While studying for his bachelor 's degree at Morehouse College, Reg

worked on several political campaigns helping candidates get elected to government offices. At the same time he maintained a \average while majoring in political science. He worked as a student advisor to earn extra money for his college expenses, and he was granted a scholarship for a year of study at the University of Valencia in Spain.

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With just two more years to complete at Harvard Law School,

which also gave him a scholarship, Reg has made a good start on his professional career. He says, \I can find satisfaction in public service.\

A Game of Light and Shade

It was a sunny winter day. I had gone up and down the tower, and

felt pleased with myself for having taken this initiative, when, outside the little door at the foot, a blind man came toward me. He was a pale, thin man, with black hair and dark glasses that gave him a mysterious look. He kept close to the inner wall of the courtyard, touching it lightly with his arm. On reaching the door, he touched it and sharply turned inside. In a moment, he disappeared up the staircase. I stood still, looking at the empty space left by the open door, and at the little sign that said \to the wall. I felt compelled to follow.

I didn't follow closely. I caught up with him in the ticket office. There

I was surprised to see the attendant selling him a ticket as though he were any other visitor. The man reached out for it clumsily, sweeping a little space of desk with his hand until he had it, but the attendant didn't seem to take any notice. Then, with the ticket in one hand and touching the wall

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Unit 5

A Young, Blind Expert on Computers

Sometimes, something that is considered to be negative turns out

to be an asset on the job. Though he is only 18 years old and blind, Suleyman Gokyigit is among the top computer technicians and programmers at InteliData Technologies Corp., a large software company with several offices across the United States.

\our company combined with another one last October, two

different computer networks were driving us crazy,\an InteliData vice president. \In three weeks, Mr. Gokyigit, a University of Toledo sophomore who works part-time at InteliData 's office in the city, created the software needed to combine the two networks. \of the company's 350 other employees could have done the job in three months,\says Mr. Braun. \

Mr. Gokyigit 's gift, as Mr. Braun calls it, is an unusual ability to form

an idea of the inside of a machine. \into the world and do almost anything I want to do,\is a computer science engineering major with straight As.

Like most blind people who work with computers, Mr. Gokyigit uses

a voice-synthesizer which is an electronic device that can read out loud the video display on his monitor in a mechanical voice. He depends entirely

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on memory. Turning the synthesizer to top speed, he remembers almost everything he hears, at least until a project is completed. While the synthesizer talks, Mr. Gokyigit mentally \computer screen with numbered coordinates (such as three across, two down) and memorizes the location of each icon on the grid so he can call up files with his mouse.

The young programmer is also at home with hardware, thanks

partly to a highly developed sense of touch. Mitzi Nowakowski, an office manager at InteliData, remembers how he easily disconnected and reconnected their computer systems during a move last year. \feel, Suleyman can find the position of connectors, pins and wires much faster than most other people with sight,\

Several months ago, on a trip to San Francisco, Mr. Braun had

difficulty connecting to the company 's mainframe computer using his laptop. He needed specific numbers to get into four InteliData files. Instead of asking someone to manually search a thick book of computer addresses, he called Mr. Gokyigit, who had committed the address book to memory and produced the proper numbers \ten seconds\Mr. Braun says.

Much of the student programmer 's speed comes from his ability to

ignore interruptions while at the computer. When typing, he listens carefully to the synthesizer. His long, thin fingers fly over the keyboard.

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\seems to shake his concentration,\says Mrs. Nowakowski, his boss.

Mr. Gokyigit is the only company employee who is available 24 hours

a day. \

As Dream Comes True

We all have dreams. Yet so few of us fulfill them. Often, a dream

dies as quickly as it is born because we lack the confidence to keep it. When I was old enough to understand the realities of life, I realized that society puts a high value on youth, beauty and intellectual achievement. This discovery gave me some idea to develop my dream.

I know beauty is something I will never have. So I didn't dream of

becoming beautiful. But I didn't see it as something bad because it forced me to concentrate my energy to develop my other qualities. What people see in the handicapped is only their appearance of being handicapped. People are not impressed with the ability that lies inside every handicapped person.

My dream was simple. I dreamed of becoming a typist when I was in

secondary school. I always hoped to be able to master the typewriter. This magic machine would be my passport to getting a job. I come from a poor family of five children and the best that my parents could give us was a

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good school education. But, of course, this achievement proved to be no sure guarantee of getting a job in an office. The employment field was a highly competitive place. It gave not only keen competition to a handicapped job-seeker but also the unfriendly treatment from the physically strong and healthy. They see the handicapped as the back row of society.

However, I refused to sit in the back row. I took a brave step to

break through the wall that isolates the handicapped. I decided to take a course in typing run by the government. I filled in the detailed information in the application form and wrote down typing as my training course. When I handed over the form to the interviewer, she looked at me then moved her eyes to my body. She left and discussed with another member of the staff at the center. I had decided that it must be typing, or nothing. When the interviewer returned, she advised me to change my choice from typing. \earn while at home? You cannot hope to compete with college graduates,\to hire smartly dressed, pretty girls with beautiful hands,\

I knew I didn't have those qualifications. But I was determined to

stay with my choice of typing, \She accepted me. The typing instructor admitted me into his class to give me one month as a trial period to find out whether I could really handle the

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course well. I had tried my very best to master the machine. I was allowed to continue with the course after the trial period.

On the fifth month of the six-month course, I was called to the

office of the chief instructor. I was one of five students in our class who was chosen to do some copy typing from the files of the department. I knew I would be very efficient. While I was working hard on the typewriter, taking every care to be neat and fast, my other companions spent their time talking and reading. I finished half of the work given to all of us.

More work came to me after this test. I could see quite clearly the

way to achieving my dream. I was taken on as one of the typists in one of the offices immediately after my graduation. I did not mind starting at the bottom of the ladder. Being a typist was just the beginning of the climb. Having achieved one dream, I set out to achieve others. I worked and studied at the same time, which was no easy task. But the sacrifice proved rewarding.

Overcoming one challenge after another gives me self-confidence.

The challenges help strengthen my courage and build up my positive attitude toward life. All these elements are necessary for the dream-come-true formula. Dreamers should keep reaching out for their dreams, no matter what the pain, until they get what they want in life. When they are settled comfortably, they can sit back and tell the world. I did it alone.

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