For the most part, American children aren’t great at math. But Chinese children tend to be excellent. It’s consistently found Chinese students at the top of the academic pile and Americans much nearer the bottom.
In Lenora Chu’s book “Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School”, she begins to reveal the cultural differences that lead to this gap. The differences she notices in children’s focus and discipline are dramatic, but she also notices cultural differences that influence how Chinese schools are run, and the reason why its students test so well. Along with factors such as highly trained teachers and an emphasis on memorizing before pursuing deeper understanding, the difference comes down to a belief that has begun slowly making its way across the US: achievement is the result of hard work, not natural ability.
This approach comes from a firm belief that anything is possible with hard work, with chiku, or “eating bitter”. Studies show that for kids who score poorly. Chinese teachers believe a lack of effort—rather than of smarts — is to blame.
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, author of “Mindset (心态)”, is responsible for making up the terms “growth mindset” and “fixed mindset”. Chinese students are trained to have a growth mindset: if they aren’t doing well, they’11 work harder, and they’ll be successful. American children tend to be trained to have a fixed mindset about academics: their abilities are largely predetermined and static. If they aren’t doing well, it’s because they’re not good at it.
In America students are told that learning is fun and easy. But real learning is actually very difficult and takes suffering and anxiety. If you’re not willing to go through that you’re not going to learn deeply. The downside is these students often give up when something gets hard or when it’s no longer fun.
【小题1】According to Lenora Chu, what contributes most to the Chinese students’excellent academic performance?| A．School operation model. | B．The emphasis on memorizing. |
| C．High-qualified teachers. | D．Chinese culture. |
| A．lazy | B．slow |
| C．unfocused | D．foolish |
| A．A majority of Chinese students are born excellent learners. |
| B．American students tend to believe learning ability is genetically determined. |
| C．Amerlcan students should choose a Chinese school to achieve success. |
| D．American students are lacking in a fixed mindset, compared to Chinese students. |
| A．Students should study in a fun way. |
| B．American students are always anxious about their study. |
| C．American students have no difficulty in learning deeply. |
| D．Diligence plays an essential part in learning. |
That’s because job growth numbers don’t matter to job hunters as much as job turnover data. After all, existing jobs open up every day due to promotions, resignations, terminations, and retirements. (Yes, people are retiring even in this economy.) In both good times and bad, turnover creates more openings than economic growth does. Even in June of 2007, when the economy was still humming along, job growth was only 132,000, while turnover was 4.7 million!
And as it turns out, even today — with job growth near zero — over 4 million job hunters are being hired every month.
I don’t mean to imply that overall job growth doesn’t have an impact on one’s ability to land a job. It’s true that if total employment were higher, it would mean more jobs for all of us to choose from (and compete for). And it’s true that there are currently more people applying for each available job opening, regardless of whether it’s a new one or not.
But what often distinguishes those who land jobs from those who don’t is their ability to stay motivated. They’re willing to do the hard work of identifying their valuable skills; be creative about where and how to look; learn how to present themselves to potential employers; and keep going, even after repeated rejections. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that 2.7 million people who wanted and were available for work hadn’t looked within the last four weeks and were no longer even classified as unemployed.
So don’t let the headlines fool you into giving up. Four million people get hired every month in the U.S. You can be one of them.
【小题1】The author tends to believe that high unemployment rate ______?
| A．deprives many people of job opportunities. |
| B．prevents many people from changing careers. |
| C．should not stop people from looking for a job. |
| D．does not mean the U.S. economy is worsening. |
| A．Job growth |
| B．Job turnover |
| C．Improved economy |
| D．Business expansion |
| A．It doesn’t have much effect on individual job seekers. |
| B．It increases people’s confidence in the economy. |
| C．It gives a ray of hope to the unemployed. |
| D．It doesn’t mean greater job security for the employed. |
| A．Education |
| B．Intelligence |
| C．Persistence |
| D．Experience |
| A．They clearly indicate how healthy the economy is. |
| B．They provide the public with the latest information. |
| C．They warn of the structural problems in the economy. |
| D．They exclude those who have stopped looking for a job. |
Do you write by hand more or type more? In Beijing, students start using a computer as early as primary school. And computer dependence is more widespread among university students. Almost all their assignments and essays are typed on a computer.
All the students interviewed say they usually use a computer.
It’s faster and easier to correct if using a computer. And that’s why computers are being applied more and more often to modern education. But when people are
“When I’m writing with a pen, I find I often can’t remember how to write a character, though I feel I’m familiar with it.”
“I’m not in the mood to write when faced with a pen and paper.”
Many students don’t feel this is something to worry about. Now that it’s more convenient and efficient to write on a computer, why bother to handwrite?
Many educators think differently. Shi Liwei, the headmaster of a famous primary school in the capital said, “Chinese characters enjoy both practical and aesthetic (审美的) value. But those characters typed with computer keyboards only maintain their practical value. All the artistic beauty of the characters is lost. And handwriting contains the writer’s emotion. Through one’s handwriting, people can get to know one’s thinking and personality. Beautiful writing will give people a better first impression of them.”
To encourage students to handwrite more, many primary schools in Beijing have made writing classes compulsory(必修的) and in universities, some professors are asking students to turn in their homework and essays written by hand.
【小题1】Which of the following can best serve as the title of the passage?
| A．The Importance of Handwriting and Typing. |
| B．To type or to Handwrite. |
| C．Writing by Computer will Replace Writing by Hand. |
| D．Practical and Aesthetic Value of Chinese Characters. |
| A．Handwriting contains the writer’s emotion. |
| B．The writer’s thinking and personality are shown in his or her handwriting. |
| C．Handwriting can impress people well and build one’s self-confidence. |
| D．Chinese characters enjoy both practical and aesthetic value. |
| A．getting bored with | B．getting dependent on |
| C．becoming curious about | D．getting curious about |
| A．more and more students will give up writing on a computer. |
| B．writing by hand will give way to typing by computer one day. |
| C．more and more students will pay attention to handwriting. |
| D．the typing article better expresses one’s emotion and quality. |
Stop Complaining
We are instructed not to use any dirty words or polluting language.
The influence of excessive(过度的)complaining. Complaining can make you feel pretty down, for example. There is just so much that's wrong, everywhere, and no matter how much you complain, it just isn't possible to get it all put right. Plain and simple complaining is a behaviour that people disapprove of or consider morally wrong!
Complaining can become a habit. When you made your first complaints, you carefully chose what to protest about, and to whom, and how, in order to get very specific results.
The best antidote(矫正方法) for complaining is thanksgiving.
| A．But you probably no longer do that. |
| B．Don’t get discouraged when you fail. |
| C．Truly thankful people do not complain. |
| D．I didn’t realize that this included complaining. |
| E．We need to ask ourselves something like these. |
| F．When you really want to stop complaining all the time. |
| G．It causes many people a great deal of problems in their lives and destroys the joy of anyone listening. |
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