Why are some people successful and others aren’t? What’s the secret of success? 【小题1】.   

Many of Gladwell’s ideas appear in his social psychology bestseller Outliers.【小题2】. Gladwell thinks that this is just an excuse for not trying and if you really want to be good at something, you have to work at it. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good,” Gladwell writes. “It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

Central to the book is the “10,000-hour rule”. It means that if you want to be among the best in the world, you need to practise something for 10,000 hours.【小题3】. For example, the Beatles played live in Hamburg more than 1,200 times between 1960 and 1964, which is more than 10,000 hours of playing time. And when Bill Gates was 13, he was given access to a high school computer, allowing him to practise computer programming for more than 10,000 hours.

【小题4】. Take the example of Christopher Langan, who’s mentioned in the book. He’s got an IQ of between 195 and 210 (Albert Einstein’s IQ was estimated to have been between 160 and 180). As a boy at school, Langan was able to take an exam in a foreign language he’d never studied and pass it after just skim-reading a text book for three minutes. However, Langan never graduated from university and worked in labour-intensive jobs his whole life. This proves that intelligence alone will not lead to success—you need hard work, support, finance and opportunities. Gladwell adds, “No one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone.”

【小题5】. Even after you’ve put in your 10,000 hours of practice, you still need one other key ingredient—luck. So, you could be the most amazing guitarist in the world, but unless you’re lucky enough to play in front of a record company executive who sees a way of exploiting that talent, you aren’t going to be seeing your name in lights.

The first set of Chinese stories presented in English scripts (剧本) , titled Stories of China: Performed in English, was officially published by Foreign Languages Press. Planned by the New Channel International Education Group with the participation of playwrights from China, the United Kingdom and the United States, the book provides a new way for young people to learn English while inheriting (继承) and spreading Chinese culture.

The book contains 20 English scripts in novel formats covering a wide range of subjects. Unlike the most common English scripts for young readers on the market which are based on adaptations of European and American stories, those scripts presented in this book are unique for being based on classic Chinese stories, re-adapted and written in English. The book is divided into three grades in terms of grammar and vocabulary difficulty, making it suitable for young English learners from primary schools to junior and high schools.

All the scripts in the book are written by top playwrights with elegant, pure and vivid language. The scripts are provided with a summary of the story in both Chinese and English, so that readers can fully understand the plot as well as the history and culture behind it. Readers can not only improve their English skills through immersive (沉浸式的) reading and performance but also appreciate Chinese culture.

Hu Min, English education expert and founder of the New Channel, said the combination of traditional Chinese culture and English teaching has become a trend, guiding young people to tell Chinese stories to the world with their own wisdom and deep Chinese cultural heritage. The New Channel will offer special courses on Stories of China: Performed in English in its many schools across the country, and cooperate with primary and secondary schools in Beijing, Shanghai to offer English drama courses on a trial basis. Hu believes the courses will set off a new wave of enthusiastic learning among young people.