The Ex-Footballer
I eventually managed to persuade my parents to buy me a new football shirt for the school matches. My old shirt had worn out and made me depressed every time I put it on. But now I had a brand-new shirt! I was so excited. The next school match wasn’t until next week though! How could I wait that long? I couldn’t. So I decided to wear it today for the first time during a kick about in our street. I wish I hadn’t! As soon as we had been playing for ten minutes, the shirt sleeve ripped (裂开) when I made a turn. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. “I’ll sew it back together after the match” I thought. But then I noticed that it wasn’t just the stitch (针脚) that had come out, the whole sleeve was torn. Only a professional can mend it now. I couldn’t tell my mum and dad that my new football shirt was ruined. I needed a tailor. As I walked home, feeling totally at a loss what to do, I was startled to suddenly come across a shop sign “All kinds of repairs and services!” I went inside immediately. However, I hadn’t seen the step in front of the door and I tripped into the shop hitting a wooden sculpture to the left of the entrance. When I crashed into it, it broke! I looked around the shop feeling embarrassed and blushing bright red. A man with white bushy hair said calmly, “Welcome!” “I’m sorry. I broke your sculpture.” “You’ve broken it in just the right place. This is a repair shop. Repairs are my job! I looked around the shop. I saw an iron, broken toys and a broken chair. “I guess this is the wrong place. What I really need is a tailor’s” I said, putting my fingers through the tear (裂口) in the shirt. “It’s OK. I’ve been waiting a long, long time to repair a football shirt. “Are you serious?” I held the shirt tight so he couldn’t take it from me.
But the man didn’t let me move and took the shirt from me.
When I said “Thank you”, I noticed a photo of a football team attached to the sewing machine (缝纫机).
“A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high. ” I’m sure T. J, Ware was made to feel this way almost every day in school.
By high school, T, J. was the most celebrated troublemaker in his town. Teachers literally cringed when they saw his name posted on their classroom lists.
I met T. J. for the first time when all the students at school were attending ACE training. At first, he showed no interest in the discussion. But slowly, the interactive games drew him in. T. J. had some brilliant thoughts on those situations, which were welcomed by his group. By the end of the activity, the other students on the team were impressed with his concern and ideas and elected T. J. co-chairman of the team.
When T. J. showed up at school on Monday morning, a group of teachers were expressing their disagreements to the school principal about his being elected co-chairman. The principal reminded them that the purpose of the program was to uncover any positive feeling and strengthen its practice until true change can take place. The teachers left the meeting, firmly convinced that failure was unavoidable.
Two weeks later, T. J. and his friends led a group of 70 students to collect food They collected a school record: 2,854 cans of food in just two hours. The local newspaper covered the event with a full-page article the next day. That newspaper story was posted on the main bulletin board at school, where everyone could see it.
T. J. ,s picture was up there for doing something great.
T. J. started showing up at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time. The event he started now yields 9,000 cans of food in one day, taking care of 70 percent of the need for food for one year.
T, J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs mending. But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest. T. J. got a job. He became productive. He is flying quite nicely these days.
1．What do we know about T.J. before he attended the training?| A．He was talkative in class. |
| B．He didn't have a good fame. |
| C．His ideas were quite impressive. |
| D．He showed up at school every day. |
| A．He promised them a bright future. |
| B．They wanted to offer him a chance. |
| C．They thought the job was quite easy. |
| D．He was considered qualified for the job. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Controversial. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．No pain, no gain. | B．Rome wasn’t built in a day. |
| C．Don't judge a book by its cover. | D．Treat others as you want to be treated. |
Technology seems to discourage slow, immersive reading. Reading on a screen, particularly a phone screen, tires your eyes and makes it harder for you to keep your place. So online writing tends to be more skimmable and list-like than print. The cognitive neuroscientist Mary Walt argued recently that this “new norm” of skim reading is producing “an invisible, game-changing transformation” in how readers process words. The neuronal circuit that sustains the brain’s capacity to read now favors the rapid absorption of information, rather than skills developed by deeper reading, like critical analysis.
We shouldn’t overplay this danger. All readers skim. Skimming is the skill we acquire as children as we learn to read more skillfully. From about the age of nine, our eyes start to bounce around the page, reading only about a quarter of the words properly, and filling in the gaps by inference. Nor is there anything new in these fears about declining attention spans. So far, the anxieties have proved to be false alarms. “Quite a few critics have been worried about attention span lately and see very short stories as signs of cultural decline,” the American author Selvin Brown wrote. “No one ever said that poems were evidence of short attention spans.”
And yet the Internet has certainly changed the way we read. For a start, it means that there is more to read, because more people than ever are writing. If you time travelled just a few decades into the past, you would wonder at how little writing was happening outside a classroom. And digital writing is meant for rapid release and response. An online article starts forming a comment string underneath as soon as it is published. This mode of writing and reading can be interactive and fun. But often it treats other people’s words as something to be quickly harvested as fodder to say something else. Everyone talks over the top of everyone else, desperate to be heard.
Perhaps we should slow down. Reading is constantly promoted as a social good and source of personal achievement. But this advocacy often emphasizes “enthusiastic”, “passionate” or “eager” reading, none of which adjectives suggest slow, quiet absorption.
To a slow reader, a piece of writing can only be fully understood by immersing oneself in the words and their slow comprehension of a line of thought. The slow reader is like a swimmer who stops counting the number of pool laps he has done and just enjoys how his body feels and moves in water.
The human need for this kind of deep reading is too tenacious for any new technology to destroy. We often assume that technological change can’t be stopped and happens in one direction, so that older media like “dead-tree” books are kicked out by newer, more virtual forms. In practice, older technologies can coexist with new ones. The Kindle has not killed off the printed book any more than the car killed off the bicycle. We still want to enjoy slowly-formed ideas and carefully-chosen words. Even in a fast-moving age, there is time for slow reading.
1．What is the author’s attitude towards Selvin Brown’s opinion?| A．Favorable. | B．Critical. | C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
| A．advocacy of passionate reading helps promote slow reading |
| B．digital writing leads to too much speaking and not enough reflection |
| C．the public should be aware of the impact skimming has on neuronal circuits |
| D．the number of Internet readers is declining due to the advances of technology |
| A．Comprehensive. | B．Complicated. | C．Determined. | D．Apparent. |
| A．Slow Reading Is Here to Stay |
| B．Digital Technology Prevents Slow Reading |
| C．Screen vs. Print: Which Requires Deep Reading? |
| D．Reading Is Not a Race: The Wonder of Deep Reading |
Rachel Carson was concerned about what was happenig to the environment. So in her book Silent Spring, she warned that some chemicals were poisoning the air, the water, the earth, and all its creatures. She imagined a time when spring would not bring the rebirth of flowers, trees, and the songs of birds. The book became a bestseller, and Ms. Carson was in great demand as a speaker. People lisened to her because what she said made sense, and because she was a scientist who knew her facts.
Rachel Carson was primarily interested in the world of sea and shore, so she became a marine biologst for the government. She studied and recorded facts about the sea' s plant and animal life, their special characteristics, and the nature of their environments. In 1951, she wrote The Sea Around Us, which brought her honors, fame, and respect around the world.
Ms. Carson then devoted herself full-time to research and writing. One thing much on her mind was the effect of modern technology on the natural environment. One day, a distressed friend wrote her to say that a plane spraying(喷洒) DDT had flown over her yard, and the next day several birds lay dead. Carson decided to act.
For four years she studied the use of pesticides(杀虫剂) in the United States, and then she wrote Silent Spring.
In her book Ms. Carson said that these pesticides would harm much more than insects. She explained that these poisons would pollute the environment. “Even if their effects are not immediately observable, they remain for years in the water and the soil, and they become part of the food eaten by animals and humans.
Besides, after a time, insects develop immunity to pesticides,” she said.
Recent studies have shown that pesticides can affect human brainwave activity and cause loss of memory and inability to concentrate. We should still remember Rachel Carson’s words, “I think we are challenged as we have never been challenged before to prove our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”
1．Silent Spring is a book that__________| A．aims to raise people’s environmental awareness |
| B．stresses the importance of the cycle of nature |
| C．describes the author' s childhood experiences |
| D．asks people to enjoy the beauty of spring |
| A．curious | B．humorous | C．excited | D．worried |
| A．became world-famous due to Silent Spring |
| B．warned against the use of chemicals to kill insects |
| C．had a good knowledge of the planets in the universe |
| D．created a system for improving human brainwave activity |
| A．we should prove ourselves to be the ruler of this world |
| B．it's a chance for us to prove our mastery of nature |
| C．it's time for us to think about what we have done |
| D．settling on the earth is a challenge for humans |
Good morning. Here comes the weekly topic — Healthy Eating.
The Student Union
Inspired by his strong relationship with his own father, William Dunn takes kids without dads out for fishing. William Dunn is the founder of Take a Kid Fishing, Inc., a nonprofit organization in Lakeland, Florida, which focuses on mentoring (指导) underprivileged and fatherless kids through the sport of fishing.
A dozen years ago, William noticed his six-year-old neighbor, Camran, seemed angry. He often stormed out of the house, shouting at the sky. One day, William saw the boy outside and started a conversation. Camran told him that his dad wasn’t in his life.
William asked Camran’s mom for permission to take him fishing. Camran was attracted by that first trip. The two fished together several times a week, and William saw positive changes in Camran’s behavior. “That’s when I realized that it was my responsibility to help fatherless kids,” he says. Soon William was teaching Camran’s friends and other kids in the neighborhood to fish.
During the week, William works as a tire salesman. On weekends, he and a few other volunteers, mostly people from his neighborhood, take 20 to 25 kids out for fishing on a boat. William reaches out to local foster homes and group homes to invite the kids to spend the day on the water. Many have never been fishing or even on a boat, so William — or Big Will, as the kids call him — starts by teaching the basics. Then come the life lessons that fishing offers: patience, teamwork and the simple joy of relaxing in the outdoors.
Take a Kid Fishing, Inc. has taken more than 600 fishing trips with over 1,500 kids who don’t have a father in their lives. “They went through a lot and saw a lot, and their lives were difficult,” William says. “But when they were fishing, all of that faded away. On the boat, they’d be laughing, smiling and making new friends,” he says. “I knew I was on to something.”
Growing up in a poor area in Miami, William helped his dad with a fishing business.
He wants to share with fatherless kids his love of fishing and what his dad taught him.
We Love Reading is a programme that
Research has shown that 80% of children who attend We Love Reading read-aloud sessions have seen the
We Love Reading has also influenced parent-child relationships by
We Love Reading is effective and able to continue for a long time because it
One weekend in July, Jane and her husband, Tom, had driven three hours to camp overnight by a lake in the forest. Unfortunately, on the way an unpleasant subject came up and they started to quarrel. By the time they reached the lake, Jane was so angry that she said to Tom, “I'm going to find a better spot for us to camp” and walked away.
With no path to follow, Jane just walked on for quite a long time. After she had climbed to a high place, she turned around, hoping to see the lake. To her surprise, she saw nothing but forest and, far beyond, a snowcapped mountain top. She suddenly realized that she was lost.
“Tom!” she cried. “Help!”
No reply. If only she had not left her mobile phone in that bag with Tom. Jane kept moving, but the farther she walked, the more confused she became. As night was beginning to fall, Jane was so tired that she had to stop for the night. Lying awake in the dark, Jane wanted very much to be with Tom and her family. She wanted to hold him and tell him how much she loved him.
Jane rose at the break of day, hungry and thirsty. She could hear water trickling (滴落) somewhere at a distance. Quickly she followed the sound to a stream. To her great joy, she also saw some berry bushes. She drank and ate a few berries. Never in her life had she tasted anything better.
As she picked her way carefully along the stream, Jane heard a helicopter. Is that for me? Unfortunately,the trees made it impossible for people to see her from above. A few minutes later, another helicopter flew overhead. Jane took off her yellow blouse, thinking that she should go to an open area and flag them if they came back again.
Positive Action Fuels Hope
“I’m not going back to group therapy (治疗). I refuse to be treated like that.” The voice was so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
Alicia Gonzalez suffered from depression. This was her second month at the homeless shelter, where I work as a case manager.
Alicia had been a nurse for 10 years. Her work was intense and demanding, and she loved it. To her, the trauma (精神创伤) she’d suffered was that her son lost his life in a car crash. With her brain overloaded by the trauma, she couldn’t focus on her work. Finally, she had to quit her job. With no income, she couldn’t pay her rent. For almost three years, Alicia lived in her truck. Alicia told me all this at our first meeting.
“I want to help you,” I said. “There are lots of resources here. All I ask is that you tell me what’s going on with you. That way I can make sure you’re getting the services you need.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “It’s just hard. I used to feel as though what I did mattered. Now...” Her voice became quiet. Before I could say something, she stood and walked out of the room.
Two months later, I still felt as if I hadn’t gotten through to Alicia. Sometimes the things sending her into a violent anger were so minor—a piece of rubbish someone had dropped on the floor—it was hard for me to think of coping skills that didn’t sound like I was criticizing her.
Maybe this latest talk in group therapy was the last straw (稻草). “Finding something small you can feel good about can help you cope with anger,” I suggested. “It doesn’t need to be some huge thing.” Even as I said it, I wondered, “Was that really the best advice I could come up with?” Alicia took a long deep breath. “I know,” she said.
A few weeks later, I saw her in the hallway with a rubbish bag.
In March, Alicia was offered a job doing housekeeping at the shelter.
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