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The real trouble______their lack of confidence in their faculty. lies in results in leads to brings about
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Well, let’ s put our heads together and find a(n)______to the problem. measure way solution method
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It’ s bad policy for developing countries to sacrifice environmental protection to______economic growth. discourage weaken promote create
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He did it______gratitude for everything she had done for him. with in with regard to out of
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Stop making so much noise, for you are______ me in my studies. attracting disturbing contracting contacting
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If only the committee______the regulations(规章)and put them into effect as soon as possible. approve will approve can approve would approve
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He claimed that he would be a______in the presidential election, and would win the election at last. voter candidate partner comrade
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He is quite thoughtless, for very seldom can he______other people’ s troubles. agree with interfere with identify with rest with
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Let’ s think of a situation______this idiom can be used. where which that what
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We wouldn’ t lose heart even if we______again. would fail failed had failed fail
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The general strike is a means of______the total authority of the government. informing recommending challenging transforming
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Thoughts are expressed______words. by all means by no means by the way by means of
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I got caught in the rain and my suit______. has been ruined had been ruined has ruined had ruined
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The ship______from behind the fog. drove emerged passed turned
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I’ d rather marry a man who had a(n)______of humour than one who was very attractive. capability sight knowledge sense
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Animals have different ways of protecting themselves against wintertime weather. Some animals grow heavy coats of fur or feathers, while others dig into the ground to find a warm wintertime home. Some animals spend the winter in a deep sleep because by going to sleep they avoid the time of the year when food is scarce and the temperatures are low. Their sleep is known as hibernation.
There is much about hibernation that puzzles scientists. For example,they are wondering how hibernation came into being. Some scientists have explored the possibility that animals release a chemical that starts them hibernating.
One thing that scientists are certain about is that animals hibernate only when it is cold. Hibernation is a seasonal practice.
Some animals that fall into a wintertime sleep are not true hibernators because they spend only a part of the cold season asleep. Bears,for example, can easily be awakened from their winter nap. They are not true hibernators.
Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a particular animal is a true hibernator. For example,some mice hibernate,but others do not. The same is true of bats. Some of them hibernate. Other do not.
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The strange close understanding between twins is a familiar enough phenomenon. Often they seem to understand each other and share each other’ s emotions to such an extent that one suspects some kind of thought communication.
What is not so widely known is that this special relationship often acts as brake on twins’ intellectual development. As they are partly isolated in their own private world, twins communicate less with adults than do other children. The verbal ability of a four-year-old twin is typically six months behind that of a non-twin. The problem can be particularly severe in an underprivileged family, a one-parent family for example, where there is little stimulation for children anyway.
Such children, while capable of mutual comprehension in a private language, often remain incomprehensible to outsiders and thus at a severe educational disadvantage. The only solution to the problem, cruel though it may seem, is to separate the twins thus forcing them to acquire ordinary speech helped and guided by sympathetic parents and teachers.
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The intelligence test used most often today are based on the work of a Frenchman, Alfred Binet. In 1905, Binet was asked by the French Ministry of Education to develop a way to identify those children in French schools who were too “mentally deficient(不足的)“ to benefit from ordinary schooling and who needed special education. The tests had to distinguish those who were merely behind in school from those who were actually mentally deficient.
The items that Binet and his colleague Theophile Simon included on the test were chosen on the basis of their ideas about intelligence. Binet and Simon believed intelligence includes such abilities as understanding the meaning of words: solving problems, and making commonsense judgements. Two other important assumptions also shaped Binet’ s and Simon’ s work:(1)that children with more intelligence will do better in school and(2)that older children have a greater ability than younger children.
Binet’ s first test consisted of thirty tasks. They were simple things most children learn as a result of their everyday experiences. The tasks were arranged in groups, according to age. Binet decided which tasks were appropriate for a given age group by giving them first to a large number of children of different ages. If more than half of the children of a given age passed a test, it was considered appropriate for that age group.
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How men first learned to invent words is unknown: in other words, the origin of language is a mystery. All we really know is that men, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sounds to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things, so that they could communicate with each other: and that later they agreed upon certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to represent those sounds and which could be written down. Those sounds, whether spoken, or written in letters, we call words.
The power of words, then, lies in their associations—the things they bring up before our minds. Words become filled with meaning for us by experience: and the longer we live, the more certain words recall to us the glad and sad events of our past: and the more we read and learn, the more the number of words that mean something to us increases.
Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words which appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. This charming and telling use of words is what we call literary(文字的)style. Above all, the real poet is a master of words. He can convey his meaning in words which sing like music, and which by their position and association can move men to tears. We should therefore learn to choose our words carefully and use them accurately, or they will make our speech silly and rude.
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It is customary for adults to forget how hard and dull and long school is. The learning by memory of all the basic things one must know is a most incredible and unending effort. Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don’ t believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it. School is not easy and it is not for the most part very much fun, but then, if you are very lucky, you may find a real teacher. Three real teachers in a lifetime is the very best of my luck. My first was a science and math teacher in high school, my second, a professor of creative writing at Stanford, and my third was my friend and partner, Ed Ricketts.
My three had these things in common: They all loved what they were doing. They did not tell: they catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and very precious.
I shall speak only of my first teacher because in addition to the other things, she brought discovery.
She aroused us to shouting, book-waving discussions. She had the noisiest class in school and she didn’ t even seem to know it. We could never stick to the subject. Our speculation ranged the world. She breathed curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands like captured fireflies.
I can tell my son who looks forward with horror to fifteen years of drudgery that somewhere in the dusty dark a magic may happen that will light up the years if he is very lucky.
