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They thought his behavior was abnormal. bad frightening repeated unusual
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His new girlfriend had omitted to tell him that she was married. forgotten failed deleted left
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By investing wisely she accumulated a lot of books. increased spread collected grew
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He pulled out to overtake a truck. skip pass reach lead
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The Only Way Is Up
Think of a modern city and the first image that comes to mind is the skyline. It is full of great buildings, pointing like fingers to heaven. It is true that some cities don’ t permit buildings to go above a certain height. But these are cities concerned with the past. The first thing any city does when it wants to tell the world that it has arrived is to build skyscrapers.
When people gather together in cities, they create a demand for land. Since cities are places where money is made, that demand can be met. And the best way to make money out of city land is to put as many people as possible in a space that covers the smallest amount of ground. That means building upwards.
The technology existed to do this as early as the 19th century. But the height of buildings was limited by one important factor. They had to be small enough for people on the top floors to climb stairs. People could not be expected to climb a mountain at the end of their journey to work, or home.
Elisha Otis, a US inventor, was the man who brought us the lift—or elevator, as he preferred to call it. However, most of the technology is very old. Lifts work using the same pulley system the Egyptians used to create the Pyramids. What Otis did was attach the system to a steam engine and develop the elevator brake, which stops the lift falling if the cords that hold it up are broken. It was this that did the most to gain public confidence in the new invention. In fact, he spent a number of years exhibiting lifts at fairgrounds, giving people the chance to try them out before selling the idea to architects and builders.
A lift would not be a very good theme park attraction now. Going in a lift is such an everyday thing that it would just be boring. Yet psychologists and others who study human behavior find lifts fascinating. The reason is simple. Scientists have always studied animals in zoos. The nearest they can get to that with humans is in observing them in lifts.
“ It breaks all the usual conventions about the bubble of personal space we carry around with us—and you just can’ t choose to move away, “ says workplace psychologist, Gary Fitzgibbon. “ Being trapped in this setting can create different types of tensions, “ he says. Some people are scared of them. Others use them as an opportunity to get close to the boss. Some stand close to the door. Others hide in the corners. Most people try and shrink into the background. But some behave in a way that makes others notice them. There are a few people who just stand in a corner taking notes.
Don’ t worry about them. They are probably from a university.
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How We Form First Impression
1 We all have first impression of someone we just met. But why? Why do we form an opinion about someone without really knowing anything about him or her—aside perhaps from a few remarks or readily observable traits.
2 The answer is related to how your brain allows you to be aware of the world. Your brain is so sensitive in picking up facial traits, even very minor difference in how a person’ s eyes, ears, nose, or mouth are placed in relation to each other makes you see him or her as different. In fact, your brain continuously processes incoming sensory information—the sights and sounds of your world. These incoming “signals“ are compared against a host of “memories“ stored in the brain areas called the cortex system to determine what these new signals “mean“.
3 If you see someone you know and like at school, your brain says “familiar and safe“. If you see someone new, it says, “new-potentially threatening“. Then your brain starts to match features of this stranger with other “known“ memories. The height, weight, dress, ethnicity, gestures, and tone of voice are all matched up. The more unfamiliar the characteristics are, the more your brain may say, “This is new. I don’t like this person“. Or else, “I’m intrigued“. Or your brain may perceive a new face but familiar clothes, ethnicity, gestures—like your other friends;so your brain says, “I like this person“. But these preliminary “impressions“ can be dead wrong.
4 When we stereotype people, we use a less mature form of thinking(not unlike the immature thinking of a very young child)that makes simplistic and categorical impressions of others. Rather than learn about the depth and breadth of people—their history, interest, values, strengths, and true character—we categorize them as jocks, geeks, or freaks.
5 However, if we resist initial stereotypical impressions, we have a chance to be aware of what a person is truly like. If we spend time with a person, hear about his or her life, hopes, dreams, and become aware of the person’ s character, we use a different, more mature style of thinking—and the most complex areas of our cortex, which allow us to be humane.
A. Ways of Departure From Immature and Simplistic Impressions
B. Comment on First Impression
C. Illustration of First Impression
D. Comparing Incoming Sensory Information Against Memories
E. Threatening Aspect of First Impressions
F. Differences Among Jocks, Geeks and Freaks
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A. a stranger’ s less mature type of thinking
B. the most complex areas of our cortex
C. the immature form of thinking of a very young child
D. the meaning of incoming sensory information
E. the sights and sounds of the world
F. an opportunity to analyze different forms of thinking
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Medical Journals
Medical journals are publications that report medical information to physicians and other health professionals.
In the past, these journals were available only in print. With the development of electronic publishing, many medical journals now have Web sites on the Internet, and some journals are published only online. A few medical journals, like the Journal of the American Medical Association, are considered general medical journals because they cover many fields of medicine. Most medical journals are specialty journals that focus on a particular area of medicine.
Medical journals publish many types of articles. Research articles report the results of research studies on a range of topics varying from the basic mechanisms of diseases to clinical trials that compare outcomes of different treatments. Review articles summarize and analyze the information available on a specific topic based on a careful search of the medical literature. Because the results of individual research studies can be affected by many factors, combining results from different studies on the same topic can be helpful in reaching conclusions about the scientific evidence for preventing, diagnosing or treating a particular disease. Case conferences and case reports may be published in medical journals to educate physicians about particular illnesses and how to treat them. Editorials in medical journals are short essays that express the views of the authors, often regarding a research or review article published in the same issue. Editorials provide a perspective on how the current article fits with other information on the same topic. Letters to the editor provide a way for readers of the medical journal to express comments, questions or criticisms about articles published in that journal.
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Tales of the Terrible Past
It is not the job of fiction writers to analyze and interpret history. Yet by writing about the past in a vivid and compelling manner, storytellers can bring earlier eras to life and force readers to consider them seriously. Among those taking on the task of recounting history are some black writers who attempt to examine slavery from different points of view.
Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison deals specifically with the legacy of slavery in her book Beloved. The main character in this novel, a former slave called Sethe, lives in Ohio in the years following the Civil War, but she cannot free herself from her horrific memories. Through a series of flashbacks and bitter reminiscences, the reader learns how and why Sethe escaped from the plantation she had lived on; the fate of her husband, who also tried to escape;and finally, what happened to the child called Beloved. Morrison’ s scenes of torture and murder are vivid and strongly convey the desperation of the slaves and the cruelty of their owners.
Charles Johnson’ s Middle Passage approaches slavery from a different, yet no less violent, vantage point. His main character, Rutherford Calhoun, is a ne’ er-do-well free black American who stows away on a slave ship bound for Africa to collect its “cargo“. Put to work after he is discovered, Calhoun witnesses firsthand the appalling conditions in which the captured Africans are transported. When they finally rebel and take over the ship, he finds himself in the middle—and is forced to come to terms with who he is and what his values are.
Neither Beloved nor Middle Passage is an easy read, but both exemplify African American writers, attempts to bring significant historical situations alive for a modern audience.
