Luggage We ask you to keep a medium – si...

Have you ever intended to be fully absorbed in your work but found yourself distracted by e-mail, the Internet and other things throughout the day? According to the survey made by a famous university in the USA, most people have the experience.

"People often lose their concentration when they are bored, of course, but also when they are engaged in challenging tasks," says Peter Bregman, the head of the survey. "They sometimes have a feeling to escape from what's difficult or boring, so they jump out," he says. The part of the brain devoted to attention is connected to the brain's emotional center. Any strong emotion —quarrels with colleagues, problems at home —can interrupt our attention. Studies over the last decade have shown that too much work to do at a time can easily lead to distraction.

Refocusing is hard for many people. Robert Epstein suggests the following, "Stop and listen to some soft music for a few minutes. Find a good friend or a teacher and say out your matter on your mind. Go for a short walk or take a deep breath, where you breathe in deeply, count to five slowly, hold it and breathe out very slowly." This can "blow out all the tension and the unwanted in your mind to restore your focus."

Take more control by structuring your time and becoming more aware of your behaviors. "Setting the phone alarm to go off every hour is my way of creating awareness," Mr. Bregman says. "You have to inform yourself that you've lost focus in order to do something about it." Starting the day with a to-do list is also important, such as when to eat, when to go to the gym or take a walk. But if it's overly ambitious, you will put yourself in a state of anxiety, which makes it hard for the brain to concentrate. "Choosing three or four things as your priority for the day allows your brain to settle down and focus," he says.

1.According to the passage, which is NOT the reason why some people can be distracted from their work?

2.Which incident might NOT interrupt your attention?

3.What's the meaning of the underlined word "restore" in the passage?

4.According to Robert Epstein, how can we refocus on what we should do?

If you want to teach your children how to say sorry, you must be good at saying it yourself, especially to your own children. But how you say it can be quite tricky.

　　If you say to your children “I’m sorry I got angry with you, but …” what follows that “but” can render the apology ineffective: “I had a bad day” or “your noise was giving me a headache ” leaves the person who has been injured feeling that he should be apologizing for his bad behavior in expecting an apology.

　　Another method by which people appear to apologize without actually doing so is to say “I’m sorry you’re upset”; this suggests that you are somehow at fault for allowing yourself to get upset by what the other person has done.

　　Then there is the general, all covering apology, which avoids the necessity of identifying a specific act that was particularly hurtful or insulting, and which the person who is apologizing should promise never to do again. Saying “I’m useless as a parent” does not commit a person to any specific improvement.

　　These pseudo-apologies are used by people who believe saying sorry shows weakness. Parents who wish to teach their children to apologize should see it as a sign of strength, and therefore not resort to these pseudo-apologies.

　　But even when presented with examples of genuine contrition, children still need help to become aware of the complexities of saying sorry. A three-year-old might need help in understanding that other children feel pain just as he does, and that hitting a playmate over the head with a heavy toy requires an apology. A six-year-old might need reminding that spoiling other children’s expectations can require an apology. A 12-year-old might need to be shown that raiding the biscuit tin without asking permission is acceptable, but that borrowing a parent’s clothes without permission is not.

1.According to the author, saying “I’m sorry you’re upset” most probably means “_______”.

2.We learn from the last paragraph that in teaching children to say sorry _______.

3.It can be inferred from the passage that apologizing properly is _______.

"We do look very different; we're older. Leo's 38, I'm 37. We were 21 and 22 when we made that film. You know, he's fatter now -- I'm thinner.". So says Kate Winslet, who is thrilled at the 3-D re-release of Titanic to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ship's demise. “ It happens every time I get on any boat of any kind." She recalls. There are all the people who want her to walk to the front of the ship and re-create her famous pose, arms flung wide. Most people remember the tragedy: The British passenger ship -- said to be unsinkable -- hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, during its maiden voyage from England to New York City. More than 1,500 people died. But little known is what the world learned from the sinking to prevent future incidents.

Probably the greatest deficiency （不足）of the Titanic was that she was built 40 years before the widespread use of the wonderful invention radar(雷达). Her only defense against icebergs and hidden obstacles was to rely on manned lookouts. On that fateful night the eyesight of trained lookouts only provided 37 seconds of warning before the collision.

Traveling at nearly 30 miles an hour the Titanic was moving far too fast to avoid the huge iceberg. The warning did prevent a head-on collision as the officer on the bridge managed to turn the ship slightly.

The last ship to send a warning was the California. She was within ten miles of the Titanic during the disaster, but her radio operator went to bed at midnight and never received any of the SOS messages from the Titanic. That was one of the important lessons learned from the catastrophe, the need for 24-hour radio operators on all passenger liners.

Another lesson learned was the need for more lifeboats. The Titanic remained afloat(漂浮) for almost three hours and most of the passengers could have been saved with enough lifeboats.

1,500 passengers and workers died in the 28 degree waters of the Atlantic. Out of the tragedy, the sinking did produce some important maritime reforms. The winter travel routes were changed to the south and the Coast Guard began to keep an eye on the location of all icebergs. The new rules for lifeboats were obvious to all. There must be enough lifeboats for everybody on board.

The most important lesson learned was that no one would ever again consider a ship unsinkable- no matter how large or how well constructed. Never again would sailors place their faith in a ship above the power of the sea.

1.The text mainly tells us ______.

2.According to the passage, which of the following could we infer?

3.What would be the best title for the passage?

4.What’s the sailors’ attitude towards the ships after the tragedy?

Eye See You

    Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. -- Jonathan Swift

I walked into a wild third-grade classroom. Music was playing _36_, children were under tables applying make-up, kids were throwing a football indoors, and students were _37_ wherever they could find _38_. I was a mid-year _39_. The previous _40_ said he could no longer manage these children and _41_  without notice during the holiday break.

As soon as I walked in the room, I realized why he _42_. I sat down _43_  in my chair and began reading their _44_ softly. After each name, I _45_, asking God to help me understand that child. I then nailed a _46_ to the wall next to the chalkboard and began _47_ my name and a reading assignment on the board. I then asked each child to come to me, and tell me their names and what they wanted to learn. It was a _48_ task, because only two children there wanted to learn something! Rules were _49_, boundaries established, parents contacted. But the mirror saved the day -- no, the year! Unbeknownst(不知的) to the children, the mirror allowed me to see their every _50_ while I was writing on the board. They soon became _51_ as to how I knew who was misbehaving while I was writing on the board. When one student finally asked me, I told him I had a special teacher’s eye in the back of my head that my hair _52_. At first they did not believe me. _53_ they did begin to exhibit better behavior, especially while I wrote on the board, thinking I had magical _54_. I never told them differently. Why _55_ a good thing?

Every month he measures his baby daughter against the wall to see how much ____ she is getting.