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这次不会忘了，哈~
速度越障练习汇总：
http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_RC/thread-562296-1-1.html
【速度3-12】
计时 1 （220 words）
What Chinese People Are Like
Theyare outspoken and reserved, curious and not curious enough.
By Tom Scocca
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, at 10:21 AM ET
In his new book Beijing Welcomes You, Tom Scocca explores thetransformation of Beijing into a symbol of Chinese power and influence in the21st century and what China is telling us, intentionally and unintentionally,about our future together. In the excerpt below, Scocca delves into theenthusiasm with which Chinese people stereotype Chinese people.
The Year of the Pig would begin in February. At the Carrefour supermarket,by the north side of the Third Ring, the entrance ramp was lined with pigmerchandise and decorations in the red of the festival season till it resembledan inflamed esophagus. There were to be no pigs on CCTV, however. In a gestureof intranational (rather than international) hypersensitivity, the statebroadcaster was banning on-air pig imagery, so as not to offend thesensibilities of China's Muslim minority.
This was, according to most reports, a super-propitious year in thetraditional animal zodiac, a Year of the Golden Pig. Actually, by thesix-decade cycle of five elements and 12 animals, it was supposed to be a FirePig year; the Golden Pig had come up in 1971, in the middle of the CulturalRevolution. But people liked the idea of a Golden Pig. It sounded fat andprosperous.
计时 2 （227 words）
Chinese culture was proving oddly malleable. The thing about Chinese peopleis that they are always telling you what the thing about Chinese people is. Fora long time, I made the mistake of trying to pay attention to the specificthings themselves. The Chinese will tell you that Chinese people are lessformal than Westerners, and they will tell you that Chinese people are moreformal than Westerners. Chinese people are outspoken, and Chinese people arereserved. They are very blunt, and they are very indirect. They are too curiousand not curious enough. Chinese people are naturally thrifty (or cheap); theyare inherently generous (or wasteful). The outlook of the Chinese isinflexible, and it is adaptable.
Once you get going, it's hard to stop. The thing about Chinese people isthat they insist on bundling up against the slightest threat of cold. The thingabout Chinese people is that they wear replica basketball uniforms withoutplayer names or numbers on them. The thing about Chinese people is that theylove watermelon and fried chicken. The thing about Chinese people is that theynever take the manufacturer's sticker or plastic label off anything they buy,ever—microwaves, security doors, rice cookers, DVD players, bathroom sinks—evenwhen the paper starts to wear away or the edges of the plastic film peel up ontheir own.
计时 3 （228 words）
Americans tend to get their backs up if anyone (particularly a foreigner)tries to make any sort of sweeping claim about our national habits. I more orless reflexively inserted tend to in the preceding sentence, as a bitof protective chaff, to soften the generalization. We will consent to be calledfreedom-loving or entrepreneurial, but more concrete collectiveobservations—that we watch a lot of television, say, or that we are gettingkind of heavyset, or that we shoot guns at each other more often than people ofmost other nationalities do—are an insult to our sense of dignity as freeindividuals.
But the Chinese are eager to hear what foreigners think about them, as anation and a people, to the point of helpfully suggesting essentialistpigeonholes the observer might want to put them into. One prevailingexplanation for the countries' different attitudes is that America has alwayshad a dynamic culture, while China is more tradition-bound. This is a terribleexplanation. A 30-year-old Chinese citizen has seen more disruption and changethan a 60-year-old American has; a 60-year-old Chinese citizen has seen morethan a 200-year-old American would have. It was routine business for thegovernment to rewrite the entire holiday calendar, or outlaw a whole categoryof motor vehicles, or ban and un-ban particular enterprises or classes ofmerchandise or kinds of information.
计时 4（245 words）
So what was one more spasm of change? Out behind the apartment, where adead-end street crossed an arm of the Liangma River, construction walls had appeared,with heavy machinery working behind them. When I peered through the fence oneafternoon, I saw that there wasn't a building going in; what was underconstruction was the river itself, in its man-made banks. A cement truck wasparked at the bottom of the riverbed, waiting to pour new pavement.
In the demolition zone at Xinfucun, where the graffiti had been before, theremaining buildings had been leveled, the trees cut down and carted off inautumn. All that was left by winter was a wide, bare lot, strewn with rubbleand patrolled by magpies. The lone structure in the space was a small openshack, furnished with a filthy tan armchair and wooden dining chair gonepigeon-toed in its old age. In places, the floors and foundations of thevanished houses still showed on the ground. Between two poles that were leftstanding, fish had been strung up to dry. For some reason I couldn't imagine,deep deposits of broken eggshells filled the hollows in the dirt, along withbroken bricks and burnt-out fuel cakes of pressed coal. Two men on the westside of the lot were tending a motorized pump, the only sign of any work goingon at all. A smartly dressed woman passed through, walking a fluffy dog. Thedog was grimy.
计时 5（220 words）
On Feb. 11, the city sent out a text message to everyone's cell phone,declaring that line-up day had arrived. This was part of the Olympic effort toreform public manners, one day each month when Beijingers were supposed topractice forming orderly lines at entrances, ticket windows, public-transitstops, and everywhere else an outsider might be appalled or endangered by thecity's usual jostling, swarming free-for-all. The date was the 11th because thetwo 1s represented the principle that even if only two people were waiting forsomething, one should line up behind the other.
At the Dongzhimen transit hub, as the 966 bus pulled up on the avenue,waiting passengers crowded the entrance, refusing to yield to the peoplegetting off. A motorized tricycle cab weaved aggressively through the pedestrians.Where the 623 bus stopped, more would-be passengers formed themselves into asolid wall, again blocking the doors. The same happened for the 916. Downinside the subway station, people were sacked out in the pedestrian tunnel,lying on thick beds of dirty blankets and rags. At the ticket window, thingswere less crowded, but the rule was clear: Even if only two people were tryingto buy tickets, one would be shouldering in while the other was still finishingup. Habit was stronger than etiquette, or numerology.
Buy Tom Scocca's book Beijing Welcomes You.
Tom Scocca is the managingeditor of Deadspin. His book Beijing Welcomes You will be published August 4.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2300782/
【越障3-12】
Too much information
How to cope with data overload
Jun 30th 2011 | from the printedition
GOOGLE “information overload” and you are immediatelyoverloaded with information: more than 7m hits in 0.05 seconds. Some of thisinformation is interesting: for example, that the phrase “information overload”was popularised by Alvin Toffler in 1970. Some of it is mere noise: obscurecompanies promoting their services and even more obscure bloggers sounding off.The overall impression is at once overwhelming and confusing.
“Information overload” is one of the biggest irritations in modern life.There are e-mails to answer, virtual friends to pester, YouTube videos to watchand, back in the physical world, meetings to attend, papers to shuffle andspouses to appease. A survey by Reuters once found that two-thirds of managersbelieve that the data deluge has made their jobs less satisfying or hurt theirpersonal relationships. One-third think that it has damaged their health.Another survey suggests that most managers think most of the information theyreceive is useless.
Commentators have coined a profusion of phrases to describe the anxiety andanomie caused by too much information: “data asphyxiation” (William vanWinkle), “data smog” (David Shenk), “information fatigue syndrome” (DavidLewis), “cognitive overload” (Eric Schmidt) and “time famine” (Leslie Perlow).Johann Hari, a British journalist, notes that there is a good reason why“wired” means both “connected to the internet” and “high, frantic, unable toconcentrate”.
These worries are exaggerated. Stick-in-the-muds have always complainedabout new technologies: the Victorians fussed that the telegraph meant that“the businessman of the present day must be continually on the jump.” Andbusinesspeople have always had to deal with constant pressure andinterruptions—hence the word “business”. In his classic study of managerialwork in 1973 Henry Mintzberg compared managers to jugglers: they keep 50 ballsin the air and periodically check on each one before sending it aloft oncemore.
Yet clearly there is a problem. It is not merely the dizzying increase inthe volume of information (the amount of data being stored doubles every 18months). It is also the combination of omnipresence and fragmentation. Manyprofessionals are welded to their smartphones. They are also constantlybombarded with unrelated bits and pieces—a poke from a friend one moment, thelatest Greek financial tragedy the next.
The data fog is thickening at a time when companies are trying to squeezeever more out of their workers. A survey in America by Spherion Staffingdiscovered that 53% of workers had been compelled to take on extra tasks sincethe recession started. This dismal trend may well continue—many companiesremain reluctant to hire new people even as business picks up. So there will belittle respite from the dense data smog, which some researchers fear may bepoisonous.
They raise three big worries. First, information overload can make peoplefeel anxious and powerless: scientists have discovered that multitaskersproduce more stress hormones. Second, overload can reduce creativity. TeresaAmabile of Harvard Business School has spent more than a decade studying thework habits of 238 people, collecting a total of 12,000 diary entries betweenthem. She finds that focus and creativity are connected. People are more likelyto be creative if they are allowed to focus on something for some time withoutinterruptions. If constantly interrupted or forced to attend meetings, they areless likely to be creative. Third, overload can also make workers lessproductive. David Meyer, of the University of Michigan, has shown that peoplewho complete certain tasks in parallel take much longer and make many moreerrors than people who complete the same tasks in sequence.
Curbing the cacophony
What can be done about information overload? One answer is technological:rely on the people who created the fog to invent filters that will clean it up.Xerox promises to restore “information sanity” by developing better filteringand managing devices. Google is trying to improve its online searches by takinginto account more personal information. (Some people fret that this will breachtheir privacy, but it will probably deliver quicker, more accurate searches.) Apopular computer program called “Freedom” disconnects you from the web atpreset times.
A second answer involves willpower. Ration your intake. Turn off your mobilephone and internet from time to time.
But such ruses are not enough. Smarter filters cannot stop people fromobsessively checking their BlackBerrys. Some do so because it makes them feelimportant; others because they may be addicted to the “dopamine squirt” theyget from receiving messages, as Edward Hallowell and John Ratey, two academics,have argued. And self-discipline can be counter-productive if your companydoesn’t embrace it. Some bosses get shirty if their underlings are unreachableeven for a few minutes.
Most companies are better at giving employees access to the informationsuperhighway than at teaching them how to drive. This is starting to change.Management consultants have spotted an opportunity. Derek Dean and CarolineWebb of McKinsey urge businesses to embrace three principles to deal with dataoverload: find time to focus, filter out noise and forget about work when youcan. Business leaders are chipping in. David Novak of Yum! Brands urges peopleto ask themselves whether what they are doing is constructive or a mere“activity”. John Doerr, a venture capitalist, urges people to focus on a narrowrange of objectives and filter out everything else. Cristobal Conde of SunGard,an IT firm, preserves “thinking time” in his schedule when he cannot bedisturbed. This might sound like common sense. But common sense is rare amidthe cacophony of corporate life.
Economist.com/blogs/schumpeter
Correction: This article was amended on July 1st tocorrect the figures related to Teresa Amabile's study.
from the print edition | Business
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发表于 2011-8-5 23:26:36
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楼主
发表于 2011-8-6 16:26:08
很刻苦地用英文在快速回复栏写了一大段不知道按了什么键 不见了 沮丧.... 以后还是在记事本里写了呜。