选择知识点

 I wasn't interested in becoming a model at first. I worked as a receptionist in a beauty shop during high school. It was in South Dakota. A woman who had worked for Vogue—a famous fashion magazine said to me, “Why don't you go to New York and be a model?”

So I went to New York at eighteen. I went to the first model agency, they thought that I was too long-waisted. It was too bad since I came all the way from South Dakota. I did an information check on the internet and found that Hunting Hartford had just bought the agency. I looked up in the telephone book and dialed. Then I went there. About half an hour later, the man who had just taken over the agency—he had been a male model before—came in. I was just staring at this unfamiliar man when he said, “You! Come into my office!”

How do you feel as a fashion model? Quite OK, I should say. But you stop thinking when you are working. It takes a lot of nervous energy as well because the camera goes one, two, three very fast and you have to move very fast. I like my job because it gives me freedom. I can have half a day off to do things I like. I can't do that if I do a normal job. I never like becoming a secretary. They have to sit in the office for eight hours a day, facing the same people.

Most models, after one or two years, can't be still very interested in it. But I like being a model. Maybe I was a born one, as many people say.

Finally, I entered the university．Because of my careful savings, I did not have to work during the school year. Then, summer came and it was time to work harder than ever. I continued working as a waitress at night, instructed tennis camps several mornings a week and worked as a secretary for a few hours in the afternoons. I even decided to take a class at a community college. This class at the community college saved me $650. It was an extremely tiring summer and made me anxious to return to my relatively easy life at the university.

During my second and third years of undergraduate schooling, I decided to work about five hours per week in the campus admissions office answering phones. This provided a little spending money and kept me from drawing my savings out. The overall situation looked hopeful as I approached my senior year as long as I could make as much money as I had the previous summer. I wanted to go to Israel to study for 3 weeks, but I hesitated in making this decision because it would cost me $1,600 more to get the credits in Israel. About two weeks later my Mom called to tell me that I had $1,600 in the bank that I had forgotten about! One of my concerns about this trip was not only the cost, but the loss of time to make money; however, I made as much that summer in the ten weeks when I was at home as I had made during the fourteen weeks when I was at home the summer before. The way everything worked together to make this trip possible was one of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me.

This experience has shaped me in many important ways. The first thing that I learned was the importance of a strong work ethic. Working long hours did a lot to develop my character and helped me learn the value of a dollar. It also made me learn how to search for creative ways to settle difficult situations.

In her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World,” Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a high-school student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Warsaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students’ test scores from significantly below average to well above it. Polish kids have now outscored(超过……分数) American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Warsaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind.

Those American High Schools lavish more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint. This is not a matter of how any given student who plays sports does in school, but of the culture and its priorities. This December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment(PISA) results are announced, it’s safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers.

Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D. C. , which costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader—a mother with three children in the school—was asked about the school’s flaws(暇疵). When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. “Really?” one of them asked worriedly, “What do you mean?”

One of the ironies (讽刺) of the situation is that sports reveal what is possible. American kids’ performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expectations are high. It’s too bad that their test scores show the same thing.

“Blogging is helping students to think and write more critically(批评地),”says an Australian researcher, “and can help draw out people who would otherwise not engage in debate.”

These are the preliminary findings of PHD research by Anne Bartlett-Bragg, a lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney, who has been using weblogs or blogs in her own teaching since 2001.

“The students are thinking more critically.” she says, “They are learning to be responsible and they’re communicating outside the boundaries of the classroom and the institution, and they like that. “Bartlett-Bragg says in conventional teaching, students often rely on the lecturer as the main source of ideas and critique (评论)for their work. “I’m a bit over listening to my students giving me back in an essay what I’ve told them in class.” she says. “I want them to think for themselves and get different perspectives.”

“What makes blogs useful is their interactive nature.” she says. These web-based forums(论坛)for discussing ideas, experiences or opinions allow students to discuss publicly what they are studying with other students and experts outside their own university. “I really encourage them to put their personal opinion in there, provided they are informed and backed up with evidence.” Bartlett-Bragg says because a lot of academics in her field of electronic or e-learning now have their own blogs, students can engage directly with them.

She says one of the most powerful facilities in weblogs is pinging, which involves a person positing a comment about someone else’s work on their own blog. They use the “Trackback” tool to notify the author when they have published the comment, basically inviting them to discuss it.

“They get such a buzz when they make a comment on another person outside the boundaries of the institution and that person responds, or even gives them some further reading.” she says. “They are getting new perspectives that I can’t give them in a normal lecture.”

  I log (登录)onto a computer at the doctor's office to say I have arrived and then wait until a voice calls me into the examination room.      

There, a robotic nurse directs me onto a device and then takes my blood pressure. Some time later, in steps the doctor, who is also a robot. He notes down my symptoms and gives me a prescription (处方). I pay for my visit using a credit card machine and return home without having met another human being.     

When I call my dentist's office and actually get a human being on the line, I am thrilled. And when I see the introduction of yet more self-service checkout stations at the grocery store, I feel like shouting, "When it comes to cashiers, make mine human, please!"    

After all, human cashiers sometimes give you a store coupon (优惠券) for items you are buying. Even more than that, real-life cashiers often take an interest in particularly cute children, which can brighten a young mother's day. A cashier may also show compassion (同情)for an elderly person struggling to get that last penny out of her purse. 

What technological device would do any of this? I don't want to go back to the Stone Age, but I'm also worried about a world run by machines. Sometimes when you're chatting with someone, you discover things you need to know. Maybe a receptionist needs prayers said for a sick child. Maybe a salesperson can offer a bit of encouragement to a customer who is feeling tired.       

Machines can be efficient and cost-effective and they often get the job done just fine. But they lack an element so important to everyday life.      

Call it the spirit, the soul or the heart. It is something no machine will ever have. It is being human that prompts us to smile at others, which may be what they need at that moment.  

Long History, Unclear Future for “Golden Rice”

White rice is the world’s most popular form rice. But it goes through a milling(研磨) process that removes many nutrients(营养物质). As a result, people who eat poor diet based on white rice may not get enough vitamin A.

Each year about two hundred fifty thousand to half a million children go blind from vitamin A deficiency(缺乏). The World Health Organization says half of them die within a year of losing their sight. Vitamin A deficiency is a problem especially in Africa and Southeast Asia.

So scientists thought of an answer. They combined white rice with plant compounds(复合物) whose body can change into vitamin A. The rice contains carotenoids(类胡萝卜素) which give the rice a golden color.

But the rice cannot be made using traditional methods to raise the plants. Scientists worked for years to develop the technology to add genes to rice and yet more years to get the genes they wanted into the seeds. Golden Rice is currently being tested in the Philippines. It is still not available for general use.

Go-inventor Ingo Potrykus says the rice with two added genes, one from corn and the other from a soil bacterium(细菌), will be available soon.

Mr. Potrykus, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, says Golden Rice has never been shown to be unsafe for the environment or people. Many agricultural organizations support the project.

But there are also critics(批评者), including researchers from the environmental group Greenpeace. Several months ago they questioned whether Golden Rice could do much for vitamin A deficiency(缺乏). They said releasing genetically modified rice in Asia could permanently(永久地)change traditional rice varieties.

One of ________ most common illnesses in our society is "time sickness", ________ sense of time pressure and hurry that causes anxiety and tension.

Catherine, ________ the alarm clock for 6 o'clock, or you would oversleep and be late for the train.