Everyone has good days and bad days.

Sometimes, you feel as if you’re on top of the world. But occasionally you feel horrible, and you lose things and you cannot focus on your schoolwork.

  For more than 20 years, scientists have suggested that high self-esteem(自尊)is the key to success. Now, new research shows that focusing just on building self-esteem may not be helpful. In some cases, having high self-esteem can bring bad results if it makes you less likeable or more upset when you fail at something.

    “Forget about self-esteem,” says Jennifer Crocker, a psychologist(心理学家)at the University of Michigan, US. “It’s not the important thing.”

Feeling good

Crocker’s advice may sound a bit strange because it is good to feel good about yourself.

Studies show that people with high self-esteem are less likely to be depressed, anxious, shy, or lonely than those with low self-esteem.w(w w.ks&5 u.c*o m

But, after reviewing about 18,000 studies on self-esteem, Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University, has found that building up your self-esteem will not necessarily make you a better person.

He believes that violent and wicked(邪恶的)people often have the highest self-esteem of all. He also said: “There’s no evidence that kids with high self-esteem do better in school.”

Problems

All types of people have problems. People with high self-esteem can have big egos(自我)that can make them less likeable to their peers(同龄人),said Kathleen Vohs, a psychology professor at Columbia University.

People with high self-esteem tend to think more of themselves, Vohs says. People with low self-esteem are more likely to rely on their friends when they need help.

What to do

Researchers say it is best to listen to and support other people. Find positive ways to contribute to society. If you fail at something try to learn from the experience. “The best therapy(药方)is to recognize your faults,” Vohs says. “It’s OK to say, I’m not so good at that, and then move on.”

It is concluded in the research that high self-esteem_________.

A. is not important at all

B. has taken on a different meaning

C. may not be the key to success

D. does not help you do better at schoolw(w w.ks&5 u.c*o m

According to the research, people with high self-esteem_________.

A. have better relationship with people of their own age

B. are more likely to become violent and wicked

C. tend to be proud and do not care much about others

D. often feel depressed and can’t focus on their work

The advice in the last paragraph is mainly for people___________.

A. with high self-esteem                      B. with low self-esteem

C. who are still at school                      D. who are good at everything

My husband and son took a New York-to-Milwaukee flight that was supposed to leave Friday at 11:29 am. The flight boarded after 4 pm and didn’t leave the gate until 4:40, and half an hour later the pilot announced it would be another hour until takeoff. At that point a Jewish family, worried about violating the Sabbath (安息日), asked to get off. Going back to the gate cost the plane its place in line for takeoff, and the flight was eventually cancelled. Was the airline right to grant that request?
M. W, Norwalk, CONN.
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Situations like that can bring out the worst in people. But despite the increasing resentment(怨恨) of a plane full of people, the pilot tried to do the right thing. He went out of his way to satisfy one family’s urgent need. He should not have done so.
Passengers bought tickets in the belief that the airline’s primary goal was to get them to their destination as close to the schedule as possible. Once they got on the plane and the doors are locked, it’s not correct to announce that the rules have changed and that a personal (as opposed to medical) emergency —no matter how urgent — might take precedence(优先).
That would be just as true if turning back to the gate had merely cost a few minutes rather than doomed the flight entirely, since on a plane, even a slight delay can spread outward, from the people in the cabin to those meeting them to the passengers waiting to board the plane for the next leg of its journey and so on. It would also be true if the personal emergency were not religious — if someone suddenly realized she’d made a professional mistake that might cost her millions, and she had to race back to the office to fix it.
If a religious practice does nothing to harm others, then airlines should make a reasonable effort to accommodate it. Though that family has every right to observe the Sabbath, it has no right to enlist an airplane full of captive bystanders to help them do so. By boarding a flight on a Friday afternoon, the family knowingly risked running into trouble. The risk was theirs alone to bear.
【小题1】M. W. wrote the letter to ask whether ______.

A.Any religious passenger has the right to ask the pilot to take off
B.The airline has the right to cancel the flight without any reason
C.A flight should meet any passenger’s need despite others’ benefit
D.A plane which has left the gate should give up taking off
【小题2】What do we know from the reply letter?
A.The pilot did the right thing in spite of the fierce resentment.
B.The plane should turn back if anyone aboard is seriously ill.
C.Anybody who has boarded has no chance to get off the plane.
D.Any flight shouldn’t change its schedule no matter what has happened.
【小题3】What does the underlined part in Paragraph 4 mean?
A.Turning back to the gate usually takes a plane quite a long time.
B.Nobody should take precedence to require the plane to turn back to the gate.
C.Even if it had taken a few minutes it was not right to turn back to the gate.
D.It was OK if turning back to the gate hadn’t caused the flight to be cancelled.
【小题4】The author of the reply letter thinks that _________.
A.It’s right for the plane to turn back to the gate to save a passenger’s treasure
B.The Jewish family should give up observing the Sabbath after boarding
C.The biggest problem of turning back is to bring trouble to the pilot
D.The Jewish family had better avoid boarding on Friday afternoon

Why do human beings still risk their lives under ground and doing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the worldIt’s an increasingly urgent questiongiven the recent high?profile(引人注目的) mining accidents in SagoW.Va.and HuntingtonUtah.A small group of engineers and robotics experts look forward to a day in the not?too?distant future when robots and other technology do most of the dangerous mining work.

Robotic technologyin particularholds much promiseMcAteer saysespecially when it comes to mapping mines and rescuing trapped miners—the special operations of the mining industry.

One of the first mining robots was developed five years ago at Carnegie?Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.It was called Groundhog and it looked like a golf cart.It used lasers(激光器) to “see” in dark tunnels and map abandoned mines—some of the most dangerous work in the business.

The latest design is called Cave Crawler.It’s a bit smaller than Groundhogand even more advanced.It can take photos and video and has sensors mounted(增加) that can detect the presence of dangerous gases.Incrediblythe robot has a real sense of logic.If it comes across an obstacle it gets confused.It has to think through the process and where to go nextand sometimes it throws_a_fit just like a real person.

The biggest obstaclethoughis cost.The original research project was federally fundedbut that money has dried upand it’s not clear where future funding will come from. Partly for that reasonand partly because of advances in safetymining is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the past.Since 1990fatalities(致命性) have declined by 67 percent and injuries by 51 percentaccording to the National Mining Association.

Some experts predict that robots in mines will serve much of the same function that they do in the automotive industry.The robots do the most repetitive and dangerous jobsbut don’t eliminate(消除) the need for human workers.

1.The underlined phrase “throws a fit” in Paragraph 4 probably means “________”

Agets angry? Bgets sick

Cbecomes hungry? Dbecomes cheerful

2.We can infer from the last paragraph that ________.

Arobots in mines will serve much in the automotive industry

Bthere will be no need for human workers in mines

Cthe mine robots will have a very bright future

Drobots in mines have a long way to go

3.Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

AMining robots do most of the mining work at present.

BGroundhog can discover the presence of dangerous gases.

CExperts are trying to make robots save miners in danger.

DRobots cannot do dangerous work in dark areas.

4.What can be the best title for the text?

AMining Accidents in America

BCould Robots Replace Humans in Mines?

CCave Crawlerthe Latest Robot

DThe Development of Robots

 

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