全新版大学英语快速阅读第二册课文.doc

Unit 1How to Study There is a lot of misunderstanding about studying. Most students have not been taught the principles behind really effective working. Imagine a graph showing the amount a person learns against the number of hours he works in a day. If he doesn't do any work, he learns nothing (point 0). If he does an hour 's work he learns a certain amount (point 1). If he does two hours' work he learns about twice as much (point 2). If he does more work he'll learn still more (point 3). However, if he tries to do twenty-three and a half hours' work in one day, he'll be so tired that he'll hardly remember anything: what he learns will be very little (point 4). If he did less work he 'd learn more (point 5). Now whatever the exact shape of the graph 's curve, made by joining these points, it must have a high point. Point "X" is the very maximum anyone can learn in the day. And this represents the optimum, the best, amount of work to do. It is the best possible compromise between adequate time at the books and fatigue. Fatigue is an absolutely real thing; one can't escape it or ignore it. If you try to ignore it and press yourself to work past the optimum, you will only get on this downward slope and achieve less than the best—and then become very tired and lose your power of concentration. The skill in being a student consists of getting one 's daily study as near the optimum point as possible. I cannot tell you what the optimum is. It differs with the type of work, it differs from person to person, and even in the same person it varies from week to week. You must try to find your own. Every day you study, bear this principle of the optimum in mind. When you feel yourself getting fatigued, if you find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again and not taking it in, that's a pretty good sign you 've reached your highest point for the day and should stop. Most ordinary students find their optimum at about five hours a day. Yours may be a little more or a little less—but if you get in five hours' good work a day, you will be doing well. Now, what are you doing with yourself when you aren't working? Before examinations some students do nothing at all except sit in a chair and worry. Here is another misunderstanding. People often think that the mind works like the body; it does not. If one wanted to save one 's physical energy in order to cut the maximum amount of firewood, one would lie flat on a bed and rest when one wasn't chopping. But the mind cannot rest. Even in sleep you dream, even if you forget your dreams. The mind is always turning. It gets its relaxation only by variety. That is what makes the mind rest. When you 've finished your optimum number of hours you must stop. You must not then sit around in the chair thinking about the work—that only tires without any learning. You must get out and do something. It doesn't matter what—anything so long as you are actively doing something else but work. Learning to Keep You Cool During Tests Have you ever felt so anxious during an examination that you couldn't even put down the answers you knew? If so, you were suffering from what is known as test anxiety. According to psychologist Ralph Trimble, test anxiety is a very real problem for many people. When you 're worried over your performance on an exam, your heart beats faster and your pulse speeds up. These reactions start others: You may sweat more than normal or suffer from a stomachache or headache. Your field of vision narrows and becomes tunnel-like. Before you know it, you 're having difficulty focusing. "What I hear students say over and over again," says Dr. Trimble, who is working at the Psychological and Counseling Center at the University of Illinois, "is, 'My mind went blank.'" For a number of years, Dr. Trimble helped many students learn how to perform better during exams and to bring up their grades. Some of these students were interested in sharing what they learned and, with Trimble 's help, began holding workshops on overcoming test anxiety. For many students, just being in a workshop with other sufferers made them feel better. They realized that they were not the only ones who had done poorly on tests because of tension. The workshops were so successful that they are still given. In the workshops, students are taught that anxiety is normal. You just have to prevent it from getting the best of you. The first step is to learn to relax. If before or during an examination you start to panic, stretch as hard as you can, tensing the muscles in your arms and legs; then suddenly relax all of them. This will help relieve tension. But keep in mind that you don't want to be too relaxed. Being completely relaxed is no better than being too tense. "If you are so calm you don't care how you do on an examination, you won't do well," Trimble says. "There is an optimum level of concern when you perform at your best. Some stress helps. There are people who can't 。