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 a day, he will 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(曲線), 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(最適度), the best, amount of work to do. It is the best possible compromise between adequate time at the books and fatigue(勞累). 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 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.
【小題1】According to the passage, _______.

As an effect of the high fuel prices spent on bus transportation, some American schools are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule.
Having been approved for three years and beginning in the fall, students in the Maccray school district in Minnesota will be in school from Tuesday to Friday. Each school day will be 65 minutes longer. Officials say the district expects to save about sixty-five thousand dollars a year in transportation costs.
In new Mexico, the first school district changed to a four-day week in 1974 because of the Arab oil boycott(抵制). Now, 17 out of 89 districts use it.
In Custer, South Dakota, students have been going to school four days a week since 1995. Superintendent(主管人)Tim Creal says the change has saved about one million dollars over just the past eight years. He sees other benefits, too. Students get more instructional time, and activities that used to take up class time are now held on non-school days. He says that in the future, the growth of online classes could make it possible to require even fewer days in school. High fuel prices are driving college students to take more online classes.
A four-day school week sounds like a great idea for students and teachers, but working parents may have to pay for child care for that fifth day.
1. According to Tim Creal, what makes it possible to have even fewer days in school?
A. The increasing number of private tutors.
B. The development of teaching methods.
C. The increase in the number of online classes.
D. The growth in the income of Americans.
2. It can be learned from the passage that______
A. students will be in school from Monday to Tuesday.
B. four-day week was first carried out in South Dakota.
C. Maccray will save one million dollars every year.
D. Minnesota state has approved the four-day week plan.
3. The passage is mainly about______
A. some school’s four-day week plan    B. districts using a four-day week.
C. how to save on transportation fees.   D. expense of school transportation.

B
As an effect of the high fuel prices spent on bus transportation, some American schools are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule.
Having been approved for three years and beginning in the fall, students in the Maccray school district in Minnesota will be in school from Tuesday to Friday. Each school day will be 65 minutes longer. Officials say the district expects to save about sixty-five thousand dollars a year in transportation costs.
In new Mexico, the first school district changed to a four-day week in 1974 because of the Arab oil boycott(抵制). Now, 17 out of 89 districts use it.
In Custer, South Dakota, students have been going to school four days a week since 1995. Superintendent Tim Creal says the change has saved about one million dollars over just the past eight years. He sees other benefits, too. Students get more instructional time, and activities that used to take up class time are now held on non-school days. He says that in the future, the growth of online classes could make it possible to require even fewer days in school. High fuel prices are driving college students to take more online classes.
A four-day school week sounds like a great idea for students and teachers, but working parents may have to pay for child care for that fifth day.
【小題1】According to Tim Creal, what makes it possible to have even fewer days in school?

The Cambodian government says more than 378 people died and hundreds more were injured in a stampede (踩踏) during the celebrations of the annual Water Festival late Monday in Phnom Penh.
Less than 24 hours after the tragedy(悲劇), Cambodia's most serious loss of life in decades(十年), the government founded an organization to investigate(調查) how so many died on what was meant to be one of the nation's most joyous occasions.
Most of the victims(犧牲品) were young people in their teens and twenties. They were some of the estimated(估計) two million who had flooded to Phnom Penh for the Water Festival, which marks the end of the rainy season.
Most suffocated on the bridge, which thousands of people were using to leave Diamond Island, an entertainment(娛樂) area in the middle of the river. Others drowned(溺水) after jumping from the bridge into the water.
Buot Panha, 19, said shortly after 9:30 on Monday evening he ended up trapped(圍困) with his friends in the middle of the bridge, fighting to breathe while terrified people struggled all around him.
Being tall saved his life, since he could stretch(伸出) his neck to take in oxygen(氧氣). Shorter people were unable to do that, he says, which may be why two-thirds of the victims were women.
He tried to help a woman who was trapped with two children near him. She was screaming for people to help. Being tall, Buot Panha grabbed(抓住) one child and pushed him above the crowd to help him breathe.
But then some of the young men were told to jump off the bridge into the river to make room. So he handed back the child, squirmed his way to the edge, and jumped.
Some like Buot Panha were fortunate, jumping into the river below and swimming for the shore. But many simply could not move, and died where they lay.
Buot Panha says his first Water Festival will be his last. He vows(發(fā)誓) never to come back.
【小題1】The passage is mainly about ________.

請閱讀下列應用文及相關信息，并按照要求匹配信息。請在答題卡上將對應題號的相應選項字母涂黑。 
首先，請閱讀下列英語電影的名稱及內容簡介：
A. Birth of a Nation  Birth of a Nation was the most popular film of the silent era. The message in the film was that African Americans could never be integrated into the white society as equals. Race violence directed against African Americans took place in many cities. In the South, African Americans were only allowed to go to separate schools, hotels, and restaurants.
B. Gone with the Wind  Gone with the Wind was the costliest and most popular film of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Producer David Selznick had promised that the film would be free of any anti-Negro ideas. Although it did not use white actors in blackface, like Birth of a Nation, its picture of enslaved African Americans as loyal but scatter-brained house servants and clumsy field hands was what the white thought the black ought to be then.
C. Glory  Glory offers a powerful retelling of the story of the first black regiment (團) during the American Civil War. Half the regiment’s men were killed or wounded in the war, but it dramatically demonstrated the courage of African American troops in battle. However, the film failed to describe the larger historical context of the Civil War.
D. Amistad  The Steven Spielberg film is about a historical event. In 1839, a group of Africans were captured and shipped to the Spanish colony of Cuba. During trans-shipment to nearby sugar plantations, 53 slaves overpowered the crew. The captives then ordered the two men who had purchased them to navigate the ship toward Africa. At night, however, the men sailed the ship northward and westward. The case ultimately went to the Supreme Court. In 1841, the Court freed the captives.
E. Beloved  The film is based on Margaret Garner’s story of killing her own two-year-old daughter Mary. Margaret Garner said that she had intended to kill her other children rather than see them returned to slavery. She later explained that she wanted to “end their sufferings” rather than see them returned to bondage and “murdered by piecemeal”. No other work has so powerfully examined the interior life of a former slave.
F. Schindler’s List  The film concerns the lives of a thousand Jews during World War II. The film shows, unforgettably, how one man does make a difference. Schindler proves that man’s morality and humanity are always alive. “Save one life, save the world entire.” The heavy tone and fearful atmosphere of the film are heightened by black-and-white cinematography.
以下是與電影相關的評論文章標題，請匹配標題與它們所對應的電影：
【小題1】Inner Hurt
【小題2】International Slave Trade
【小題3】Civil Rights
【小題4】Blacks with Low Abilities
【小題5】Brave Blacks