阅读理解If those "mad moments"—when you can''t remember what your friend has told you or where you left your keys—are becoming more frequent, mental exercises and a healthy brain diet may help. Just as bodies require more maintenance with the passing years, so do brains, which scientists now know show signs of aging as early as the 20s and 30s. "Brain aging starts at a very young age, younger than any of us had imagined and these processes continue gradually over the years," said Dr. Gary Small, the director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I''m convinced that it is never too early to get started on a mental or brain-fitness program," he added. In his book, The Memory Bible, the 51-year-old neuroscientist (神经学家) lists what he refers to as the 10 suggestions for keeping the brain young. They include training memory, building skills, reducing stress, mental exercises, brain food and a healthy lifestyle. It''s a game plan for keeping brain cells sparking and neural networks in perfect shape. "Misplacing your keys a couple of times don''t mean you should start labeling your cabinets. Memory loss is not an inevitable consequence of aging. Our brains can fight back," he said. Small provides the weapons for a full-scale attack. Simple memory tests give an indication of what you are up against and tools such as "look" and "connect" are designed to make sure that important things such as names and dates are never forgotten. "So if you wanted to learn names and faces, for example, you meet Mrs. Beatty and you notice a distinguishing facial feature, maybe a high eyebrow," said Small. "You associate the first thing that comes to mind. I think of the actor Warren Beatty so I create a mental picture of Warren Beatty kissing her brow." Small admits it may sound a bit strange but he says it works. "Mental exercises could be anything from doing crossword puzzles and writing with your left hand if you are right handed or learning a language. It could be anything that is fun that people enjoy doing," he added. He also recommends physical exercise, a low-fat diet and eating foods rich in fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants (抗氧化剂) including blueberries and onions in addition to reducing stress.

阅读理解Do you find getting up in the morning so difficult that it''s painful? This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle. During the hours when you labor through your work may say that you''re "hot". That''s true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak. For some people the peak comes during the forenoon. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why this is so, but it leads to such familiar monologues (独白) as: "Get up, John! You''ll be late for work again!" The possible explanation to the trouble is that John is at his temperature-and-energy peak in the evening. Much family quarreling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has. You can''t change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you''re sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late anyway. Counteract (阻碍) your cycle to some extent by habitually staying up later than you want to. If your energy is low in the morning but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won''t change your cycle, but you''ll get up steam and work better at your low point. Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a leisurely yawn (哈欠) and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before. Whenever possible, do routine work in the afternoon and save tasks requiring more energy or concentration for your sharper hours.

阅读理解In London, two weeks ago a class of students made legal history by winning a lawsuit against their college for poor teaching. In this landmark case the group all passed their course in historic vehicle restoration, but sued (起诉) the Oxfordshire college they had attended, claiming their qualifications were worthless because none had gained jobs in the field. The fact that the course was substantially different from that promised meant they won their case. James Groves, general secretary of the National Postgraduate Committee in UK reports that students are getting better at complaining. "They are starting to see themselves as consumers of a product, and are reacting accordingly when things don''t go right. Most importantly, they usually are paying their own fees and expect to get what they have paid for." Groves says most complaints to his organization are about facilities and the quality of supervision. He says that more students seem to make complaints might be due simply to the fact that universities are getting better at dealing with them. "In the past there was a tendency for colleges to brush these things aside. Today, most universities observe a code of practice and complaints are taken more seriously." He adds that students with complaints should first talk informally with the person concerned, taking a "friendly but firm attitude". Jaswinder Gill, who represented the students in the Oxfordshire case, is co-author of a recently published book: Universities and Students. He says the Oxfordshire case is interesting because the majority of students finished the course and were awarded qualifications. "Previously, students have sued when they failed to gain qualifications. But it is not now good enough for universities and colleges to say to grieving students: ''You''ve got your qualification, so what''s the problem?'' It''s about the quality of that qualification." The students argued that promises made in the college introduction, in course material and by course representatives during interviews were not met. Promised job opportunities in the industry failed to materialize, as did the promised 50 percent of practical and vocational work, and basic tools had not been available. Gill suggests that in such cases it is easy to prove the college at fault.

阅读理解Social change is more likely to occur in societies where there is a mixture of different kinds of people than in societies where people are similar in many ways. The simple reason for this is that there are more different ways of looking at things present in the first kind of society. There are more ideas, more disagreements in interest, and more groups and organizations with different beliefs. In addition, there is usually a greater worldly interest and greater tolerance in mixed societies. All these factors tend to promote social change by opening more as of life to decision. In a society where people are quite similar in many ways, there are fewer occasions for people to see the need or the opportunity for change because everything seems to be the same. And although conditions may not be satisfactory, they are at least customary and undisputed. Within a society, social change is also likely to occur more frequently and more readily in the material aspects of the culture than in the non-material, for example, in technology rather than in values; in what has been learned later in life rather than what was learned early; in the less basic and less emotional aspects of society than in their opposite; in the simple elements rather than in the complex ones; in form rather than in substance; and in elements that are acceptable to the culture rather than in strange elements. Furthermore, social change is easier if it is gradual. For example, it comes more readily in human relations on a continuous scale rather than one with violent changes. This is one reason why change has not come more quickly to Black Americans as compared to other American minorities, because of the sharp difference in appearance between them and their white counterparts.

阅读理解A good modern newspaper is an extraordinary piece of reading. It is remarkable first for what it contains the range of news from local crime to international politics, from sports to business to fashion to science, and the range of comment and special features (特定) as well, from editorial page to feature articles and interviews to criticism of books, art, theatre and music. A newspaper is even more remarkable for the way one reads it never completely, never straight through, but always by jumping from here to there, in and out glancing at one piece, reading another article all the way through, reading just a few paragraphs of the next. A good modern newspaper offers a variety to attract many different readers, but far more than any one reader is interested in. What brings this variety together in one place is its topicality(时事性), its immediate relation to what is happening in your world and your locality now. But immediacy and the speed of production that goes with it mean also that much of what appears in a newspaper has no more than transient (短暂的) value. For all these reasons, no two people really read the same paper: what each person does is to put together out of the pages of that day''s paper, his own selection and sequence, his own news paper. For all these reasons, reading newspapers efficiently, which means getting what you want from them without missing things you need but without wasting time, demands skill and self-awareness as you modify and apply the techniques of reading.

阅读理解True, some of the attacks against whites by blacks are for money and valuables. But, others ale revenge assaults by blacks for a real or imagined racial insult. It is equally true that the vast majority of violent crimes against whites are committed by whites, while the vast majority of violent crimes against blacks are committed by other blacks. Yet even after discounting crimes that are hastily and erroneously (错误地，不正确地) tagged as racially motivated, many blacks do attack whites because they all white. A 1998 Justice Department study confirmed that nearly 20% of the more than 4,000 hate crimes well committed against whites, and their attackers were blacks. The Southern Poverty Law Center also notes that there is a huge escalation in black-on-white violence from nearly none at the beginning of the 1990s. A collection of white supremacists and rightist extremist groups have eagerly made black-on-white violence a wedge issue in their movement to paint blacks as the prime racial hate mongers in America. The New Century Foundation, an ultra-conservative think-tank, has launched a full-blown national campaign to alert whites to the danger of black hate crimes. These groups and individuals magnify hate crimes by blacks in order to back their social agenda. They oppose affirmative action programs and stronger hate crime laws. They downplay, or justify, the proliferation of white-supremacist-tinged paramilitary groups, police violence, and racial profiling. And they lobby hard for more prisons, police, and tougher laws. Black-on-white violence also reinforces white fears of blacks as the ultimate menace to society. When blacks say or do nothing about these attacks, it is taken by some as a tacit signal that blacks put less value on white lives than black lives. This is a terrible price for black silence on hate crimes committed by blacks.

阅读理解In bringing up children, every parent watches eagerly the child''s acquisition (学会)of each new skill the first spoken words, the first independent steps, or the beginning of reading and writing. It is often tempting to hurry the child beyond his natural learning rate, but this can set up dangerous feelings of failure and states of worry in the child. This might happen at any stage. A baby might be forced to use a toilet too early, a young child might be encouraged to learn to read before he knows the meaning of the words he reads. On the other hand, though, if a child is left alone too much, or without any learning opportunities, he loses his natural enthusiasm for life and his desire to find out new things for himself. Parents vary greatly in their degree of strictness towards their children. Some may be especially strict in money matters. Others are severe over times of coming home at night or punctuality for meals. In general, the controls imposed represent the needs of the parents and the values of the community as much as the child''s own happiness. As regards the development of moral standards in the growing child, consistency is very important in parental teaching. To forbid a thing one day and excuse it the next is no foundation for morality (道德) . Also, parents should realize that example is better than precept. If they are not sincere and do not practise what they preach (说教), their children may grow confused, and emotionally insecure when they grow old enough to think for themselves, and realize they have been to some extent fooled. A sudden awareness of a marked difference between their parents'' principles and their morals can be a dangerous disappointment.

阅读理解According to a concerned 1997 article in the Boston Globe, the United States spent less than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians (行人) . Actually, I''m surprised it was that much. Go to almost any suburb developed in the last 30 years, and you will not find a sidewalk anywhere. Often you won''t find a single pedestrian crossing. I was made fully aware of this one summer when we were driving across Maine and stopped for coffee in one of those endless zones of shopping malls (购物中心) , motels, gas stations and fast-food places. I noticed there was a bookstore across the street, so I decided to forget coffee and go there to have a look. Although the bookshop was no more than 70 or 80 feet away, I discovered that there was no way to cross over six lanes of swiftly moving traffic on foot without putting myself in danger. In the end, I had to get in our car and drive across. At the time, it seemed ridiculous and annoying, but afterward I realized that I was possibly the only person ever to have thought of crossing the street on foot. The fact is, we not only don''t walk anywhere anymore in this country, we won''t walk anywhere, and dislike anyone who tries to make US, as the city of Laconia, N.H. discovered. In the early 1970s, Laconia spent millions on a comprehensive urban renewal project, which included building a pedestrian mall to make shopping more pleasant. Esthetically (美学上) it was a triumph—urban planners came from all over to praise and take photos—but commercially it was a disaster. Forced to walk one whole block from a parking garage, shoppers abandoned downtown Laconia for suburban malls. In 1994 Laconia dug up its pretty paving blocks, took away the flowers and decorative trees, and brought back the cars. Now people can park right in front of the stores again, and downtown Laconia thrives again. And if that isn''t sad, I don''t know what is.

阅读理解Part C You are going to read a passage about habits. From the list of headings A-G choose the best one to summarize each paragraph (33-38) of the passage. There is one extra heading that you do not need to use. Habits are bad only if you can’t handle them We are endlessly told we’re creatures of habit. Indeed, making this observation's if it were origin is one of the most annoying habits of pop psychologists. The psychologist William James said long ago that life “is but a mass of habits … our dressing and undressing, our eating and drinking, our greetings and partings, our giving way for ladies to precede are things of a type so fixed by repetition as almost to be classed as reflex actions.” What pop psychology can’t decide, though, is whether this state of affairs is good or bad. Are habits, properly controlled, the key to happiness? Or should we be doing all we can to escape habitual existence? This isn’t a question of good versus bad habits: we can agree, presumably, that the habit of eating lots of vegetables is preferable to that of drinking a three-litre bottle of White Lightning each night. Rather, it’s a disagreement about habituation itself. Since habit is so much more powerful than our conscious decision-making, what are needed are deliberately chosen routines. No matter how hard you resolve to spend more time with your spouse, it’ll never work as well as developing the habit of a weekly night out of doing the hardest task first each morning. Yet on the other hand, as we know all too well, habits hose their power precisely because they’re habitual. An expensive cappuccino, once in a while, is a life-enhancing pleasure; an expensive cappuccino every day soon becomes a boring routine. Even proven therapeutic techniques, such as keeping a diary, work better when done occasionally, not routinely. I don’t have an answer to this dilemma. But there is one way to get the best of both words: develop habits and routines that are designed to disrupt your habits and routines, and keep things fresh. One obvious example is the “weekly review”, which time-management experts are always recommending: a habit, yes, but one that involves stepping out of the daily habitual stream to gain perspective. Or take Bill Cates’s famous annual “think week”, in which he holes up in the mountain with a stack of books and journals, to reflect on future paths of action. You don’t need a week in the mountains, though: an hour’s walk in the park each week might prove as beneficial. A smaller-scale kind of routinised disruption is a method known as burst working, involving tiny, timed sprints of 5 to 10 minutes, with gaps in between. Each burst brings a microscopic but refreshing sense of newness, while each tiny deadline adds useful pressure, preventing a descent into torpor. Each break, meanwhile, is a moment to breathe-a miniature “think week”, to step back, assess your direction, and stop the day sliding into forgetfulness. All these techniques use the power of habituation to defeat the downsides of habituation. Like jujitsu(柔道), you’re turning the enemy’s strength against him; unlike jujitsu, we physically malcoordinated types can do it, too.

阅读理解What is this passage mainly about ?

阅读理解Intellectual property rights(IPR) are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time. Intellectual property rights are customarily divided into two main areas: (i)Copyright and rights related to copyright. The rights of authors of literary and artistic works (such as books and other writings, musical compositions, paintings, sculpture, computer programs and films) are protected by copyright, for a minimum period of 50 years after the death of the author. Also protected through copyright and related (sometimes referred to as "neighboring") rights are the rights of performers (e.g. actors, singers and musicians), producers of phonograms (sound recordings) and broadcasting organizations. The main social purpose of protection of copyright and related rights is to encourage and reward creative work. (ii)Industrial property. Industrial property can usefully be divided into two main areas: One area can be characterized as the protection of distinctive signs, in particular trademarks (which distinguish the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings) and geographical indications (which identify a good as originating in a place where a given characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin). The protection of such distinctive signs aims to stimulate and ensure fair competition and to protect consumers, by enabling them to make informed choices between various goods and services. The protection may last indefinitely, provided the sign in question continues to be distinctive. Other types of industrial property are protected primarily to stimulate innovation, design and the creation of technology. In this category fall inventions (protected by patents), industrial designs and trade secrets. The social purpose is to provide protection for the results of investment in the development of new technology, thus giving the incentive (动机) and means to finance research and development activities. A functioning intellectual property regime (管理制度) should also facilitate the transfer of technology in the form of foreign direct investment, joint ventures and licensing. The protection is usually given for a finite term(typically 20 years in the case of patents). While the basic social objectives of intellectual property protection are as outlined above, it should also be noted that the exclusive rights given are generally subject to a number of limitations and exceptions, aimed at fine-stuning the balance that has to be found between the legitimate (合法的) interests of right holders and of users.

阅读理解Dear Sirs, Your shipment of twelve thousand ''Smart'' watches was received by our company this morning. However, we wish to make a number of complaints concerning the serious delay in delivery and your failure to carry out our specific instructions with regard to this order. It was stressed from the beginning that the delivery date had to be less than six weeks from the initial order in order to meet our own customers'' requirements. While we understand that delays in production are occasionally inevitable, we must point out that the major reason why the order was placed with your company was because we were assured by you of its speed of delivery, and that your existing stocks were sufficiently high to ensure immediate shipment. Late delivery of the goods has caused US to disappoint several of our most valued customers, and is bound to have a negative effect on potential future orders. The second complaint concerns the difference in color between the watches we ordered and those delivered. It was stated clearly in the original order that watches in combinations of green/purple and orange/purple only were required. However, only half the watches in the delivery received are of the colors specified. Our Hong Kong agent assures US that she stressed to you the importance of following our instructions precisely, since we consider there to be only a limited market in this country for watches of other colors at the present time. Any watches that are not of the specified colors will, of course, be returned to you. We are also somewhat concerned about the rather poor quality of the goods received, since it is apparent that the watches that finally arrived have been produced from inferior materials and have been manufactured to a lower standard than those in the sample. We have also found that a number of the watches do not appear to be functioning. Whether the latter problem is due to poor manufacture, damage during transportation or bad batteries is not yet clear, but we should like to point out that we feel this matter to be entirely your responsibility. As a result of the above problems, therefore, we feel that the most suitable course of action is to return to you unpaid any of the goods considered unsatisfactory, and to subtract any resultant costs from our final settlement. We shall also, of course, be forced to reconsider whether any further orders should be placed with your company. We look forward to your prompt reply. Yours sincerely, John Smith

阅读理解In Paragraph 5, the word “obscure” is closest in meaning to” _____”

阅读理解According to the last paragraph, the service quality of American service personnel may depend on ______.

阅读理解According to the United States government, people are classified as homeless if they have no place to stay and no expectation of finding a place for the next thirty days. Although technically accurate, that is an impersonal assessment of an enormous and very human problem. The homeless population represents all of us Americans. It includes men and women, the elderly, children, and infants. Its members are from all ethnic (种族的) groups. What they have in common is poverty. Currently in the U.S., thirty-nine million people live in poverty. When money is really tight, paying the rent or buying food often becomes a choice. Government assistance in the form of food stamps does help but, as one homeless man explains, you can''t pay the rent with food stamps. With no money for rent, the streets and homeless shelters become the alternative. Although men constitute the largest group within the homeless population, homeless women with children are rapidly joining them. In fact, one quarter of the homeless people in the U.S. are teenagers and young children. People may become homeless for numerous reasons. However, there are certain factors that many of these individuals have in common. They include a lack of adequate education and job skills. A majority of the teenagers and adults have not completed high school. The abuse of alcohol and drugs is also a common factor. One third of the adult homeless population abuses alcohol, while one quarter of the same group uses drugs. Some members of this population suffer mental health problems. Within the past several years many institutions for the mentally ill have been closed and their patients sent "home". Unfortunately, a number of those people have no home to go to and they are unable to adequately look after themselves. Job loss in today''s economy has also become a real factor in the loss of people''s homes. The breakup of families through abandonment and divorce are also contributing factors, particularly when there are children involved. The parent who is left to care for the kids with inadequate income may be forced to depend on the homeless shelters to put a roof over their heads.

阅读理解Part D You are going to read a passage about productive postponement. Decide whether the statements in the box agree with the information given in the passage. You should choose from the following. A YES = the statement agree with the information in the passage B NO = the statement contradicts the information in the passage C NOT GIVEN = there is no information on this in the passage Productive postponement It’s a frustrating irony of the universe that the way to get something you really want is often not to want is so badly. Worry too hard about a task and the anxiety will prevent you performing your best; stop looking for love, goes the cliché, and that’s when you’ll find it. Try too hard to be happy and you’ll find yourself on a misery-inducing treadmill （单调的工作）of self-improvement efforts, contradictory advice and motivational seminars conducted by exceptionally dubious men in hotel ballrooms. The solution is to “let go” of worry, of seeking happiness. But implementing that advice is close to impossible: it’s a tall order just to stop feeling anxious or to stop wanting something you want. Mercifully, some authors offer a far more palatable alternative: instead of getting embroiled in trying to let go of thoughts and emotions that get in your way, postpone them instead. Understandably, putting things off has often been considered as undesirable: see the bestseller Excuse Me. Your Life Is Waiting and similar warnings not to “postpone your dreams”. But there’s a flipside – a technique you might call productive postponement. The psychiatrist Robert Leahy, for example, recommends “worry postponement”: writing down your worries as they arise, and scheduling time to fret. It sounds strange, but there’s research evidence for it, and logic: we worriers derive huge payoffs from worrying – we believe, on some level, that it makes things go better –and so the idea of giving it up can be terrifying. Just putting it off, safe in the knowledge that you can return to it later, is easier. (If you’re worried, consider an email reminder service, and if worrying you’ll forget to worry strikes you as absurd, well. Consider yourself lucky and welcome to my world.) Psychotherapists call techniques such as postponement “metacognitive”, meaning that they make you aware of your habitual thought processes, and therefore work more lastingly than, say, trying to relieve a particular worry by addressing its specific content. Postponement works with perfectionism, too. If you can’t get rid of the notion that some task must be done perfectly, can you suspend that requirement just for now, resolving to revert to your perfectionism at some predetermined point in the near future? The essayist Anne Lamott, in her book Bird By Bird, calls this the principle of “shitty first drafts”, but, like so much of her counsel, it applies beyond writing.

阅读理解The girls in this sixth grade class in East Palo Alto, California, all have the same access to computers as boys. But researchers say, by the time they get to high school, they are victims of what the researchers call a major new gender (性别) gap in technology. Janice Weinman of the American Association of University Women says, "Girls tend to be less comfortable than boys with the computer. They use it more for word processing rather than for problem solving, rather than to discover new ways in which to understand information." After re-examining a thousand studies, the American Association of University Women researchers found that girls make up only a small percentage of students in computer science classes. Girls consistently rate themselves significantly lower than boys in their ability and confidence in using computers. And they use computers less often than boys outside the classroom. An instructor of a computer lab says he''s already noticed some differences. Charles Cheadle of Cesar Chavez School says, "Boys are not so afraid they might do something that will harm the computer, whereas girls are afraid they might break it somehow." Six years ago, the software company Purple Moon noticed that girls'' computer usage was falling behind boys. Karen Gould says, "The number one reason girls told us they don''t like computer games is not that they''re too violent, or too competitive. Girls just said they''re incredibly boring." Purple Monn says it found what girls want, characters they can relate to and story lines relative to what''s going on in their own lives. Karen Gould of Purple Moon Software says, "What we definitely found from girls is that there is no intrinsic (固有的) reason why they wouldn''t want to play on a computer; it was just a content thing." The sponsor of the study says it all boils down to this: the technology gender gap that separates the girls from the boys must be closed if women are to compete effectively with men in the 21st century.

阅读理解When TV news programs report wars or disasters, the editors rarely use the most horrifying pictures of dead or wounded victims because they don''t want to upset their viewers. Even so, viewers are usually warned in advance that they "may find some of these scenes disturbing", so they can look away if they choose. But the men and women whose job it is to record those scenes—the TV cameramen—have no such choice. It is their duty to witness the horrors of the world and record them no matter how gruesome (可怕的) and unpleasant they may be. Consequently, it is one of the most dangerous, exposed and emotionally taxing jobs the world has to offer. Today, the demand for their work is rising, the explosion of satellite broadcasting and 24-hour news in recent years has created an almost insatiable (贪得无厌的) demand for TV information. But major broadcasters and TV news agencies—such as Reuters and WTN—have never had enough staff to meet the worldwide demand for up-to-date pictures, so increasingly they turn to "freelance" TV cameramen. These freelance cameramen are independent operators tied to no particular organization. They will work for any company which hires them, be it for just a few hours or for several weeks in a war zone. But if the freelance cameraman is injured, in the course of the job, the TV company is not responsible for him. The freelancer must survive on his own. "TV will always need hard, vivid moving pictures which are fresh, but these companies feel uncomfortable with large numbers of employees on their books," explains Nik Gowing, once foreign editor for Britain''s Channel 4 News and now a BBC news presenter. "By hiring freelancers, they can buy in the skills they need only when they need them. It also enables them to contract out the risk," he says.

阅读理解There is no denying that students should learn something about how computers work, just as we expect them at least to understand that the internal combustion engine (内燃机) has something to do with burning fuel, expanding gases and pistons (活塞) being driven. For people should have some basic idea of how the things that they use do what they do. Further, students might be helped by a course that considers the computer''s impact on society. But that is not what is meant by computer literacy. For computer literacy is not a form of literacy (读写能力); it is a trade skill that should not be taught as a liberal art. Learning how to use a computer and learning how to program one are two distinct activities. A case might be made that the competent citizens of tomorrow should free themselves from their fear of computers. But this is quite different from saying that all ought to know how to program one. Leave that to people who have c hosen programming as a career. While programming can be lots of fun, and while our society needs some people who are experts at it, the same is true of auto repair and violin making. Learning how to use a computer is not that difficult, and it gets easier all the time as programs become more "user friendly". Let us assume that in the future everyone is going to have to know how to use a computer to be a competent citizen. What does the phrase "learning to use a computer" mean It sounds like "learning to drive a car", that is, it sounds as if there is some set of definite skills that, once acquired, enable one to use a computer. In fact, "learning to use a computer" is much more like "learning to play a game", but learning the rules of one game may not help you play a second game, whose rules may not be the same. There is no such a thing as teaching someone how to use a computer. One can only teach people to use this or that program and generally that is easily accomplished.

阅读理解Declaring that physical exercise is one of the most powerful medicines to help improve our quality of life is not an exaggeration. The World Health Organization expressed the same view in its 2002 World Health Report, emphasizing that the damage produced by lack of physical activity was equal to the strong probability of serious illness such as heart disease and even some kinds of cancer. Those who have embraced an active lifestyle for years are familiar with the sort of physical and psychological benefits that come from exercise. Nevertheless a lot of people would never think of physical activity as a way of feeling better, simply because they don''t think they are in need of it, or because they are lazy or maintain that they haven''t got enough time. There are many positive effects that result from physical exercise and they are not only concerned with the physical aspects but also psychological and social ones. Beginning with the physical benefits, physical activity improves the life of the heart, burns off fat, lowers high blood pressure, makes tissues more resistant, and increases muscle flexibility and joint mobility. On a psychological level, physical activity helps reduce anxiety and stress by causing tension to disappear and by encouraging us to have a better sense of ourselves through listening to our bodies during movement. Lastly, seeing ourselves in better health is advantageous socially. The sense of satisfaction thus obtained will result in an increase of self-respect and self-confidence in terms of our ability to interact with others. The benefits linked to exercise have also not gone unnoticed in the business world, with more and more companies setting up gyms on-site. Employees'' improved health translates into better performance and reduced costs as well as an increase in people''s satisfaction in the work place. Physical activity is recommended for all age groups, including children. It is an important growth factor in a child''s education. And for the elderly? There is no doubt that regular physical activity allows greater efficiency in daily life as well as creating more basic independence day by day, including the possibility of keeping in touch with others and not feeling isolated.