People should try to have goals that are challenging rather than goals that are safe and practical.
Life is like a journey through which human beings are constantly searching into the unknown and are continuing making decisions and setting aims. In terms of whether to have challenging goals or realistic goals, people’s views vary significantly. Though some may claim that challenging goals are too unrealistic and too hard to achieve, I would maintain that it is challenging goals that brings people the most potential and facilities great achievements. My main arguments are as follows.
Firstly, having challenging goals in life can prevent laziness and propel an individual to strive forward and make greater progress. Throughout the history of mankind, we could see that it is those seemingly unrealistic goals that have give rise to one after another remarkable achievement. Landing on the Moon, once considered unattainable, has now been realized. Back in those days, it was hard to imagine what the Moon was like, let alone the universe. If we are content with what we have, and not wanting to explore the unknown vast universe, we would still been searching in the darkness for centuries.
Moreover, realistic goals in life are relatively easy to obtain, and comparatively speaking, the sense of achievement is, to some extent, not as strong as an aim hard to get. For example, the thrill of getting an admission letter from the Harvard University is much intense and joyful than receiving the local community college that almost enroll anybody who is willing to pay, for if one aims to go to Harvard, he is bound to spend more time on his academic studies, and sacrifice a great deal of his spare time and dedicate himself to this daunting goal. In other word, the challenging goal has evoked his latent talent and his potential greatness inside of him.
Finally, we cannot ignore the immense knowledge and experience a person could get through the realization of his challenging goal. Tomas Edison has failed a thousand times before he finally invented the light bulb, and it is through his previous failures that he learnt the 150 materials that were not suitable for making a light bulb. If Adison didn’t have this unrealistic goal ( or even as some people in his time might have put it, “crazy goal”), our world would not have been so bright at night. In a broader sense, when we are pursuing our apparently unrealistic goals, we learn to deal with failure or other people’s smears and laughter, what we can benefit from this process is not only the professional expertise but also we become more mature and more sophisticated than before in times of adversity.
From the above mentioned reasons, we may safely come to the conclusion that taking challenging goals is much better than having practical goals. If given an opportunity, I will definitely take a much more difficult goal than an easier goal.>> 阅读全文
Do you agree or disagree with the statement? Leadership is inborn and cannot be learned.
It’s an age-old question, “Is leadership inborn or learned?” The debate has been raging since the beginning of management thinking and is becoming something of an exhausted topic. Some people claim that just as any other trait, leadership is innate, yet I maintain that leadership can be developed over a period of time, just like a shy, introvert person becoming a great public speaker after rigorous practice and painstaking efforts. My main arguments are as follows.
In the first place, education and cultivation is the steppingstone for the creation of leadership. One’s life experience is of vital significance to ones’ later career success. To be specific, our life training in terms of how to relate with others, how to think creatively, the quality of confidence, power of observation and persuasion all result in 'leadership skills’. Psychologists have known for decades that babies are born with different personalities. Some personalities are better suited for leadership roles, so that's how having an inborn trait would help. But if a person is raised in an environment that does not nurture that trait and is perhaps even detrimental to it, then the trait would be extinguished. For example, a child could be born into a terrifying environment and never know anything but fear on a constant basis. Rather than learning to be a leader, the child would learn to be constantly afraid and not going to become a leader when he grows up.
Secondly, the potential to lead is based on the ability of a person to persuade or make others follow willingly. Leadership is a skill. Like any other skill, such as driving and biking, it can be learned and taught at school or through training. Most of the well-known leaders started from zero, hardly knowing anything related to leadership. Others were even a burden to society until some twist of fate or circumstance brought forth their good side and provided the opportunity for them to show their leadership abilities. Take Mr. Ma Yun as an example, when he just graduated from college and started to look for a job, nobody wanted to give him a job, whereas his friends and classmates who graduated the same year as him had no difficulty landing a decent job. He failed quite a few times, yet he never gave up and continued to seek his fortune. In the meanwhile, he did some hard labor works, sold flowers and became street vendor. Still he never abandoned his dream and eventually he initiated his own company, Alibaba and is well admired by all as a great leader, founder of his prize enterprise. It is through his hardship in life that inspired him the most and made what he is now—a great leader of a world- renowned organization.
A third reason that good leaders are made and not born is that leaders do have a vision and a sense of direction, but that doesn't mean that they display psychic abilities. Frequently, a leader's vision is inspired by someone else's ideas or for most part his past experience. Some leaders are charismatic. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi come immediately to mind. Most leaders, however, are followed not because they inspire great allegiance but because they are respected for their hard work, ideas and commitment. Therefore, hard work and commitment is something that totally depends upon the individual person himself.
Therefore, leadership can be acquired through hard work, education, cultivation and can be influenced by the people around us. A good leader is a person who is innovative, responsible, courageous, and never afraid to try, even though he makes mistakes. Only when he possesses these essential qualities and is constantly perfecting himself throughout his life can he become a successful leader.
>> 阅读全文 这次考试的阅读和写作部分是来自2011.6.25NA阅读部分
1. peer group （同龄群体）；2. 冰川期碳最大值；3. 火星上的水。
口语部分
Q1：Describe the differences between two singers that you are familiar with. Include reasons and examples to support your response.
Q2：Some people prefer to get advice from their parents or grandparents. Others prefer to get advice from their peers. What way do you prefer and why?
独立写作
Some people prefer to buy new technological devices immediately when they become available. Others prefer to wait until many people have adopted them. Which way do you prefer?>> 阅读全文
Some people prefer to buy technological devices as soon as they are available to the public, while other people prefer to wait. Which do you prefer?
In the contemporary society, with the ever accelerating science and technology, people are blessed with a variety of choices in terms of digital products. Some individuals prefer to purchase an electronic device the minute it is launched, yet others would rather wait until it becomes cheaper. I would definitely choose to wait instead of buying the product in a hurry. Among the reasons behind my view, I will illustrate the most conspicuous ones as follows.
To begin with, when a product is initially introduced into the market, it's price is inevitably high. Buying the product at this crucial moment is not rational, as far as I am concerned. Though one might become the first few lucky people to be able to fiddle about and get to know its new features, the financial burden it could bring about is overshadowed by its glamorous outlook, not to mention that the guy who buys it has to suffer from a frugal life style thereafter. Take my friend Jack for example: when iphone 4s was put into the market in 2012 he didn’t hesitate and bought one right after its launch, despite that he had already has an iPhone. After he spent almost his entire pocket money on the brand new phone, he had to eat instant noodles for quite a few months. Obtaining new products deprived his leisure activity of going to meet with friends and eat out. Now all he does all day is to sit in his apartment playing with his iPhone 4s, while chewing on some bland instant noodles.
Secondly, when a new digital device is first introduced to the world, it would be too risky to buy it right away as new products are often stolen. When people see this wonderful new device, they might create a feeling of jealousy and, therefore, the expensive device could end up disappearing. Though the public security nowadays is much safer than it was in the past, one cannot be too careful in protecting his valuable personal belongings. My friend Daisy has an iPhone, yet she has to hold on to her phone tightly right after she steps onto a subway carriage. She dares not leave it in her purse, for fear it could be stolen by pick-pockets.
Last but not least, if I am patient enough and wait for a few months, then the price of the new products would be greatly lowered and I could use the money saved to buy some magazines that I love. In addition, there would be a lot of reviews available since more people would have used these products ahead of me. Hence, it would be beneficial for me to have some good suggestions from friends or relatives so that I would have a better understanding of the gadgets and enjoy it more after I get it.
To sum up, if given the chance, I would not get a digital product as soon as it is available but would rather wait till it’s more popular.
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