Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Are You a Winner or a Loser?

In his book, "How to Unleash the Power of Your Subconcious Mind," James K. Van Fleet writes about how winners and losers think about their lives.


"Winners evaluate themselves on what they are, not on what other people think they should be. They do not allow themselves to be guided by other people's standards or beliefs. Winners do not allow others to act as their judge and jury.

"Losers constantly worry about what they think other people are thinking about them. For instance, if your boss looks at you and frowns or if he sounds a little gruff in the morning, that's no reason to think he's angry with you.

"He probably had a few cross words with his wife about the household bills before he came to work...

"I'll admit that years ago I too, used to be concerned about what other people might think of me. Then I happened to see a movie in which the hero, an Easterner, had come west to marry his sweetheart, a girl born and raised on a Texas ranch.

"One of the cowboys, the ranch foreman, made fun of the Easterner because of his city clothes and his city ways. He even challenged him to a fight, but the Easterner refused.


"Aren't you going to fight him?" his fiancée asked.
"But what will people think of you?" she asked.
"I'm not responsible for what other people think of me," he answered. "I'm responsible only for what I think of myself."


"Although I have forgotten the rest of that movie and I'm not sure whether the hero was Gary Cooper or Gregory Peck or someone else, I've never forgotten that one statement. It has helped me tremendously through the years in my relationships with other people.

"You see, to worry and fret and stew about what other people might think about you is a complete waste of time. You never become what other people think of you. You become only what you think of yourself..."

Hidden Power, p. 71


James K. Van Fleet,
Hidden Power - How to Unleash the Power of Your Subconcious Mind.

Vocabulary


unleash - release. The image comes from letting a powerful dog off its lead so that it can run freely.

genre' - type of literature.

judge - in a court the judge decides what punishment a criminal deserves.

jury - a group of ordinary people who listen to a case and decide if a person is innocent or guilty.

frown - look angry.

gruff - speak in a short angry-sounding way.

happened to see - saw by chance.

Easterner - someone from the East Coast of America.

sweetheart - the girl he loves.

fiancée - the girl he plans to marry.

fret and stew - worry.

Friday, December 7, 2007

The First Christmas Card

In Britain many people send Christmas cards to their friends and relatives. Christmas cards are sent from late November until just before Christmas Day.

People began sending cards to friends and relatives over 150 years ago. The first commercial Christmas cards were produced by Sir Henry Cole in London, 1843. The artist, John Callcott Horsley drew a picture of a family with a small child drinking wine together. 1000 cards were printed and sold for a shilling each.

The card was printed in black and white and then coloured by hand.



On the front of the card there is a picture of a happy family. Each person in the picture is holding a glass of wine. On either side there are pictures of people giving food and clothing to the poor. A message on the card, beneath the family, says

"A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU."

A thousand copies of the card were made. The cards that Sir Henry Cole did not need were sold for one shilling each. They sold quickly, and a new "tradition" was born.

Early British Christmas cards rarely showed winter or Christmas themes. Instead, flowers, children, animals, fairies, and scenes of spring were popular.


Questions

A.

1. Who do British people send Christmas cards to?

2. Who produced the first commercial Christmas card?

3. Who designed the card?

4. When were the first commercial Christmas cards sold?

5. Was the card printed in colour?

6. What is in the picture?

7. What is each person holding?

8. How many cards were printed?

9. How much did they cost?

10. Did they sell quickly or slowly?

David Hurley
Succeed-In-English.com

Monday, December 3, 2007

Why The Wright Brothers Succeeded

The Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, December 1903


When the Wright brothers were boys they loved fixing and repairing things. The boys earned money by making home-made mechanical toys. When bicycles became popular, they opened a bicycle shop. They worked well together and were a good team. They read the same books and shared the same interests. and began to develop an interest in the challenge of manned flight. They used their successful cycling business to fund their growing interest in experimenting with aircraft design.

They studied birds and how they flew. They contacted other people who were trying to fly and talked incessantly about the possibility of manned flight and began to build and fly kites and gliders. This gave them practical experience of flying. Each time they built an aircraft they incorporated the knowledge they had gained from previous failures to make it slightly better then anything they had built before. They learned that the most serious problem they faced was steering the aircraft once it had taken off.

The Wright brothers also made a wind tunnel and tested over two hundred different wing designs. They recorded the effects of each variation in design on the flow and pressure of the air as it passed over the wings. The data from these experiments enabled them to construct a viable aircraft, that is, one that would be able to take off and stay airborne.

They were lucky to have been working at a time when engine design had improved to a point where a relatively light internal combustion engine capable of lifting more than its own weight could be built. The Wright brothers had an engine with a block cast from aluminum made especially for their first successful engine-powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903.

Questions


 1. Which of the following is the main topic of the passage?

Reasons why Wright brothers were interested in mechanics.
Reasons why the Wright brothers succeeded.
The Wright brothers' luck.
The Wright brothers' business success.

 2. Which of the following does the passage NOT discuss?

They worked together as a team.
They invested all their money in flying.
They tested a lot of wing designs.
They studied the flight of birds.

 3. What does "incessantly" mean in paragraph 2?

angrily
uncertainly
without ceasing
without hesitating

 4. What is the meaning of the sentence in bold in paragraph 3?
They made progress because they made no mistakes.
They tested their new designs by mistake.
They made deliberate mistakes in order to make progress
They learned from their mistakes.

 5. What was special about the engine the Wright brothers used for their first successful flight?
The engine block was made of aluminium.
The engine was made by the Wright brothers.
The engine was too light to lift its own weight.
The engine was too heavy to lift its own weight.

David Hurley
Succeed-In-English.com

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