备考2019年高考英语一轮复习33：夹叙夹议类阅读理解

      Failure is probably the most exhausting experience a person ever has. There is nothing more tiring than not succeeding.

We experience this tiredness in two ways: as start-up fatigue(疲惫) and performance fatigue. In the former case, we keep putting off a task because it has either too boring or too difficult. And the longer we delay it, the more tired we feel.

     Such start-up fatigue is very real, even if not actually physical, not something in our muscles and bones. The solution is obvious though perhaps not easy to apply: always handle the most difficult job first.

Years ago, I was asked to write 102 essays on the great ideas of some famous authors. Applying my own rule, I determined to write them in alphabetical(按字母顺序), never letting myself leave out a tough idea. And I always started the day's work with the difficult task of essay-writing. Experience proved that the rule works.

Performance fatigue is more difficult to handle. Though willing to get started, we cannot seem to do the job right. Its difficulties appear so great that, however hard we work, we fail again and again. In such a situation, I work as hard as I can-then let the unconscious take over.

      When planning Encyclopaedia Britannica (《大英百科全书》), I had to create a table of contents based on the topics of its articles. Nothing like this had ever been done before, and day after day I kept coming up with solutions, but none of them worked. My fatigue became almost unbearable.

      One day, mentally exhausted, I wrote down all the reasons why this problem could not be solved. I tried to convince myself that the trouble was with the problem itself, not with me. Relived, I sat back in an easy chair and fell asleep.

An hour later, I woke up suddenly with the solution clearly in mind. In the weeks that followed, the solution which had come up in my unconscious mind provided correct at every step. Though I worked as hard as before, I felt no fatigue. Success was now as exciting as failure had been depressing.

      Human beings, I believe must try to succeed. Success, then, means never feeling tired.

Not so long ago, most people didn't know who Shelly Ann FrancisPryce was going to become. She was just an average high school athlete. There was every indication that she was just another American teenager without much of a future. However, one person wants to change this. Stephen Francis observed then eighteen-year-old Shelly Ann as a track meet and was convinced that he had seen the beginnings of true greatness. Her time were not exactly impressive, but even so, he sensed there was something trying to get out, something the other coaches had overlooked when they had assessed her and found her lacking. He decided to offer Shelly Ann a place in his very strict training sessions. Their cooperation quickly produced results, and a few years later at Jamaica's Olympic trails in early 2008, Shelly-Ann, who at that time only ranked number 70 in the world, beat Jamaica's unchallenged queen of the sprint(短跑).

“Where did she come from?” asked an astonished sprinting world, before concluding that she must be one of those one-hit wonders that spring up from time to time, only to disappear again without signs. But Shelly-Ann was to prove that she was anything but a one-hit wonder. At the Beijing Olympics she swept away any doubts about her ability to perform consistently by becoming the first Jamaican woman ever to win the 100 meters Olympic gold. She did it again one year on at the World Championship in Berlin, becoming world champion with a time of 10.73— the fourth fastest time ever.

Shelly-Ann is a little woman with a big smile. She has a mental toughness that did not come about by chance. Her journey to becoming the fastest woman on earth has been anything but smooth and effortless. She grew up in one of Jamaica's toughest inner-city communities known as Waterhouse, where she lived in a one-room apartment, sleeping four in a bed with her motherand two brothers. Waterhouse, one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, is a really violent and overpopulated place. Several of Shelly-Ann's friends and family were caught up in the killings; one of her cousins was shot dead only a few streets away from where she lived. Sometimes her family didn't have enough to eat. She ran at the school championships barefooted because she couldn't afford shoes. Her mother Maxime, one of a family of fourteen, had been an athlete herself as a young girl but, like so many other girls in Waterhouse, had to stop after she had her first baby. Maxime's early entry into the adult world with its responsibilities gave her the determination to ensure that her kids wouldnot end up in Waterhouse's roundabout of poverty. One of the first things Maxime used to do with Shelly-Ann was taking her to the track, and she was ready to sacrifice everything.

        It didn't take long for Shelly-Ann to realize that sports could be her way out of Waterhouse. On a summer evening in Beijing in2008, all those long, hard hours of work and commitment finally bore fruit. The barefoot kid who just a few years previously had been living in poverty, surrounded by criminals and violence, had written a new chapter in the history of sports.

        But Shelly-Ann's victory was far greater than that. The night she won Olympic gold in Beijing, the routine murders in Waterhouse and the drug wars in the neighbouring streets stopped. The dark cloud above one of the world's toughest criminal neighbourhoods simply disappeared for a few days.“I have so much fire burning for my country,” Shellysaid. She plans to start a foundation for homeless children and wants to build acommunity centre in Waterhouse. She hopes to inspire the Jamaicans to lay down their weapons. She intends to fight to make it a woman's as well as a man's world.

        As Muhammad Ali puts it, “Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision.” One of the things Shelly-Ann can be proud of is her understanding of this truth.

    We took a rare family road trip to the Adirondacks in late August，and it was as refreshing and exhausting as family vacations tend to be．Toward the end of our long drive home, even the kids were leaning forward in their seats urging my lead foot on．At that point in a road trip，even sixty-five miles per hour feels slow. We have become numb to our speed and numb to the road signs flashing by.

    My family lives on the edge of Lancaster County. Only thirty miles from home，I hit the brakes，and we began to roll，slowly，behind a horse-drawn carriage. We began to open our eyes again．We saw familiar green hills and the farm with the best watermelons. I rolled down the windows, and we breathed again．Just-cut hay and a barn full of dairy cattle．

    At five miles per hour，you remember what you forget at sixty-five．You are thinking about a place，even when you are moving from place to place．

    I am a placemaker. A homemaker, too. I am a mother of a young kid at home，and also a writer and a gardener．But，for me，those roles are wrapped up with the one big thing I want to do with the rest of my life：I want to cultivate a place and share it with others．

    The place I make with my family is a red-brick farmhouse built in l880. It has quite a few nineteenth-century bedrooms and a few acres of land，and we love nothing more than to fill them with neighbors and friends. We grow vegetables and flowers，keep a baker's dozen of egg—laying chickens，and，since we moved in three years ago，we have planted  many，many trees．

    Living with my life's purpose does not allow for much travel. I need to be here，feeding the chickens and watering the tomatoes. Any extra in the budget，and we spend it on trees．

    But I learned something at the end of our family road trip．Travel can help me in the task of caring for my own place．When I slow down and pay attention to the road between here and there，travel tells me the connections between my place and all the other places．

    Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table, reading his book. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to copy him in every way he could.

    One day the grandson asked, “Grandpa, I try to read the book just like you, but I don't understand it, and I forget what I understand as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the book do?”

    The grandpa quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, “Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water.”

    The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandpa laughed and said, “You'll have to move a little faster next time,” and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again. This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned. Out of breath, he told his grandpa that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, so he went to get a bucket instead. The grandpa said, “I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough.” The boy again dipped the basket into the river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandpa the basket was empty again. Out of breath, he said, “Grandpa, it's useless!”

    “So, you think it is useless?” the grandpa said, “Look at the basket.”

    The boy looked at the basket and for the first time he realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean.

    “Grandson, that's what happens when you read the book. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you'll be changed, inside and out.”

    My color television has given me nothing but a headache. I was able to buy it a little over a year ago because I had my relatives give me money for my birthday instead of a lot of clothes that wouldn't fit. I let a salesclerk fool me into buying a discontinued model. I realized this a day late, when I saw newspaper advertisements for the set at seventy-five dollars less than I had paid. The set worked so beautifully when I first got it home that I would keep it on until stations signed off for the night. Fortunately, I didn't got any channels showing all-night movies or I would never have gotten to bed.

    Then I started developing a problem with the set that involved static (静电) noise. For some reason, when certain shows switched into a commercial, a loud noise would sound for a few seconds. Gradually, this noise began to appear during a show, and to get rid of it, I had to change to another channel and then change it back. Sometimes this technique would not work, and I had to pick up the set and shake it to remove the sound. I actually began to build up my arm muscles(肌肉) shaking my set.

    When neither of these methods removed the static noise, I would sit helplessly and wait for the noise to go away. At last I ended up hitting the set with my fist, and it stopped working altogether .My trip to the repair shop cost me $62, and the set is working well now, but I keep expecting more trouble.

    It seems the more time we have, the longer we put off living the life we see in our heads, because we feel like we’ve got some time to kill.

I know where you think I’m going with this, and I also know you’ve heard it all before: seize the day, make the most of it, live life to its fullest, and so on. But that's the problem. You’ve heard it all before. These ideas have their impact and have become a cliché. Luckily, that's not my thing.

The real answers wake something up inside you. They make you think. That's what I want to give you today, the story of Bobby Darin, which wakes you up to the truth.

    If you haven’t heard of the man, I know you’ve heard his songs. Among his many hits are Mack the Knife, Beyond the Sea, Dream Lover, and Splish Splash.

    If seven years, Darin had several top ten hit songs, was nominated(提名) for four Grammy Awards (winning two), nominated for four Golden Globes (winning one), and even nominated for an Oscar.

    So what was his secret?

    All his life, Darin had a heart condition that developed from a childhood illness. The doctors at the time said he would be lucky to live to 16. In other words, his time was limited. And this was secret. He knew the truth. He knew that we all have such a hard time accepting: Life is short. You can’t just say it; you can’t just hear it. You have to know it, believe it, and feel it. Because Darin knew his time was limited, he packed as much life as he could into the time he had. But he had an unfair advantage. He knew, without a doubt, his time was limited.

    There was no fooling himself, no putting it off. It was now or never.

    Music is magic! Music speaks louder than words and it is a “language” that the whole world can understand. A piece of music can produce a response in the heart and mind. Like feeling an electrical current or receiving a personal radio signal, music has a spiritual effect on a person. Different kinds of music influence people in different ways.

    I have listened to music all my life. When I was twelve years old, the Beatles came to America and my whole world opened up. Maybe young people today cannot understand the influence of the Beatles when they exploded across America. Their influence changed the way we dressed, looked, acted and spoke... even our culture. The Beatles arrived in America from the UK just under three months after the assassination(暗杀) of President John Kennedy, which had put America into a great depression. And the freshness and lively spirit of the Beatles was exactly what the country needed to refresh itself.

    Music links the heart of the hearer with that of the composer. This means that it mixes the spirit of the composer with your spirit when you listen to it. And the music can take your spirit out of your body and transport you into another world. Music has a great way of touching people. Music can make you laugh, cry or shout. It's also a great source of inspiration.

    Try this one day and notice what happens: make yourself a cup of tea, sit on your sofa and play one of your favorite songs. Close your eyes, and soon you'll find yourself creating vivid mental images—matching the music that you are listening to.

    It seems the more time we have, the longer we put off living the life we see in our heads, because we feel like we've got some time to kill.

    I know where you think I'm going with this, and I also know you've heard it all before: seize the day, make the most of it, live life to its fullest, and so on. But that's the problem. You've heard it all before. These ideas have their impact and have become a cliché. Luckily, that's not my thing.

    The real answers wake something up inside you. They make you think. That's what I want to give you today, the story of Bobby Darin, which wakes you up to the truth.

    If you haven't heard of the man, I know you've heard his songs. Among his many hits are Mack the Knife, Beyond the Sea, Dream Lover, and Splish Splash.

    If seven years, Darin had several top ten hit songs, was nominated(提名) for four Grammy Awards (winning two), nominated for four Golden Globes (winning one), and even nominated for an Oscar.

    So what was his secret?

    All his life, Darin had a heart condition that developed from a childhood illness. The doctors at the time said he would be lucky to live to 16. In other words, his time was limited. And this was secret. He knew the truth. He knew that we all have such a hard time accepting: Life is short. You can't just say it; you can't just hear it. You have to know it, believe it, and feel it. Because Darin knew his time was limited, he packed as much life as he could into the time he had. But he had an unfair advantage. He knew, without a doubt, his time was limited.

    There was no fooling himself, no putting it off. It was now or never.

    I’m seventeen. I had worked as a box boy at a supermarket in Los Angeles. People came to the counter and you put things in their bags for them and carried things to their cars. It was hard work.

While working, you wear a plate with your name on it. I once met someone I knew years ago. I remembered his name and said, "Mr. Castle, how are you?" We talked about this and that. As he left, he said, "It was nice talking to you, Brett." I felt great, he remembered me. Then I looked down at my name plate. Oh, no. He didn’t remember me at all. He just read the name plate. I wish I had put "Irving" down on my name plate. If he’d have said, "Oh yes, Irving, how could I forget you?" I’d have been ready for him. There's nothing personal here.

    The manager and everyone else who were a step above the box boys often shouted orders. One of these was: you couldn’t accept tips. Okay, I’m outside and I put the bags in the car. For a lot of people, the natural reaction is to take a quarter and give it to me. I’d say, "I’m sorry, I can’t." They’d get angry. When you give someone a tip, you’re sort of being polite. You take a quarter and you put it in their hand and you expect them to say, "Oh, thanks a lot." When you say, "I’m sorry, I can’t." they feel a little put down. They say, "No one will know." And they put it in your pocket. You say, "I really can’t."

It gets to a point where you almost have to hurt a person physically to prevent him from tipping you. It was not in agreement with the store's belief in being friendly. Accepting tips was a friendly thing and made the customer feel good. I just couldn’t understand the strangeness of some people's ideas. One lady actually put it in my pocket, got in the car, and drove away. I would have had to throw the quarter at her or eaten it or something.

    I had decided that one year was enough. Some people needed the job to stay alive and fed. I guess I had the means and could afford to hate it and give it up.

We'd arrived at Rockefeller Center station on the D train. As in many of New York's underground stations, trains pull in at both sides of the platform. Or rather, they seem to erupt into the station first on one side, then on the other.

    Abruptly, my wife stopped.

“Uh, what's this?” she said.

    I looked over her shoulder. There at our feet lay a young woman of about 20. She was on her stomach with the top half of her body on the platform, while her legs hung over the tracks kicking powerlessly.

    She was stuck. She had also, clearly, been down on the tracks and discovered that climbing back up is really hard.

But unlike in our imaginings, this woman was not in panic, expecting her approaching death by the F train which would be screaming into the station in the next few minutes, if not seconds.

    She was laughing! So was her friend who half-heartedly leant down to assist. The assistance was somewhat weakened by the fact that the friend was holding her smartphone. Was she hoping to capture this moment with a picture? Or composing a text?

It's well known that people's compulsive checking of their phones can be deadly. Among young people in America, texting is now the number one cause of car crashes. Maybe it's also a leading cause of leaving friends to die when they fall in the river or on to the train tracks.

    I stepped forward, leant out as far as I could, got hold of her leg somewhere near the knee and, together with her finally-engaged friend, dragged the young woman on to the platform.

    And you can guess why she'd been on the tracks. Still laughing, but maybe chastened (内疚）by my look of horror she said, “Thanks. Sorry. My phone fell down there. ”

    While I turned to hold my daughter's hand and head upstairs, the young woman and her friend walked away. I wonder when she'll be scared.