Quiet Virtue: The Conscientious

    The everyday signs of conscientiousness (认真尽责)—being punctual, careful in doing work, self-disciplined, and scrupulous (一丝不苟的) in attending to responsibilities—are typical characteristics of the model organizational citizen, the people who keep things running as they should. They follow the rules, help out, and are concerned about the people they work with. It's the conscientious worker who helps newcomers or updates people who return after an absence, who gets to work on time and never abuses sick leaves, who always gets things done on deadline.

    Conscientiousness is a key to success in any field. In studies of job performance, outstanding effectiveness for almost all jobs, from semi-skilled labor to sales and management, depends on conscientiousness. It is particularly important for outstanding performance in jobs at the lower levels of an organization: the secretary whose message taking is perfect, the delivery truck driver who is always on time.

    Among sales representatives for a large American car manufacturer, those who were most conscientious had the largest volume of sales. Conscientiousness also offers a buffer (缓冲) against the threat of job loss in today's constantly changing market, because employees with this quality are among the most valued. For the sales representatives, their level of conscientiousness mattered almost as much as their sales in determining who stayed on.

    There is an air around highly conscientious people that makes them seem even better than they actually are. Their reputation for dependability influences managers' evaluations of their work, giving them higher evaluations than objective measures of their performance would predict.

    But conscientiousness in the absence of social skills can lead to problems. Since conscientious people demand so much of themselves, they can hold other people to their own standards, and so be overly judgmental when others don't show the same high levels of model behavior. Factory workers in Great Britain and the United States who were extremely conscientious, for example, tended to criticize co-workers even about failures that seemed unimportant to those they criticized, which damaged their relationships.

    When conscientiousness takes the form of living up to expectations, it can discourage creativity. In creative professions like art or advertising, openness to wild ideas and spontaneity (自发性) are scarce and in demand. Success in such occupations calls for a balance, however; without enough conscientiousness to follow through, people become mere dreamers, with nothing to show for their imaginativeness.

    The art of academic writing is not easy to master. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Academic writing is the skilful exposition and explanation of an argument, which the writer has carefully researched and developed over a sustained period of time. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} But the joy of reading and sharing with others, one's succinctly composed piece of argument, is incomparable.

    Before beginning to write, the writer must ask himself a few questions – Why am I writing? What is it that I intend to share with others? What purpose will my writing serve? Have I read enough about the topic or theme about which I am going to write? {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Because academic writing is a serious activity – it makes one part of a shared community of readers and writers who wish to disseminate and learn from well-argued pieces of writing.

    The structure of an argumentative essay should take the form of – Introduction (which should be around ten percent of the entire essay), Body (it should constitute eighty percent of the piece) and the Conclusion (again, ten per cent of the essay). {#blank#}4{#/blank#} The body should include cogent and coherently linked paragraphs and the conclusion should re-state the argument and offer a substantial ending to the piece.

A. These questions may well get clearer and clearer during the process of academic writing.

B. The introduction should function as the hook which draws the reader in and holds his attention.

C. It is a formal skill, which requires precision and accuracy, and is perfected by continuous and dedicated practice.

D. If one is hesitant to answer even one of the aforementioned questions, one had better not write at all!

E. It may take one a considerable period of time to know the skills of academic writing, even long after his/her college graduation.

F. It is a time-consuming activity and demands patience and perseverance.

    Challenges are regular visitors in our life, and nobody is immune(不受影响)to them. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}However, we can use these challenges to make positive changes in our life. For instance：

    Develop your passion. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} When you are setting your goals, you always want to be passionate about those goals, because if you love what you do, you will be driven by the desire to achieve success.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}When you have doubts about yourself, you are doing damage to your progress. Therefore, you are supposed to see yourself as a winner, and trust yourself. Feeding your mind with positives will reinforce your beliefs and sweep any doubts out of your system.

    Track your progress. It is important that you take note of every improvement you make. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Every step forward will give you a boost, and accelerate your efforts to the achievement of your ultimate goal.

    Learn how to control your emotions. It is important that you use your emotional intelligence when you encounter problems in your life. You are a product of your thoughts and feelings. Any negative emotions that show up can negate(否定)the positive forward movement you enjoyed earlier. So approach any challenge with a positive attitude.  {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Instead, strongly believe that you have all the tools you need in order to make positive changes in your life. It is in your hands to make the changes necessary and to take your life to new heights.

A. Practice makes perfect.

B. Consider confidence as a must for Success.

C. This will motivate you to work even harder.

D. They can make us lose hope and even give up.

E. Don't feel negative when you meet with difficulties.

F. There is nothing to be gained from delaying decisions and thoughts.

G. Having an enthusiasm for something will inspire you to achieve your goals.

    Eyesight plays a very important role in our daily life. Every waking moment, the eyes are working to see the world around us. Over forty percent of Americans worry about losing eyesight, but it's easy to include steps into our daily life to ensure healthy eyes. Here are five suggestions for a lifetime of healthy eyesight：

    Schedule yearly exams.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Experts advise parents to bring babies 6 to 12 months of age to the doctor for a careful check. The good news is that millions of children now can have yearly eye exams and following treatment, including eye- glasses.

    Protect against UV rays. Long-term stay in the sun creates risk to your eyes. No matter what the season is, it's extremely important to wear sunglasses.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Give your eyes a break. Two-thirds of Americans spend up to seven hours a day using computers or other digital products.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Experts recommend that people practice the 20/20/20 rule: every 20 minutes, take a 20-second break and look at something 20 feet away.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}As part of a healthy diet, eat more fruits and vegetables each day. Vitamins C and E help protect eyesight and promote eye health.

    Practice safe wear and care of contact lenses （隐形眼镜）. Many Americans use contact lenses to improve their eyesight. While some follow the medical guidance for wearing contact lenses, many are breaking the rules and putting their eyesight at risk.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Otherwise, you may have problems such as red eyes, pain in the eyes, or a more serious condition.

A.Eat your greens.

B.Eye care should begin early in life.

C.They can properly protect your eyes.

D.Stay in good shape by taking more vitamins.

E.Parents usually don't care about their own eyesight.

F.Always follow the doctor's advice for appropriate wear.

G.This frequent eye activity increases the risk for eye tiredness.

China's Entering a New Era of AI

They have beaten us at chess and co-written a Europop album with human beings. Now computers are taking a step into a very human territory: the reading comprehension test, a headache of schoolchildren everywhere. Alibaba on Monday said its artificial outperformed mortals (凡人) in a global reading comprehension.

Luo Si, chef scientist of natural language processing at Alibaba's research department, the Institute of Data Science of Technologies, called the machines' victory "a milestone".{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Some of these uses are already being handled by chatbots globally.

In the test administered last week, companies subjected their artificial intelligence systems to questions from the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, which assessed reading comprehension. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}In top place were

Microsoft, the US software giant, and Alibaba, the Chinese tech group that began with e-commerce and is - like its peers at home and abroad investing more funds into AI.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Baidu made an early bet on AI. and is leading its rivals in autonomous driving, some of which was on show at Customer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tencent, which boasts of I billion monthly active users on its social media WeChat app, and Alibaba have adopted AI in operations such as customizing news and ads, and are investing in new fields.

China aims to make use of its vast treasures of data, collected from its 1.4 billion population including 730 million who are online, and deep pockets to overtake the US in creating a SI50 billion industry that is seen as the next industrial revolution. Excitedly, AI is already being applied in many fields from driverless cars to text analysis. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}The most asked ones include "Where's my package?" especially on Alibaba's Single Day shopping festival.

A. Though China s drive is led by government, it is cultivating homegrown tech giants to leap ahead of the US.

B. Private investment in the AI sector has been expanding 62 percent a year on average for the past four years.

C. The technology has many applications, from customer service to museum tutorials to medical inquiries.

D. The computers' answers to the questions were compared against average human responses and ranked.

E. For example, this technology has already been used to answer general questions on e-commerce platforms.

F. Like all utilities, AI will be boring, even as it transforms the Internet, the global economy, and civilization.