Jane was running late. Jane, 25, had a lot to do at work, plus visitors on the way: her parents were coming in for Thanksgiving from her hometown. But as she hurried down the subway stairs, she started to feel uncomfortably warm. By the time she got to the platform, Jane felt weak and tired—maybe it hadn't been a good idea to give blood the night before, she thought. She rested herself against a post close to the tracks.

    Several yards away, Tom, 43, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, found a spot close to where the front of the train would stop. They were deep in discussion about a house they were thinking of buying.

    But when he heard the scream, followed by someone yelling, "Oh, my God, she fell in!" Tom didn't hesitate. He jumped down to the tracks and ran some 40 feet toward the body lying on the rails. "No! Not you!" his girlfriend screamed after him.

    She was right to be alarmed. By the time Tom reached Jane, he could feel the tracks shaking and see the light coming. The train was about 20 seconds from the station.

    It was hard to lift her. She was just out. But he managed to raise her the four feet to the platform so that bystanders could hold her by the grins and drag her away from the edge. That was where Jane briefly regained consciousness, felt herself being pulled along the ground, and saw someone else holding her purse.

    Jane thought she'd been robbed. A woman held her hand and a man gave his shirt to help stop the blood pouring from her head. And she tried to talk but she couldn't, and that was when she realized how much pain she was in.

    Police and fire officials soon arrived, and Tom told the story to an officer. Jennifer said her boyfriend was calm on their 40-minute train ride downtown-just as he had been seconds after the rescue, which made her think about her reaction at the time. "I saw the train coming and I was thinking he was going to die," she explained.

    People who have lost the ability to understand or use words due to brain damage are called aphasics（失语症患者）.Such patients can be extremely good at something else.From the changing expressions on speakers' faces and the tones of their voices,they can tell lies from truths.

    Doctors studying the human brain have given a number of examples of this amazing power of aphasics.Some have even compared this power to that of a dog with an ability to find out the drugs hidden in the baggage.

    Recently,scientists carried out tests to see if all that was said about aphasics was true.They studied a mixed group of people.Some were normal;others were aphasics.It was proved that the aphasics were far ahead of the normal people in recognizing false speeches—in most cases,the normal people were fooled by words,but the aphasics were not.

    Some years ago,Dr.Oliver Sacks wrote in his book about his experiences with aphasics.He mentioned a particular case in a hospital.Some aphasics were watching the president giving a speech on TV.Since the president had been an actor earlier,making a good speech was no problem for him.He was trying to put his feelings into every word of his speech.

    But his way of speaking had the opposite effect on the patients.They didn't seem to believe him.Instead,they burst into laughter.The aphasics knew that the president did not mean a word of what he was saying.He was lying!

    Many doctors see aphasics as people who are not completely normal because they lack the ability to understand words.However,according to Dr.Sacks,they are more gifted than normal people.Normal people may get carried away by words.Aphasics seem to understand human expressions better,though they cannot understand words.

    America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

    Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

    Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.

    For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

    In modern society, it is usually considered good to be an extroverted(外向的) person. This means that life can be hard for introverted people. Their talents and abilities are often not recognized.

    Some people often try to make introverts more outgoing. They think that being an introvert is a problem. But there is nothing wrong about being an introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of meeting and talking to others. They simply prefer to spend time on their own, away from the crowds. They like reading, writing and taking walks in the countryside. But extroverts need other people. If they spend a lot of time on their own, they get bored. They tend to be impulsive and talk a lot.

    Our society puts a lot of pressure on people to be extrovert, to be outgoing and self-confident on every occasion. Susan Cain, the author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, has spoken about this problem. "I was nine years old," Cain says. "In my suitcase there were lots of books. This seemed normal to me, because in our family we always read a lot. I thought it would be the same at summer camp. But I was wrong. To create camp spirit, all the children had to sing a cheer every morning. I couldn't understand why. In the evening, I took out a book from my suitcase. But another girl said, 'why are you being so quiet?' The second time I took out a book, the counselor(辅导员) came to see me. She told me to remember the camp spirit and that it was important to be outgoing."

    At work, extroverts often do well. At job interviews, it is usually good to appear extrovert. It suggests that you will be good at the job. But it is wrong to think that only extroverts are good leaders. Introverts work in different ways to extroverts, but they can still do really great things. Darwin, for example, was a quiet, family man. He often took long walks so that he could think clearly. But Darwin's ideas about evolution were revolutionary.

    Introverts must understand that it is perfectly okay to be the way they are. It is not necessary to want to be the center of attention. You don't have to take part in noisy, social activities if you don't want to. And it is not necessary to try to become more outgoing.

    Maggie had never experienced an earthquake before, only prepared for it. As long as she could remember, preparing for an earthquake was routine (常规的) at school. Her family as well had made plans in the event of a natural disaster. Earthquakes are so much more common on the West Coast of the United States.

    Today Maggie was home alone. Maggie knew her mom would be driving home on the busy freeway, thinking about preparing supper for Maggie's dad. Maggie's dad would arrive at the airport. He was coming home from a two-week business trip.

    Maggie arrived home from school at the regular time. She was taking some biscuits from the kitchen cupboard, when she felt it. First just a tremor (微震), then the violent shaking. Maggie quickly ran under the large, wooden table in the dining room. The sounds of breaking glass and the crashing (坠落声) of many things were frightening. But the table remained undamaged, and Maggie hid herself in fear.

    After what seemed like a century the earthquake appeared to be over. Maggie could hear the sound of water rushing below her in the basement. The smell of natural gas was present in the air. Maggie knew where the main water valve (阀门) was located. Dad had shown her where it was and how to turn it off. Slowly and carefully she came out from under the table. The once tidy home was now almost unrecognizable. As Maggie reached the open basement door she could see the steps were still in good condition. She carefully made her way down into the dark basement. While still on the steps she felt the water rising and rising. Suddenly Maggie felt a lot of pain as a large ceiling beam (天花板梁) hit her head and shoulder. She fell onto some storage boxes…

    Self-driving cars have been backed by the hope that they will save lives by getting involved in fewer crashes with fewer injuries and deaths than human-driven cars. But so far, most comparisons between human drivers and automated vehicles have been unfair.

    Crash statistics for human-driven cars are gathered from all sorts of driving situations, and on all types of roads. However, most of the data on self-driving cars' safety have been recorded often in good weather and on highways, where the most important tasks are staying in the car's own lane and not getting too close to the vehicle ahead. Automated cars are good at those tasks, but so are humans.

    It is true that self-driving cars don't get tired, angry, frustrated or drunk. But neither can they yet react to uncertain situations with the same skill or anticipation of an attentive human driver. Nor do they possess the foresight to avoid potential perils. They largely drive from moment to moment, rather than think ahead to possible events literally down the road.

    To a self-driving car, a bus full of people might appear quite similar to an uninhabited corn field. Indeed, deciding what action to take in an emergency is difficult for humans, but drivers have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of others. An automated system's limited understanding of the world means it will almost never evaluate (评估) a situation the same way a human would. And machines can't be programmed in advance to handle every imaginable set of events.

    Some people may argue that the promise of simply reducing the number of injuries and deaths is enough to support driverless cars. But experience from aviation (航空) shows that as new automated systems are introduced, there is often an increase in the rate of disasters.

    Therefore comparisons between humans and automated vehicles have to be performed carefully. To fairly evaluate driverless cars on how well they fulfill their promise of improved safety, it's important to ensure the data being presented actually provide a true comparison. After all, choosing to replace humans with automation has more effects than simply a one-for-one exchange.