阅读理解

    When someone reads the right book at the right time in his life, it can have a profound effect. Such is the case for the people on this list, who come from all walks of life. These people have singled out a book that they read which had a life-changing effect on them. They, in turn, affected the worlds of science, technology and politics.

1). That Printer Of Udell's—Ronald Reagan

    One book that had a big effect on former President Ronald Reagan as a child was the Christian-book That Printer of Udell's, by Harold Bell Wright. The main character of the book, Dick Falkner, was born into a broken home with an alcoholic father. After losing both of his parents, Falkner moves to a bigger city, called Boyd City to make a living. However, everyone turns Dick down for a job, except for a printer. At the end of the book, Dick heads to Washington, D. C, to become a politician. It's said that the book showed him that good could defeat evil and that the good guys followed a code of morality, which can be seen as a driving factor in his presidency.

2). A Treatise Of Human Nature—Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein was one of the greatest minds of all time. His name is synonymous with brilliance. So, what book had the biggest effect on such an important mind? It was A Treatise of Human Nature, by David Hume, which was published in 1738. Hume was a Scottish philosopher known for his contributions to philosophical skepticism(怀疑论). Einstein mentioned a few times that A Treatise of Human Nature had a large influence on him. He read the book just before coming up with his famous special relativity theory. In a letter, Einstein said that Treatise helped him formulate the ideas. It was like he already had the ideas in his brain, and Hume helped him to express them clearly.

3). The Aeneid—Mark Zuckerberg

    When Mark Zuckerberg first added his likes to his Facebook profile, he put the book Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, as a favorite book. Later, in an interview with The New Yorker, Zuckerberg clarified that the sci-fi classic was one he enjoyed, but it wasn't his favorite. He said that his favorite book is The Aeneid, by Virgil, a Latin epic poem that was written somewhere between 29 - 19 BC about a group of Trojan survivors. Zuckerberg said he first read the book when he was in high school while he was studying Latin and that one thing that stuck with him was Aeneas's drive to follow his fate to build a city that “knows no boundaries in time and greatness".

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Mid-IB at a glance

    The summer vacation is the time to strengthen your learning and prepare for the year ahead. In July and August Oxford Study Courses will once again hold its Mid-IB Summer School for students half way through their IB Diploma（国际预科证书）.

    We'll be back giving another generation of IB students a unique opportunity to sample a way of life enjoyed by students at famous universities.

    Students who have completed the first year of their IB Diploma can join us and we can help them prepare for their important second year.

    Students can choose how many subjects they study. Each subject is studied for one week. You can attend up to 5 weeks.

    The Mid-IB Summer School is held at Cambridge University in the UK （between June 20th and August 1 st） and at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology （MIT）in Boston, USA （between July 6th and July 25th）.

Student comments

◆ “The classes have shown me new approaches to learning. I have also learned how to approach exam questions and now feel confident in doing so.”

◆ “It was cool creating tight and close relationships with other students from around the world, realizing we all had a connection to each other.”

◆ “I really enjoyed the level of independence, although I felt like people were watching out for us. I also felt like an Oxford student!”

◆ “I have enjoyed the learning style and the course work has been extremely beneficial academically.”

Enjoy the summer

    Our Summer School gives you an action-packed social scene with visits to the fun places in the area, organized sports and social events, and advice on how to enjoy your free time in these amazing cities with your new friends. Welcome to contact us at ose@ose-ib.com or on +44（0）1865 521802!

    The Silk Road is a name given to the many trade routes that connected Europe and the Mediterranean（地中海）with the Asian world. The route is over 6,500 km long and got its name because the early Chinese traded silk along it. Although silk was the main trading item, there were many other goods that travelled along the Silk Road between Eastern Asia and Europe. In the course of time, medicine, perfumes, spices and livestock（家畜）found their way between continents.

    The Chinese learned to make silk thousands of years ago. For a long time they were the only ones who knew how to make this precious material. Only the emperor, his family and his highest advisers were allowed to wear clothes made of silk. For a long time the Chinese guarded this secret very carefully. The ancient Romans were the first Europeans who became aware of this wonderful material. Trading started, often with Indians as middlemen（中间人）who traded silk with the Chinese in exchange for gold and silver which they got from the Romans.

    Travelling along the route was dangerous. The hot desert, high mountains and sandstorms made traveling a rough business. Most of the goods along the Silk Road were carried by caravans（商队）. Traders sometimes brought goods from one destination on the silk Road to another, from where the goods would be transported by someone else. Over the centuries people settled along the ancient route and many cities emerged. Later on there were fewer hardships to overcome, but by no means was it easy.

    Religion, languages and diseases also spread along the Silk Road. Buddhism, which originated in India, spread to China along this route. European traders probably brought the plague from Asia to Europe along the ancient road.

    In the early Middle Ages, traffic along the route decreased because of the decline of the Roman Empire. Trading along the Silk Road became stronger again between the 13th and 14th centuries, when the Mongols controlled central Asia. During the Age of Exploration the Silk Road lost its importance because new sea routes to Asia were discovered.

    “Belittle” was first used by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.

    Many years ago, Buffon, a French naturalist, wrote some books about natural history. The books were a great success even though some critics did not like them. Some critics said, “Buffon is more of a poet than a scientist.”

    Thomas Jefferson did not like what Buffon had said about the natural wonders of the New World. It seemed to Jefferson that Buffon had spoken of natural wonders in America as if they were unimportant.

    This troubled Thomas Jefferson. He was a naturalist, as well as a farmer, inventor, historian, writer and politician. He had seen the natural wonders of Europe. To him, they were no more important than those of the New World.

    In 1788, Thomas Jefferson wrote about his home state, Virginia. While writing, he thought of its natural beauty and then of the words of Buffon. At that moment, Jefferson created a new word－belittle. He said, “Buffon believes that nature belittles her productions on this side of the Atlantic.”

    Noah Webster, the American word expert, liked this word. He put it in his English language dictionary in 1806, “Belittle－to make somebody or something small, unimportant.”

    Americans had already accepted Jefferson's word and started to use it. In 1797, the Independent Chronicle newspaper used the word to describe a politician the paper supported. “He is an honorable man,” the paper wrote, “so let the opposition try to belittle him as much as they please.

    In 1872, a famous American word expert decided that the time had come to kill this word. He said, “'Belittle' has no chance of becoming English. And as more critical writers of America, like those of Britain, feel no need of it, the sooner it is forgotten, the better.” This expert failed to kill the word. Today, “belittle” is used where the English language is spoken.

    How does a sunset work? We love to look at one, but Jolanda Blackwell wanted her eighth-graders to really think about it and question.

    So Blackwell had her students watch a video of a sunset as part of a physics lesson on motion. "I asked them: ' So what's moving And why' " Blackwell says. Some thought the sun was moving; others knew that a sunset is the result of the Earth spinning around on its axis. "Usually, my biggest challenge is trying to keep them patient," she says. "They just have so many burning questions."

    "Every day, we meet new information," says Charan Ranganath, a psychologist. Ranganath was curious to know why we keep some information and forget other things. So he got 19 volunteers and asked them to review more than 100 questions. When the participants' curiosity was aroused, the parts of' their brains that regulate pleasure and reward lit up. Curious minds also showed increased activity in the brain, which is involved in greater memories.

    "Curious brains are better at learning not only about the subject at hand but also dull information. This is a phenomenon teachers can use in the classroom," says Evie Malaia, a professor. "Say a kid wants to be an astronaut," she says. NL Well, how do you link that goal with learning multiplication tables(乘法表)" "A teacher may choose to ask her class an interesting word problem that involves space exploration," Malaia says. Students may remember the answer to the word problem, but they'll also remember how they found the answer through multiplication.

    What Ranganath wants to know most is why some people seem naturally more curious than others. Lots of factors, including stress, aging and certain drugs  affect dopamine(多巴胺) processing in the brain. "If we could figure these things out, we could help those who may just seem bored," Ranganath says.

    Blackwell says she doesn't have to deal with that problem too often. She says her students love exploring the mysterious unknowns in science: What happens when a car crashes. How do rainbows work "I tell my kids there's no dumb questions," Blackwell says. "That's science: asking questions and seeking answers."

    City trees grow faster and die younger than trees in rural forestry, a new study finds. Over their lifetimes, then, urban trees will likely absorb less CO₂ from the air thah forest trees.

    As we all know, the earth would be freezing or burning hot without CO₂. However, CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps energy from the sun as/heat. That makes temperatures near the ground rise. Human activities, especially the widespread burning-of fossil(化石)fuels, have been sending extra greenhouse gases into the air. This has led to a rise in average temperatures across the globe.

    Studies had shown forests readily absorb CO₂, but there hadn't been much data on whether city trees grow, die and absorb CO₂ at the same rate as forest trees do. So some researchers decided to find out.

    To figure out how quickly trees were growing, researchers tracked their diameters (the width of their trunks) between 2005 and 2014. A tree's diameter increases as it grows, just as a person's waist size increases as they gain weight. About half the weight of a tree is carbon, research has shown. Most of the rest is water. Over the nine years' tracking, the researchers found city trees absorbed four times as much carbon from the air as forest trees. However, they were twice as likely to die. So over the lifetime of each type of tree, forest trees actually absorbed more CO₂.

    City trees grew faster because they had less competition for light from their neighbors. In a forest, trees tend to grow close together, shading their neighbors. Street trees also benefit from higher levels of nitrogen (氮)in rainwater. Nitrogen helps plants grow. Waste gases from gas-burning cars also contain nitrogen, thus enriching city air with nitrogen. Later, rainwater may wash much of it to the ground. Some street trees may also have better access to water than trees in the country because the underground water pipes can leak.