Many people who work in London prefer to live outside it, and to go in to their offices or schools every day by train, car or bus, even though this means they have to get up early in the morning and reach home late in the evening.

    One advantage of living outside London is that houses are cheaper. Even a small flat in London without a garden costs quite a lot to rent (租住). With the same money, one can get a little house in the country with a garden of one's own.

    Then, in the country one can rest from the noise and hurry of the town. Even though one has to get up earlier and spend more time in trains or buses, one can sleep better at night and during weekends and on summer evenings, one can enjoy the fresh, clean air of the country. If one likes gardens, one can spend one's free time digging, planting, watering and doing the hundred and one other jobs which are needed in a garden. Then, when the flowers and vegetables come up, one has the reward of sharing the secret of Nature.

    Some people, however, take no interest in country things：for them, happiness lies in the town, with its cinemas and theatres, beautiful shops and busy streets, dance halls and restaurants. Such people would feel that their life was not worth living if they had to live it outside London. An occasional walk in one of the parks and a fortnight's (two weeks) visit to the sea every summer is all the country they want: the rest they are quite prepared to leave to those who are glad to get away from London every night.

Oxford English Language Center

Information for New Students

    CLASS TIME：8:30a. m. —10:00a. m.，10:30a. m. —12:00a. m.，1:30p. m. —3:00p. m..

    The Language Center is open Monday to Friday. Each class has one afternoon free per week. On the first day, go to the lecture hall to check your timetable.

    SELF—ACCESS：The language laboratory（Room 1110）is open Monday to Friday from 3:15p. m. to 5:00p. m. for all full-time students.

    You can learn how to use computers for language games or word-processing. There are tapes for students to borrow to practice their English. Go in and ask the teacher to show you. If you plan to take public examinations, there are dictation and listening comprehension tapes for you to practice with. There are cloze exercises on the computers. Ask your class teacher for a list of past exam essays. Students can borrow tapes to take home but they must be returned after two days.

    ATTENDANCE: All students are expected to attend classes as it is required. Students who do not attend classes will be reported to OSS. Eighty percent attendance is required for students to receive their certificates when they finish their courses. It is also required by OSS for an extension to your visa.

    BOOKS: If students are given course books, the books are their responsibility. If a book is lost, the student will be expected to pay for it. If students wish to buy books, there is a bookshop in the college specializing in English books（Room 3520.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Football, to me, is more than just a game. I have probably learned more than valuable lessons from it than from school.

    When I joined the team freshman year, I didn't realize what I was getting into. Even though I had been playing since fourth grade and knew it was hard work, nothing would prepare me for the effort I would put into football that year. We worked all summer in the weight room and ran on the track to get in physical and mental shape before the season.

    See, football is more of a mental sport than anything else, so running on the track wasn't only about getting in shape. We would push our minds by running as hard as we could even if we felt like we were going to pass out. At the beginning, I was immature（幼稚的）and only thought of myself, sometimes even giving up when I was tired or hurting. Then after the third game I had a season-ending injury. Imagine working all summer and then only being able to play three games! I needed an operation on my arm and at least five months to recover.

    After freshman year I decided that I would always give my best effort. Playing football in the college has taught me so much more than just what my tasks are on a particular play or how to block. I have learned to think about others first, and realized how important working hard is. Being with all my friends, even sweating and bleeding with them, really made us unite as a group of hard-working young men, who will succeed in life.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    In England, people are fond of sport. In other words, lots of English people like the idea of sport and watch sport on TV. But the number who take part in sport is quite small. On the whole, English people prefer to be fat rather than be thin.

    The most popular sport in England is football. Football is played on Saturday afternoon in most towns and the supporters of a certain team will travel from one end of the country to the other to see their team play. There are four divisions(级别) of the football league. Not surprisingly the best teams are in the first division. But the best supporters are often in the fourth division. You have to be a good supporter to watch the fourth division football!

    Many other sports are also played in England, such as golf, in which you try to knock a ball into a hole; basketball, in which you try to get a ball through a net; tennis, in which you try to hit a ball so that your opponent(对手) can not hit it. As you see, if the ball had not been invented, there would have been no sport.

    Actually, that is not quite true. Athletics(田径) isn't played with a ball, nor horse-racing. Perhaps that is why they are not as popular as football!

    Language is always changing. In a society where life continues year after year with few changes, the language does not change either. The earliest known languages had difficult grammar but a small, limited vocabulary. Over the century, the grammar changed, and the vocabulary grew. For example, the English and Spanish people who came to America during the sixteenth century gave names to all the new plants and animals they found. In this way, hundreds of new words were introduced into English and Spanish vocabularies. Today life is changing very fast, and language is changing fast too.

     There are several major(主要) language families in the world. Some scientists say there are nine main families, but other scientists divide them differently. The languages in each family are connected, and scientists think that they came from the same parent language. About 3 percent of the people in the world speak languages that are not in these major families.

    The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias (偏见) in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities. This phenomenon is something you have likely experienced in real life, perhaps at a holiday family gathering. Throughout the course of the meal, a member of your extended family begins spouting off on a topic, boldly announcing that he is correct and that everyone else's opinion is stupid, uninformed, and just plain wrong. It may be plainly evident to everyone that this person has no idea what he is talking about, but he talks continuously, blithely oblivious (忘乎所以) to his own ignorance.

    The effect is named after researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger, two social psychologists. They found incompetent people are not only poor performers, they are also unable to accurately assess and recognize the quality of their own work. These low performers were also unable to recognize the skill and competence levels of other people, which is part of the reason why they consistently view themselves as better, more capable, and more knowledgeable than others.

    This is the reason why students who earn failing scores on exams sometimes feel that they deserved a much higher score. They overestimate their own knowledge and ability and are incapable of seeing the poorness of their performance.

    “In many cases, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, encouraged by something that feels to them like knowledge.” Dunning and his colleagues have also performed experiments where they ask respondents if they are familiar with terms related to subjects including politics, biology, physics, and geography. Along with genuine concepts, they added completely made-up terms. In one such study, approximately 90 percent of respondents claimed that they had at least some knowledge of the made-up terms.

    So what can you do to gain a more realistic assessment of your own abilities? Instead of assuming you know all there is to know about a subject, keep digging deeper. Once you gain greater knowledge of a topic, the more likely you are to recognize how much there is still to learn. Another effective strategy involves asking others for constructive criticism. While it can sometimes be difficult to hear, such feedback can provide valuable insights into how others perceive your abilities. Even as you learn more and get feedback, it can be easy to only pay attention to things that confirm what you think you already know. In order to minimize this confirmation bias, keep challenging your beliefs and expectations and seek out information that challenges your ideas.