My students often tell me that they don’t have “enough time to do all their scho

My students often tell me that they don’t have “enoughtime” to do all their schoolwork.

My reply is often a brief “You have as muchtime as the president.” I usually carry on a bit about there being twenty-fourhours in the day for everyone, and suggest that “not enough time” is not anacceptable explanation of not getting something done.

Once in graduate school, I tried to prove toone of my professors by saying that I was working hard. His answer to me was,“That’s irrelevant (无关的).What’s important is the quality of your work.” Since then I have had time tothink carefully about the “hard worker” dodge (诀窍), andI have come to some conclusions — all relevant to the problem of how much timewe have.

If you analyze the matter, you can identifytwo parts of the problem: There is, of course, the matter of “time”, which wecan think of as fixed. Then there is the problem of “work” during that time.But, as my professor suggested, it’s not how hard one works but the quality ofthe product that’s important.

That led me to a new idea: the quality of thework. That concept is perhaps best explained by a sign I once saw on the wallin someone’s office: “Don’t work harder. Work smarter.” There is a lot of sensein that idea.

If you can’t get more time, and few of uscan, the only solution is to improve the quality of the work. That meansthinking of ways to get more out of the same time than we might otherwise get.That should lead us to an analysis of our work habits. Since “work” forstudents usually means “homework”, the expression “work habits” should be readas “study habits”.

Then, as a smart student, you will seek toimprove those skills that you use in study, chiefly reading and writing. If youlearn to read better and write better, there are big benefits that pay off inall your studies.

1.

From the passage, we know that the author is probably______ .

   A. a poet            B.an educator          C. a novelist           D.an engineer

2.

We can infer from the 2^nd paragraph that westudents still _____ .

   A. have enoughtime                 B. can meet the president

C. get everything donewell              D.should accept the explanation

3.

Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

   A. The author’s students make good use oftheir time to do all their homework.

   B. The author tried to tell the professorthat he/she (author) had done a good job.

C. You can’t improve the quality of the workif you can’t get more time.

D. You’ll try to improve your skills inreading and writing if you’re a clever student

试题答案

【答案】

1.B

2.A

3.B

【解析】 略