Fourteen – year – old Richie Hawley had spent five years studying violin at the

 Fourteen – year – old Richie Hawley had spentfive years studying violin at the Community School of Performing Arts in LosAngeles when he took part in a violin contest. Ninety two young people wereinvited to the contest and Hawley came out first．

The contest could have been the perfect setup forfear, worrying about mistakes, and trying to impress the judges．But Hawley says he did pretty well in staying calm. “Icouldn’t be thinking about how many mistakes I’d make—it would distract me fromplaying,” he says．“I didn’t even remember trying to impresspeople while I played． It’s almost as if they weren’t there． I just wanted to make music．”

Hawley is a winner． But hedidn’t become a winner by concentrating on winning． He did it by concentrating on playing well．

“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not towin but to take part,” said the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre deCoubertin．“The important thing in life is not thetriumph but the struggle．The essential thing is not to haveconquered but to have fought well．”

A characteristic of high performers is their intense,pleasurable concentration on work, rather than on their competitors or futureglory or money, says Dr．Charles Garfield, who has studied 1,500achievers in business, science, sports, the arts, and professions．“They are interested in winning, but they’re mostinterested in self-development, testing their limits．”

One of the most surprising things about top performersis how many losses they’ve had and how much they’ve learned from each． “Not one of the 1,500 I studied defined losing asfailing,” Garfield says．“They kept calling their losses ‘setbacks’．”

A healthy attitude toward setbacks is essential towinning, experts agree．

“The worst thing you can do if you’ve had a setback isto let yourself get stuck in a prolonged depression． You should analyze carefully what went wrong,identify specific things you did right and give yourself credit for them．” Garfield believes that most people don’t givethemselves enough praise． He even suggests keeping a diary of allthe positive things you’ve done on the way to a goal．

1.Hawley won the contest because _______．

A．he put all his mind tohis performance

B．he cared much about thejudges’ feelings

C．he tried his best toavoid making mistakes

D．he paid close attentionto the people around

2.High performers is that they tend to give priorityto _______．

A．glory         B. wealth        C. pleasure    D.work

3.According to the passage, successful peopleconcentrate on _______．

A．challenging their ownlimits         B．learning from others

C．defeating their opponents  D．avoiding setbacks

4. It can be learned from the passage that topperformers are not _______．

A．interested inwinning             B．free of losses

C．accustomed tofailures            D．concerned about setbacks

5.The passage tells us that “praise” in times oftrouble _______．

A．helps people deal withtheir disappointment

B．makes people forget theirsetbacks

C．makes people regret abouttheir past

D．helps people realizetheir goals

试题答案

【答案】

1.A

2.D

3.A

4.B

5.A

【解析】

试题