106 年 - 特種考試外交.民航.稅務.原住民/英文#64755　

   Whenever I hear or read the word “courage,” I think of the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz. It was courage that the lion was lacking, and that 10 kept him from being all he was created to be. Do you remember the change in character that came over the lion when he 11 his courage? It was a dynamic transformation from a wimpy and timid lion to a snarling 12 and defender of his friends. Like the lion, most of us have courage, but it’s hidden away and not used because we are afraid we might fail.

    As you prepare for your trip, make sure you have the right paperwork. You don’t want to get to your destination 13 you have the wrong visa, or worse, that your passport is about to expire. Also, make sure you travel with proper medical 14 , so that if you are sick or injured during your travels, you will be able to get treatment. If you want to drive while you are abroad, make sure you have an international 15 . If you need prescription drugs, bring a letter from your doctor. If you don’t, you may find yourself doing a lot of explaining to customs officials at your destination.

    Human behavior is the very manifestation of the individual’s method of adjusting to his environment. In the study of human behavior, there are three prevailing theories, each stressing the impact of a particular aspect. The most recent of the three is the social learning theory which states that all behavior is the result of conditioning. Another theory, the psychoanalytical theory, depicts man at the mercy of his unconscious thoughts and motives. The third theory, the oldest of the three, the physiological theory, advocates the importance of heredity and physical characteristics in behavior development. 

    According to the physiological theory, some people are mainly “digestion-minded,” some are “muscle-minded,” and some “brain-minded,” and correspondingly digestion-bodied, muscle-bodied, or brain-bodied. The digestion-bodied people look thick; the muscle-bodied people look wide, and the brain-bodied people look long. For the third kind of people, it does not mean that the taller a man is the brainier he will be. Instead, it means that if a man, even a short man, looks long rather than wide or thick, he will often be concerned about what on his mind than about what he does or what he eats; but the key factor is slenderness and not weight. On the other hand, a man who gives the impression of being thicker, rather than long or wide, will usually be more interested in a good steak than in a good idea or a good long walk. 

    If a man is definitely a thick type, rather than a broad or long type, he is likely to be round and soft, with a big chest but a bigger belly. He would rather eat than breathe comfortably. People of this kind like other people, they are easygoing, and their feelings are easy to understand. In contrast, if a man is definitely a broad type rather than a thick or long type, he is likely to have lots of muscle. Such people would rather breathe than eat. They go in for adventure, exercise, fighting and getting the upper hand. They love to master the people and things around them. As for people of the third type, they are likely to have thin bones and muscles. Though such people are jumpy, they like to keep their energy and don’t fancy moving around much. They would rather sit quietly by themselves, and keep out of difficulties. Trouble upsets them, and they run away from it. They would easily become anxious, and they don’t get along well with other people in the sociable and aggressive world.

    Getting a grip—literally—can boost your memory, according to a new study. Here’s how it works: If you are right-handed, clench your right fist before taking in new information that you want to remember; then clench your left fist when you want to remember it later. If you are left-handed, do the opposite. This strange trick may work because clenching your hands activates the side of the brain that handles memory. 

    To test this idea, researchers led by Ruth Propper of Montclair State University in New Jersey studied 50 right-handed college students. The students were divided into five groups. Each participant was given a list of 36 words to remember and a small pink ball to clench. 

    One group clenched the ball twice for 45 seconds each with their right hands before memorizing the words. Then they did the same with their left hands before writing down as many words as they could remember. Another group performed the same task but reversed the order of the fists they made. Two other groups used the same hand each time, one group using the left and the other, the right. A final group didn’t clench the ball at all but held it gently in both bands each time. 

    The group that started with the right hand performed the best on the memory test. In doing so, they activated the left side of their brains, which helps store memory, and then clenched their left hand, activating the right side of the brain as they recalled the information. The findings suggest that some simple body movements—by temporarily changing the way the brain functions—can improve memory.     The study also found that the two left hand groups, whether there was right hand clenching afterwards, demonstrated significantly poorer memory than the other three groups. This shows that it is primarily the hemisphere active at taking in information that predominantly influences memory ability.