新概念英语第三册第50课

第 1 页精品文档---下载后可任意编辑新概念英语第三册第 50 课:New Year resolutionsLesson 50 New Year resolutions 新年的决心 Listen to the tape then answer the question below. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 What marked the end of the writers New Year resolutions? The New Year is a time for resolutions. Mentally, at least, most of us could compile formidable lists of dos and donts. The same old favorites recur year in year out with monotonous regularity. We resolve to get up earlier each morning, eat less, find more time to play with the children, do a thousand and one jobs about the house, be nice to people we dont like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. Past experience has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. If we remain inveterate smokers, it is only because we have so often experienced the frustration that results from failure. Most of us fail in our efforts at self-improvement because our schemes are too 第 2 页精品文档---下载后可任意编辑ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. We also make the fundamental error of announcing our resolutions to everybody so that we look even more foolish when we slip back into our bad old ways. Aware of these pitfalls, this year I attempted to keep my resolutions to myself. I limited myself to two modest ambitions: to do physical exercise every morning and to read more of an evening. An all-night party on New Years Eve provided me with a good excuse for not carrying out either of these new resolutions on the first day of the year, but on the second, I applied myself assiduously to the task. The daily exercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning before any...