A
Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes
When you make a mistake, big or small, cherish (珍视) it like it's the most precious thing in the world, because in some ways, it is.
Most of us feel bad when we make mistakes, beat ourselves up about it, feel like failures, get mad at ourselves.
And that's only natural: most of us have been taught from a young age that mistakes are bad, that we should try to avoid mistakes. We've been scolded when we make mistakes at home, school and work. Maybe not always, but probably enough times to make feeling bad about mistakes an unconscious reaction.
Yet without mistakes, we could not learn or grow. If you think about it that way, mistakes should be cherished and celebrated for being one of the most amazing things in the world: they make learning possible; they make growth and improvement possible.
By trial and error-trying things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes—we have figured out how to make electric light, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to fly.
Mistakes make walking possible for the smallest toddler, make speech possible, make works of genius possible.
Think about how we learn: we don't just consume information about something and instantly know it or know how to do it. You don't just read about painting, or writing, or computer programming, or baking, or playing the piano, and know how to do them right away. Instead, you get information about something, from reading or from another person or from observing usually...then you construct a model in your mind...then you test it out by trying it in the real world...then you make mistakes...then you revise the model based on the results of your real-world experimentation and repeat, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, until you've pretty much learned how to do something. That's how we learn as babies and toddlers, and how we learn as adults. Mistakes are how we learn to do something new, because if you succeed in something, it's probably something you already knew how to do. You haven't really grown much from that success—at most it's the last step on your journey, not the whole journey. Most of the journey was made up of mistakes, if it's a good journey.
So if you value learning, if you value growing and improving, then you should value mistakes. They are amazing things that make a world of brilliance possible.
1. Why do most of us feel bad about making mistakes?
A. Because mistakes make us suffer a lot.
B. Because it's a natural part in our life.
C. Because we've been taught so from a young age.
D. Because mistakes have ruined many people's careers.
2. According to the passage, what is the right attitude to mistakes?
A. We should try to avoid making mistakes.
B. We should owe great inventions mainly to mistakes.
C. We should treat mistakes as good chances to learn.
D. We should make feeling bad about mistakes an unconscious reaction.
3. The underlined word “toddler” in Paragraph 6 probably means ________.
A. a small child learning to walk
B. a kindergarten child learning to draw
C. a primary school pupil learning to read
D. a school teenager learning to write
4. We can learn from the passage that ________.
A. most of us can really grow from success
B. growing and improving are based on mistakes
C. we learn to make mistakes by trial and error
D. we read about something and know how to do it right away
【答案】1. C 2. C 3. A 4. B
【解析】
【分析】这是一篇议论文。文章主要告诉我们错误的价值，错误可以让我们从中学到很多的东西，错误可以促进我们成长，让我们进步，因此我们要学会从错误中学习。
【1题详解】
细节理解题。由第二段“Most of us feel bad when we make mistakes, beat ourselves up about it, feel like failures, get mad at ourselves. (当我们犯错误时，我们中的大多数人都会感觉很糟糕，为此痛打自己，觉得自己失败了，对自己发火)”和第三段中的“And that's only natural: most of us have been taught from a young age that mistakes are bad, that we should try to avoid mistakes. (这是很自然的：我们大多数人从小就被教导错误是不好的，我们应该努力避免错误)”可知，大多数人对犯错感到难过是因为我们从小就被告知犯错是不好的、应该努力避免错误的这种的教育。故选C项。
【2题详解】
推理判断题。由第四段“Yet without mistakes, we could not learn or grow. If you think about it that way, mistakes should be cherished and celebrated for being one of the most amazing things in the world: they make learning possible; they make growth and improvement possible. (然而，如果没有错误，我们就无法学习或成长。如果你这样想的话，错误应该被珍视和庆祝，因为它是世界上最令人惊奇的事情之一：它们使学习成为可能；它们使增长和改善成为可能)”可知，作者认为没有错误，我们就无法学习或成长，错误让我们学习、成长，因此对待错误，我们要珍视，我们应该把错误当作学习的好机会。故选C项。
【3题详解】
词句猜测题。由第六段“Mistakes make walking possible for the smallest toddler, make speech possible, make works of genius possible. (错误使最小的toddler能够走路，使说话成为可能，使天才的作品成为可能)”可知，错误可以让最小的toddler，步行成为可能，什么样的人需要学习步行?只有孩子，所以toddler指学习走路的孩子。故选A项。
【4题详解】
推理判断题。由最后一段中的“So if you value learning, if you value growing and improving, then you should value mistakes. (所以，如果你重视学习，如果你重视成长和提高，那么你就应该重视错误)”可知，错误有助于成长和提高，说明成长和提高是建立在错误的基础上的。故选B项。
