1、My English professor once launched into a lecture on "motivation." "What pushes you ahead?" he asked. "What is it that makes you go to school each day? What driving force makes you strive to accomplish?" Turning suddenly to one young woman, he demanded: "What makes you get out of bed in the morning?" The student replied: "My mother."
我們英文課的教授有一次在課上講“動機”。“是什麼推動你在人生的路上向前走?”他問道，“是什麼讓你每天上學來?又是什麼驅使你追求成功?”衝著一個女學生，他問：“是什麼讓你早晨從床上爬起來的呢?”學生答道：“我媽媽。”
2、"Would you mind telling me, Doctor," Bob asked, "how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?" "Nothing is easier," he replied, "You ask him a simple question which everyone should answer with no trouble. If he hesitates, that puts you on the track." "Well, what sort of question?" "Well, you might ask him, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?' " Bob thought for a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, "You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don't know much about history."
“醫生，你能不能告訴我，”鮑勃問，“對於一個看上去很正常的人，你是怎樣判斷出他有智力缺陷的呢?”“再沒有比這容易的.了，”醫生回答，“問他一個簡單的問題，簡單到所有人都知道答案，如果他回答得不乾脆，那你就知道是怎麼回事了。”“那要問什麼樣的問題呢?”“嗯，你可以這樣問，‘庫克船長環球旅行了三次，但是在其中一次的途中他去世了，是哪一次呢?’”鮑勃想了一會兒，緊張的回答道，“你就不能問另外一個問題嗎?坦率地說，我對歷史瞭解的不是很多。”
3、On the day of our final exam at my Community College in Santa Maria, Calif., we heard that the bookstore had changed its policy and would buy back our business-management textbooks. Before class, several of us dashed over to the store and sold our books. We were seated and waiting for the test when our professor announced that considering the difficulty of the final, it would be an open-book exam.
我在加利福尼亞的聖瑪麗亞市一所社群大學讀書。期末考試那天，聽說書店在回購我們的工商管理課本。考試前，我們幾個趕忙跑到書店把書賣了，隨後，我們坐在教室裡等著考試。這時候教授宣佈：考慮到試題的難度，今天的考試我們決定開卷。