What Kind of Person Are You?
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ReadOasis Step 4 Who are you? What is your personality? What are your personality characteristics, and how do they help or hurt you? In the 1990's psychologists found 5 kinds of personality traits. They are called the Big 5. (1) Openness: How open are you to new things?(2) Conscientiousness:... Read more
ReadOasis Step 4 B. B. King Lucille B.B. King was a great master of blues guitar. Though he passed away on May 14, 2015, he lived to be 89, and he played professionally for nearly 70 years. (His first recording was in 1949.) Because of his last name and... Read more
ReadOasis Step 2 English is currently the world’s common language. It’s the international language of business, politics, and the Internet. About 400 million people speak English as a first language. And about a billion people are learning it today. To learn any foreign language, we need motivation. Motivation is... Read more
What’s the best way to improve your English? Of course, there are many ways. But big, easy reading is one of the best. And it probably has the most research and evidence to support it. What is big, easy reading? First, you read lots of books and stories. That’s... Read more
Throwing Shoes for Protest
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ReadOasis Step 2 In recent times, shoe throwing has become an international form of protest. On Monday, February 2, 2009, a young man threw a shoe at Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister of China. The event took place at Cambridge University in the UK. The young man was arrested... Read more
Babe: A Good Mannered Pig
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ReadOasis Step 2 Babe is a young pig who wants to become a sheep dog. He is separated from his family, and he finds himself on a strange farm. Babe becomes confused and lonely. But a friendly sheep dog takes care of him. And Babe slowly adjusts to his... Read more
The Honest Truth About Irony
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ReadOasis Step 3 Creative Commons Photo by Oakley Originals Many of us know the story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. A young husband and wife love each other deeply. But they are too poor to buy each other gifts at Christmas. After much thought, the man... Read more
ReadOasis Step 2 As a boy, Gunpei loved to play with toys and machines. He often took his toys apart to see how they worked. Then he put them back together again. One day, Gunpei took apart his father's expensive watch. He wanted to see how the little machine... Read more
Where Did It All Come From?
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ReadOasis Step 2 A father and son are enjoying the night sky together. The moon and stars are shining brightly. The boy asks, "Where did it all come from?" The father answers simply, "God made it." "But Daddy, if God made it all, who made God?" This question has... Read more
By Richard WisemanReadOasis Step 3 Note: the following is a text of a talk given by Richard Wiseman. "I tracked the lives of 5,000 people as they attempted to achieve their New Year's resolutions. Now most of them failed, but ten percent did obtain their aims and ambitions. But what... Read more
ReadOasis Step 4 Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin studied computer science at Stanford University. Their research concentrated on the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web. Specifically, they wanted to understand the patterns of its link structure. Page and Brin reasoned that not only could they count... Read more
The Good in Nature (Step 3)
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By Max L. Knowles ReadOasis Step 3 In November 2004, the BBC News reported this extraordinary story. Near the North Island of New Zealand, lifeguard Rob Howes was training in the ocean water. He was with two co-workers and his young daughter. Then, like a frightful scene from a... Read more
The Drama of Darwin (Step 3)
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ReadOasis Step 3 Annie Darwin was her father's joy, and she treated him with tender kindness. But in 1849 Annie became sick with severe fever. Charles struggled to cure her, but in 1851, Annie died and was buried in a small church in Worcestershire. The words on her grave... Read more
How to Acquire Language (Step 2)
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ReadOasis Step 2 How do humans acquire languages? The answer is surprisingly simple. All people everywhere acquire languages in the same way. “We acquire languages by understanding messages.” This is called the “comprehension hypothesis,” and it was made by the linguist Dr. Stephen Krashen. I give this idea an... Read more
Gregor Mendel: Father of Genetics
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ReadOasis Step 3 A great tree comes from a small seed, and from small beginnings come great things. He made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science. But during his life, Gregor Mendel was a relatively unknown man. After his death, he became famous for his... Read more
ReadOasis Step 3 A man was driving his car down the road. He looked ahead and saw black smoke and orange fire coming out of a big, red truck. As he approached the accident, he saw the truck driver waving his hands. "Help!" Cried the truck driver "Help! My... Read more
3 Questions for Your New Year’s Resolution (Step 1)
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By D.S. Aims ReadOasis Step 1 At the start of every year, millions of people make new resolutions. This means that they promise themselves to do something differently, or to try something new. For example, many people want to lose weight, quit smoking, or change another bad habit. Others... Read more
Violent Games and Young Minds
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ReadOasis Step 3 Millions of gamers were waiting for the day. On November 10, 2009, the game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" was released. In the first 24 hours, about 4.7 million copies were sold. And the first day of revenue in the US and UK reached $310... Read more
International Etiquette
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ReadOasis Step 3 Note: The author, David Woodward, is a well-known expert in cross-cultural communication and education. This story comes from experiences of traveling, teaching, and doing business in over 45 countries. The goal is to show the basic idea of international etiquette. That is, how do we behave... Read more
ReadOasis Step 2 Sam took a deep breath. He looked at his audience, raised his hands, and started to speak. He began with a joke, but nobody laughed. He introduced himself. But some people just looked down and checked their phones. He told another joke. The response: silence. "This... Read more