TOEFL I attended the TOEFL exam today. Since I tried twice before, so I got enough experience for test skills. But I would not be able to get a decent score because my English skill is not good enough. I can see I have already improved on some aspects, but on others, a lot of work is going to be done. I analyse my English skill based on this TOEFL exam. I wish I can find my way to learn English through this analysis. I will talk about each section one by one. For reading section, I felt much better than last time. I can understand most content. This improvement is due to my increasement of vocabulary. So, I believe I can get a decent score on reading. I need to keep working on vocabulary because I also need to take the GRE. For listening section, it is my weakest part. I cannot get the points of the lectures so that all I can do is to guess. So my score is ranging from 10-20. I have to strength my listening section. For speaking section, since I have not practiced English for 6 months, I got choked several times. I can image my score is probably less than last time. Speaking skill is difficult to meliorate because I am kind of shine to speak out. :) For writing section, I finish my essay in a hurry. Last time, I remembered I got 5 mins left. So I need to write more. I found italki is a great platform to push my writing because sometimes I get a lottery that somebody comes to correct my errors. Thanks!

accept the mistakes Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? One of the characteristics of successful leaders is the sense of responsibility for accepting their mistakes. I do agree with the statement that one of the characteristics of successful leaders is the sense of responsibility for accepting their mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes while not everyone can spot the mistakes and acknowledge their faults. To be a leader, accepting his mistakes is very important. I argue that for following reasons: A leader can make fewer mistakes after he accepting the mistake; He will win his employees' supports and respects if he takes the responsibility of his fault; He probably will make the mistake again if he does not acknowledge. At first and the foremost, a mistake can teach a man a lot of stuff. A person is going to make less mistakes with the new knowledge which gain from the mistake. No matter how big the mistake is, only if it does not push a man down, then he can obtain a new experience and this experience will tell him how to do things right. It is essential for a successful leader. Secondly, nobody likes a person who always pushes his mistakes to others. The more times he avoids the point, which is accepting the mistake, the less support and respects he will receive. Some people do not like to acknowledge their mistakes because they think it will make them unrespect. In fact, they will gain respect after they accept their wrong. At last but not the least, people can learn things from their mistakes only if they think it is their fault. If somebody cannot realize he made a mistake, how can he avoid making the mistake again? He learns nothing from a mistake. He probably thinks if something is wrong, it must be due to his bad luck. Then his luck gets worse and worse. In summary, a leader should always take the responsibility of accepting their mistakes. Therefore, they get the chances to be successful.

10,000 hours of practice I read some articles about that: You cannot really master anything unless you take training on something (such as painting, writing) at least 10,000 hours. So how many hours do you think have you put on English? I take the example of myself: As I mentioned in my previous notebook, I never tried my best to get English down. So even though it seemed I learnt English from the first grade of primary school, I really did spend too much time on it. I guessed it was about 1,000 hours before I went to the USA. In the America, even if I need to speak English everywhere, I do not speak it every moment. So it is about 4 hours per day. I had lived there for 2.5 years. So the hours is 3,500 hours. The total hours I spend on English is less than 5,000 hours. If I sincerely want to master English, I need to additional 5,500 hours. How many hours in a year? It is 8760 hours. If we reduce the necessary time which used for sleeping, eating and something that must have been done (presume the part of time is 14 hours), the available time is 3650 hours. We also need to reduce some days which used for family meeting or friends' gathering. After considering many other factors (such as use Facebook, read news or Sth), the available time is 3,000 hours. So If I am a full time English learn, it costs me at least two years to be a real good one. So do not be hurried up, slow down. Never believe that your English will get a sudden process even if the English test scores might.