I must have been about fourteen then, and I put away the incident from my mind with the easy carelessness of youth. But the words, Carl Walter spoke that day, came back to me years later, and ever since have been of great value to me.
Carl Walter was my piano teacher. During one of my lessons he asked how much practicing I was doing. I said three or four hours a day.
“Do you practice in long stretches, an hour at a time?”
“I try to.”
“Well, don’t, ” he said loudly. “When you grow up, time won’t e in long stretches. Practice in minutes, whenever you can find them five or ten before school, after lunch, between household tasks. Spread the practice through the day, and piano-playing will bee a part of your life.”
When I was teaching at Columbia, I wanted to write, but class periods, theme-reading, and mittee meetings filled my days and evenings. For two years I got practically nothing down on paper, and my excuse was that I had no time. Then I remembered what Carl Walter had said. During the next week I conducted an experiment. Whenever I had five minutes unoccupied, I sat down and wrote a hundred words or so. To my astonishment, at the end of the week I had a rather large manuscript(手稿) ready for revision. Later on I wrote novels by the same piecemeal （零碎的）method. Though my teaching schedule had bee heavier than ever, in every day there were moments which could be caught and put to use.
There is an important trick in this time-using principle: you must get into your work quickly. If you have but five minutes for writing, you can’t afford to waste it in chewing your pencil. You must make your mental preparations beforehand, and concentrate on your task almost instantly when the time es. Fortunately, rapid concentration is easier than most of us realize.
I admit I have never learnt how to let go easily at the end of the five or ten minutes. But life can be counted on to supply interruptions. Carl Walter has had a significant influence on my life. To him I owe the discovery that even very short periods of time add up to all useful hours I need, if I throw myself into it without delay.
【小题1】The meaning of “stretch” in the underlined part is the same as that in the sentence “ ”A．The dog woke up, had a good stretch and wandered off. B．Bob worked as a government official for a stretch of over twenty years. C．My family wasn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. D．This material has a lot of stretch in it.【小题2】Which of the following statements is TRUE?A．The author didn’t take the teacher’s words to heart at first. B．Rapid concentration is more difficult than people imagine. C．The author thanked his teacher for teaching him to work in long stretches. D．Carl Walter has influenced the writer greatly since he was a student.【小题3】We can infer that the author .A．had new books published each year however busy his teaching is B．is tired of interruptions in life because he always has much work C．has formed a bad habit of chewing a pencil while writing his novels D．makes mental preparations beforehand so as to focus on work quickly【小题4】What is probably the best title for this text?A．Concentrate on Your Work B．A Little at a Time C．How I Became a Writer D．Good AdviceB
网友回答
(答案→)B
解析：文章通过一个故事讲述了一个大道理。作者的老师让作者不要集中练琴，而是把练习的时间分散开来。作者认识到，要做好心理准备，来迎接不期而遇的机会。
【小题1】根据“When you grow up, time won’t e in long stretches. Practice in minutes, whenever you can find them five or ten before school, after lunch, between household tasks. Spread the practice through the day, and piano-playing will bee a part of your life.”可知，当你长大了，你不会一直长时间有空练习。要把练习分成一小段一小段的，上学前练，午饭后练，做家务的空当练。Stretch指一段（时间）。B项“鲍勃做了二十几年的官员”。故选B。
【小题2】根据“But the words, Carl Walter spoke that day, came back to me years later, and ever since have been of great value to me.”可知，Carl Walter老师的话，在多年以后才被作者记起来。故选A。
【小题3】根据“You must make your mental preparations beforehand, and concentrate on your task almost instantly when the time es.”可知，你必须事先做好心理准备，时机一到，就要立即把注意力集中在你的任务上。故选D。
【小题4】根据“But life can be counted on to supply interruptions. ...very short periods of time add up to all useful hours”可知，作者对老师的教导很是感激，作者谨记教诲，把一点点的时间片段聚集起来，成为了宝贵的时光。要学会把一个目标分成一个个的小步骤，一个个的接着完成它们，并最终实现最终的目标。故选B。