Same As Ever

Question 1

Adbi and Nageeye said he just sat there, staring at the wall, in perfect silence and contentment.

Answer 1

a feeling of being happy or satisfied

Question 2

Some of those traits are awesome, and you should look up to them, maybe try to emulate.

Answer 2

emulate sth or sb: to try to do something as well as somebody else because you admire them

Question 3

He (John Boyd) was as close to a flying savant as they come.

Answer 3

a person who has an unusually high level of ability in a particular skill, for example in art or music, or in remembering things, but who has serious learning or social difficulties in other areas

Question 4

Thas’t because as smart as Boyd was, he was a maniac.

Answer 4

person who behaves in a dangerous, violent or wild way and who you think is crazy or strange

Question 5

He screamed at his superiors to the astonishment of peers, and was once nearly courtmartialed for setting ablaze hangars that didn’t proper heating.

Answer 5

1. be court-martialed: 軍法審判
2. ablaze: burning quickly and strongly
3. hangar: 機庫

Question 6

In meetings he would chew calluses off his hands and spit the dead skin across the table.

Answer 6

1. callus: an area of thick hard skin on a hand or foot, usually caused by rubbing
2. spit: to force liquid, food, etc. out of your mouth

Question 7

That same peronality made him naturally indifferent to established custom.

Answer 7

1. indiffernt to: having or showing no interest in somebody/something
2. established: respected or given official status because it has existed or been used for a long time

Question 8

He is extremely intolerant of those who attempt to impede his program.

Answer 8

1. intolerant of: not willing to accept ideas or ways of behaving that are different from your own
2. impede: to delay or stop the progress of something

Question 9

While Boyd was writing the definitive book on fighter maneuvers, two colonels denied his promotion.

Answer 9

1. definitive: considered to be the best of its kind and almost impossible to improve
2. maneuver: a movement performed with care and skill
3. colonel: 上校

Question 10

John Maynard Keynes once purhased a trove of Isaac Newton’s original paper ar aution.

Answer 10

treasure trove: valuable things that are found hidden and whose owner is unknown

Question 11

Many had never been seen before, as they had been stashed away at Cambridge for centuries.

Answer 11

to store something in a safe or secret place

Question 12

It is utterly impossible to deny that it is wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value;

Answer 12

1. utterly: completely
2. wholly: competely
3. devoid of: competely without something　

Question 13

The interpreter is stunned, and says she can’t relay that message.

Answer 13

relay: to receive and send on information, news, etc. to somebody 轉告

Question 14

Patton laughs hysterically, raise his glass…

Answer 14

in an extremely excited way and without any control, often with crying or laughter

Question 15

Twitter etiquette

Answer 15

the formal rules of correct or polite behaviour in society, among members of a particular profession or in a particular area of activity

Question 16

A mindset that can dump a personal fortune into colonizing Mars is not the kind of mind that worries about the downsides of hyperbole.

Answer 16

a way of speaking or writing that makes something sound better, more exciting, more dangerous, etc. than it really is

Question 17

overstepping the boundaries of reality.

Answer 17

to go beyond what is normal or allowed

Question 18

(Elon Musk)… is not the kind of person worried about making untenable promises to shareholders.

Answer 18

(of a theory, position, etc.) that cannot be defended against attack or criticism

Question 19

You don’t run for president in your fourties unless you have a certain moxie.

Answer 19

ourage, energy and determination
膽量，勇氣

Question 20

History reveals no instances of a conqueror being surfeited by conquests.

Answer 20

1. a particular example or case of something
2. surfeit: an amount that is too large, or is more than is needed

Question 21

You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after.

Answer 21

1. a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, a political party, etc.
2. a belief or set of beliefs held by a group or organization that others are expected to accept without argument

Question 22

casualities of perfection

Answer 22

a person who suffers or a thing that is destroyed when something else takes place

Question 23

A common urge is to squeeze out as much efficiency and perfection as you can from whtaever you’re pursuing.

Answer 23

a strong desire to do something

Question 24

Not maximizing your potential is actually the sweet spot in a world where perfecting one skill compromise another.

Answer 24

to cause something to be in danger of attack or of working less well??

Question 25

So spieces rarely evolve to become perfect at anything, because perfecting one skill comes at the expense of another skill that will eventually be critical to survival.

Answer 25

with loss or damage to somebody/something

Question 26

If your job is to be creative and think through yough problems, then time spent wandering around a park or aimlessly lounging on a couch might be your most valuable hours.

Answer 26

1. to consider a problem or a possible course of action fully
2. to stand, sit or lie in a lazy way

Question 27

The irony is that people can get some of their most important work done outside of work, when they’re free to think and ponder.

Answer 27

1. the funny or strange aspect of a situation that is very different from what you expect; a situation like this
2. to think about something carefully for a period of time

Question 28

This meshes with a Stanford study that showed walking increases creativity by 60 percent.

Answer 28

to fit together or match closely, especially in a way that works well; to make things fit together successfully

Question 29

Or leave at 3:00 p.m. and spend the rest of the day envisioning a new strategy.

Answer 29

to imagine what a situation will be like in the future, especially a situation you intend to work towards

Question 30

…, you wind up less efficient during the hours that are devoted to sitting at your desk cranking out work.

Answer 30

1. (of a person) to find yourself in a particular place or situation
2. to produce something with no special care or effort.

Question 31

Another form of helpful inefficiency is a business whose operations have slack built in.

Answer 31

the fact that something is too loose

Question 32

Just-in-time manufacturing was the epitome of efficient operations over the last twenty years.

Answer 32

a perfect example of something

Question 33

There’s an investing quip that it’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

Answer 33

a quick and clever remark

Question 34

… an important life skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving.

Answer 34

one of the two posts that form part of a goal 足球網的竿子

Question 35

A common storyline of history goes like this…

Answer 35

the basic story in a novel, play, film, etc.

Question 36

People gauge their well-being relative to those around them, and luxuries become necessities in a remarkably short period of time when the people around you become better off.

Answer 36

1. to make a judgement about something, especially people’s feelings or attitudes
2. in a way that is unusual or surprising and causes people to take notice

Question 37

the well-paid worker, who does his job under healty and agreeable conditions, is a valuable worker.

Answer 37

1. pleasant and easy to like
2. very useful or important

Question 38

Wealth came so fast to so many that it was jarring.

Answer 38

to have an unpleasant or annoying effect

Question 39

There is a common nostalgic vision of a typical American life in the 1950s.

Answer 39

having or bringing a sad feeling mixed with pleasure when you think of happy times in the past

Question 40

a 1950s family would have found it unfathomable that their grandchildren would earn more than twice as much as they did.

Answer 40

too strange or difficult to be understood

Question 41

The Ferenczes fled Romania to scape Jewish persecuation duing the Holocaust.

Answer 41

1. to leave a person or place very quickly, especially because you are afraid of possible danger
2. the act of treating somebody in a cruel and unfair way, especially because of their race, religion or political beliefs

Question 42

I have a friend who grew up in abject poverty in Africa.

Answer 42

terrible and without hope

Question 43

It’s astounding to him how abundant food is in Ameriaca.

Answer 43

so surprising that it is difficult to believe

Question 44

And that’s astounding for me to ponder - he finds immense pleasure in something I don’t think twice.

Answer 44

extremely large or great

Question 45

And this, I think, is a window into understanding why we yearn for the 1950s, despite today being better by almost any measure.

Answer 45

to want something very much, especially when it is very difficult to get

Question 46

Economic growth accrued straight to happiness.

Answer 46

to increase over a period of time

Question 47

By the early 1980s, the postwar togetherness that dominated the 1950s and ’60s gave way to more stratified growth, where many people plodded along while a few grew exponetially wealthier.

Answer 47

1. the happy feeling you have when you are with people you like, especially family and friends
2. ?
3. ?
4. to make very slow progress, especially with difficult or boring work

Question 48

This glorious lifestyles of the few inflated the aspirations of the many.

Answer 48

1. deserving or bringing great success and making somebody/something famous
2. to make something appear to be more important or impressive than it really is
3. a strong desire to have or do something

Question 49

We might have higher incomes, more wealth, and bigger homes - but it’s all so quickly smothered by infalated expectaions.

Answer 49

• to cover something/somebody thickly or with too much of something
• to kill somebody by covering their face so that they cannot breathe

Question 50

There are so many examples of this that defy intuition.

Answer 50

to be impossible or almost impossible to believe, explain, describe, etc.

Question 51

Harry Truman - a failed retailer, failed farmer, failed zinc miner, failed oil driller, and senator held on a leash by local Missourident businessman - was almost universally panned when he become president after Franklin Roosevelt died.

Answer 51

to severely criticize something such as a play or a film

Question 52

We should be less than candid at this grave moment if we did not recognize the great disparity between.

Answer 52

1. saying what you think openly and honestly; not hiding your thoughts
2. (of situations, feelings, etc.) very serious and important; giving you a reason to feel worried
3. a difference, especially one connected with unfair treatment

Question 53

They can make a celebrity feel miserabale and destitue family feel amazing.

Answer 53

without money, food and the other things necessary for life

Question 54

You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.

Answer 54

the fact of not complaining or showing what you are feeling when you are suffering

Question 55

It took less than thrty days for most people to go from never having heard of COVID-19 to it upending their life.

Answer 55

to turn somebody/something the wrong way up or onto one end

Question 56

New ideas fight for attention, business models fight incumbents, skyscrapers fight gravity. There’s always a headwind.

Answer 56

1. the person who has or had a particular official position
2. a wind blowing in the opposite direction to the one you are moving in

Question 57

But only one thing has to happen to cause its demise.

Answer 57

the end or failure of an institution, an idea, a company, etc.

Question 58

After just five weeks a human embryo has a brain, a beating heart, a pancreas, a liver, and a gallblader.

Answer 58

1. 胚胎
2. 胰臟
3. 膽囊

Question 59

Constructions requires skilled engineers; demolition requires only a sledgehammer.

Answer 59

1. to pull or knock down a building; to destroy something
2. 大錘

Question 60

So slow progress amid a drumbeat of bad news is the normal state of affairs.

Answer 60

1. in the middle of or surrounded by

Question 61

That’s hard for people to contextualize or even imagine, let alone measure.

Answer 61

1. to consider something in relation to the situation in which it happens or exists
2. used after a statement to emphasize that because the first thing is not true or possible, the next thing cannot be true or possible either

Question 62

It is so easy to discount how much progress is achievable.

Answer 62

to think or say that something is not important or not true

Question 63

If I were to say, “What are the odds average American will be twice as rich fifty years from now?” it sounds preposterous.

Answer 63

completely unreasonable, especially in a way that shocks or annoys you

Question 64

Let me share a few ideas about the allure, and danger of shortcuts.

Answer 64

the quality of being attractive, interesting, or exciting

Question 65

Few stories make you wince as much as that of the Donner Party.

Answer 65

to suddenly make an expression with your face that shows that you are embarrassed or feeling pain

Question 66

The journey was grueling and risky at the best of times, taking several months and under constant threat of attack from Native Americans, disease, and nasty weather.

Answer 66

1. very difficult and making you very tired, needing great effort for a long time
2. even when the circumstances are very good
3. very bad or unpleasant

Question 67

The “shortcut” was for longer and arduous than the traditional route, taking them through the scorching heat of the Great Salt Lake Desert in the middle of summer.

Answer 67

1. involving a lot of effort and energy, especially over a period of time
2. very hot

Question 68

Before long, starvation set in, and members began dying in droves.

Answer 68

1. soon
2. When something unpleasant sets in, it begins and seems likely to continue in a serious way.
3. a large group, especially of people, moving towards a place成群的

Question 69

That’s when the survivors of the Donner Party resorted to what would make them famous for the ages: cannabalism.

Answer 69

to do something that you do not want to do because you cannot find any other way of achieving something

Question 70

There’s a scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia in which Lawrence puts out a match with his fingers and doesn’t flinch.

Answer 70

1. 點火
2. to make a sudden movement with your face or body as a result of pain, fear, surprise, etc.

Question 71

His career leading up to then was a bleak; at one point he lived in a halfway house for the cheap rent.

Answer 71

1. to be an introduction to or the cause of something
2. ​(of a situation) not giving any reason to have hope or expect anything good

Question 72

The other end of spectrum - fully accepting every incidence of nonsense and hassle - is just as bad.

Answer 72

1. incidence of something (formal)： the extent to which something happens or has an effect
2. a situation that is annoying because it involves doing something difficult or complicated that needs a lot of effort

Question 73

Franklin Roosevelt - the most powerful man in the world, whose paralysis meant his aides often had to carry him to the bathroom…

Answer 73

1. a loss of control of, and sometimes feeling in, part or most of the body, caused by disease or an injury to the nerves
2. ​a person who helps another person, especially a politician, in their job

Question 74

Often nothing works. Emotion run wild. Confusion reigns.

Answer 74

1. to grow or develop freely without any control
2. (of an idea, a feeling or an atmosphere) to be the most obvious feature of a place or moment

Question 75

But dealing with that hassle is the entire reason why it can be lucrative.

Answer 75

​producing a large amount of money; making a large profit

Question 76

The most likely answer is that he lives in denial over what he thinks he’s in control of and demands unrealistic precision from subordinates who compensates by hiding bad news.

Answer 76

1. a statement that something is not true or does not exist; the action of denying something
2. a person who has a position with less authority and power than somebody else in an organization
3. ?

Question 77

One estimate calculated… the resulting firestorm would have engulfed an area the size of the state of Maryland.

Answer 77

to surround or to cover somebody/something completely

Question 78

But there was a weird silver lining to how deadly these bombs were…

Answer 78

an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation

Question 79

neither country wanted “a war that would leave not one Rome intact but two Carthages destroyed.”

Answer 79

complete and in the original state

Question 80

By 1960 we got around this predicament by going the other way.

Answer 80

1. to deal with a problem successfully
2. a difficult or an unpleasant situation, especially one where it is difficult to know what to do

Question 81

We built nuclear landmines that could fit in a backpack, with a warhead the size of a shoebox.

Answer 81

1. a bomb placed on or under the ground, which explodes when vehicles or people move over it
2. 彈頭

Question 82

The risk was that a country would “responsibly” use a tiny nuclear weapon in battle, starting a retaliatory escalation that opened the door to lauching one of the big bombs.

Answer 82

1. intended to harm somebody because they harmed you first
2. the act of becoming or making something greater, worse, more serious, etc.

Question 83

Big risks are easy to overlook because they’re just a chain reaction of small events,each of which is easy to shrug off.

Answer 83

to treat something as if it is not important

Question 84

We’ve seen it happen time after time.

Answer 84

often; on many or all occasions

Question 85

People weren’t complacent.

Answer 85

too satisfied with yourself or with a situation, so that you do not feel that any change is necessary; showing or feeling complacency

Question 86

What happend - and I can only say this with hindsight - was a bunch of small risks colliding and multiplying at once.

Answer 86

1. the understanding that you have of a situation only after it has happened and that means you would have done things in a different way
2. (of people, their opinions, etc.) to disagree strongly
3. at the same time

Question 87

In the aftermath authorities wondered how such an egregious catastrophe could occur.

Answer 87

1. the situation that exists as a result of an important (and usually unpleasant) event, especially a war, an accident, etc.
2. extremely bad

Question 88

It was books that taught me that things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.

Answer 88

to make somebody suffer very much

Question 89

the most-admired person in the investing industry has at times had a miserable family life - partly his own doing, the collateral damage of a life where picking stocks was the highest priority.

Answer 89

collateral(n): 抵押品
collateral damage: deaths of or injury to civilians (= people not in the armed forces) or damage to buildings that are not connected to the military during a war. People say ‘collateral damage’ to avoid saying ‘innocent people being killed’.

Question 90

I grew up with a chronic stutter.

Answer 90

1. (of a problem) lasting a long time; difficult to solve
2. a speech problem in which a person finds it difficult to say the first sound of a word and repeats it several times

Question 91

so many things can be disguised in a way that places a facade of normalcy over a person’s internel struggle.

Answer 91

1. to hide something or change it, so that it cannot be recognized
2. the way that somebody/something appears to be, which is different from the way somebody/something really is
3. a situation where everything is normal or as you would expect it to be

Question 92

And it’s stripped of all the hard parts.

Answer 92

to take away property or honours from somebody, as a punishment

Question 93

When you are keenly aware of your own struggles but blind to those of others, it’s easy to assume you’re missing some skill or secret that others have.

Answer 93

in a way that involves strong or deep feelings or awareness

Question 94

Only when you get to know someone well do you realize that the best you can do in life is to become an expert at some things while remaining inept at others - and that’s if you are good.

Answer 94

acting or done with no skill

Question 95

And I submit to you that second question is actually the more important of the two.

Answer 95

to say or suggest something

Question 96

But I’m very confident about people’s penchant for greed and fear, which never changes.

Answer 96

a special liking for something