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By Joseph Poulshock, PhD BeeOasis Step 2 “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” Mark Twain Mark Twain was the funniest man in America. He went on adventures. He travelled the world. He met presidents and kings. And he told great stories and jokes. He was a colorful person, [...]

BeeOasis Step 3 By Joseph Poulshock and Randall Short Most people think that thinking is important. If you are a good thinker, then you probably have a better chance at success in life. But how do you know if your thinking is good? And how can you improve your thinking ability? One way to improve [...]

By the Brothers Grimm BeeOasis Step 2 A long time ago, there lived a poor wood cutter and his wife. The wood cutter had two children from his first marriage. His little boy was called Hansel, and his little girl was named Gretel. The family lived near a great forest far away from the city. [...]

By Charles Perrault BeeOasis Step 2 There was a man who worked at a mill. Every day, he used machines to grind wheat and make it into flower. The miller worked his whole life at that mill. He worked hard, but at his death, he had almost nothing to leave his three sons. He could [...]

By Murray Gell-Mann (TED) BeeOasis Step 4 Well, I’m involved in other things, besides physics. In fact, mostly now in other things. One thing is distant relationships among human languages. And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S. and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away from any long-distance relationships, big groupings, groupings that [...]

Click here to read the Step 2 version of this story. John watched the river. The water was green and blue and full of fish. He looked at the leaves on the trees and the long, green grass. They were moving slowly in the quiet wind. This was a beautiful place. But suddenly, John heard [...]

Read this story at Step 3 Doctor Harry Harlow made a difficult puzzle. At least he thought it was difficult. On a block of wood, he placed a metal catch called a hinge. A hinge is a piece of metal joined to a door. It allows the door to open and shut. On this hinge, [...]

by Daniel Pink (TED) Creative Commons Word Count Tracking by BeeOasis.com I need to make a confession at the outset here. A little over 20 years ago I did something that I regret, something that I’m not particularly proud of, something that, in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but here I [...]

A light wind blew through the garden and shook the trees. From one tree, an apple fell and hit the ground. Isaac heard the sound, and it disturbed his thoughts. At the time, he was walking in his mother’s garden, and the apple had fallen from a nearby tree. Isaac began to contemplate some questions. [...]

A light wind blew through the garden and shook the trees. From one tree, an apple fell and hit the ground. Isaac heard the sound, and it disturbed his thoughts. At the time, he was walking in his mother’s garden, and the apple had fallen from a nearby tree. Isaac began to wonder. Why did [...]

By Eric Berlow (TED) BeeOasis Step 5 Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed when you’re faced with a complex problem? Well, I hope to change that in less than three minutes. So, I hope to convince you that complex doesn’t always equal complicated. So for me, a well-crafted baguette, fresh out of the oven, is [...]

  There was once a rich man whose wife died. She left him with one little girl. After some years, he married again. He hoped to give his child a mother’s love and care. His second wife had lost her husband by death, and she had two grown-up daughters. The new wife was beautiful, but [...]

Southern trees bear strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees These sad words open the song “Strange Fruit.” The song was written by Abel Meeropol, and it was sung and made famous by Billie Holiday. The words [...]

When people ask about English language ability, what is their first question? Usually, they ask this. “Can you speak English?” The total number of native English speakers in the world today is around 375,000,000 people. And about a billion people are learning English. The Economist, a news magazine, said this amazing thing about the future [...]

Change in 59 Seconds By Professor Richard Wiseman BeeOasis Step 3 59 Seconds is about the science of self-help. So one part of the book explodes commonly held myths. So for example, the idea that to motivate yourself, you have to visualize the perfect you. From a scientific perspective, that’s a disaster. What you want [...]

Get Your Goals By Richard Wiseman BeeOasis Step 3 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 were they doing that was so different? Well it all came down to five [...]

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 want to learn a new skill or get better at an old [...]

Once upon a time, there lived a King and Queen who had no children. Every day they prayed for a child. Finally, a daughter was born, and in their joy, they held a great celebration. For the celebration, the King invited all the fairies in his kingdom except one. There were thirteen fairies in the [...]

Once upon a time, there were three bears. They lived together in a little house in the middle of the woods. One of them was a Little Bear. One was a Middle-Sized Bear, and the other was a Big Bear. Every morning the bears ate *porridge for breakfast, and they each had their own pot [...]

by O. Henry One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. These pennies were saved one and two at a time. To save this money, she had to fight with the vegetable man, the meat man, and all the sales people in every store. Three times Della [...]