"Paul must have been trying to carry his waste paper to garbage can and dropped a few pieces." I 1 picking them up one by one. However, I found more pieces a few moments later. No quiet complaining this time. I called out instead, "Who is throwing garbage?" No answer. As a result, I saw more bits of paper quietly flying down from upstairs. Looking up, I saw my seven-year-old son, Paul.
"Stop making a mess anymore!" "It's not a mess. They're 2." "Sorry, what did you say?" I didn't hear him clearly. He didn't answer me. In fact, I was surprised indeed.
Paul has autism (自闭症) and 3 answers a question, especially when he's focused attentively on something else. He ran down the stairs. "Where are my other butterflies?" he asked, looking around. Every time Paul 4 five or more words together, my heart says a lot of thanks. Lately he seems to realize that the benefits of making sentences when communicating are worthy.
"Butterflies, Of course." I rushed to save them from the garbage,5 them off and handed them to my young artist. "Want to see them fly again?" he asked with a shy smile. "Oh yes! They're beautiful." I whispered. He ran back upstairs quickly to fly his 6 down again. They really did look like beautiful butterflies flying in the sky.
That day, I said thanks to my son. Because Paul reminded me to look up at something 7 instead of down at garbage. How many other artworks do I 8because I'm too caught up in my housework to take time to see what's right in front of me? Life is not what happens to us. It's how we look at it. Now, I look up often.
When you go on a vacation, the hotel you choose and the room you stay in are important. There are many cool theme hotel rooms around the world. Here are some of them.
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The Harry Potter Room This 19th-century castle hotel is beside Harry Potter tour bus stop. The bus will take you to the Making of Harry Potter studio tour. The George Castle Hotel in England gives its guests the experience of staying in Harry Potter's world. |
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Ice Theme Room An ice theme can be found at Hotel De Glace in Canada. In winter, you can get a fireplace and a private spa in the rooms. The ice hotel has new rooms each year. This winter, it will build a room with the theme of Disney's movie Frozen. |
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Pirate(海盗) Theme Room If you want a more attractive theme room, the Adventure Island Hotel in America is the best choice. In their pirate theme rooms, you'll feel like you're on a pirate ship in a world of sea adventures. |
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Night at the Movie Room At the Wensley Hotel in Australia, guests are crazy about the Night at the Movies Room. There they can see different things of Hollywood, such as Hollywood signs over the door, and hand-painted actors' pictures above the bed. |
Rubber Fish
My friend and I were sitting on our beach chairs while watching our girls playing in the surf on that summer morning. About 50 yards from us, a man— maybe in his late 50s—was fishing with big poles(鱼竿).
After running for a while, the girls reached him and watched him. He smiled at them. They ran back to us—all except my three-year-old Alice. Instead, she sat down next to the man.
"Alice! Come here! Play with your friends!" I said, very worried that my speeches about not talking to strangers weren't working. Hearing me, Alice ran over to me. Then she looked me in the eye, "I want to be with the man." She ran back, sat down next to him again, and started digging.
Every few seconds I watched back to Alice to make sure she was safe. Just a man fishing. A little girl sitting.
In the second, Alice had started talking. Her mouth was moving. She was probably telling the man where we lived and how her father was away on business and how her mother sometimes let her ride bikes with her brother in the driveway alone. He nodded, then laughed.
A few seconds later, she ran back to us, waving something very shiny and slimy. "Look, Mommy! A toy fish!" It was a yellow rubber toy fish, which must have been what he was using for bait(鱼饵). And he'd given it to Alice. The three other girls all reached for the fish. Alice looked at me for help, then at the man, then back to me.
"My friend gave me that fish!" She said. Tears were fast falling. Just as I didn't know how to solve the problem, suddenly, there he was: the man, standing right next to us. He was holding three more rubber fish. He handed them to each of the girls." Thank you," the girls said, with their face shining like the sun. There is evil(罪恶）...but there is also the lesson for mothers to learn that only three-year-old could teach them. The man waved at us and walked back to his poles.
In the United States alone, over 100 million cell-phones are thrown away each year. Cell-phones are part of a growing mountain of electronic waste like computers and personal digital assistants. The electronic waste stream is increasing three times faster than traditional garbage as a whole.
Electronic devices contain valuable metals such as gold and silver. A Swiss study reported that while the weight of electronic goods represented by precious metals was relatively small in comparison to total waste, the concentration (含量) of gold and other precious metals was higher in so-called e-waste than in naturally happening minerals.
Electronic wastes also contain many poisonous metals. Even when the machines are recycled and the harmful metals removed, the recycling process often is carried out in poor countries, in practically uncontrolled ways which allow many poisonous substances (物质)to escape into the environment.
Creating products out of materials creates much more waste material, up to 100 times more, than the material contained in the finished products. Consider again the cell-phone, and imagine the mines that produced those metals, the factories needed to make the box and packaging it came in. Many wastes produced in the producing process are harmful as well.
The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that most waste is dangerous in that "the production, distribution, and use of products-as well as management of the resulting waste-all result in greenhouse gas release." Individuals can reduce their contribution by creating less waste at the start-for example, buying reusable products and recycling.
In many countries the concept of extended producer responsibility
is being considered or has been put in place as an incentive (动机) for reducing waste. If producers are required
to take back packaging they use to sell their products 
would they reduce the packaging in the first place?
Governments' incentive to require producers to take responsibility for the packaging they produce is usually based on money. Why, they ask, should cities or towns be responsible for paying to deal with the bubble wrap (气泡垫) that encased your television?
From the governments' point of view, a primary goal of laws requiring extended(扩大的) producer responsibility is to transfer both the costs and the physical responsibility of waste management from the government and tax-payers back to the producers.
Here are two methods that people use to make choices. One method is to compare the options(可选择的物品) with each other and choose the best one. The other is to evaluate each option individually and then pick the best one. Experts are more likely to evaluate the options individually, while ordinary people tend to compare the options.
Researches show that it is easier for people to make choices when they are being compared. Imagine buying a new dictionary. You find out that a particular dictionary has 50,000 words in it. Suppose, though, that you find out that another dictionary only has 25,000 words in it. Now, you know that 50,000 words is a good number for a dictionary to have.
New research shows that when people compare options, they also get more confident in their judgments. To get participants in their studies in a mindset to make comparisons, researchers had people look at a complex picture and write down the similarities and differences between two halves of the picture. Other participants evaluated(评价) the picture without making comparisons. Previous work shows that this technique gets people to make comparisons in later tasks.
After that, participants were shown descriptions of three brands(品牌) of cell phones (labeled Brands A, B and C). They had a chance to study the descriptions. Later, they were shown fourteen of the characteristics they had seen and were asked whether those characteristics belonged to Brand B. With each response, participants were allowed to place a bet between 0 and 10 dollars based on how confident they were in their response. The higher the bet, the more confident the people were that they knew whether the characteristic belonged to Brand B. People who were put in a mindset to make comparisons were more confident in their judgments about the characteristics of the cell phones than people who did not make comparisons. Despite the difference in confidence, the people who made comparisons were not more accurate in their judgments than those who did not make comparisons.
This research suggests that we need to be careful when making decisions. On the one hand, we are quite likely to rely on comparing the options in order to make a choice. On the other hand, those comparisons will increase our feeling of confidence in the decision. So, we need to recognize that at least part of that confidence comes from the way the choice was made.
The Boy Made It!
One Sunday, Nicholas, a teenager, went skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. In the early afternoon, when he was planning to go home, a strong snowstorm swept into the area. Unable to see far, he turned off the path by accident. Before he knew it, Nicholas was lost, all alone! He didn't have food, water, a phone, or other supplies. He was getting colder by the minute.
Nicholas didn't know where he was. He tried to keep calm. He thought about all of the survival shows he had watched on TV. It was time to put the tips he had learned to use.
He decided to stop skiing. There was a better chance of someone finding him if he stayed put. The first thing he did was to find a shelter(遮盖物)from the freezing wind and snow so his body temperature wouldn't get very low to kill him.
Using his skis, Nicholas built a snow cave. He gathered a huge mass of snow and dug out a hole in the middle. Then he put branches on himself, like a blanket, to stay as warm as he could.
By that evening, Nicholas was really hungry. He ate snow and drank water from a nearby stream so his body wouldn't lose too much water. Not knowing how long he could last, Nicholas did the only thing he could — he huddled (蜷缩) in his cave and slept.
The next day, Nicholas went out to look for help but found nobody. He returned to the snow cave - without shelter, he could die that night. On Tuesday, Nicholas went out again to find help. He had walked for about a mile when a volunteer searcher found him. After two days stuck in the snow, Nicholas was saved.
Nicholas might not have survived had it not been for TV. He had often watched Grylls' survival show Man vs. Wild. That's where he learned the tips saved his life. In each episode (一期节目) of Man vs. Wild, Grylls is left in a wild area and has to find his way out.
When Grylls heard about Nicholas' amazing story, he was surprised that Nicholas had made it since he knew better than anyone how hard Nicholas had to work to stay alive.
假如你是李华，你们学校将要举办英语角活动，你打算邀请外教老师Tom作为辅导教师参加，并针对同学们英语学习方面的问题给予指导。请用英语写 一封电子邮件，告诉Tom活动的时间和地点，参加活动同学的数量，以及你们在英语学习方面存在的问题。
提示词语：in the hall, remember new words, give advice
提示问题：●When and where will you have the English Corner?
●How many students will take part in it?
●What problems do you have in English study?
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Dear Tom, I'm writing to invite you to take part in the English Corner …… I'm looking forward to your early reply. Yours, Li Hua |
某英文网站正在开展以“我的人生规划”为主题的征文活动，假如你是李华，请用英文写一篇短文投稿，谈谈你的人生目标是什么，你为什么这样的目标以及计划如何实现你的这一目标。
提示词语: scientist, doctor, teacher, university, knowledge, exercise
提示问题：●What is your goal in life?
● Why do you have this goal?
●What are you going to do to achieve the goal?
