Volunteer opportunities for high school students
This year, high school students everywhere are suffering the loss of proms, graduation ceremonies, and everyday joys because of COVID-19. And yet, sometimes the ideal way to pull yourself away from your struggles is to find a selfless job. What follows are ways you can be of service from the safety of your own home.
Provide virtual COVID-19 assistance
Something as simple as becoming a digital advocate for the Red Cross can allow teens to make an impact on the crisis. This can involve actions like simply sharing Red Cross content across social media platforms or organizing an online fundraiser. Points of Light can connect you to a host of pandemic-oriented causes including writing letters to health care workers, or reducing food stress for needy families in your area.
Instruct students online
Low-income and minority students have suffered great educational losses during the pandemic, as technological barriers and under-resourced urban schools have only increased an already tragic achievement gap. TeensGive.org allows individuals in 9th-12th grade many opportunities to instruct peers online.
Become a translator
If you happen to be bilingual, there are plenty of ways in which you can contribute to a great cause right from your computer. For example, UNICEF presently needs five COVID-19-related documents translated from English to French. You could also consider joining the army of TED Translators who work on subtitling the inspirational videos so that they can be enjoyed by audiences around the globe.
File historical documents
Fans of history may be interested in becoming citizen file collectors for a non-profit organization such as the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Would you enjoy transcribing speeches made by Franklin Roosevelt, or cataloging Purple Hearts awarded between 1942 and 1963? These tasks are awaiting the help of virtual volunteers right now. During this tough time, just follow the words of Teddy Roosevelt to "do the best you can, with what you have, where you are". Online volunteer work may prove to be exactly that.
My fifteen-year-old son has just returned from abroad with rolls of exposed film and a hundred dollars in uncashed traveler's checks, and is asleep at the moment. His blue duffel (粗呢) bag lies on the floor where he dropped it. Obviously, he put off as much sleep as he could: when he walked in and we hugged, his electrical system suddenly switched off, and he headed directly for the bed, where I imagine he beat his old record of sixteen hours.
It was his first trip overseas, so weeks before it, I pressed on him travel books and a tape cassette of useful French phrases, drew up a list of people to visit, and advised him on clothing and other things. At the luggage store where we went to buy him a suitcase, he headed for the duffels, saying that suitcases were more for old people.
During the trip, he called home three times: from London, Paris, and a village named Ullapool. Near Ullapool, he climbed a mountain in a rainstorm that almost blew him off. In the village, a man spoke to him in Gaelic, and, too polite to interrupt, my son listened to him for ten or fifteen minutes, trying to nod in the right places. The French he learned from the cassette didn't hold water in Paris. The French he talked to shrugged (耸肩) and walked on.
When my son called, I sat down at the kitchen table and leaned forward and hung on every word. His voice came through clearly, though two of the calls were like ship-to-shore communication. When I interrupted him with a "Great!" or a "Really?" I knocked a little hole in his communication. So I just sat and listened. I have never listened to a telephone so attentively and with so much pleasure. It was wonderful to hear news from him that was so new to me. In my book, he was the first man to land on the moon, and I knew that I had no advice to give him and that what I had already given was probably not much help.
The unused checks are certainly evidence of that. Youth travels light. No suitcase, not much luggage and a slim expense account, and yet he went to the scene, and came back safely. I sit here amazed. The night when your child returns with dust on his shoes from a country you've never seen is a night you would gladly turn into a week.
Ford is turning McDonald's coffee waste into headlights
Ford is recently including coffee chaff — coffee bean skin that comes off during the roasting process — into the plastic headlights housing (大灯外壳) used in some cars. It has asked McDonald's, which doesn't roast its own coffee, to connect it with suppliers.
In recent years, as consumers become more concerned about plastic pollution and carbon emissions, companies have made sweeping commitments to reduce their impacts on the environment. They've also been developing new, sustainable materials to build consumer products.
Traditionally, Ford uses plastic and talc (滑石粉) to make its headlights housing. The coffee version is more sustainable because it's lighter and doesn't use the talc which, as a mineral, isn't renewable. Coffee chaff, on the other hand, is widely available, and much of it goes to waste. Eventually, Ford hopes to use the material for more parts.
Ford decided to work with coffee chaff a few years ago. But it's been experimenting with organic materials for over a decade. The auto company has been using soy-based foam (泡沫) in its cushions since 2011. It also uses waste from wheat, coconut, tomato and other plants in its cars in order to help meet some of its sustainability goals, which include using more renewable materials. Once the Ford team figured out how coffee chaff could be used to build car parts, it reached out to McDonald's because of the restaurant chain's scale and its sustainability goals. Like Ford, McDonald's also wants to bring renewable and recycled materials into its products. The partnership between Ford and McDonald's is an example of how brands with different projects can work together.
"We've conventionally thought of cooperation as within the food industry," said Lan Olson, senior director of Global Sustainability at McDonald's. "The Ford partnership can help McDonald's see what kind of larger impacts are possible, when it works with a company in another field. This is just scratching the surface of trying to understand what's possible," Olson said.
It's common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that's 15. 4 degrees off to the observer's right—well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, "She's not looking at you." This is somewhat ironic (讽刺的), because the entire phenomenon of a person's gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the "Mona Lisa effect". That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person's gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don't cut the gaze of the character to that side—surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn't looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the "Mona Lisa" and realized she wasn't looking at him.
To make sure it wasn't just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the "Mona Lisa" on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected (和…相交) Mona Lisa's gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa's gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, as the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the "Mona Lisa" portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn't sure. It's possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term "Mona Lisa effect" just thought it was a cool name.
B . 
C . 
D . 
Much meaning can be conveyed clearly with our eyes, so it is often said that eyes can speak.
In a bus you may look at a stranger, but not for too long. And if he senses that you are staring at him, he may feel uncomfortable.
The same is true in our daily life. If you are stared at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down to see if there is anything wrong with you. Eyes do speak, right?
Looking too long at someone may seem to be rude and aggressive. If a man stares at a woman for more than 10 seconds and refuses to look away from her, his intentions are obvious. He wishes to attract her attention and let her know that he is admiring her.
However, when two persons are engaged in a conversation, the speaker will only look into the listener's eyes from time to time to make sure that the listener does pay attention to what the former is speaking. If a speaker looks at you continuously when speaking as if trying to control you, you will feel awkward. A poor liar usually exposes himself by looking too long at the victim. He wrongly believes that looking straight in the eye is a sign of honest communication.
Actually, eye contact should be made based on specific relationship and situation.
A. On the contrary, it will give him away.
B. Do you have such a kind of experience?
C. That's what normal eye contact is all about.
D. Actually, continuous eye contact is limited to lovers only.
E. After all, everybody likes to be stared at for quite a long time.
F. But things are different when it comes to staring at the opposite sex.
G. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel annoyed at being stared at that way.
John graduated from a key university and he was very good at his major. He wished to find a good job. One day, he went to a company to 1 for a job. He got the news in a newspaper. He did some research on this company. When he was 2, everything went well. The manager asked him some questions and he answered them 3. John was very satisfied with his performances and was very 4 that he could get the job. But at that moment, the manager's phone 5. He picked up the phone, listened and nodded. And then he turned around and said to John, "Sorry, I want to get some important 6 now. Please give me the book with the red 7 on that desk." John looked around and found 3 books on the desk, so John went to the desk, took one book and handed it to him 8. Holding the book, the manager 9 the phone and said, "Sorry, we cannot give the job to you." John was 10 and wondered why. The manager said, "There are three 11. First, when you came into the office room, I found that the third button on your shirt had been missing. Second, there are three books with red covers on that desk, but you didn't ask me which one I needed and you took one randomly (随机地). Third, I was answering the call. You should 12 to the desk to save time. These 13 showed you are not a careful person."14, John didn't get the job.
We can learn a(n) 15 from John's experience. Some people don't 16 the details in our life. But it is the details that 17. Not only should we value what we learn but also we should pay more attention to the details. Sometimes they can even 18 our success or failure. We should form the habit of being careful and learn to keep the 19 of quantity and quality. We should keep it in mind that 20 comes first, without which quantity is of no significance.
It is sad but true that people die in earthquakes falling furniture and bricks. Earthquake (safe) is very important and there is more to it just keeping buildings from falling down. So if your home is in an earthquake area, you should prepare carefully before the earthquake
(occur).
First, make sure you buy a house which is safe during the earthquake. All pipes should be fixed to the walls and all walls should be (especial) thick and strong. Make sure the building has no (break) windows and is well repaired.
Second, look at the objects in your house. Objects computers, televisions and lamps can be tied to tables or (stick) to them so they won't easily move around. The cupboards, many small things are stored, should have strong doors. Always remember, (good) safe than sorry.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线( \)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Do you read reviews after you go to the cinema? I used to do that, but I usually wished I didn't. I used to read so much about a movie on advance that often I ended up not go to see it at all. The writers point everything out that is wrong with the film, and seldom mentions anything good about one. They also tell us the important things and even the ending of the movie. Lately I have changed way I choose movies to look.
Now I never read reviews before a movie. I read them afterwards, if necessary. I don't watch the talk shows which people discuss movies. And I don't ask other people how they like of a movie. Now, I enjoy myself even more.
