The Empty Pot（盆）
Long ago, the King of China announced a contest to find the next ruler of the land. He was getting old and had no sons to take over the throne（王位）.
One thing about the King is that he loved to grow plants. So he announced that any boy who wanted to be king would have to come to the palace and 1 a royal （皇室 的）seed. In six months, the boy who grew the best2 would be the one to win the contest. He would be the next to sit on the throne.
On the big day, huge crowds of boys came to the palace. Jun was one of those boys, he was quiet and good at growing things. Each boy took home his royal seed, held tightly in his hand.
Over the next few days, Jun watered his pot every day. All over the country, boys were doing the same thing. Each one looked with3 at his own pot.
Chen was the first boy to announce that a green leaf was coming up. Han was the next one to say a little green plant was coming up in his pot. Then it was Wang. Jun did not know why there was empty in his pot. He had much experience in growing, none of the other boys could grow plants as 4 as he! But still, Jun's seed did not grow.
Six months passed. The day came when all the boys needed to bring their plants to the palace to be judged.
"What will I do?" cried Jun to his mother and father as he looked out the window.
"My pot is empty! My seed did not grow!"
"Bring the King your pot, the way it is." said his father. "That's right." said Jun's mother. "You did the best you could." Then Jun carried his empty pot on the road to the palace.
At the palace, all the boys lined up. Holding their big, strong plants in front of them, they 5 to be judged. The King looked at each plant with a blank look on his face. When he came to Jun, he frowned(皱眉) and said, "What is this? You brought me an empty pot?" It was all Jun could do to keep from crying. "I tried my best. I planted your seed in the best soil I could find. I kept it wet and watched it every day. When the seed did not 6 , I moved it to new soil, and I even moved it a third time. But it just didn't grow!" Jun hung his head. "I'm sorry."
"Hmm," said the King. Turning so everyone could hear he shouted, "I do not know where all these other boys got their seeds. There is no 7 anything could grow from the seeds we passed out for the contest. And that is because all those seeds had been 8 ! No plant could grow from them!" So anyone who showed me his beautiful plant must be a liar. Only this man told me the truth. Do remember honesty is the best policy." And he smiled at Jun.
A | B | ||
| Eye contact is the act of looking into someone's eyes. Keeping eye contact during a conversation gives the impression that you are friendly and that you are paying attention to the other person. |
| It can be used to mean "okay" or "all right." In some parts of Europe, however, the same signal is used to express you are nothing. In some South American countries, the symbol is actually a rude action. |
C | D | ||
| In most cases, nodding the head up and down often means agreement, but not for the Greeks. Nodding one's head up and down for them actually means "no", especially nodding your head slightly upward. |
| This widely recognized sign of agreement is actually used as a rudeness in Bangladesh. But in U.K., when you are standing on the street and thumb up, which means "get me a ride". |
An Invention Story
Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart. He or she pushes it many miles in a lifetime. But few know or even think to ask who invented
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time, he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers carrying the shopping baskets hard, which led them unwilling to buy more items. One day, Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman's first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn't wait to see them using his invention. But, Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try. After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren't using his carts. "Don't you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?" one shopper replied. But Goldman wasn't beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only people could give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired（雇佣）a group of people to push carts around his market as if they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying them.
As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. As a result, more people came and bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers bought a greater number of items than before.
Today's shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman's earliest model. Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did in 1937 before the coming of the shopping cart, perhaps the shopping cart is one reason.
New Technology : Carbon Capture（捕获）
To reduce CO2 in the air, the European Union has set up strict regulations (法规) over the past few years, and most European car companies have begun to move to electric vehicle（交通工具）production under the new regulations. However, their efforts are far from enough.
Planting trees can cut down CO2 in the air, but just doing this isn't enough to deal with climate change. Now one way discussed widely is carbon capture. It refers to the technology that can protect the earth against climate change by cutting down CO2 in the air. Carbon capture technology is used to collect CO2 that is given off by factories. For example, it can be fitted to coal-burning power stations and factories to capture the CO2 before it is given off by factories. The captured CO2 can then be liquefied（液化）and stored underground. Besides, the technology can also be used to collect the CO2 that has already gone into the air.
Then how can we deal with the CO2 we capture? Proper utilization is truly important. It can not only help create markets for this new technology, but also make it cheaper for companies to use. Nowadays, CO2 is used in greenhouses to grow vegetables. CO2 can even be used to make useful products, such as plastics, building materials, and plants.
Carbon capture is considered to be quite helpful. However, there are many problems on the way. There's 50 billion tons of carbon going out into the air from cars and factories every year. But even a great number of carbon capture machines now can capture only a few dozens of tons of it. The thickness of CO2, in the open air is about 300 times less than that in the power stations or factories, making it much less efficient to capture CO2. Because of this, carbon capture machines are very expensive today. So, it's hard to make a real difference in fighting climate change now. But it will be improved quickly and will become cheaper and more efficient. It is like the mobile phones which were expensive and difficult to use 20 years ago. But now mobile phones have been greatly improved.
Success is a state of happiness or satisfaction with one's achievements and qualities. It is freedom of time, freedom of money, and freedom of passion. This level of success makes you more productive for society and creates the ability to give back to the community. What's interesting is that most successful people have very similar qualities. The more qualities you have in common, the higher your chances for being wildly successful. Those who have become successful have these qualities:
● Clear Aim
Successful people know what they want clearly and they follow their own dream. It is this sense of direction that gives them the staying power to stick to their goals and achieve their dreams.
● Focused
People who experience success know how to concentrate. They realize that they cannot do everything and they focus on the activities that will give them the highest return on the goals they want to achieve. They know that the fastest way to finish their to-do's is doing them one at a time.
● Masters of Time
Successful people are successful because they get a lot done. The only way to do that is by making the most out of the 24 hours we all get. Extraordinary people value their time and see the direct connection between how they spend their time and their energy.
● Confident
This is what helps successful people take action. Like the chicken and the egg situation, in which you do not know which of two connected events is the cause of the other. Confidence helps you achieve your goals which in turn makes you more confident. A great way to be confident is remembering your past successes and overcoming your fear of failure. Signs of confidence include understanding that the first time you do something is always the hardest and then it will get easier.
● Self-Control
Successful people rarely lose control. They don't go into panics or blind anger. They have learned to control their emotions and put themselves in a resourceful state. They understand that they can't change other people or what's happening to them but they can change how they react to it and how they feel about it. Another sign of self-control is doing what you're supposed to do despite how you feel about it.
So where do you stand? I hope you have either made sure many of your own qualities or have created action plans to develop the qualities you are lacking. Focus on developing one or two qualities at a time. Once your beliefs and actions are lined with those of a successful person, you'll be amazed by how successful you become.
Chinese snowboarder Su Yiming: Love is why I do the sport
Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games was a party for people around the world. Young athletes came out and made a name for themselves. Chinese snowboarder Su Yiming is the youngest Chinese athlete.
On Feb. 15th, 2022, three day later would be his 18th birthday, he got the gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and he is the first Chinese snowboarder to win a gold medal at the Winter Games. When Su got the medal, he was really excited. Born in Jilin Province. Su's parents took him to a ski club when he was just a little kid. He spent all day playing outside in snow. He liked standing on his father's snowboard best. When he turned four, Su received his first snowboard and started to learn snowboarding. Despite（尽管）being even shorter than the snowboard, Su managed to slide down on his own quickly. Just two years later, Su made such huge progress that it became difficult for his father to catch up with his speed.
And ever since then, Su has not taken the snow board off his feet, no matter winter or summer, day or night. Gradually, Su started taking part in competing against adults and traveling all over the world to train in a better environment.
Known as a talented young snowboarder, Su was more famous for his roles in movies and TV series. It was a difficult decision for this young man to make, but Su finally chose snowboarding over becoming a movie star, because he wanted to become a professional athlete and compete in the Olympics.
"I successfully realized the dream that I've had since I was a kid. I've always dreamed about winning this gold medal before 18 years old. I made it," he said. "I also want everyone to know that I can not only be good at one thing, but I can be the best at anything I like. I've learned a lesson that hard work would never lie. Today I proved it."
Su's experience is an inspiration（激励；鼓舞）to us. Success requires much more than just talent. Hard work matters a lot.
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