Big Ben | |
Location (位置) | On River Thames. |
Age | years old. |
Where its name from | Its Benjamin. |
How often it strikes | Every . |
Interesting facts | •On the New Year's Eve in 1962, it stopped going for ten minutes because of . •One night in , the clock stopped working for one hour because of the hot weather. |
A ship was badly broken during a storm at sea. Only two of the men were able to swim to a small, 1 island. Not knowing what else to do, so they agreed to pray(祈祷) to God for help.
However, they wanted to find 2 whose prayers were more powerful. So they divided the island into two parts and each of them 3 stayed on their own part of the island.
The first thing they 4 for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a tree with plenty of fruit on his side of the island. But the other man's part of the island 5 nothing.
Soon after that the first man prayed for a house, 6 and more food. The next day, like magic, all of these things were given to him. However, the second man 7 had nothing.
Finally, the first man prayed for a 8 so that he could leave the island, and in the following morning he really found a ship at his side of the island.
The first man was very 9 and got on the ship. He decided to leave the second man on the island. He thought the other man was unworthy to receive God's blessings(保佑) since none of his prayers had been 10 .
As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a 11 from Heaven, "Why are you 12 your friend on the island?"
"My blessings are mine alone 13 I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered, so he doesn't deserve(应得) 14 ."
"You are 15 !" the voice shouted. "The only prayer your friend prayed was that all your prayers would be answered."
Homework is a problem for students all over the world. As a student, you have a lot of homework to do every day. It's a major part of a student's schooldays. It's the best way to review what you have learned in class. And it helps you understand important concepts（概念）. Luckily, there are several things you can do to make homework less diffiicult.
Be sure you understand the homework
Write your homework down in your notebook if you need to. Don't be afraid to ask questions about it. It's much easier to ask the teacher during or after class than to try to remember later that night!
Use your time at school
Many schools have study halls. It is designed to allow students to study on their own. It's more interesting to play with your friends. But the more homework you finish at school, the less you'll have to do that night.
Take a break
It's difficult to hold your attention for too long. So take some breaks while doing your homework. Siting for too long without relaxing will make you feel very tired. Taking a 15-minute break every hour is a good idea for most people.
Make a plan
If you don't finish your homework at school, think about how much you have left, so you can budget your time. Most students have between 1 hour and 3 hours of home-work a night. If it's a heavy homework day, you'll need to spend more time on it. It's a good idea to make a homework timetable, especially when you want to enjoy sports or other activities.
When you watch programs about monkeys on TV, do you have face blindness? Have you ever wondered how the scientists know who is who when they study monkeys' behavior?
In the past, scientists had to make special signs on each of the animals. But in the future, they may have much easier way to identify (辨认) them thanks to facial recognition (面部识别) technology.
A research team from China's Northwest University is using facial recognition technology to identify thousands of snub-nosed monkeys (金丝猴) that live on Qinling Mountain in Shanxi Province.
Similar to human facial recognition, the technology creates a system that includes every monkey's facial picture, Xinhua reported.
"When the system is fully developed, we can connect it with cameras set up in the mountains. The system will recognize the monkeys, name them and study their behavior," said Zhang He, a member of the research team.
"We used mobile phones and cameras with' the monkeys in tests and stayed about 3 to 10 meters away from them," he added. "There is no need to disturb the monkeys."
Compared with humans, facial recognition technology for monkeys is more difficult because of their hairy faces. The color of their hair makes them easy to hide in their environment. These are the reasons that make it harder for computers to identify them.
"Monkeys do not work with researchers in the same way humans do. It is difficult, to take high-quality (高质量的) pictures and videos of them, which are needed to improve the system," said Li Baoguo, leader of the research team.
There are about 4,000 snub-nosed monkeys living on Qinling Mountain now. The team plans to successfully identify every monkey that lives there.
I had a summer camp with my classmates last year.
Early in the morning we met at the bus station. After saying goodbye to our parents, we got on the buses. It took us more than two hours to arrive at the campground（营地）.
We got off the buses happily. Laughing and shouting. We jumped and ran all over the place. It was the first time for us to be away from the parents. Some of us started to feel homesick（想家）.
However, when the night party and dances began, the homesickness was gone.
The next day, everybody went to the boating class hoping to be the first. At first, my friends and I worked hard, but the boat wouldn't listen to us and kept going round and round. Then the teacher taught us how to work together. After many tries, we did much better. Swimming class was my favorite. It was about the hottest time of a day and the best time to stay in the cool water. The swimming teacher was a funny man, and during the class he often made us laugh happily. During the week l learned a lot of new things and made many new friends. I also learned how to take care of myself.
When you look at the map of the Tengger Desert（腾格尔沙漠）, you will see a "green wall" in the southwest. It products Wuwei City of Gansu Province from sandstorms.
With an area of over 8,000 mu, the "green wall" was planted by Wang Tianchang and his family. They have done this great job for over 20 years.
In his seventies now, Wang Tianchang is an ordinary farmer from Gansu Province. He and his family live in a small village close to the Tengger Desert. People there once suffered a lot from sandstorms for a long time. They destroyed their farms and houses. To hold back sand, Wang Tianchang decided to do something. In 1999, Wang planted his first plant in the desert and started his life of sand control.
It is never easy to bring life on the desert. In the beginning, Wang had no experience with desert plants. The sand covered the holes he dug very soon. The wind rooted out the seedlings he planted even on the second day he had done. It was challenging, but he never gave up.
His family helped him a lot, especially his son Wang Yinji. To plant more trees, the two of them even lived in the desert for about six years. They found grass to sleep on as their beds.
Thanks to Wang's "green wall", Wuwei City sees much fewer sandstorms. Wang has brought back not only green to the desert but also hopes to the people there. He is our hero!
There is a colorless tiger. He seems like something out of an old black and w movie. His lack （缺乏）of color makes him so famous that the world's great painters want to come to his zoo to t to put some color on him. But the colors always just drips （滴）down off his skin （皮肤）.
Then along comes a p called Van Cough. When he travels around, he likes to paint (happy) with his brush. He never puts any paint on his brush, and he doesn't u canvas （画布） or paper. He paints the air.
When going into the tiger's cage, he begins saying some words to the big animal, and (move) his dry brush up and d the tiger's body. Later, people can see c on the tiger's skin. Everyone wants to k what the painter's secret is. He says to them that his brush is only good for painting real life and he needs no colors. He can do it because of the words he kept s to the tiger: "In just a few days you will be free again, you will see."
