My family suffered a lot three years ago when my father died in a car accident. It1my mother, two younger brothers and me alone.
At that time, I was in senior high school. As the2 son, I had no choice but to3of school and work in a factory. Life went on without any 4I dared not ask for more and just thought about5 my two brothers. However, it wasn't easy, for I couldn't6 their tuition even if I worked day and night without rest. I also had to look after my sick mother. I wanted to go back to school, but it seemed to be a(n)7 idea, since I needed to work to support my family.
A thread of8 appeared during those gloomy days. It was a rainy dusk when I went outside into the rain and walked in the street9 the rain stopped! I raised my head, and found that “the sky” was in fact a dark blue umbrella. Then I heard a deep voice say, “Why not10 without an umbrella?” It was a one-legged man,11 you run, you won't get so wet.” His words12 me deeply. Without my father's protection, was I only a slave to 13?
While walking together in the rain, I knew that his dream was once14by an accident. He was glad that he didn't lose15 and still “ran” on the road of life… Facing this guy, I had no pity16admiration.
Inspired by his17 I went to a city in the south and became an assurance representative. After two years' “running”, I got somewhere and my family situation became better18 I went back to school and eventually succeeded in being19 to a university.
Everything is so simple: to run without an umbrella! When you run out of the 20season of your life, there will be a bright sky ahead of you.
Every mobile phone user worries about the battery life… Finally it's here! The amazing mobile phone solar charger will make sure your phone never runs out of battery again.
Our solar chargers are suitable for most phones: iPhone, Blackberry, Samsung, HTC, OPPO and LG. Our solar chargers can also charge your iPad, MP3 / MP4 player, iPOD, camera,GPS and so on. They are supplied with a wide range of adaptors(转换插头), which are suitable for different kinds of devices.
Our chargers are light and small. They fit very easily into a pocket. You can use the power of the sun to charge your solar charger on sunny days, and if your charger needs power on dull days, it can be charged by your PC via its USB connection.
Our chargers store many hours of battery life depending on which model you choose. The higher the mAh (电池的容量单位) is, the more powerful the charger is. The solar charger is great for: heavy phone users, travelling, backpacking, camping trips, boating, long plane flights and saving energy (clean and environmentally friendly). It is perfect for charging in foreign countries — you may arrive at your overseas hotel destination and not be able to find a local adaptor.
Keep one for emergencies — it could save your life. What if you break down in the middle of nowhere and you have no battery to call for emergency help? Or when there is no power available?
If you won't leave home without your phone, then don't leave home without one of our solar charger.
iPhone Solar Charger — 1,900 mAh
Price: US$37
Weight: 69g
Colour: Black
It stores the power until you use it.
Leather iPad Charger — 4,400 mAh
Price: US$121
Weight: 400g
Colour: Red, black, white ＆pink
Hard Plastic Solar Charger — 1,600 mAh
Price: US$51
Weight: 60g
Colour: Black
Anyone who has ever played the game of Tetris (俄罗斯方块) knows the game's surreal ability to spill into real life. After you shut off the game, you still see those Tetris blocks falling in your mind. You're grocery shopping and find yourself thinking about rearranging items on grocery shelves. Your mind continues to play the game, even when you're physically not.
Robert Stickgold, a Harvard professor, noticed something similar after a day hiking a mountain. That night, he dreamt he was still going through the motions of mountain hiking. Curious about this, he tried something: he got a group of college students of various skill levels to play Tetris and let them sleep in the Harvard sleep lab.
Over 60% of the students, including those who suffered from amnesia (健忘症), reported dreams of images of Tetris pieces falling, rotating (旋转), and fitting together. Interestingly, half the Tetris expert students reported such Tetris dreams, while 75% of the beginners did.
A study found that playing Tetris can grow your brain and make it more efficient. Adolescent girls played the game for an average of 1.5 hours a week over three months. The cerebral cortex (大脑皮层) of the girls grew thicker, while brain activity in other areas decreased. Richard Haier, who had found that there was a "Tetris learning effect", in which the brain consumed less energy as mastery of the game rose, concluded, "The brain is learning which areas not to use."
Haier's study showed that as the girls practiced playing the game, nerve cells made connections, communicating through synapses (a synapse is a connection between two nerve cells). When you learn something, you change those connections. Every time you reactivate(激活) a circuit, synaptic efficiency increases, and connections become more durable and easier to reactivate. Stickgold says sleep plays a role in this memory process.
So to sum up, whenever you do specific tasks over and over again, they take up less of your brain power over time. And that's pretty amazing.
①grow one's brain
②one's brain function efficiently
③arrange things tidily in life
④improve the adaptability of one's brain
This past Christmas season, I went to visit my parents. During the visit, I found the letters written by my parents to each other during the war in the attic (阁楼). The letters were piled high, dirty and had not been touched for decades. I asked mother and father if I could take the letters back to my home. They agreed.
As I opened each letter, all of them beautiful with age, I discovered a new page in this private part of my parents' lives. My father served in the army. His letters were full of frontline (前线) descriptions, and they continued all the way through the battle. Each of my mother's letters was sealed (密封) with her lipstick kiss. Father wrote that he sealed his return letters by rekissing her lipstick kiss. How they had been missing each other! I finished reading six months of the letters and discovered there were at least eleven months missing. Maybe they were lost forever.
Not long after our Christmas visit, Father became very ill and was in hospital. I went to the hospital to see him. As I sat by his bedside, he told me how much receiving those lipstick-kissed letters had meant to him when he had been so far from home.
Later that evening, Mother and I revisited the attic in search of the lost letters. Finally we dug them out of Mother's old college trunk (皮箱). The next day was Valentine's Day, and we went to the hospital. At my father's bedside, I showed him an old envelope. His curiosity was aroused. When he carefully opened the letter, he recognized it and his eyes were filled with tears. He read the love messages that had been delivered years before to my mother in a quavery (颤抖的) voice. This Valentine's Day, we were lucky that we had everything.
Flying devices called drones(无人机) may be one of the most important technologies of the future.
The number of jobs for people who know how to design, build and control them is increasing. Because of this increase, several U.S. universities have started offering degrees in unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS.
One of these universities is the University of Washington in Seattle. Ward Handley is seeking a master's degree in UAS at the university. When the drone program first began, he did not think it was a good idea. “Drones can be used to invade privacy(侵犯隐私).” He said. But later, Handley changed his opinion. He said, “I think there are good enough purposes for them.”
The FAA (the part of the U.S. government that controls air travel and traffic) is creating new rules to control the use of drones, however. A new law requires drone owners to register(登记) their drones. People who do not register their drones could face fines of up to US$20,000.
The new rules may also present problems for students. One problem is finding a legal place to fly.
Students at Blue Mountain Community College fly inside the college gym. In Seattle, University of Washington students test their drones in a big room.
Christopher Lum, a scientist at the University of Washington, helps students explore how drones can safely share the sky with regular aircraft. Lum explained why they test drones inside a building, “We need to register our aircraft and get permission to fly outside. That process can take months.”
At this time, Kansas State University is the only school with permission to offer unmanned aircraft flight classes to students outside. The FAA selected Kansas State University and 15 other universities to be part of a national research group.
Lum and some of his students recently moved their research to Australia. Australia has fewer rules limiting drones. A professor at Western Washington University also took his department's drones to Canada for the same reason.
Generally, the skills and attitudes you form as a student will be especially important to your development. The following tips can help you become an active student.
Don't be satisfied with yourselfLeave no room for the average of the ordinary. If you can do good things, try hard to become better. If you have become better, try to become the best.
Give yourself new challengesAny new things will give you the chance to understand yourself better. You should try anything. What you learn from these activities can be useful in the future.
One reason why a student is not active may be that he has a defeated(挫败的) attitude. As much as possible, you should face each challenge with the willingness to succeed.
Think over your mistakes, if there are any. Being active doesn't mean you will always be successful However, they will never succeed if they don't realize the meaning of failure.
Keep a to-do list. This can serve as a reminder when a student becomes lazy
A. To achieve this, you have to desire to become excellent.
B. Have strong faith that you will succeed.
C. Try to take an active part in group discussions.
D. Don't be afraid to attend activities you wouldn't normally do.
E. There are students who would give up the moment they fail.
F. You can't be active if you don't know what is going on.
G. It can keep you on the right track and help you organize your tasks for the day.
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。
Yesterday morning, I heard a piece of news which my friend Li Lei was admitted to the hospital because of the car accident. The day before yesterday, Li Lei is going to a bookstore to buy a book. He was very carefully when he got to the crossroads. He crossed the street when the traffic light turned to green. However, if he just went to the middle of the street, a car suddenly appeared at his right-hand side and came directly towards him. The driver drove fast and it was too late to avoiding it. Li Lei was knocked by the car. She was carried to the hospital immediately and had a surgery. Last night, I visited him. He looked pale unless he was out of danger.
Hua Mulan was a brave girl in the Northern Wei dynasty. She disguised (假扮) (her) as a man, and joined the army in place of her father. Mulan's father, once soldier, taught his daughter military (军事的) skills(include)horse riding and how to fight. Hua Mulan also read her father's books military science.
(drive) away the Rouran nomads (游牧民族), the (rule) of Northern Wei ordered that every family should send a man off to war against them. Mulan's old father, as well as her young brother, was not able to go and fight. So Mulan (decide) to join the army instead of her father. Mulan fought for 12 years (successful) without her true identity being discovered. Mulan became a hero bravery moved people greatly, and she(offer) a high position, but she refused it.
Even though her story might be no more than a legend, Hua Mulan has been respected as a filial (孝顺的) daughter by Chinese people for hundreds of years.
