Strange things happen when you drive into Green Bank, West Virginia. Radio stations become far     1     than in other places. Your mobile phone becomes useless. If you want to make a     2    , you can use the phone booth (电话亭) at the edge of the town.

Going to Green Bank is     3     travelling back in time. There is no mobile phone service and no Wi-Fi. Welcome to the Quiet Zone.

There is a reason for the silence in Green Bank.You’ll see it as you drive into the area. It’s a radio telescope     4     towers 71485 feet above the town. It was     5     in the 1950s. The government created the National Radio Quiet Zone to protect it.

The radio telescope is one of the largest moving things on Earth. Scientists use     6     to search for radio waves     7     stars and planets. One of its main jobs is to listen for life somewhere in the universe. Kids in Green Bank aren’t     8     cut off from the world. Home computers are connected to the Internet,     9     the speed is slow. A video can take several minutes to load. For most people, that’s just fine. Green Bank is in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. Kids can spend time     10     for pets or farm animals.

4 . Have you ever dreamed about sending a letter to yourself or your friends in the future? While express mail (快递) is a fast way to send your letters, there is another type of mail appearing in China as a new business—future mail.

“The letter should be sent next Mother’s Day and not a day earlier!” Lin Xiaofan, a college student in Shanghai, tells one of the companies offering the service.

Lin Xiadan wrote the letter to her mother nearly a year earlier to express her love to her mother for next Mother’s Day.

“Offering this service makes people slow down and lets them understand the meaning of ‘time’ in another way,” said Zheng Zhimin, manager of a “future mail” company. Zheng thinks “future mail” letters help remind us of care, friendship and love.

While “future mail” is becoming more and more popular, some people are wondering what will happen if the postal address changes or if the company goes broken before the letters arrive. Zheng said customers are glad to sign a contract (签订合同) to make sure that they can be compensated if their letters are lost or damaged.

Most of the customers are college students and young white-collar (白领) workers. Psychologists (心理学家) said that young Chinese might have a new way to express their feelings through this service. Most people put their hopes and wishes in the letter so that they can experience the connection (联系) between the past and the present when they receive the letter.

In 1987, a small company named Huawei was started in Shenzhen.

HUAWEI After more than 30 years’ development, the company has now beaten Apple and become the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones behind Korea’s Samsung. It has also become the world’s largest supplier （供应商）of 5G.

But recently, Huawei faced some difficulties. The U. S. government ordered a ban（禁令）on its sales in America. American officials said Huawei gave information that it collected to the Chinese government. At the same time, the U. S. government planned to stop selling parts and services to Huawei, which was believed that Huawei’s business would be hurt.

“We have never received such a request （要求）from the Chinese government and we have never tried to get into other systems to collect information.” Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder and president said. “This ban from the U. S. would do little to our company. Huawei has enough ability to deal with the problems.” Ren added.

In an interview several years ago, Ren Zhengfei said, “ I started Huawei with only £4, 000 at the beginning, but now it has become a $100 billion company. The experience was not as romantic as you think.”

Facing the ban of the U. S., Huawei is growing. Huawei’s smartphone sales around the world rose 50 percent compared to a year earlier. At the same time, sales from both Samsung and Apple fell. So far, Huawei has grown into the world’s largest telecommunications equipment （电信设备）supplier, selling in 170 countries! It may beat Samsung as the largest smartphone maker in the near future.

9 . When your great-grandparents (曾祖父母) were young, the world was very different. People did not have the kind of technology (技术) that we have to communicate with each other today. Things such as mobile phones and computers were not yet invented (被发明). It took longer for people to get news about each other. Today’s technology makes it easier and faster to stay close to people.

Long ago, people wrote letters to keep in touch. From 1860 to 1861, letters were carried by horses. The horse riders were paid to carry letters across the country. Then trains began to carry letters from city to city. By the early 1902, planes were a faster way to carry letters across the country and around the world.

As time goes by, new inventions have made it easy to contact (联系) friends and family in seconds! People began to use telephones in the late 1800s. Modern phones can do many things. Mobile phones can be carried with us wherever we travel. Some phones can even let you take pictures. These images can be sent to other mobile phones.

Computers have made some of the biggest changes in communication. The Internet sends e-mail messages around the world in seconds!

Although new technology helps us stay in touch with each other, many people still enjoy sending and receiving letters. With so many ways to communicate, it’s easy to find your favorite way to stay in touch.

Have you ever dreamed about sending a letter to yourself or your friends in the future? While express mail (快递) is a fast way to send your letters, there is another type of mail appearing in China as a new business—future mail.

“The letter should be sent next Mother’s Day and not a day earlier!” Lin Xiaofan, a college student in Shanghai, tells one of the companies offering the service.

Lin Xiaofan wrote the letter to her mother nearly a year earlier to express her love to her mother for next Mother’s Day.

“Offering this service makes people slow down and lets them understand the meaning of ‘time’ in another way,” said Zheng Zhimin, manager at a “future mail” company. Zheng thinks “future mail” letters help remind us of care, friendship and love.

While “future mail” is becoming more and more popular, some people are wondering what will happen if the postal address changes or if the company goes broken before the letters arrive.

Zheng said customers are glad to sign a contract (签订合同) to make sure that they can be compensated if their letters are lost or damaged.

Most of the customers are college students and young white-collar (白领) workers. Psychologists (心理学家) said that young Chinese might have a new way to express their feelings through this service. Most people put their hopes and wishes in the letter so that they can experience the connection (联系) between the past and the present when they receive the letter.