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.

6 . When trouble comes, what do we usually do? We pick up our mobile phones and call for help. That’s easy, right? But in an emergency, many people are unable to call for help. Floods and earthquakes come suddenly. Wars can hurt or kill. Successful communication can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

Meet French NGO Telecoms Sans Frontiers (Telecommunications Without Borders ). Its goal is to use mobile communication technology (技术) to help people in need. TSF began in 1998. First, they opened their main base (总部) in France. Then in 2003, they started another base in Nicaragua. The next year they opened their Thailand base. Now if a disaster hits anywhere in the world, TSF is ready. They can send workers to a disaster area to set up communication systems within 24 hours.

Once TSF arrives at a disaster area, they set up telephone connections (连接点) and Internet service. They share these services with other international helpers on the scene such as the UN or UNICEF. Mobile communication helps other volunteers do their jobs better.

TSF also offers three-minute phone calls to local people who need to contact their loved ones. These communications can allow people to get together again after being separated (分开). Often the callers are moved to tears after speaking to a relative found to be still alive. Then the families can decide on a safe course of action for their family members.

Since 1998, TSF has helped thousands of people in many countries. Most of the TSF workers does not get paid with money, but the satisfaction(满足) of helping others and changing lives is often a great reward.

Nowadays, WeChat is becoming more and more popular among young people. It plays an important role in people’s life. But different people have different opinions about it. Here are three persons’ ideas.

I am Tony from Shenzhen. Without WeChat, I can’t live even a day. Every day, I keep in touch with my fiends on it. I order my meals on it. What’s more, I buy what I like on WeChat. It makes my life colorful and convenient. I like WeChat. It’s all my life.

I am Jim. I am 60 years old. As for me, I don’t like WeChat. Now many people, especially young people, lose themselves in WeChat. They pay no attention to the things around them. For example, last Sunday my kids went back home to have a family meal with us, but they didn’t chat with us, or did any housework. Instead, they kept their eyes on their mobile phones and did what they like on WeChat. I felt angry with this. So I have to say it again. I don’t like WeChat.

My name is Alice. I think WeChat is an important tool for us. But we have to use it properly. When we want to talk with our friends, who are not in the same city, it can help us to make it. When we drive our cars, we can’t use it because it is too dangerous. Using it or not depends on different situations.

9 . Many of us reach news every day is probably because we’d like to know what’s happening in the world. Today we can get news from TV or the Internet, but how did ancient people get news?

At the very beginning, information spread by word of mouth. People living in tribes got news from neighbors or travelers. Ancient Romans changed the way people knew about their communities. They posted a list of daily happenings at public squares in the cities. Ancient Chinese people did it in another way. The government had news sheets sent to officials in the whole country so people could know what was going on in the capital.

The fifteenth century saw big progress in printing technology in the west. The progress brought a sudden rise of news business. Printers sold whatever people loved to read. In the sixteenth century, the first real newspaper appeared. People started to form the habit of reading newspapers. They liked to share their opinions on newspapers. The invention of telegraph (电报) machines led to another big step in history. News stories were sent to the papers in minutes instead of weeks.

Now we get news in seconds from all over the world. We can become some kind of reporters by posting online what happens around us.

10 . In the past, when people had problems, they usually went to their families or friends to get advice. Today it is possible to get advice from radio shows, TV programs and telephone hot lines. A hot line is a telephone line. It offers a direct way of getting in touch with advisers. Most hot lines are completely anonymous. That is to say, callers do not have to say their names or telephone numbers. Most hot lines are free. Callers do not have to pay for the advice or the phone calls. At some hot lines, the advisers are volunteers. Other hot lines pay their advisers for their work. Usually the advisers are full-time-job people with years of education and experience, but sometimes, the advisers have only taken a short class before starting to work on the hot line. All the advisers listen to people and help them solve their problems.