Wordle has become one of the most popular online games in America since it came out last October. Players get six chances to guess and learn a five-letter word for the day. Many are sharing their game results on social media, adding more interest in the game. Here are other games that help learners with different subjects.

Mathematics

British data scientist Richard Mann of London was talking with his daughter about the popularity of Worlle. He thought there should be a game for people who like mathematics and developed Nerdle. It’s a daily game in which a player has six tries to guess a math solution.

Math teachers note that a Nerdle player uses logic, a careful way of thinking about something, to solve a math problem. It’s similar to how a Wordle player applies logic to guessing a word.   

Geography

French video game developer Antoine Teuf invented Worldle in honor of that word game, Wordle.

Players guess a country based on its shape. They get six tries to guess a country based on information about the country. Teuf first shared the game on January 22. He said there would be two million visits a day to the game’s page a month later.

English

Teachers of English see word games as a useful way for students to learn new words. Such word games include Blooket and Flippity.

Teachers create quizzes in Blooket similar to the kinds of games students play on mobile devices. They can look at results and see areas that students can improve.

In Flippity, teachers can create flash cards, rewards, spelling quizzes, memory games and word searches from a simple Google spreadsheet. It’ s also a good tool for students to create their own projects.

Ash Barty, the world’s No.1 women’s tennis player, shocked the sports world by announcing that she would leave the tennis court forever. Barty made the announcement in a video she made public on the social media site, Instagram. In the video she discussed her thoughts about retiring with her good friend Casey Dellacqua. Dellacqua, who is also a retired tennis player, used to be Barty’s doubles partner.

“I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself as a professional tennis player,” she said. “It’s just I don’t have that in me anymore, 80 it’s times for me to put the bats down and go after other dreams.”

Even though she is only 25, Barty has been playing tennis for a long time. She started when she was four and turned professional when she was 14. For over two years, Barty has been ranked the world’s No.1 women’s tennis player. She has won 15 important women’s singles tournaments in the world in her career, not including some small-sized competitions. This includes three “Grand Slam” events—the biggest prizes in tennis. In 2019, Barty won the French Open. In 2021,she won Wimbledon. And this January, she won the Australian Open, becoming the first person born in Australia to win the Australian Open in 44 years.

Other tennis players retired when they were young. Some returned to the sport after a while. But very few players went out while they were No.1 While many other players support Barty’s decision, the majority of tennis fans see her move as a loss for tennis. Barty created a lot of interest in tennis and inspired many younger players to take up the sport. Barty said she knew some people wouldn’t understand her decision, but she’s okay with that. “I’ve given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis,” she said, “and I’m really happy with that.”

Mosquitoes see red when they look at your skin, and that brings them in for a bite, according to new research showing that these insects find certain colors more attractive.

The findings mean that what you wear can reduce your chances of being bitten, but there’s little you can do in terms of your skin. That’s because everyone’s skin gives off a strong red-orange signal that’s highly attractive to mosquitoes.

“I used to say there are three major signals that attract mosquitoes: your breath, your sweat and the temperature of your skin,” said senior study author Jeffrey Riffell, a professor of biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. “In this study, we found a fourth signal: the color red, which can be found not only on your clothes, but also in everyone’s skin. The shade of your skin doesn’t matter; we’re all giving off a strong red signal.”

Researchers found that when a common species of mosquito called Aedes aegypti detects carbon dioxide (CO₂) from our breath, it then looks for specific colors—including red, orange and black—to find its meal of blood. But it ignores colors such as green, purple, blue and white.

“Mosquitoes appear to use smell to help them distinguish what is nearby, like a host to bite,” Riffell said.

“When they detect specific compounds, like CO2 from our breath, that smell stimulates the eyes to scan for specific colors and other visual patterns, which are associated with a potential host, and then they head to them.”

That process is similar to when a person smells something good. “Imagine you’re on a sidewalk and you smell pies,” Riffell said. “That’s probably a sign that there’ s a bakery nearby, and you might start looking around for it. Here, we started to learn what visual elements (要素) mosquitoes are looking for after smelling their own version of a bakery.”

Knowing which colors do or don’t tempt mosquitoes may lead to better repellents (驱虫剂), traps and other methods to prevent mosquitoes.

Every day we make choices that affect the environment and people living on the earth. From the clothes on our back and the food we eat to how we travel to work, every decision we make has an effect on the planet.     36    . However, there’s still much more to be done to live sustainably(可持续地).

Sustainability doesn’t have to require huge, life-changing decisions.     37    . The primary purpose of living sustainably is to cause the least harm to the environment and people living on the earth.

Living sustainably simply requires a little more thought about our diets, what kind of toiletries and cosmetics(化妆品) we use, and how much waste we create in general.     38    , it becomes a little easier to make some positive changes.

One of the first things people tend to focus on when they first decide to live more sustainably is single-use plastic. Plastic bottles, bags, coffee cups and fresh produce wrappers are all non-recyclable.     39    , buying plastic shopping bags for your groceries indirectly causes a lot of damage to the environment. The same goes for beverages, water bottles, soda bottles and even coffee cups, which are primarily made of plastic that we can’t recycle.

Living sustainably brings many benefits. The most obvious one is that you’re less responsible for causing daily damage to the environment. Sustainable living also provides a handy opportunity to live healthier. In short, sustainable living is healthier and cheaper.     40    

I’d just returned from a walk with my dog. At the front door, I _________ my pockets for the keys. When I _________ I didn’t have them, I decided to return to the paths we’d taken. I spent an hour looking, but my _________ ended in vain.

At home again, I pulled the backup key from its hiding place and let myself in the house. I was so _________ that I fell asleep on the sofa. _________ I heard my car alarm blasting (轰鸣) from the garage. I rushed to the car and _________ the alarm with the spare key. I went back in the house but it started again. I turned it off, went back inside, and the alarm blasted again. I _________ the process.

Back in the house, I waited, but the next _________ was the front doorbell. _________ it was a neighbor ready to blame me, I opened the door slowly and turned on the light with __________ ready.

In the snow stood three neighbors from several streets away. One of them __________ her gloved hand, with my keys hanging from her pointed finger and a big smile on her face! She said, “ __________ about all the alarms, but your key has the alarm button, and we kept __________ it until we found your __________!” I was so __________ that I took the keys and said, “How can I ever thank you? What a brilliant __________! You are so kind!”

Before she and the other neighbors waved goodbye and __________, she said, “It’s not a big __________. Happy to help. You’d have done the same thing!”

I don’t think I’d have done the same thing! Pressing the alarm until I heard a car alarm wouldn’t have __________ to me. I was astonished by her __________.

With few trees left to slow the wind in southern Madagascar, red sand is blowing everywhere: onto fields, villages and roads, and into the eyes of children     61    (wait) for food aid parcels. The area has been transformed     62     a dust bowl because of the facts that the weather is     63    (extreme) dry and forest is cleared to make farmland.

“There’s nothing to harvest. That’s     64     we have nothing to eat. As a result, we’ re suffering from     65    (hungry),” said mother-of-seven Tarira, standing at a remote World Food Programme (WFP) post near Anjeky Beanatara, where children are examined for signs of malnutrition (营养不良) and given food. It is reported that at     66     present time more than one million people in southern Madagascar need food handouts from the WFP, a United Nations agency.

The world’ s fourth     67    (large) island and one of its most diverse ecosystems, Madagascar     68    (regard) as a natural paradise (天堂) at one time. However, in parts of it, such as its far southern regions, the reality on the ground has changed. “When you look in the villages, you see children running left and right. That     69    (be) not the case before. We used to call Madagascar the green island.     70     now it is more of a red island, which makes us very sad,” said Soja Lahimaro Tsimandilatse, governor of the southern Androy area.