Since no one actually knows what the world will be like in 10 or 50 years, it can be fun to guess. Here are some jobs you or your kids might be able to apply for in the future!

Space tour guides

With space travel likely to be less expensive by the mid-2020s, a new travel industry will come. “Tours will show people the beauty of the sunrise from space, and some interesting places in space. Somebody needs to be in charge of these tours and explain to the space travelers what’s going on,” says David Tuffley.

Distant drone (无人机) drivers and pilots

How cool would it be to deliver packages from the comfortable office? That’s the way of the future with delivery drones and self-driving trucks. Zach Howard says, “Many delivery companies will soon need lots of drones and a large number of skilled pilots who can run the drones.”

Gamification (游戏化) marketing experts

This future expert will need to make online shopping feel like a game; that is, gamification is about keeping customers more delighted during shopping. The gamification marketing expert will help keep online buyers’ attention by making their experiences more playful and exciting.

Rewilders

To save Mother Nature, someone will need to remove the damage humans have done to the environment. Through the Jobs of 2030 project, an organization guesses we will need rewilders to remove the damage to the countryside caused by people, factories, cars and farming. These workers will be responsible for removing walls to give flight paths back to birds and replacing roads with forests.

Bertha von Suttner received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905—she was the first woman to receive it, and also the inspiration for the creation of the Nobel Prize.

She met Alfred Nobel, a rich millionaire, by answering his newspaper ad for a secretary. Although she only worked for him for a few weeks, she remained good friends with Alfred Nobel for the next 20 years. When she became involved in the peace movement in Europe, she promised to keep Nobel informed of its progress. When Alfred Nobel died in 1896, his will included the establishment of a peace prize, thanks to Bertha von Suttner’s influence.

Bertha von Suttner was born in an aristocratic (贵族) military family, but she spent the second half of her life working for peace. She wrote books, attended peace conferences, gave lectures and helped organize peace societies in Austria, Germany and Hungary, as well as the International Peace Bureau in Switzerland. Her novel Lay Down your Arms, was one of the most influential anti-war books of all time, and helped to make her a leader of the peace movement in Europe. Its end to war theme was both the ambition (抱负) and the most important goal in the life of this great woman.

Bertha von Suttner worked so hard for peace because she believed that a terrible war would break out in Europe if nations didn’t work hard to establish lasting peace institutions. She made many major achievements for a more peaceful world, but two months after she died, World War I broke out. A hundred years after she won the Nobel Peace Prize, nations still seem to view war as a choice to work out their problems. But like Bertha von Suttner did, many today are working hard around the world to help strengthen peace institutions and spread the idea that it’s time to put an end to war.

In September 1966, NASA launched its second Surveyor spacecraft to study the surface of the moon. Surveyor 2 was carried to space by a Centaur stage rocket. Unfortunately, it crash-landed on the lunar surface, but that’s not the end of Surveyor 2’s story. The upper stage of its Centaur rocket has spent decades floating around the solar system. This week, astronomers confirmed that the upper stage of the Centaur rocket has returned to Earth for a brief visit. Researchers guessed that a strange-looking object was a piece of human-made space debris (碎片) when they first saw it in September. But some serious work was required to confirm its identity.

Scientists around the world have been studying the booster (助推器) since September, when the then-unidentified object received the name 2020 SO. By observing how light reflects off 2020 SO and comparing those observations to space debris of a similar age and material, scientists were able to confirm the object’s identity. The 1966 Centaur’s upper stage re-entered Earth’s orbit in November and astronomers got the best look at the rocket booster on December 1, when it made its closest pass to Earth.

The rocket booster caught astronomers’ attention because its orbit is very similar to Earth’s, but it was moving much slower than most asteroids (小行星). Paul Chodas, from NASA, studied 2020 SO’s orbit to find out where the object came from and he believed it came from Earth around September 1966, when Surveyor 2 launched.

“There’s very little ambiguity (模棱两可),” says University of Arizona planetary scientist Vishnu Reddy to The New York Times. It was a perfect match. “the final apples to apples comparison.”

In recent years, Japan has had many advanced and unusual toilets, including some with self-acting lids (盖子) and self-warming seats. Now Tokyo is trying something completely new—public toilets with see-through walls.

To be fair, the walls of the new public toilets aren’t always transparent (透明的). They are made of a special kind of “smart glass”. When someone enters the toilet and locks the door, the glass becomes dark—it clouds over so that no one can see in. When the door is unlocked, the glass clears up.

Mr. Ban, the designer, points out the smart glass he chose for the walls has already been used in office buildings, where privacy is needed from time to time. The secret to the glass is that the flow of electricity can change the way the crystals (晶体) in the glass line up, which changes the glass between dark and transparent.

The new toilets have been built in some parks in Tokyo. Because the restrooms are lit up at night, they help provide light for the parks where they are located. Mr. Ban says the restrooms are like beautiful lanterns.

So far, many people have tried the new restrooms. Some people are excited to use the unusual ones. Others worry that the walls might not work properly one day, and could fail to protect them when they’re using the toilets. The common complaint in Japan is that public restrooms are often short of soaps. Some people say they would rather have soaps than fashionable new restrooms.

Mr. Ban’s toilets are just one of several new public toilet designs that will be put into use across Tokyo in the coming months as part of the Tokyo Toilet project. A group called the Nippon Foundation asked some famous designers to come up with new designs to improve the public restrooms in Tokyo and prepare for the coming Olympics.

20 years ago, a dog near our apartment area hunted down a sparrow (麻雀) and was about to eat it. My friends and I _______ the dog and saved the sparrow. The sparrow was _______ hurt. It was bleeding from the abdomen (腹部) and was _______ to breathe.

My parents always told me to treat people and animals with _______, so I brought the sparrow home. I bandaged the sparrow and gave it some water and food. I did a lot to make it feel _______. Then I waited eagerly for its_______.   The next day as I couldn’t find the sparrow, I _______ about it. My mother said it flew away when my father left for work. _______ I was kind of upset, I was _______ that I saved a life.

One day when I was in high school, I ________ the topic and mentioned it to my mother. This time the story completely ________. She told me the sparrow ________ to its injuries that night and the dead body was found by my father in the morning. He ________ buried the bird near the playground while I was asleep. That moment I was shocked and ________. I never expected she had lied to me. My mother said in a calm voice, “Son, you were ________ back then and would not have wanted to see that bird dead. You would have cried all day. You were not in a position to bear the ________ it would have caused. At that time, I wanted you to ________ the sparrow as a bird which was ________ and flew with joy again. ”

I admired my mother’s ________ as I slowly accepted the fact. I came to realize that lying is not always a bad thing. It can be a right thing to do when someone is not in a position to accept the truth with ________.

Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant was a famous French author who wrote under the pen name Guy de Maupassant. He is acknowledged     41     one of the fathers of the modern short story. He was skilled at clever plotting, and served as a model for     42     great number of writers     43     (include) William Somerset Maugham, O Henry, Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin and Henry James.

He was a popular writer during his lifetime and was lucky     44     (see) his stories widely read. As a young man he     45     (fight) in the Franco-Prussian War. He drew     46     (heavy) on that experience and that war provides the setting for many of his stories     47     often describe the pain and suffering of poor people     48    (catch) in war’s path.

His most famous work for English     49     (reader) is probably The Necklace. If you are unfamiliar with his works, also consider A Piece of String, Miss Harriet, and My Uncle as starting points. His first published story, Boule de Suif,     50     (consider) as a Guy de Maupassant’s masterpiece as well. Guy de Maupassant suffered from mental illness in his later years and died in 1893.