【推荐1】Making your school a better place will make everyone around you happier.     1     Yet it’s never an easy job. The following ways may help you achieve this goal.

    2     If students are talking about how bad something is, try to help them see the bright side of things. For example, if someone is complaining about how hard physics is, you can say something like “Sure, it’s hard, but just imagine how much this is going to prepare us for college.”

Try to resolve conflicts between other kids. Many conflicts in school are just misunderstandings between two people.     3     For example, if Jack was spreading rumors about Jessica, you could say something like, “The only reason Jessica is yelling is because of the rumor you spread, Jack. I think instead of fighting you both should talk about it.”

Stand up to bullies. Don’t stay silent when you see another student getting bullied by bullies.    4     You can say something like “Hey, cut it out. That’s not funny at all.”

Make friends with students that are lonely. If you notice a student who doesn’t have many friends, sits alone at lunch or get bullied regularly, make it a point to become their friend. This will make them less lonely and may encourage other people to become friends with them. For instance, if you notice that a student that’s sitting alone at lunch, walk up to them and say something like, “Hey, you’re in my math class.     5    ”

【推荐2】The last days of my senior high are fast approaching and I can only imagine how I’ll be feeling when I step out of Harrison Central grounds for the very last time. Throughout these three years, I have felt a lot of urgency (急切)about graduating from senior high, but I didn’t think that the time to graduate would come soon enough. Now, that time is finally nearing.

I remember my first days of senior high. I was excited to experience all the new things that waited for me. From sports to all the parties, I just wanted to know what everything was like. Now that I’ve done all those things, I am about to start a new adventure that will allow me to have many new experiences. Some say that senior high was the best time of their life, while others say that senior high was the worst time of their life. Honestly, I’m not sure which of these I fall into. I’ve had plenty of good times and many bad times in senior high. The only thing I can say is that I have learned something. And the most important thing is that I not only learned through books, but also I learned about life and the road ahead of me.

From an inexperienced junior student to a somewhat mature senior, I have really changed a lot. I started senior high as a confident athlete, dying to conquer( 征 服 )the world, which I did not know much about. Now I’m leaving senior high, knowing that there are many difficulties in the real world. I strongly believe that senior high is the open door into the rest of my life. In fact, I don’t know what the world out there holds for me.

All I can do is enter it and hope for the best.

【推荐1】In the second half of the twentieth century, many countries of the South (发展中国家) began to send students to the industrialized countries for further education. They urgently needed supplies of highly trained personnel to implement a concept of development based on modernization. But many of these students decided to stay on in the developed countries when they had finished their training. At the same time, many professionals who did return home but no longer felt at ease there also decided to go back to the countries where they had studied.

In the 1960s, some Latin American countries tried to solve this problem by setting up special “return” programmes to encourage their professionals to come back home. These programmes received support from international bodies such as the International Organization for Migration, which in 1974 enabled over 1, 600 qualified scientists and technicians to return to Latin America.

In the 1980s and 1990s, “temporary return” programmes were set up in order to make the best use of trained personnel occupying strategic positions in the developed countries. This gave rise to the United Nations Development Programme’s Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate (移居国外的) Nationals, which encourages technicians and scientists to work in their own countries for short periods. But the brain drain (人才流失) from these countries may well increase in response to the new laws of the international market in knowledge.

Recent studies forecast that the most developed countries are going to need more and more highly qualified professionals around twice as many as their educational systems will be able to produce, or so it is thought. As a result, there is an urgent need for developing countries which send students abroad to give preference to fields where they need competent people to give muscle to their own institutions, instead of encouraging the training of people who may not come back because there are no professional outlets for them. And the countries of the South must not be content with institutional structures that simply take back professionals sent abroad, they must introduce flexible administrative procedures to encourage them to return. If they do not do this, the brain drain is bound to continue.

【推荐2】A man rides a brand-new, orange bicycle to his office door. He parks the bicycle by the side of the building and disappears inside. A woman approaches and waves her smartphone over a QR code (二维码) on the bike. The lock opens and she rides off. These days, China’s once bicycle-jammed streets are choked with cars, but people in cities are getting back on two wheels, attracted by the ease of using shared “dockless” (无桩的) bikes.

For years, bike-sharing programs have been common in big cities around the world, but they require customers to return the bicycles to docking stations. In China, a more user-friendly approach is spreading rapidly. It involves bikes that can be paid for by using a smartphone and left anywhere. A ride typically costs one yuan on a fashionably-designed bike in an eye-catching color.

The first such service was started in June 2015 by a company called ofo. The company now has around 2.5 million yellow-framed bikes in more than 50 cities in China. Its main competitor, Mobike, which started up only a year ago, says it has several million of its orange-wheeled bikes spread across similar areas. Apart from the two, several other companies are piling in the business, including bluegogo, CooLQI, Hellobike and so on.

The dockless system is likely to be abused. Some riders hide the bikes near their homes to prevent others from using them. Another trick involves photographing a bike’s QR code and then scratching it off to stop others from scanning it. With the stored photo, the rider can then keep the machine for his own use. However, customers caught misbehaving can have points deducted (扣减) from their accounts, making it more expensive for them to rent the bikes.

A bigger problem for the new firms is persuading people to use bikes instead of cars. Thirty years ago, 63% of Beijingers rode to work. Now only 12% do. Many people think that cycling is only for the poor. Cycling is also dangerous, since many bike lanes (自行车道) have been removed to make room for cars and about 40% of road accidents involve bicycles.

Some city authorities accuse the bike-sharing firms of causing traffic jams, but most people like the services.

【推荐3】I was surprised to find the congestion (拥塞) outside Layla’s primary school was unusually absent—I’d driven right into a parking space, and I was on time, for once. The school bell rang, and in a moment a stream of children made their way through the gate. But something was different—the kids were piling into vehicles in threes and fours.

Before I could enquire my daughter Layla, Mr Trent, the deputy head, approached. “Mrs Pavis, did you not read our letter?” Letter? What letter? I had a history of not looking out for them, and not reading them in most cases. “The letter? Of course. It must have just slipped my mind—I’ve been away with work.”

Now I was digging around in Layla’s messy schoolbag at home. Eventually, I found several letters, all addressing the same topic—parking outside the school gates. Apparently with some parents parking illegally, the police were about to get involved. “Why didn’t you give me these letters?” I demanded. Layla shrugged. “I forgot.” I was about to launch into a severe lecture when it occurred to me that I had always forgotten—I had forgotten to give Layla her money for cookery that morning and forgotten to hang out the kids’ washed clothes.

I contained myself and figured out that they wanted the parents to car-pool (拼车). I spent the next half hour ringing round Layla’s friends’ parents, enquiring if they would like to car-pool with us. Unfortunately, they were all sorted. It was my own fault—I should have read those letters ages ago. “Er... I overheard others talking about it,” Layla said, “They said they didn’t know who would car-pool with us, because we’re always late.” I flushed instantly. We were a disorganised family, and I was the one to blame.

I resolved to change. With responsibility for my kids, I find I am never, ever late. It’s good for Layla and for her older brothers, and it’s good for me, because now I never leave the house unprepared. I’ve even started checking the kids’ schoolbags for notes from school.