【推荐1】There are 132 rooms，32 bathrooms，and 6 floors to accommodate all the people who live in，work in，and visit the White House. There are also 412 doors，147 windows，28 fireplaces，7 staircases，and 3 lifts.

At various times in history，the White House has been known as the“President’s Palace”，the“President’s House”，and the“Executive Mansion”. President Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its current name in 1901.

The White House can receive about 6,000 visitors a day. With five full-time chefs，the White House kitchen is able to serve as many as 140 guests and hors d’oeuvres（开胃小吃）to more than 1,000 people.

For recreation（娱乐），the White House has a variety of facilities available to people who live in it，including a tennis court，a jogging track，a swimming pool，a movie theater and a bowling lane.

The first US president to live in the White House was John Adams. Adams and his family moved to the White House in 1800，when the decoration of the building was not finished. And it was not until during Thomas Jefferson’s term（1801-1809）that the decoration was finally completed.

President John Tyler (1841-1845) was the first president to have his photo taken. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) was not only the first president to ride in a car，but also the first president to travel outside the country when he visited Panama. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932-1945) was the first president to ride in an airplane.

【推荐2】The battle for women’s right to vote

One hundred years ago, British women were given the vote for the first time. How did it come about?

The first appeals for women’s right to vote in Britain date from the early 19th century. In 1818, in his Plan of Parliamentary Reform, Jeremy Bentham insisted that women should be given the vote. Women at the time had no political rights at all-they were deemed to be represented by their husbands or fathers. The old arguments prevailed. Women, it was said, were mentally less able than men; their “natural position” was in the home; they were unable to fight for their country, and thus undeserving of full rights; moreover, they simply didn’t want the vote. This was at least partly true. “I have never felt the want of a vote,” declared Florence Nightingale in 1867, while Queen Victoria condemned the “mad, wicked folly of women’s rights”. Even George Eliot was reluctant to back the cause.

It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that the first campaigning women’s groups were formed. Initially they focused on the lack of education, employment opportunities and legal rights for women (married women, at the time, had no independent legal standing); but the question of the vote gradually became central to their demands — both symbolically, as a recognition of women’s rights, and practically, as a means of improving women’s lives.

However, the women’s campaigning was still a subject of debate. While most historians agree that the campaigns were initially very effective in mobilizing women and highlighting injustices, a series of mass processions followed; more than 250,000 women protested in Hyde Park in 1908. Many were arrested and ill-treated; prisoners who went on hunger strike were brutally force-fed. Over time they became steadily more militant — smashing shop windows, setting fire to letter boxes, libraries and even homes. The PM, Herbert Asquith, an opponent of women’s votes, was attacked with a dog whip. Such use of violence was thought, certainly at the time, to have been unfavorable.

With the sacrifices of the First World War strengthening support for widening the right to vote generally, women suspended campaigning. More than a million women were newly employed outside the home — in munitions (军需品) factories, engineering works. Crucially, Asquith was replaced as PM by David Lloyd George, a supporter of votes for women. The Representation of the People Act 1918 was introduced by the coalition government and passed by a majority of 385 to 55, gaining the Royal Assent on 6 February 1918. Women over 30, who were householders or married to one, or university graduates, were given the vote.

【推荐3】The guzheng is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither (齐特琴) family of string instruments. It is the parent of many musical instruments of some other countries.

The guzheng should not be confused with the guqin, another ancient Chinese zither but without bridges. Now the guzheng is zither with movable bridges and usually 21 strings, although it can have from 15-25 strings. The guzheng’s strings were formerly made of silk, though most players used metal strings by the 20^th century. Since the mid-20^th century most performers use steel strings. The guzheng has a large resonant cavity (共振腔).

The guzheng has existed since the Warring States Period and became especially popular during the Qin dynasty. The number of strings on the guzheng has always fluctuated. There were as few as 6 to as many as 23 strings during the Tang dynasty. The earliest record of the guzheng belonged to the historian Sima Qian. Until 1961, the common guzheng had 16 strings, although by the mid-20^th century 18-string guzheng were also in use. In 1961, Xu Zhenggao, together with Wang Xunzhi, introduced the first 21-string guzheng after two years of research and development. In 1960, they also invented the “S-shaped” left string rest, which was quickly adopted by all guzheng makers and is still used today. This curve allows for greater ease in tuning the strings and, combined with strings of different thickness, allows for greater resonance in both the deeper and the higher pitch (音调) ranges. The 21-string guzheng is the most commonly used one, but some traditional musicians still use the 16-string one.

【推荐3】Shi developed an interest in handicraft (手工艺) when she was a child who often found herself alone at home. Out of boredom, she would play with paper, folding and cutting them into different shapes. This interest later developed into a passion, one that she decided to pursue by majoring in arts and design during her time in university. After graduation, however, she found herself working at a ship design company as she was unsure about what she wanted to do with her future. About a year later, the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Research Institute offered her a position in their paper-cutting department. Realizing that she still had a love for the handicraft, she made the career switch.

In 2010, Shi started learning paper-cutting from Xi Xiaoqin, an expert of paper cutting. Three years later, one of her works, The Fighting Fish, won the third place in a national competition. Six years later, Shi was named a Shanghai paper-cutting inheritor (继承人)and became the city’s “youngest inheritor” of the paper-cutting heritage. Over the past decade, Shi’s works have been exhibited in 23 exhibitions. Although Shi is already so skilled that she can create an animal pattern in 10 minutes, she continues to practice her skills every day. The reason is that she views paper-cutting as not just an art form, but also a form of learning about traditional Chinese culture. She thinks she has the responsibility to inherit this cultural treasure, and will make more efforts to attract people from different age groups and different fields to try paper-cutting.

【推荐1】I’ve personally traveled through many countries that have had U. S. government warnings issued(发布) for them, and I’ve been perfectly safe. In the last year, I have travelled safely to both the Philippines and Mexico, and traveled to many South Pacific islands during the tropical cyclone (热带气旋) season and only experienced two days of light rain in six months! This is, of course, anecdotal(轶事的), so it’s important that you do your research before booking your trip.

One thing I suggest doing is checking for recent posts on travel forums(论坛), such as Lonely Planet’s Thorntree, to see what people are saying about the country you’ll visit in terms of safety. The U. S. government may make out that the whole country is quite unsafe when in reality, it’s a small part of it that tourists will be unlikely to visit. Read the travel warnings, too, to see which parts of the country the government advises you not to visit.

And then, it’s worth speaking to your travel insurance provider before you leave to check that you’ll be covered during your travels to these countries. Some insurance(保险) companies won’t cover you if there’s a severe warning for the country, but some will. Travel insurance is a necessity, so it’s something to check out before you leave.

Keep in mind that the U. S. government will help you with emergency evacuation (撤离) from a troubled country but it comes in the form of a repatriation (归国) loan via the Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management (ACS), which can be called upon to save you from a bad situation abroad. Remember by heart that you’ll have to wait overseas for the money to arrive and eventually repay the loan once you’re home safely. Just another reason to get travel insurance!

【推荐3】Will people remember less with Internet users becoming more and more dependent on the Internet to store information? If you know your computer will save information, why do you store it in your own personal memory, your brain?

Professor Betsy Sparrow, together with her research team, has carried out some experiments in a recent study, wanting to know how the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they offered people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the computer. The information was in a specific computer folder( 文 件 夹 ). Surprisingly, people later remembered the folder locations better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory(交互记忆)”.

According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet.

Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.