【推荐1】You’ve probably heard people expressing alarm about the spread of ―fake news‖ – stories that look like news articles but describe things that never happened. Fake news is written to attract attention, to trick people so they will look foolish, or to work as satire ( 讽 刺 ) making a point about society. But regardless of the source’s motivation, spreading fake news embarrasses you and harms others, so follow these steps to ensure you only share real news.

Check its grammar

Legal news sites check their grammar carefully, so articles with many errors are usually fake. Also watch out for sentences written in all capital（大写的） letters and the use of multiple exclamation points（感叹号） at the ends of sentences. These are designed to bring about an emotional reaction, but they aren’t considered professional, so trustworthy publications don’t use them.

Read the whole article

Even in real news articles, headlines sometimes overstate or simplify the point of the article. Before reacting, read the article carefully to make sure you understand the whole context. Sometimes the claims of fake news articles become unreasonable as the article goes on.

Consider the source

If you’ve never heard of the publication, check the ―About‖ section on its website. Fake news sites often lack such a page, provide little information or even admit that they are fake. Also check an online article’s URL; if it ends with ―.com.co‖, it’s probably a fake news site.

Check the support

Does the article support its claims with quotations and citation（s 引用）from experts? If not, don’t trust it. If so, you should still look up those sources and make sure they actually say what the article claims. There are also websites, such as snopes.com, that will tell you whether the facts in online articles are accurate.

【推荐2】How cold is too cold to keep schools open? The question is being raised, at least in the Northeast, where the temperature is way below zero.

Keith Marty, superintendent(主管)of the Parkway School District in Missouri, published a letter to parents saying: “it is always challenging to balance my desire to have children in school and also my desire to keep them safe.” Location can affect closure decisions: children in Minnesota are accustomed to cold winter temperatures, but kids in the South aren’t. Also at play are concerns about state student attendance requirement and traffic issues, such as how long students have to wait outdoors for a bus, as well as health dangers caused by the cold and the condition of many old or poorly equipped school buildings.

And many districts worry about students who receive most or all of their meals at school and who have working parents who can’t stay home with them. Matt Guilfoyle, spokesman for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, said in an email that his school system “strongly believes students are better served by being in school. FCPS also considers the nearly 56,000 students who receive free and reduced-price meals each day at school. If schools are open and a parent does not believe it is safe for his or her child, the parent should keep the child at home for an excused absence.”

A few years ago, Chicago public schools closed when the National Weather Service said temperatures would feel, with wind chill(风寒), like 30 degrees below zero. But they opened the next day even though the temperature didn’t rise much. A Chicago lawyer named William Choslovsky wrote an opinion piece in Chicago Tribune mocking the schools for closing when Milwaukee schools stayed open with cold temperatures. “Consider this the continued wussification(娘娘腔)of society,” he wrote. “Our kids can go to school. Considering that so few even walk anymore, what difference does the temperature make?”

Still, sometimes, the temperatures demand school closure, at least in the eyes of school district officials. Buffalo officials decided to close schools for Friday, with the forecast calling for temperatures at around zero degrees, with wind chill making it feel more like 20 degrees below zero.

【推荐3】A single cigarette sold on a street corner may not cost a lot; however, the whole costs of smoking are huge.

First, consider the cost of human life. The World Health Organization says about 10 people die of a tobacco-related disease every minute. That speed adds up to almost six million people dying of such diseases every year.

Most of these preventable（可预防的）deaths happen in low-income and middle-income countries. The World Bank says each of these countries has a total national income（收入）of less than $12,746.

The World Health Organization says tobacco kills 6 million people yearly — a number that is expected to rise to 8 million by 2030 unless immediate action is taken.

For most people, stopping smoking is hard. Many began smoking as teenagers. They are used to it. Also, tobacco contains the powerful drug nicotine.

Studies show people who want to stop smoking can do so with different treatments. Some get help from electronic cigarettes, medicine or nicotine patches that reduce their desire for the drug.

But smoking costs more than the life of a person. It can affect the health of the whole country. The World Health Organization says low-income countries depend heavily on taxes from cigarettes. They use the money, in part, to pay the costs of health care for tobacco-related diseases.

But the illegal trade in tobacco products is further testing the economies of low-income countries. WHO officials say the illegal trade earns about $31 billion every year.

Douglas Bettcher is the director of the WHO’s Department for the Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases. He calls the illegal trade a monster with many heads. He says the trade enables young people to buy cigarettes at low prices, become addicted to tobacco and suffer from serious health problems. It also increases crime and reduces taxes.

The World Health Organization is strongly suggesting that the United Nations member states sign an agreement to end the illegal trade in tobacco products. Eight countries have agreed to the agreement. But the agreement of 32 other countries is still needed for it to become an international law.

【推荐1】18-year-old Kayla Perkins explains what is in her bedroom, “I throw something on the floor and I know right where it is.” However, her parents, Steve and Deborah Perkins, of McKinney,Texas, haven’t caught on. Even Kayla admits that, at the worst, her room is a mess.

Most families at some point have at least one child whose room looks like a landfill (垃圾堆) .The mess can disturb the whole household. Dirty clothes pile up; dirty dishes get lost in the mess and smell bad; homework is lost; and valuable things are ruined.

Some parents let it go, believing that a bedroom is private space for children to manage as they wish. Others lecture their children, offer rewards for cleaning, or punish them when they don’t. What doesn’t work, parenting experts say, is constant lectures, verbal (口头的，言语的) threats or getting very angry. Mrs. Perking says they picked up all the clothes on Kayla’s floor and hid them. They cleaned everything up. When Kayla came back to a bare bedroom, there was screaming and shouting, “How can I live without my clothes?” Mrs. Perkins asked Kayla to earn her clothes back by doing housework. These days, she keeps her room clean.

Humour can help, too. For example, since Jessica, the 14-year-old daughter wasn’t bothered by the dirty clothes all over her floor, the whole family started using her room as a place to store dirty clothes. Her attitude changed after her family did that. By the time she gave in and cleaned up her room a few days later, even she was laughing.

Parenting expert, Jim Fay, also recommends that parents first ask children in a nice way to clean up and agree on a reasonable time limit. Children often behave better if you treat them in the way you would want to be treated by your boss at work - with respect and high expectation.

【推荐2】One afternoon last week, I saw three tearful children from my son’s school being comforted by teachers. That morning, my 11-year-old had stomach pains, retching（干呕）into a bowl. Talking to other mothers later, I heard about other children with stomachache or difficult sleeping the night before.

What caused so much pain? Sports day. Sports day might be necessary at a highly-competitive independent school, but not at a village primary school. For the children who can fly like the wind, sports day cause no problem. For those who are overweight or just not good at sport, it is nightmare（噩梦）. Even for those who enjoy running but fall halfway down the track in front of the entire school and their parents, it can prove a disease.

Why do we put our children through this annual suffering? Some may say competition is character building; or it’s taking part, not winning, that’s important; or that’s a tradition of school life. I just felt great pity for those children in tears or in pain.

Team games at the end of sports day produced some close races, wild enthusiasm, lots of shouting — and were fun to watch. More importantly, the children who were not so fast or quick at passing the ball were hidden a little from everyone’s eyes. Some of them also had the thrill of being on the winning side.

I wish that sports day could be abandoned and replaced with some other less competitive event. Perhaps an afternoon of team games, with a few races for those who want them, would be less stressful for the children and a lot more fun to watch.

【推荐3】Goog morning, Ladies and gentleman. My topic is “________”.

Now in the 21st century, advertising is more and more important for people. Why? I think it is because through advertising, people, especially the businessmen, can introduce their products to the people all over the world. Because of this, many companies spend a lot of money on advertising. As we all know, there are many advertisements which are very interesting and popular. For example, Michael Jordan made an interesting advertisement for Nike. From this you can see how the companies make their products known to the world.   

People can make a lot of money through advertising. It is known that many famous singers and movie stars make money in this way. However, I don’t think this is a good way for them to make money, because they are not the professional advertisers, especially those who advertise in medicine advertisements.

   Nowadays, advertising not only means making the products known, but also means make ourselves known to people around us. Living today, we have to make people believe in us if we want to do important jobs. But how can this be done? We should first let other people know our good side: the good habits and abilities we have. In short, we should always remember to advertise ourselves to others. As I said before, advertising is not only important for companies but also for everyone, for all human beings. This is the most interesting thing about advertising.