Once there was a young camel who asked his mother many questions, _______ all children naturally do.

“Mother, why do we have a hump (驼峰) on our backs?” he asked. His mother _______, “My child, these humps prevent hunger and thirst as we go on long _______ through the dry desert. We _______ water inside our humps to cool our thirst.”

“But mother, why do we have _______ eyelashes (睫毛)?” he continued.

“Oh, son, those are to keep the sand in the _______ from hurting our eyes during sandstorms. This protection _______ us to continue traveling,” his mother answered patiently.

“And what about our strange feet?” he asked.

“They stop our _______ from sinking (沉) into the soft sand. This lets us walk more _______ and quickly,” his mother replied.

The child ________ some more. Then he said: “I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eyelashes protect our eyes from the desert. So then why are we in this zoo?”

Do you ever feel like your thoughts are going around in circles? One minute, you’re thinking about your homework. The _______ minute, you’re thinking about your plans for the weekend.

Is it possible for us to _______ our thoughts down or even stop them completely? In fact, our brains won’t stop thinking completely until we _______. We basically go through each day in one of two states—we either realize that we’re thinking or we don’t.

The brain never actually stops “thinking” in a broader sense. Most thoughts are actually in the background (在后面进行) without us _______ them and there’s not really a way to turn these things off. Brains can unconsciously process (无意识地处理) about 11 million pieces of information per second. You can compare this to how a computer _______. Even when you aren’t using your computer while it’s turned on, it is still running operations “in the background”. Your computer, much like your _______, is constantly “thinking” automatically (自动的), even if you’re not _______ using it.

Some researchers have referred to this phenomenon (现象) as “thought-chatter”. It _______ the random (胡乱的) thoughts that pop in and out of our mind at different times during the day. Some thought-chatter can be _______, such as daydreaming. Albert Einstein came up with his famous theory of relativity (相对论) while daydreaming at work. But too much thought-chatter can make us feel too worried. Meditation (冥想) can help us ________ some of this thought-chatter.

A nose is a part of the face. Without the nose, we could not breathe or smell.

Many people think a large nose shows a man is brave and wise. Man’s nose has an important role in his imagination. Man has mentioned the nose in many ways to express his feelings. Expressions concerning the nose describe the human weakness, anger, pride, jealousy and hate.

In English there are a number of phrases about the nose. For example, to hold up one’s nose expresses a basic human feeling—pride. People can hold up their noses at people, things and places.

The phrase, to be led around by the nose, shows a man’s weakness. A person who is led around by the nose lets other people control him. On the other hand, a person who follows his nose lets his instinct (本能) guide him.

For the human feeling of anger, the phrase, to have one’s nose put out of joint, is very descriptive. The expression relates to persons who have been turned aside because of a rival (对手). Their pride is hurt and they feel unaccepted.

There are a number of others. The nose is more than an organ (器官) for breathing and smelling!

Have you ever tried making music with glasses or bottles filled with water? I bet your favorite band hasn’t. Experiment with your own special sounds by turning glasses of water into instruments, make some cool music and find out how it works.

What you’ll need:

Five or more drinking glasses or glass bottles. Water. Wooden stick such as a pencil. If possible, you’d better do it in a small but empty room with a long table in.

Instructions:

Line the glasses up next to each other and fill them with different amounts of water. The first should have just a little water while the last should be almost full, and the ones in between should have slightly more than the first.

Hit the glass with the least amount of water and watch the sound, then hit the glass with the most water, which makes the higher sound?

Hit the other glasses and see what noise they make. See if you can get a tune going by hitting the glasses in a certain order.

What’s happening?

Each of the glasses will have a different tone when you hit with the pencil. The glass with the most water will have the lowest tone while the glass with the least water will have the highest. Small vibrations (震动) are made when you hit the glass, and this creates sound waves which travel through the water. More water means slower vibrations and a deeper tone.

Most children have heard their parents shout “Sit up straight!” or “Don't hang your head!” when they eat dinner or do homework. Now such shouts often happen because of another activity——video games. Ten-year-old Tom says it takes him three to four hours a day to play games on his computer. And he plays for about two hours on the smart phone every day. As a result, he began feeling a serious pain in his neck two months ago. What’s worse, the pain has spread to the hand and back, which makes his mother worried.

The doctors say the number of young children with this kind of pain in their necks, arms and shoulders is becoming larger and larger in recent years. They are so young, they haven’t had an accident, their blood reports are fine, their X-rays are fine, and their MRIs are fine too. Facts have proved that the pain is from the poor postures(姿势) while they are playing video games. 19-year-old student Nida feels pain in the finger which holds the weight of her smart phone most of the day. Nida almost uses her smart phone 24/7, which means 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Health experts encourage people to often take breaks and exercise from using computers, smart phones or other devices. Stand up! Stretch(伸展) the legs, back, shoulders and arms in all the possible directions. That’s the most effective way and maybe the key to solving the problem completely. After all, the medication doesn't help sometimes.

Although English is called the “international language",there are quite a few kinds of English around the world .English, of course ,come from England. Soon, it spread to all of Britain and different kinds appeared. Kinds of English that are often taught to language students are British. American，Canadian.Irish. Australian.and New Zealand, Native(本族语的）speakers of English from these countries number more than 380 million.

There is a second group of countries whose histories have been directly touched by one of the English-speaking civilizations（文明）.Therefore. they use English in different important ways within their own government and everyday life.India.Malaysia. and Kenya are examples of this group.The total number of speakers in this group is more than 300 million.

In a third group of countries. English is widely used as a foreign language. However,people use their native language within their own government and in everyday life.Some countries in this group are China, Russia, Egypt, Indonesia and the countries of Western Europe. The number of speakers in this group can be as many as 1.000 million and it is growing fast.

The changing situations of English raise many questions. Will another language take the place of English as the international language? Will new kinds of English develop in other countries such as China or Russia?

Chinese primary and middle school pupils spend longer at school and take more after-school classes compared with students in other countries, according to a report.

In 2015, the average (平均的) school time for primary school students increased to 8.1 hours a day, from 6.7 hours in 2010. This report was from an important education organization in China.

The report said that middle school students spent 11 hours a day at school in 2015, 3.3 hours longer than five years ago. Besides, Chinese students had too much homework to do, which also put pressure on their parents. About 80% of parents said they had to supervise (监督) their children while they were doing their homework.

Chinese students also spent more time on learning outside the classroom. By the end of 2016, about 137 million students had taken part in after-school classes, the report said. Chinese students spent 17 hours a week on learning after classes finished, much longer than the average —7. 8 hours around the world.

Luckily, these days the Ministry of Education has realized these problems and is now trying to make some rules to solve the problems. I hope Chinese students can study easily and happily in the future.

Richard Sears was unknown in China until 2012, when his story of spending all his money studying Chinese characters was reported online.This caught people’s eye. They gave him the nickname“Uncle Hanzi”.

Sears was once a computer engineer in the USA.When he was young, he developed an interest in Chinese characters. In 1972, when Sears was only 22, he decided to learn Chinese. He bought a one-way ticket to Taiwan, China to begin his study.

After several years of studying, Sears still found writing Chinese characters difficult. One piece of advice he received was to learn the evolution (发 展) of Chinese characters, because it could help him remember them. Since then, Sears has made his own research to study how Chinese characters were formed, and built up his own database (数据库).

In 1990, he came up with the idea of sharing the etymological (词源的) information of Chinese characters on the website. In 2002, Sears made the website free for anyone who was interested. Just by typing a Chinese character on his website,people can find out the shapes and evolution of the character.

“Many people think I am crazy — spending all my money and time on the website. But for me,it’s just an interest,”Sears said. Years of living in China has turned“Uncle Hanzi”into“Grandpa Hanzi”, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the love Sears has for Chinese characters.

Today, more and more students are using the App zuoyebang. However, different people have different ideas about it. Some people think___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________