In a small village, there was a wise old man named Ryan. One day his young nephew （侄子）Keith came to visit him. Keith was upset about his _______ progress in learning the guitar. However hard he tried, he just couldn’t improve. “Follow me,” said Ryan, and he led Keith _______ to the high hills around the village. The road was long and difficult, as they got higher, Ryan said that he needed to go to the top of the highest hill _______ he had never been to. Keith was surprised but decided to help his uncle.

With great difficulty, Keith helped his uncle climb the hill. Sometimes he even _______ the old man on his back. At the top, sweating, he put his uncle back on the ground and laughed with joy. “Do you remember the _______ when you were a little boy? Sometimes you returned home _______ with tears in your eyes.” said Ryan. Keith looked around and nodded. He recalled that as a child he often played on the hills with _______ children. They called this hill Mount Impossible, _______ small children couldn’t reach its top. “At that time I was unable to get here, ” said Keith. “The bigger kids had _______ ”“And today, ” said Ryan, “you not only climbed here, but also dragged （拖拽） me up. ”I became bigger and ________ “Instead of climbing Mount Impossible every day, you played on the smaller hills and became better at climbing. ”said Ryan. “Every step counts, not to mention practicing the guitar. ”

In deed, Mount Impossible has become possible for Keith to climb while he doesn’t even think about it.

Confucius was one of the greatest teachers in ancient China who helped shape Chinese culture. He influenced Chinese education in many ways. But he didn’t usually give lessons by doing most of the talking. His teaching was done more in the form of conversations.

Throughout his lifetime, about 3000 young people studied under Confucius and they recorded his sayings which eventually were edited into a book we know in English as “The Analects”.

Confucius changed his teaching style according to the needs of each student. One day, one of his students, Zi Lu, asked him a question, “When I hear a piece of good news, should I put it into practice at once?” Confucius replied, “You should always first ask someone with more experience.” A few days later, another student named Ran Qiu asked the same question. To him Confucius replied, “Yes, put it into practice right away.” A third student heard the two conversations. He asked Confucius why he gave different answers to the two students.

“Ran Qiu always hesitates in making decisions. This is why I encourage him to move forward,” said the teacher. “Zi Lu, however, always makes decisions too quickly. Therefore, I want him to think twice before he does something.” See? ▼ And that was how Confucius taught his students.

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Time flies when you play on your smartphone. But when you get down to the real business of work and study, one hour feels like a year. Why are we easily bored by studying?

It all boils down to something small and hard to see: dopamine (多巴胺). Dopamine is a “pleasure chemical” that makes people feel good. Our brains release (释放) it when we eat yummy food, after we exercise or when we are rewarded.

Similarly, our brains also release dopamine while we are playing on smartphones. For example, checking your phone leads to a 400% increase in dopamine, said US author Steven Kotler. But why? When we spend time on social media, we don’t know what we’ll see next, or who will comment on our posts. This uncertainty, or “the magic of maybe”, makes the dopamine system active. We get excited wondering if we have comments from our friends. When our expectations are met, dopamine is released. However, studying doesn’t provide such uncertainty. Without the excitement of “gambling (赌博)”, we get bored much more easily.

Can we do something to change that? According to Harvard Medical School’s Trevor Haynes, apps can become less attractive if we turn off notifications (通知) or change the screen colors to black and white. We can also set time limits on apps to avoid overusing them.

As for studying, you could check your progress daily or weekly and reward yourself for it, you could also explore interesting topics related to your textbook. Use what you’ve learned to affect the real world. This will make knowledge much more interesting to learn.

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There are so many expressions in American English that sound pleasant but actually are not.     46     When someone says they have to “face the music”, it does not mean they are going to a concert. “Facing the music” means to accept and deal with the punishment of an action.

    47     For example, “I can’t face another night of camping! It’s cold and rainy.” Or “In life, you must face your fears.” “Face” used in this way is very common. But now, let’s go back to “facing the music”. Imagine a friend asks you to take care of her expensive sports car. She keeps telling you to avoid driving it.     48     Instead, you show off to some friends by driving it around town. As bad luck would have it, you lose control of the car and hit a stop sign. Bang! When your friend returns, you must tell her what you have done and “face the music”.     49     It could be losing her friendship or paying to repair her car—or both. Whatever the “music” is, you must face it.

    50     To “take your medicine” means to accept the results from something bad you have done. And if someone says “You made your bed. Now lie in it.”, they mean you created a bad situation and now you have to experience the results!

The sweetest memory of my childhood is about a round table. When I was still little, my     61     /həul/ family would get together on different traditional festivals to have dinner. While the grown-ups were having a     62    （discuss）, we kids would be sitting around or playing hide-and-seek under the table.

When I got a bit older, my aunt     63    （bring） back her boyfriend home and my grandma cheerfully added another seat to the round table. It seemed a little more crowded, but we all felt much     64    （close） to each other.

We all have a table like this in our homes. It is     65     sign of reunion （重聚）of our family showing our feelings.     66     /ɔːlˈðəʊ/ the reason why we come together may be different, the feelings behind it are the same.     67    （usual）different cultures are accepted by us around the table. What’s more, we express the love not only for our family, but also     68     a community, our nation and even the entire world.

The history of our nation has been the stories of looking for or running to the round table     69     we belong to. The round table has been a     70     /ˈsɪmbl/ of the Chinese feelings. It was, it is and will always be.