In many cases, online classes can be a gift to college students everywhere. They are ________ from traditional classes in many ways, which can be a welcome relief for students. So what exactly do students love about taking online classes? — A flexible schedule.

One thing that many college students probably ________ about traditional, in-person classes is that they’re inflexible. Whether you have a Monday-Wednesday class, a Tuesday-Thursday class, or whatever you have, there is usually a specific schedule you need to ________ and you must attend the class in person.

By contrast, online classes are much more flexible. They don’t ________ you to attend class at a particular time, which means you have the opportunity to do your work whenever you see fit. Of course, this comes with a possible ________ if you aren’t the best at managing your time. However, if you are efficient at managing your own schedule and getting your assignments and studying done in a timely manner, then online classes are a great ________ for you.

What’s more, if your entire program is online（e.g. if you’re pursuing an online master’s degree）, this ________ you a lot more flexibility than if you’re attending traditional university classes. Especially if you happen to have a part-time or even full-time job at the same time, you will be able to get your work done for your online classes on your own time ________ in the evenings when you come home from work, in the mornings before work, on the weekends, or any time ________.

Originally, flexibility with your classes gives you the chance to make time for other important things in your life—like working a job to earn some money, spending time with friends and ________, and also taking much-needed time for yourself.

Here is the latest news from BBC.

News One

More than 90 people are now known to have been killed by destructive tornadoes that swept through the Midwest of the United States on Friday. At least 80 were killed in Kentucky and 14 across five other states.

A worker at a Kentucky candle factory told the BBC that many workers had been killed when they worked there. As Peler Bowes reports, what people should do is being discussed when they are warned that a tornado is on the way. And the owner of that factory has, in fact, been talking about this. But clearly it wasn’t of any use for the people in that building.

News Two

The number of people killed by flash floods in the US state of Tennessee has risen to more than 20 on Tuesday. Now rescue workers are continuing to look for those who are still missing.

Record rainfall of more than 40 centimeters in some areas caused widespread flooding. Buddy Frazier is the mayor（市长）of Waverly, one of the worst affected towns. “I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve been through a lot of events here, and this one really shocked me.” He said.

News Three

Haiti’s civil protection service says around 1,300 people are now known to have lost their lives in Saturday’s powerful earthquake which struck the southwest of the country.

Hospitals in the area are fighting to cut down the number of the injured, which is almost doubled to around 6,000 people. In the cities of Jeremies and Les Cayes, rescuers are trying to locate people still trapped under ruins.

Astronauts on the International Space Station will soon test a new oven for making chocolate chip cookies. A spaceship carrying the cooking equipment and other supplies was launched on Saturday from the Wallops Flight Facility in the United States. The shipment, weighing 3,700 kilograms, reached the space station on Monday. His goal is to explore the possibility of making freshly baked cookies for space travelers. American company Nanoracks designed and built the oven and helped with organizing the flight to the space station. Hilton Double Tree hotels supplied the cookie dough the astronauts will use.

In the past, space station crews have created their own pizzas using a thin, flat piece of bread known as flatbread. Astronauts have tried other creative ways to make food, such as creating salads from vegetables grown in the space station. Results have been mixed.

The cookie baking will be a slow process. The oven can heat just one cookie at a time. The test could take weeks before the astronauts have chance to try out freshly baked cookies.

Five unbaked cookies have been in a space station freezer for several weeks. Each is in its own individual clear bag made out of silicone. The oven can heat foods to temperatures as high as 177 degrees Celsius. That is twice the temperature of the U. S. and Russian food warmers on the space station. The oven uses electric heating elements.

Mary Murphy is with Nanoracks. Murphy says she expects a baking time of 15 to 20 minutes for each cookie when the oven is heated to about 163 degrees Celsius. She adds that the smell of baking cookies should fill the space station each time a cookie comes out of the oven.

The oven’s first use will be the real test. Without the force of gravity, the astronauts do not know exactly how the cookie will look. Three of the space—baked cookies are to be returned to Earth for testing.

When William Erasmus Darvin was born in December 1839, his father Charles Darwin began to carefully record observations of his firstborn in a notebook. Now housed at Cambridge University Library, it reads more like a research paper.

Today we know a good deal about Darwin’s theories. We know far less about how his private life—particularly his family—contributed to his work. But his notebook shows another side of the founding father of evolution: Darwin as a family man.

Darwin’s son William was born a year after the scientist first met London Zoo’s first orangutan(猩猩), Jenny. “The orangutan for Darwin was like a window into the origins of mankind,” says John van Wyhe, director of Darwin Online.

At this time, Darwin was already forming ideas about where humans came from, but he had never met one of our close ape(猿) relatives to test these theories. His meeting with Jenny helped build up his idea that we shared a common ancestor(祖先) with apes. He was already looking for a “real relationship between humans and apes”, says van Wyhe. When he saw Jenny’s facial expressions and noticed her social behavior, he knew his ideas were right.

What stood out to him was how human-like some of her behavior was, which he wrote about in a letter to his sister Susan: “The keeper showed her an apple, but would not give it to her, whereupon she threw herself on her back, kicked and cried, just like a naughty child.”

When his son was born soon after, it meant that he could see first-hand how a human child developed, and consider the relationship between humans and animals. “The notebook shows Darwin as a good-humoured though curious father who is playing with his young baby like he is another ape,” says van Wyhe.

His observations about both his family and Jenny the ape went on to influence his 1871 book. The Descen of Man and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872.

Count your blessings（祝福）, we’re told, but it’s just not in our nature. We’d rather count our problems. We’re so used to focusing on bad news that we tend to pay no attention to what’s going well. As soon as we solve one problem, we take the progress for granted and find a new cause for alarm. Every now and again it doesn’t hurt to think how good we have it. Start counting:

Free time

As much as we complain about being busy, the typical American has more free time than ever—more than five hours per day. If you feel too busy, it’s probably only because you’re doing so many other things than work. Experts say there’ll be even more free time in the future.

Peace

Wars and terrorist attacks will always make headlines, but it’s remarkable how many of the world’s 6.7 billion people now live in peace. In recent decades, though the population has been growing, the number of wars around the world has declined. In some earlier generations, a quarter of the male population died violent deaths. Over the past century, even counting the world wars, a person’s chance of dying from war was less than 2 percent.

American dream

While some people are struggling to keep their homes, the vast majority of Americans still have plenty to be thankful for when they walk through the front door. In 1950 the typical new American house had one floor with 1,000 square feet, two bedrooms, and one bathroom—and even that bungalow was beyond many people’s means. Today, more than two thirds of Americans own their homes, and the typical new house has two floors, at least three bedrooms, two and a half baths, and more than 2,200 square feet of space for the family.

The reader’s revolution

In 1970 barely half the people in the world were literate, and many of them could afford only a few books. Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s people can read, and 22 percent have access to the greatest library in history. The Web provides classic books and reference works free of charge.

More wilderness

Once you travel beyond the cities, you’ll find plenty of open space and peaceful forests. Many of the woodlands cleared by settlers have returned now that the land is no longer needed for agriculture.

The modern cars

Cars give off greenhouse gases and create maddening traffic jams, but consider what else they do. Compared with the models on the road in 1970, today’s cars burn less gasoline per mile and emit 98 percent fewer pollutants. That’s why, despite the doubling of the number of cars, there’s much less smog in the air. The basic car today offers more comforts and safety than the luxury（豪华）cars of old.