Marley was dead. There is no doubt about that. The clergyman (牧师), the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner (丧主) signed the register (证书) at his funeral (葬礼). Scrooge signed it. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Did Scrooge know he was dead? Of course he did. Scrooge and he were business partners for years. Scrooge was his only ________ and his only mourner.

Scrooge was a cold, greedy, ________, old man! The cold within him froze his old face. It made his eyes red and his thin lips blue. And it spoke out in his unkind ________. A frost (霜) covered his head, his eyebrows, and his pointed chin. He iced his office, and he didn’t thaw (解冻) it one degree at ________.

Nobody ever ________ Scrooge in the street to say, “My dear, Scrooge, how are you? ” No beggars asked him for a penny. No children asked him, “What time is it? ” No man or woman ever asked Scrooge for ________. And dogs ran away from him.

Once upon a time, on Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat in his office. It was a cold, foggy day. He could hear the people ________, stamping (跺脚) their feet on the pavement (人行道) to warm them. It was only three o’clock, but it was ________ quite dark. The candles were flickering in the windows of the neighboring offices. The ________ poured in through every keyhole. It was so thick that the houses opposite were merely ghosts.

The door of Scrooge’s office was ________. He wanted to keep his eye on his clerk, Bob Cratchit. Bob sat in a cold gloomy, little cell. He was writing letters. Scrooge had a very ________ fire, but Bob’s fire was even smaller. Bob couldn’t add any more coal because Scrooge kept the coal scuttle (煤桶) in his room. So Bob put on his white woolen scarf and tried to ________ himself by the candle.

“A Merry Christmas, Uncle!” cried a ________ voice. It was Scrooge’s nephew.

“Humbug (瞎扯)!” said Scrooge.

“Christmas a humbug,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “you don’t mean that, I’m sure.”

“I do,” said Scrooge, “Merry Christmas! What reason have you got to be merry? You’re ________. ”

“OK, then,” replied his nephew ________. “What reason have you got to be sad? You’re rich. Don’t be cross, Uncle.” said his nephew.

The book I would like to talk about is The Merchant of Venice. The book is a dramatic work by Shakespear, an English famous writer in the 16th century. It talks about something happening between merchants in Venice. The main characters are Bassanio, Portia, Shylock and Antonio.

The drama begins with Antonio, who helps Bassanio borrow money from Shylock, and then brings out other stories. Bassanio is a poor merchant. He needs money to follow his dream to marry Portia—a very beautiful and rich lady. He first wants to borrow money from his friend Antonio, also a merchant in Venice. Antonio borrows the money from a Jewish rich merchant Shylock. Antonio does much harm to Shylock before because Antonio really hates Jewish. Shylock is a little mean and loves money very much. He always gets interest from the people who borrow money from him. Antonio promises he will pay the money back in three months, or Shylock will be allowed to cut out 1 pound of flesh out of Antonio’s body.

Bassanio successfully wins the love of Portia but soon realizes his friend can not pay the money back to Shylock on time. Bassanio returns to Venice as fast as he can and attends a trial(审讯).The reason why Antonio isn’t able to pay is because his ships are caught in storm. Portia, dressing up as a young lawyer, claims (声称) that the words “ 1 pound of flesh” not “1 pound of flesh and blood”. She says that Shylock is only allowed to remove flesh, but not any blood, which is impossible. Thus, she helps make Antonio safe and make Shylock fail. At the same time, Shylock loses most of his money. At the end,          .

It sounds almost too good to be true, but a new study on sleeping brains suggests that listening to languages while you sleep can actually help you to learn them.

For the study, researchers played recordings of foreign words and their translations to students who were enjoying slow-wave sleep. During this period, a person has little knowledge of their environment. To make sure that the results were not compromised by foreign language words that students may have had some connection with at some point in their waking lives, researchers made up the words which cannot be found in the foreign language at all.

When the students woke up, they were presented with the made-up words again without their translations. The students were then asked to imagine whether this made-up word showed an object that was either smaller or larger. This vague (not very clear) way of testing their understanding of the words is a method that is supposed to make use of the unconscious (无意识的) memory.

The researchers were surprised to find out that the students were able to correctly group the words in this way. And their accuracy rate (精确度) was 10 percent higher than accidental chance. That’s not a rate high enough to help them get ability of communicating with others in a foreign language, but it is enough to suggest that the brain is still taking in information on some level, even during sleep.

It has been long believed that sleep is important for memory, but before this research its role in memory was thought to relate only to the preservation (保存) and organization of memories that students got during wakefulness. This is the first time that memory formation ( 形 成 ) has been shown to be active during sleep. In other words, our brains are listening to the world, and learning about it, even when we are unconscious of what is happening around us.

The next step for researchers will be to see whether new information can be learned quicker during wakefulness if it was already presented during sleep. If so, it could forever change how we train our brains to learn new things. Sleep learning might become a widespread practice.

Studies have shown that when students join in team sports, their overall educational experience is greatly improved. In fact, no matter they are good at sports or not, there are still benefits to be got from playing team sports! Here are four lessons team sports can teach students.

Have a Bigger Picture

At some point in life, everyone goes through challenges. People may think that the choices they make only affect themselves, but as it turns out, that simply isn't true! Team sports teach students about friendship and a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves. When they play sports on a team, they quickly learn that every choice they make has an influence on their teammates and their opponents(对手)!

Be Decisive

Making choices can often be difficult for many people since they often over-complicate(过度复杂化)very simple decisions. Playing team sports gets students to reason and come to a decision faster than they might in their day-to-day life. And then, making quick decisions can help students develop a sense of self-confidence.

Never Give Up

It's always exciting to win in life, but sometimes the greater lessons come from losses in team sports games. To deal with those losses, students should accept them peacefully, move on and try again! Team sports teach students that great comebacks do happen and a loss is never final if they refuse to give up!

Put Others First

Perhaps the most important lesson that team sports can teach students is how to put others first in difficult situations. Sometimes, they may have to be ready for being second-best for the greater good, because there is often more at play than they can see at first. Sometimes the most pleasing choice students can make is the one to help others even when it is inconvenient. Learning self-sacrifice(自我奉献）is a lesson that students will certainly carry throughout the course of their life!

Students don't have to be athletic to succeed at sports, and there are countless benefits of team sports for them.

If you have ever had trouble doing things you should do or would like to do, you have experienced procrastination(拖延). When you procrastinate, instead of w    61     on important meaningful tasks, you find yourself performing meaningless activities.

If you are a procrastinator, perhaps you spend lots of time watching TV, playing video games, eating, cleaning or walking back and forth through the room. Afterwards, you feel powerless and have the f    62     of guilt and trouble. Once again, you end up doing n    63    . Sound familiar?

Lazy people don’t do anything and are just fine with it. Procrastinators, however, want to actually do something but can’t force themselves to s    64    .

Another fact about procrastination is that it is d    65     from relaxation. Relaxing provides you with energy. But procrastination makes you not energetic. The less energy you have, the greater the chances of you putting off your responsibilities(责任), and, once more, you will a    66     nothing.

My dad always used to say, “Peter, you need to learn how to give yourself orders.” I would always answer, “I tell myself what to do, but I just don’t listen to.”

Most likely, the main reason is self-regulation(自我调节). It is the ability to actively c    67     your moods. The more developed this ability is, the more often you will do what you tell yourself to do.

Good news is that it is possible to have self-regulation by t    68    . You need to begin by setting the bar(标准) as low as possible. Creating habits isn’t about quantity; it’s about small steps and regular repetition.

Once you learn a new habit, you can exercise your willpower muscle. As you s    69     raise the bar, your willpower will gain strength day by day.

Gradual changes are more pleasant than sudden, great changes. T    70    , bigger success can be made.

76. 近日，中小学生的睡眠问题引起了家长、学校和社会的广泛关注。我校就学生睡眠情况展开了专题调查，请以“We Need a Good Sleep”为题写一篇英文调查报告。

We Need a Good Sleep

As we know, most of us students don’t have enough sleep.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hope all of us can have a good sleep and grow up healthily.