When my sister’s daughter Jessica was only six years old, she often spent her weekends with her grandmother and her uncle. One day, she came home from school sadly. It was her ________ at the weekly show to tell about her family, but her teacher’s laughter at her show made her ________.

“I talked about Uncle Steve.” Jessica cried in a low voice. “When I showed his ________ to the class, Mrs. Yates laughed at it.”

Being only ________ years old at the time and the child of my mother’s second marriage, Steve was more like a (n) ________ to Jessica than an uncle, truly her best buddy and partner. Jessica always chatted about Uncle Steve. It was ________ great surprise that she’d make him the topic of her show. What was a little more unclear was ________ Mrs. Yates would find his picture funny enough to make Jessica sad.

There was a parents’ meeting at the end of the month. ________ meeting with Mrs. Yates and discussing Jessica’s performance at school, my sister Lani smoothly turned the conversation around to her daughter’s turn at the show. To my sister’s surprise, the teacher couldn’t stop ________ once again.

“Oh, Mrs. DeDeo,” she laughed. “I had no idea Jessica was so ________, but I must explain my laughter. Every Monday when Jessica comes into school, she talks about her weekends spent with her grandmother and ________. She tells the other students how he sometimes ________ her, takes toys and steals (偷) her cookies. I was very shocked about that and ________ thinking about giving you a call to ask if you knew the situation. When she brought in a picture of Uncle Steve and shared it with the class, I was ________ to find a tall, strong and rude man. But when I saw a ________, fat-cheeked, three-year-old boy, I couldn’t help laughing!”

Improvements in technology often happen overnight. Some gadgets get smaller and faster. Others are replaced (代替) by newer things like smartphones. Here are some old gadgets that people used to use.

Do you have a landline at home? These are phones that people plug (插入) into their living room walls. Mobile phones didn’t use to be so popular at that time, so most families had a landline. But landlines only worked at home. What did people do when they were outside and needed to call someone? They looked for a pay phone! Then, most people had their own mobile phones and many homes no longer had landlines.

People today store plenty of information online, or on SD cards. But in the 1980s and 1990s, people used to use floppy disks. The first floppy disks were large, expensive, and not very useful—each disk could store just 175 KB of information! Later, floppy disks got smaller and better. But even the best ones could only hold 1.44 MB. You would need three or four disks just for one song, and about 22,000 disks to match the storage (储存空间) available on a 32 GB phone!

It’s easy to take photos today. People often have thousands just on their phones! But photos used to cost much, and people took fewer of them. To take a photo, you had to buy a roll of film. This allowed you to take up to 30 photos. After finishing the roll, you left it at a shop. The shop developed the photos to make them be seen, which you could collect after a few days.

Technology changes all the time, and the gadgets we use today will one day be old. What do you think will be next to disappear (消失)?

Forest bathing began in Japan in the 1980s. It is a practice called shinrin—yoku, which can be translated as “taking in the medicine or air of the forest”. It has recently grown more popular worldwide. When people take time in the natural green world to “be” in a fully present way, studies show it does good to health.

One of the good things of taking a walk in nature is getting away from screens. When we enjoy nature, we keep ourselves away from computers or mobile phones. We take a break and allow ourselves to get strength and energy back. During forest bathing, we are slowing down, stopping making quick decisions, experiencing the pleasure of nature through all of our senses, enjoying being alive and enjoying just the present moment.

In fact, forest bathing is also becoming a more and more popular way of treating stress (压力). Forest bathing is believed to help those experiencing stressful situations. In one recent study, people who formed the habits of walking through forests had lowered blood pressure (血压) and got out of worries.

At the same time bathing in forest air produces more natural killer—NK cells (细胞) in our blood. Our body uses these NK cells to fight illness. One Japanese study showed a rise in the number and activity of these NK cells among people who forest bathe. Plants and trees in forests can also send out something called phytoncides (植物杀菌剂). This tree oil can not only protect plants and trees themselves, but also help people sleep well, lift mood and attention, bring joy and boost health.

Forest bathing needs repeated practice. It’s not a one-and-done quick fix. Studies in England on green spaces showed that spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature helps with good health. It doesn’t matter if you break up the two hours into shorter walks in a local park filled with lots of trees or spend an afternoon in a forest.

Taking a quick walk through nature and rushing through the activity to get back to work, let’s say, may not be as helpful. Nor is it advised to play loud music as you walk. Forest bathing shows a different way of life. You’re walking through nature in a forest and taking your time. You’re noticing feelings and staring more of a relaxing and meaningful life.

Sunshine, beaches and coconuts (椰子) —these are why people usually go to Hainan. But more than a good place for travelers and foodies, it’s also a wonderland of plants and animals.

Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in the south-central part of Hainan Island, has the most and well-kept tropical rain forests in China. President Xi Jinping visited it in April, 2023. The national park covers 4, 269 square kilometers, or one-seventh of the island. More than 95percent of the park is virgin (原始的) forest and is home to 3,653 species (种类) of vascular plants and 540 species of terrestrial vertebrates.

The park is the only home of the world’s most endangered primate (灵长类动物)—the Hainan gibbon. It’s an uncommon species. They look like monkeys, but have no tails. They live in the trees their whole life. Every morning, they whistle loudly to mark their territory (领地) . They eat fruits and leaves from more than 130 plants. The number of Hainan gibbons has become larger from fewer than 10 in the 1980s to 36 in 2022. This shows China’s achievements in environmental protection.

Not just a sweet home to animals, the park is a “live museum” of amazing plants. More than 400 kinds of plants grow only in Hainan. Cycas hainanensis (海南苏铁) is a wild plant native to the island. With feather-like leaves, this plant can live to be 200 years old. If it lives in the Yangtze River Basin and North China, it grows almost without flowers or fruit. But in Hainan, cycas hainanensis plants over 10 years old blossom (开花) and have fruit almost every year, thanks to the warm and wet weather.

With so many plants and animals, the biodiversity index (指数) of the park—a number to rate species diversity—is as high as 6.28. It is comparable (可比较的) to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. That’s why people call the park a treasure for both China and the world.

When Branwell was fourteen or fifteen, he did a lot of oil paintings. He painted people in the village, and it was easy to know the faces in the pictures. Later, he did a fine painting of his three sisters. I was very proud of him. We all decided he would become a famous artist.

Charlotte went to school again when she was fifteen. It was a much better school—Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head. I don’t think Charlotte liked school, but she wanted to be a governess (女家庭教师), so she worked hard. I taught Branwell at home, and Aunt Branwell taught Emily and Anne. The girls and Branwell were learning to play the piano, and Branwell played the music in church (教堂).

Emily and Anne had dogs, and they used to take them for walks on the moors. Anne’s dog was called Flossy, and Emily had a big strong one called Keeper. Keeper went everywhere with her. I think Emily loved that dog more than any person. Emily was sometimes a difficult child. She was very shy, and did not often speak to anyone outside the family. When she was older, I sent her to school with Charlotte, but she hated it, so I brought her home and sent Anne instead.

Branwell was not shy. He could talk to anyone for hours. Everyone in Haworth liked him. I remember the day in 1835 when Branwell went to London. He was eighteen years old, and he was going to the Royal Academy in London to learn to be an artist. He walked down the hill in Haworth with a bag of his best paintings on his back, and everyone in the village came out to see him go. That was a great day for me. Something terrible happened in London, but I don’t know what it was.

Branwel came back two weeks later, his face white, his clothes dirty. I don’t know what happened in London. He refused to tell me. He just sat upstairs, alone in his room for hours.

Later, I paid for a room in Bradford for him to work in. He could paint pictures of famous people there, I thought. It was easy work for him. But he couldn’t do it. He spent all my money, and came home again after a while.

This was a sad time for me. My eyes were very bad, and I had to pay a young curate to help me with my work for the church. My old servant, Tabby, broke her leg and was very ill. And then one day I got a letter from Miss Wooler’s school. My curate read it to me.

“Dear Mr Bronte,” the letter said, “I am afraid that your daughter Anne is very ill, and...”

I don’t think I ever moved so fast in all my life. Six hours later, I was at Roe Head. The next day Anne and Charlotte were at home. Anne was still alive, thank God! A month later she was well again. Thank God.

All my children were safe at home.

I was happy to have them here. They were so clever, and kind, and they loved each other so much. But I was an old man with bad eyes, and Aunt Branwell and I had very little money. My children had to find work somewhere, in order to live.

Have you ever wondered why the letters on a keyboard are not in the “ABC” order?

The keyboard we use every day is called the QWERTY keyboard layout (布局) . Q, W, E, R, T, Y are the first six letters on this layout, starting from the top left.     41     .

The first manual typewriter (手动打字机), with a keyboard which looked like a piano, was invented in the 19th century.     42    . However, people later, found that as the typing speed became faster, some keys failed to come back to their places quickly. As a result, they got jammed (卡住) very easily.     43     To solve this problem, the QWERTY keyboard was developed. It placed keys in such a way that the most used letters were spaced out so that the keys were more likely to work freely.

    44    . With the arrival of the computer, the typists in offices were the same people who were to now operate computers. This meant the typists had to be trained to use the new device.     45     it was easier to design the keyboards following the layout of typewriters, which was the QWERTY layout, and this continues even today.

Many kids like to read comic books in their spare time. It worries many parents and teachers, because they do not think the comic book is a great r    56    . They think kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words. But some experts’opinions are the o    57    , they say reading comics can help them a lot.

Comics are fun to read. The general reason for choosing something to read is for p    58    . Comics just do that! They p    59     stories that people of all ages can have fun with. Comics are not just silly cartoons. They’re also important works of art, and people can get a lot of k    60     from them. For example, looking at comics from around the world is also a great way to learn about different cultures.

While reading novels, children might find it h    61     to guess the mearings of unknown words. But when it comes to comics, it is different. Children can easily m    62     to do that according to (根据) the pictures. What’s more, even kids at p    63     school can understand the plot (情节) when they read comics, as pictures can help them in some ways.

All in all, comics are a great way to relax and get kids to fall in love with reading. As a parent, you shouldn't just stop your kids reading comic books, p    64     some good ones for them is a good choice instead. When you help them develop a good habit of reading, you put them on a path to s    65     both in the classroom and in life. Reading is a really powerful tool for children's growth.

Many students have problems with grammar, speaking or writing when preparing for tests, but vocabulary is the most common one. Maybe we can make it if we can get some new ways to remember new words. One way you can have a try is “structured reviewing”.

What is “structured reviewing”? It means continuous (持续的) reviewing of what we have learned in order to better understand it. We all agree that people forget information they have learned if they don’t review it in time.

How do we use it? Learn five new words every day. We can learn five different sentences with a new word in each sentence. On the first day in the early morning, we can write them down a few times while reading them aloud so that we can remember them. Moreover, we need to review them six times a day, including after the first lesson, after lunch at the school and after dinner.

On the second day in the early morning, we get over the first day’s sentences. Then we learn five new sentences with five new words just as we did the day before.

For each day’s sentences, after we have reviewed them for five continued days, we just need to review them once a week. Then once a month. Through his method, we have stored them in our long-term memory and will never forget them.

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Result of using this method. Many of us usually learn isolated words from the word list in our textbook, so we often write sentences with mistakes because we don’t know how to use the words. We should make up our own sentences with new words. In this way, we can remember the new words better than those who learn the words separately and silently.