The rubber coat（橡胶外套）was invented by an Englishman named Macintosh.

In 1492，Columbus，a well-known Italian voyager（航行者），______ the New World-America. He brought a lot of things to Europe from South America. Rubber was one of them，______ people didn't know its use at that time. In 1770，people found that rubber could be used ______ erasers.

Macintosh was a worker in an eraser factory in Scotland. One day he spilled（洒出）some rubber liquid（液体）over his coat ______ when making erasers. He was too busy to clean it and went back home wearing the ______ coat. On the way home，it rained heavily. When he got home，he ______ the wet coat. To his surprise，the area of the ______ with rubber over wasn't wet. "Why not make a rubber raincoat?" Macintosh thought. The next day he brushed the rubber liquid all over his coat. He wore the "rubber coat" on ______ days and took a walk outside to test if it ______ really keep off the rain. _______, the clothes inside the "rubber coat" weren't wet at all. The rubber raincoat was created in this way.

Year after year, people kept improving the raincoats. Today raincoats are widely used in our daily life.

Every year thousands of people leave the comforts of their homes to learn a foreign language in another country.

But is it really a good decision to learn a language by studying abroad？Here are some advantages and disadvantages（优势和劣势）：

When you are in a foreign country，the local language comes easier and faster because the language is everywhere─on the streets，in the stores，on the TV─you can't get away from it.

We often grow up thinking that our way of doing things is the only way，or sometimes the best way. But living in a new culture helps us realize new ways of doing things. Also，you may get to know classmates from all over the world.

Living in another country，even if it is with a host family，means you might be doing things you may not have done in your home country. These include cooking，cleaning，grocery shopping，washing clothes，etc. You may think of this as a disadvantage，but many international students go home proudly because they have become very independent.

Many people think that they just need to live in another country and they will learn the local language. This is not completely true. You still need to pay attention and study. There are people who have lived in foreign countries for many，many years without knowing the language well.

You will probably have times when you miss your family，friends，food，and everything familiar（熟悉的）. Almost everyone goes through some culture shock. You will have to realize and accept that it will take some time to get used to a new way of living.

Messaging app WeChat is being used for an ever longer period of time and is growing into a lifestyle choice embedded into daily activities and communication，a new survey has found.

In 2016，one third of WeChat's 889 million monthly active users spend four hours or more per day on the app，twice that of a year ago，according to the survey showed by Penguin Intelligence，a research arm of Tencent Holdings.

The average（平均）daily time spent is also up a bit，now 66 minutes，more than Facebook's average 50 minutes recorded last year.

And it's becoming more popular than ever，spreading into new aspects of life from offline payments to receiving newsfeeds.

The survey has also found a large number of newly-added contacts（联系）of WeChat users are casual acquaintances（泛好友），especially in work-related communication. Such a developing situation is turning the app into a virtual workplace. Over 80%of users have handled office work on WeChat.

“The all-in-one super app is completely changing the way we live. When lining up for coffee，I can't see a single customer holding a wallet. __________，they hold mobile phones over a reader and coffee is theirs，”said Fred Wellington，an Australian auditor working in Shanghai.