1 . American schools begin in September after a long summer vacation（假期）. There are two terms in a school year: the first term is from September to January and the second is from February to June. Most American children go to public schools（公立学校）. High school students take only four or five subjects at a time（一次）. They usually go to the same classes every day, and they have an assignment（安排）for every class. After class, they have many activities. After high school, many students go to college（大学）.

Tea is tasty and good for you. It is also one of the most popular drinks around the world. But what is tea? And why is it so popular?

All tea comes from tea leaves but tea is not always the same. There are many kinds of tea. You can drink black tea, green tea, white tea or fruit tea. Each type of tea has a different taste and a different colour.

The history of tea begins in Asia. In China, Korea and Japan, tea is still very important today. In Japan, it can take many hours to prepare and drink tea with your guests. In Malaysia, a popular drink at breakfast is teh tarik (‘pulled tea’). Malaysians say it is good for you and tastes good with canai bread.

Tourists in Kuala Lumpur like watching the tea sellers make ‘pulled tea’. The tea sellers pour hot water on black tea. After five minutes, they add sugar and milk. Then they ‘pull’ the tea—they pour the tea from one cup to another many times.

In many countries, you must have a special kettle to make tea. People in different countries also like to add different things to their tea. For example, Russians use a special kettle called a samovar. They like drinking tea with lemon. Sometimes, they also drink tea with some sugar or jam.

In Turkey, tea comes in a Caydanlik. A Caydanlik has two kettles: one for the water and one for the tea. Drink Turkish tea with some sugar.

Arab tea, called karak, has cardamom, ginger, milk and sugar. In the United Kingdom, they add some milk and sugar.

The British usually eat biscuits with their tea. In Japan, they like. . .

5 . Do you believe that only boys do well in science? Does it seem to you that girls have better language skills than boys? In your opinion, are boys better at building things? If your answer to each of those questions is “Yes,” you are right, according to an article in Current Science." There are exceptions(例外), but here are the facts.

Usually, boys score higher on tests about math, while girls do better in tests about words, spelling and memory. But these differences may not always be true. In the future, a person’s abilities may not be decided by sex. As one scientist says, “Nothing is impossible for a person to be or do.”

A recent study by Jerome Kagan, a scientist at Harvard University is studying the watching ability of children 10 months old. Baby boys and baby girls are watching a “show” while seated on their mothers’ laps. In Act One of the show, an orange-colored ball is lifted from a blue box and moved slowly. Then it is returned to the box. This is repeated six times. Act Six is almost the same, except that the orange ball is smaller.

Baby boys do not seem to notice the difference in the size of the ball, but girls immediately become excited and begin to make noises that sound like language.

It’s also known that baby girls usually talk at an earlier age than baby boys do. Scientists believe that the left side of the brain develops faster in girls than in boys. As a result, by the time they start to school, little girls have an advantage that boys don’t have, but what have the boys been doing in the year before starting school? They have been developing something called aggression. An aggressive person feels strong and independent. He is often the first one to start a fight. It is said that aggression is caused by hormones (荷尔蒙). Scientists believe that hormones are not the only cause. They say aggression in boys is also caused by mothers.

Being sick at school is not fun at all. It means missing classes and social events. It also means that you have to catch on work. Here are a few tips on how you can keep healthy at school.

Wash your hands. It is the easiest way to prevent you from catching a cold from roommates and friends. You should wash hands before eating. You should use clean running water to wash them. Remember to rub them for at least twenty seconds. You’d better carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Drink water. Some young people love to drink coffee. But I advise you to drink water instead of coffee. There are many kinds of drinks, but water is the healthiest. You can carry a water bottle in your backpack and fill it with water regularly.

Don’t stay up. Staying up late and getting up early for class the next day works for about one night. The quickest way to run down your body is not to provide it with enough food, water and sleep.

Carry some healthy snacks. Sometimes you are too busy to have meals. You’d better carry some healthy snacks so that you can eat them when you are hungry. They can satisfy you before your next meal.

7 . People use languages to communicate. Any language has its ways to express people’s minds. One of the ways in common is the use of idioms. An idiom is a group of words. It has a special meaning that is different from the usual meaning. For example, under the weather is an idiom meaning ill. So when people say “I’m under the weather," they are saying that they’re not feeling well. Another example, in all weathers means in all kinds of weather. So, “There are homeless people sleeping on the streets in all weathers" tells us that homeless people sleep on the streets no matter whether it is cold or hot.

Different languages may have different ways to make idioms. For people who are learning a foreign language, idioms could cause misunderstandings and bring them endless headaches. On the other hand, if things are done right, idioms can also be a fun way of looking into a new culture and understanding how the people think and talk.

Metaphor (比喻) is often used in idioms. Let’s read the following two examples:

● It makes my blood boil (煮沸) when people litter.

● The night was dark and quiet; my blood ran cold when I heard a strange noise outside at dark night.

In neither situation above, our blood can reach the point so high or so low in temperature. Yet, with the situations the two sentences created, it is not difficult to work out the unhappy feelings of really angry in the first example and very afraid in the second.

Of course, not all idioms are this easy to understand. When we come to idioms of a foreign language, a good dictionary of idioms is always suggested.

8 . China is famous for tea. Drinking tea is very popular in China and even around the world. It's said that a Chinese ruler called Shen Nong was the first to discover tea as a drink. A few thousand years later, Lu Yu, "the saint of tea", mentioned Shen Nong in his book Cha Jing. The book describes how tea plants were grown and used to make tea.

Nowadays, according to different processing ways, there are mainly four kinds of Chinese tea. They are green tea, black tea, Oolong tea and scented (有香味的) tea. without fermentation (发酵), green tea keeps the original color of the tea. If the green tea is fermented before baking, it will be black tea. Oolong tea is partially (部分的) fermented. And if fragrant flowers are mixed in the tea during the processing the scented tea will be made.

Tea is produced in many different areas in China. For example, Xi'an and Hangzhou are widely known for their tea. Tea plants are grown on the sides of mountains. When the leaves are ready, they are picked by hand and then are sent for processing. Later, the tea is packed and sent for many different countries and places around China.

It's believed that tea was brought to Korea and Japan during the 6^th and 7^th centuries. In England, tea didn't appear until around 1660. The tea trade from China to Western countries took place in the 19^th century.

Tea is good for people's health and plays an important role in Chinese social life.

9 . LIFE is AWKWARD. What should you do when your parents are embarrassing (使尴尬) you in front of your friends? Or what if you see what looks like a classmate stealing someone else's headphones? In our social Q's column(专栏), the teenager Harper Ediger and the adult Philip Glances give their best advice to kids looking for help navigating real-life situations. Now it's your turn: Do you have a question about an uncomfortable social situation at school, at home, on social media or among friends? E-mail it to us at kjdsqs@njpost. com and Harper and Philip may answer it in a future issue. Please include your age and hometown. Come on! We know you have one.

To inspire (激励) you, here are reader-submitted questions we've published in previous issues: My mom signs me up for camps and activities without asking what I want to do. I only learn what I'm doing at the last minute. I don't like that it's a surprise, and I feel that I should be able to help plan my time. How can I have more of a say?

At my school, fourth graders need to learn different dances, and then dress up for a fancy party where we ask partners to dance with us. This makes me nervous, and I'm not looking forward to it. How should I handle this situation?

My sister is home for college break and lucky me, she's my roommate. As I'm 12 and she's almost 19, we both want our own space. I know she doesn't mean it personally, but she always complains that she doesn't have a home, which makes me feel as if I'm intruding (侵入) in my own room. Should I tell her how I feel or let it go?