1 . During a career planning class, Brenda Fabian, former director of the Career Development Center at Susquehanna University, asked how many students used online social media. Almost everyone in the room raised their hand. Then she asked how many knew that employers were reviewing online social media for hiring purposes. No hands were raised, and their faces revealed their surprise.

Although some parents do keep track of their teen’s online activities, most teenagers don’t realize that websites may be monitored by schools, future employers or anyone else that might be interested in their lifestyle not just today but anytime in the future.

Most of us don’t realize that the information that gets posted on the Internet may be deleted, but it doesn’t disappear permanently. “The stuff is there forever,” says Jamie Riehle, director of Product Management at Lycos. “It is backed up onto servers and doesn’t go away.”

As company recruiters, college admission officers, law enforcement personnel and parents become more Web learned, it becomes even more vital for teenagers to be cautious when they post any information on their websites. Even though sites that are private can be seen only by a preselected list of friends, there are companies that, for a fee, can dig deeper into cyberspace and find anything. Even government officials who thought that deleting emails would exonerate them from wrongdoing are discovering that, on the Web, there is nothing that is private or gone forever.

Steven Rothberg, founder of College Recruiter, suggests that teenagers think of their Web posts as tattoos. “Naturally, there is nothing wrong with them if they are private,” he says. “But if they are visible or offensive, they can affect the way others see you.”

2 . I had the meanest mother in the world. While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal eggs and toast. Others had Cokes and candy for lunch, while I had to eat a sandwich. As you can guess, my supper was different from the other kids. But at least I was not alone in my suffering. My sister and two brothers had the same mean mother as I did.

My mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing. We had to wear clean clothes every day. Other kids always wore their clothes for days. We felt embarrassed because she made our clothes herself, just to save money.

The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by 9: 00 each night and up at 7: 45 the next morning. So while my friends slept, my mother actually had the courage to break the Child Labor Law. She made us work. I believed she lay awake all night thinking up mean things to do to us.

Through the years, our friends’ report cards had beautiful colors on them, black for passing, red for failing. My mother, however, would only be content with the black marks. None of us was allowed the pleasure of being a dropout.

She forced us to grow up into educated and honest adults. Using this as a background, I’m now trying to bring up my three children. I’m filled with pride when my children think I’m mean because now I thank the meanest mother in the world every day.

4 . My name is Miranda Gibson. I have been at the top of a tree for five months now. Some people might wonder________on earth I would choose to do that.

I have walked through this forest many times. On December 12, 2011, ________rolled into the forest and the destruction (摧毁) began. I couldn’t________the thought that these forests would be________ forever. So, on December 14, 2011, I packed up my life, ________of my job plans, and climbed 60 meters to the top of this tree. I have been here ever since.

Life in the tree top can be________at times. I have times when I feel frustrated (沮丧的) and wish I could________, to anywhere, just have a ________of scenery for a minute! There are times too, when I feel terribly________.I miss my friends and family.________these times, I find myself loving the________.

Living on the tree has been inspiring. I am willing to________ here for as long as it takes,________I honestly hope it won’t be too________before I can put my feet on the ground below and stand in a forest that will never be________.

5 . Since I was born and brought up in a rural (乡村的) town, I have a great interest in nature. Using the chance of studying abroad in my second year at college, I decided to go to Canada just because I wanted to see the beautiful phenomena there. So after I finished the study abroad program, I went to Yellowknife in the North West Territories.

I clearly remember the sixth night in the Yellowknife. Suddenly my host mother came to my room around 8 p. m. and told me to change clothes and go outside quickly carrying her camera.

The “northern lights” were flickering in the sky! I was astonished and just stood there with my mouth open. I forgot to take pictures of the mysterious lights.

I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep at all that night. Since that night, whenever it was sunny, I went outside at night and looked at the sky. It was so cold that I lost all feelings in my hands and feet. Actually, the time of my being able to be out was limited. I had to bring her camera back to house in one hour at the most, for the camera was going to be broken because of the cold temperature.

As I took the pictures of the northern lights, I came to find a characteristic movement of the lights. They first appear in the north part of the sky and then they gradually come down to the south part of the sky. After that, suddenly, they come in the middle of the north and south only for a while, which is the time when the best northern lights can be seen. Since it is only a few seconds for the northern lights to come down to the middle of the sky, it is very hard to get good pictures.

The stronger the sun acts, the better and stronger the northern lights flicker in the sky. That’s because they occur from the collisions between atmospheric gases and solar wind. Much more solar wind comes to the earth when the sun is active, which leads to the best northern lights. And the colours of the northern lights depend on the height of the collisions and kinds of gases.

6 . Confident, smart and high­tech, they’re followers of pop culture and know what social networking is all about. They’re tweens, children between the ages of 10 and 12. These young people are no longer little kids but they are not yet teenagers, because tweens are in a state of transition (转变).

The tween years are hard for children. From a social point of view, tweens are dealing with quite a lot. They have to face changing relationships, middle school and a whole lot of pressure (压力) to succeed and fit in. They may become angry over seemingly small things. A bad test grade, an argument with a friend, a bad day on the ball field, or a request to clean a bedroom might set them off.

Elizabeth Hartley­Brewer, a parenting expert in London and author of Talking to Tweens, says, “The tween years are when young people begin to realize the wider world and to see themselves as the ones separate from their families.”

Right now, tweens’ friends are everything to them. It’s universal for the age, but they show it in different ways. For boys, the whole friendship thing is through technology and sports. Girls like to talk.

Tweens are also a hot market. What do tweens consider cool? Music is at the top of the cool list, followed by going to the movies. “Being smart” comes third, tied with video games, followed by electronics, sports, fashion and protecting the environment, according to a report. Undoubtedly, tweens have great spending power in the United States. It was the tween market that made Taylor Swift and Harry Potter household names. Retailers (零售商) know tweens are a hot market for clothes, music and entertainment. Tweens have their own sense of fashion and enjoy their own parts of popular culture.

9 . The cost of living in countries like the US, Britain, Australia or France has skyrocketed in recent years. However, if you’re willing to leave your country and explore life in other areas, there are many countries boasting an extremely cheap and low cost of living. Check out the following countries when planning your next move.

Ecuador is similar to the United States in many ways, and as a result has become a popular American getaway. They even use the US Dollar for their currency. In this country, it’s cheaper to eat out every day than cook for yourself on a budget in the US. You can even buy a building for around $ 50, 000 and hire someone to look after it while you’re away.

Although the country is known for its poverty ridden streets, there $are many wealthier areas that provide every facility you might need. You can live off a mere $ 700 to $ 800 a month in Mexico, and this includes rent for a nice place, facilities, food, and any sightseeing.

Argentina has been a popular tourist destination for many years. It has great restaurants, a rich history, and many places to explore. Not to mention, it’s not very expensive to live here. A decent sized home can cost around $ 139, 000, which is relatively cheap in relation to homes in the United States.

Vietnam has also become a popular tourist destination in recent years. There are many million-dollar luxury homes by the beach, but you can find a modest flat or a small home for around $ 25,000 to $ 50,000 if you search in the right areas.

10 . Some English words are made up of the same part and have different beginnings or different endings, such as import, export, report and transport. All these words, you can see, have the same “port” which comes from the Latin word, meaning “to carry” or “to move” from one place to another. And according to the bit at the beginning, which we call the prefix the meaning changes. “Import” means “to carry in” or “to bring into a country”; “export”, “ex” means “out of”, so this word means “to carry out of the country”; “re” means “back”, so the “report” means “to tell somebody, to bring back information to somebody”; “transport”, “trans” means “across” and it means “to carry across from one place to another”.

Let's look at the following words: supporter, reporter, importer and exporter. You can see that in this case these words are nouns which are made up of the verbs plus a suffix, thus meaning a person who completes the verb. So supporter means somebody who supports. A reporter is somebody who reports. Importer is somebody who imports and exporter is somebody who exports, and so on.