2 . Dr. Mantri is an India-born British woman. As she grew up, a teacher used an abacus (算盘) to help her ______ understand mathematics. She applied this ______ tool to turn her son, Dhruv, into a maths genius. She thinks a bit of abacus instruction might help today’s kids ______ a modern problem.

Dhruv was in fifth-grade when his mother started to notice he was ______ with simple arithmetic (算术). She would ask him something like 35 minus 13 and he couldn’t do it. After realizing her son’s poor ______ in maths, she started ______ the same tool to help him after school.

In just six days he started to show ______ with the abacus and would go on to become an expert in numbers. So sudden the ______ was that school staff asked him to perform with the abacus at a meeting, with some parents even coming to ask for ______ on using it for their kids.

Now Dr. Mantri is using the abacus to ______ thousands of kids around the world. Kids enjoy learning on an abacus ______ it’s like a game where they can touch and feel it.

“Seeing Dhruv’s ______ with maths, I decided to change the way he looked at numbers,” said Dr. Mantri. “Abacuses are a tried and tested method.”

Dhruv has ______ an apprenticeship (学徒期) at international firm Diageo and is now______ a career in data science. He is ______ about his future career and owes his success to his mother.

3 . Mia Samolinski attended the same school as Anthony Zhongor, an 18-year-old freshman, but the two had never met. That night, their paths crossed in the most remarkable way.

Mia had just gotten into her car and was about to drive away, but she hit the gas instead of the brakes. Security footage (录像) shows the car rushing over a sidewalk, hitting a trash can, and then plunging (突然前冲) into the dark, cold water of the bay in just a few short seconds. People rushed to look in the water, but only one person jumped in after Mia, and it was Anthony.

“She went pretty deep in there,” the teenager recalled. “She was striking the door and the window, trying to break the window, of course, and that got me nervous and scared for her, so I just took my clothes off and went into the water.”

Mia’s car began to sink rapidly, but she couldn’t get the doors or windows open. Anthony tried to get the doors open from the outside, but couldn’t quite manage it. As the seconds ticked by, the teenage hero realized he could use his own body weight to push down the heavy front end of the car, making the back end stick out of the water. Mia climbed into the back and managed to escape through the rear hatch (后备箱盖). She and Anthony swam to the shore together. As soon as they were safe, tearful Mia thanked Anthony sincerely for saving her.

Like so many heroes, Anthony did not set out to save a life that night. But he was in the right place, at the right time. “It doesn’t matter who it was, he or she was suffering,” he said, “I couldn’t watch anybody suffering in front of me.”

4 . I spent this summer with my sister.

I really valued this _________. I left home for college about the time my sister turned nine, so the last time we _________ together was when she was still a kid. In the past years, we’ve only had vacations with kids following closely behind. This was the first time that we had days together with none of our _________ around.

What did I learn about my sister from this vacation?

She likes to _________. My sister took up running many years ago. My last experience running was in the summer of 1977. But she has _________ it for years and even ran during our vacation.

She is an excellent planner. The ability to plan is one trait (品质) we share. We are both able to _________ an outing. We are _________ and can read maps and schedules. Also, we are each pretty _________ to either leading or following. So travelling _________ seems to work out well.

She is more __________ than I am, particularly (尤其是) in the evenings. I __________ early, but she stayed up for many of the night-time entertainment (娱乐) programs. That’s how she made friends with other __________ and arranged for us to have a nice dinner with them. That day, I was glad she was the leader and I was the __________.

Sisters can be different and still enjoy each other’s __________. I enjoyed hers this summer, and hope we can __________ the experience sometime.

5 . For eight years, Handshouse Studio has worked to create toys for Emily and Ruth, two Asian elephants at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford.

The founders of the organization, Rick and Laura Brown, are both art teachers and created the “Toys for Elephants” program to challenge their students to make toys for Emily and Ruth and raise the quality of their lives at the zoo. Emily and Ruth were saved from a failed circus (马戏团) in Asia and were badly treated in their youth.

In the spring, the art students make the toys out of wood and other materials (材料). At the end of the semester, the class sends them to Emily and Ruth at the zoo.

This year, the Norwell Fire Department gave away old fire hoses (消防水龙带) to the class. “It’s interesting what use people find in old hoses,” Fire Chief Andrew Reardon said. “To create toys for elephants was certainly a first.” Reardon said they were happy to give Handshouse the old hose to make toys for the elephants and that it was a special chance to be a part of that. “It’s not every day you get to help make toys for elephants,” Reardon said.

Once at the zoo, the students set up their toys around the empty elephant house and quickly leave so Emily and Ruth may come in to play with their new toys. “The students have really embraced this and they really want to have a part to play in solving the serious problem of keeping animals in captivity (圈养),” Rick said.

Handshouse Studio decided to work with other zoos and art and design organizations around the world with the “Toys for Elephants” program. Already, they have been getting calls from all over the world, including New Zealand, Germany and Thailand.

6 . The AI program ChatGPT might one day be able to help doctors detect (发现) Alzheimer’s disease (a serious illness that especially influences older people) in its early stages, according to new research from Drexel University.

While there is still no effective treatment for the disease, detecting it early can give patients more choices for medical treatment and support. “We know from ongoing research that the harmful results of Alzheimer’s disease can show themselves in language production,” said Hualou Liang, a professor at Drexel University and a co-author of the research. “The most commonly used tests for early detection of Alzheimer’s look at acoustic features (声学特征). We believe the improvement of AI programs provides another way to support early detection. of Alzheimer’s.”

GPT-3 uses a deep learning system (系统) which allows it to produce a human-like answer to any questions that include language. It is extremely good at “zero-data learning” — meaning it can answer questions that would require extra knowledge that has not been-provided. “GPT-3’s systemic method of language learning and production makes it a promising tool for finding certain speech features that may detect the disease,” said Liang.

The researchers carried out a series of experiments to test their ideas. “As we had expected, our test results showed that GPT-3 program can find clues (线索) from its conversations with patients that are 80% accurate (精确的) in the detection. GPT-3 can be a dependable tool,” they wrote.

To build on the promising result, the researchers are planning to develop an APP that could be used at home or in a doctor’s office as a pre-screening tool.

“This could be a simple and accurate tool for community-based testing.” said Felix Agbavor, a doctoral researcher at the University. “It is the latest in a series of efforts to show the effectiveness of AI programs for early detection of Alzheimer’s. It could be very useful for early screening and risk management.”

7 . For new students at Binghamton University, the first few weeks can be an exciting time. Their focus is largely on finding a sense of community. For Antoinette “Toni” Stefanakos, now a senior majoring in (主修) marketing, her sense of belonging (归属感) started with a flyer from Off Campus College Transport (OCCT).

“One day I was leaving the classroom and there was a flyer advertising (征聘) for student drivers,” Stefanakos said. “I had no idea that the buses on campus were run by students. So I called my dad, and said, ‘I’m going to be a bus driver.’”

OCCT is Binghamton University’s student-run bus service. The blue buses are a hallmark of the campus, and they are all driven in the lane (车道) by students.

“I interviewed, and it went really well,” Stefanakos said.

Stefanakos’s interest in public transportation continued to grow after she saw a job flyer for Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS). “I knew that TAPS was advertising for a marketing student,” she said. “And I thought that was great for me as a marketing major and someone who works with buses.”

Stefanakos began working with TAPS. Because of this job, Stefanakos found a new path. Now, she deals with public relations and trains new drivers for OCCT. “I can share my knowledge and experience as someone who is a driver,” she said.

The people make the job all the more worthwhile for Stefanakos. “One day, a passenger came up to me and told me I was her driver every Tuesday morning. And she told me that every time she was on my bus, she knew it was going to be a good day. I didn’t even realize that a simple ‘good morning’ could make someone’s day like that,” she said.

Stefanakos will surely miss the blue buses when she graduates, but she’ll always have unforgettable memories (回忆) to look back on.

9 . Since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed in 1973, it has helped hundreds of species avoid extinction in the United States. The strong conservation policy has been used as a model in other countries. But it’s not as successful as it could be, a new study finds.

Researchers have discovered most species are not being protected until their numbers have become so low that their chance of recovery is slim.

“The ESA is an incredibly powerful, ambitious law for protecting our endangered wildlife. Yet, for decades, the agency primarily responsible for operating the ESA — the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) — has been starved of resources,” lead author Erich Eberhard says.

“As a result, we are very slow to give species the protection that they deserve. We typically wait until species are extremely rare and thus at extreme risk of extinction, and then, when a species is finally listed, the USFWS is straining its resources to try to recover it.”

In 1993, a study found that few species received protection under the ESA until their populations became very small. For the new study, researchers repeated the methods used in the earlier research to see whether protections have become better since the problem was first noted. They also looked at trends in “wait times” — the amount of time between when a species is identified as potentially needing protection and when it actually receives protection under the ESA.

“Our analysis suggests that, in the nearly 30 years since attention was first brought to this problem, we have not become more active in protecting endangered species,” says Eberhard.

The researchers found that the population sizes of species when they first became protected under the ESA are not statistically different from those in the 1993 study. They also discovered that there are long wait times between when a species is identified as likely needing protection and when they actually receive them.

“I can say that our study paints the current state of the ESA as a bit of cautionary (告诫的) tale for the strong conservation policy,” says Eberhard.