1 . What’s the meaning of the “dark horse”? It is someone who wins when no one expect it.

Han Xiaopeng took China’s first gold on snow. He became an Olympic “dark horse” by winning the gold medal in men’s freestyle skiing aerials (自由式滑雪空中技巧) at Turin in Italy. He made two almost perfect jumps for the highest score. Han had never won a world gold medal before, let alone in the Olympics!

“I never thought this would happen,” said Han Xiaopeng, “I feel like I’m in a dream.” It’s China’s second gold medal at the Turin Olympic Winter Games. But more important, Han’s gold was the country’s first ever in a snow sport. In 2002, China’s Yang Yang won the gold for speed skating at the Winter Olympic in Salt Lake City, US.

That Han’s win was unexpected doesn’t mean that he didn’t work hard.

Han grew up in Jiangsu Province. Before he started his training on snow, he used to be an acrobat (杂技演员) at a circus. In 1995, a coach found his talent. The coach, Yang Er’qi, said Han had the agility (灵活性) and courage to be a ski jumper. When Yang first took the 12-year-old boy to northern China, he couldn’t swim, skate or ski. But he wasn’t afraid of the high platform and kept on training.

Han almost left the sport after hurting his knee months before the Salt Lake Games. In that Olympics he only got 24^th. “I was hopeless at that time, but my family and the coach stood behind me, helping me through,” he recalled.

Han Xiaopeng worked so hard that he won the gold medal in the Olympics at last. Because of his success, more and more people in China are becoming interested in skiing. We are proud of him.

2 . Becoming famous is the dream of many, and Tian is getting closer to that dream.

Tian, 30, is a white - collar worker in Beijing. On short video application Douyin, Tian has more than 2, 000 fans, So far, she has received more than 50, 000 likes on the Dubsmash - like app. On her page on Douyin, Tian shares everything, from her son's daily activities, to her pet dogs, to little skits (段子) made up by her and her husband. “Making funny videos, and combining them with music is really interesting, ” Tian said. “Of course, I make the videos for fun because it is quite relaxing.”

China's short video market has seen great growth, according to a report. The report said that China's short video market was valued at 5. 73 billion yuan ($ 900 million) in 2017, an increase of 184 percent. The industry value is expected to go up to the 30 billion mark in 2020. Companies like Tencent, Sohu and Iqiyi have all started providing short video content.

“Short videos are popular because they are an addition to traditional audio and video content on the internet, ” said Sun Jiashan with the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Fans say that the short videos help them “chill out” from a stressed - out lifestyle. “My favorite videos are all about pets, ” said Zhou Na, a nurse in Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province. “After a whole day's work, watching the 15 - second videos makes me laugh, which reduces my pressure.”

3 . My chance came at last. Our school was going to hold a sports meeting. I knew what it _________ to me so I got up very early to prepare for it. I _________ running and jumping. When I was tired, I _________ my promise and went on.

As the sports meeting came near, I felt quite _________. On the first day I won fourth place in the 1,500m race, but it was far from _________ because what I wanted most was the highlight of the sports meeting—the 8 × 250m relay race. I would run the last leg for my team.

With a shot, the race began. All the students were _________ for their own team. The competition was so _________ that I began to feel nervous. Before my turn came, my team was _________ the others. Even worse, I almost dropped the stick when I was trying to _________ it.

But after that, there was nothing in my mind except to run as fast as possible. Just when I was coming close to the finish line, my legs __________.Then my promise came to mind again and encouraged me to go on. To my __________, I was the first to cross the finish line!

__________, I proved to myself and those who had often laughed at me that I am not __________ at all! My classmates greeted me warmly and I hugged them tightly. I won the prize as well as their __________.

From the sports meeting, I learnt things are not so difficult as they seem to be. Just try your best without fear and you might be surprised at the __________.

6 . Reading and writing poetry is a very personal experience. Poets use language as a way of expressing their feelings. Poems can describe the beauty of nature, a person, a dream or a memorable event. Most people have tried writing poetry at some time. For children, it is a good way to explore language and have fun with words as well as to express themselves.

But teachers and psychologists have found another use for poetry as a form of therapy (疗法) to help people with problems. Writing poetry can help people deal with changes in their lives, death or feelings of sadness, drug or alcohol problems or serious illness. By writing down your feelings, you can learn to understand yourself better and give yourself a voice if you feel you are being ignored. Poem might be a way of telling someone something when you do not feel able to talk about it face to face. And just because people are ill or having difficulties in their lives, it doesn’t mean they have lost their sense of humor. Poems written as therapy can be funny too, as laughter is also considered to be very good medicine.

Students at a special school in Dudley, in England, read and write poems every day. Some of the poems they write are very good, but their reason for writing is not just to be creative. All of them have problems. Some of them have long-term medical conditions, such as cancer, while others have personality disorders or psychological problems. By writing poems students are growing in self-confidence. The poems provide a channel through which they can communicate with the world, and express their feelings. They also help them to recognize and explore their problems and to develop a positive attitude to life.

But the poems are helping other people, too. The school has collected some of the students’ poems and published them in a book which is being sold to raise funds for a local hospital. The book has proved very popular, giving students a sense of motivation and achievement.

8 . Many teachers believe frequent quizzes(小测验) help students better grasp classroom material. Crede, an associate professor of psychology, was skeptical that something as simple as a quiz could positively affect students’ academic performance. He decided to dig deeper and conduct an analytic study of existing research to see if there was any proof to the idea. What he discovered truly surprised him.

Crede analyzed data from previously published studies that examined 52 classes with almost 8,000 students, primarily college-level courses, to determine if frequent quizzes improved the students’ academic performance. Laboratory settings were kept out of the study because Crede wanted to observe whether similar studies from labs would apply to general classrooms.

Crede discovered that when students are quizzed over class material at least once a week, they tend to perform better on midterm and final exams compared to students who did not take quizzes. He also found that students who took frequent quizzes were less likely to fail the class, especially if they were struggling with the course content. Students who struggle the most in a class seem to benefit the greatest from frequent quizzes. The other surprising thing was how much quizzes helped reduce failure rates in classes. The chances of passing a class went through the roof where instructors used this. In addition to quiz frequency, another factor that seemed to positively affect students’ performance was immediate feedback from instructors. Also, quizzes that required students to answer with written responses proved more beneficial to their understanding of class material compared to multiple-choice questions.

Asking teachers to grade written quizzes daily or weekly may discourage some from carrying them out in their classes. Instead, it is recommended that instructors give online quizzes that can be automatically graded by a course management system. Quiz attributes(属性) proved insignificant in the study, including whether the tests were pop quizzes or planned, or if they were online or on paper.

9 . Having worked for more than a decade in finance in the oil industry in Canada, Tori Fahey found herself wanting more from life. But it wasn't through desperation that her circumstances changed: “I didn't get fed up and storm off, nothing like that; it was curiosity about other interests and wanting to experience something new.”

Fahey left her job and completed an MBA before setting up a move to New York to begin a degree. However, the opportunity of an open year between the MBA and the degree came up, and as a keen touring cyclist, Fahey realised that a much dreamed-about adventure was now becoming a possibility: "The ride in Africa had been on my fantasy list. It was a moment when I realised that I could do anything, so I should."

Fahey rode across Africa, a 7,500-mile trip that took four months. The whole experience had a life-changing impact. Fahey said: “Bicycles provide a literal freedom. You don't allow yourself to feel like that in everyday life because there are so many distractions. But when you' re out on the bike and there's nothing else, you' re really free to experience what life is.”

Post-degree, Fahey worked on projects with the UNDP(United Nations Development Project) in Montenegro with the aim of bringing investment to rural communities.

It was while working on these projects that the seeds were sown for the next new investment. “It was through my trip across Africa that I discovered pannier and rack systems inconvenient and I was never going to use them again.” Little did she know this would lead her to start up her own company.

In 2013, Apidura was born, producing storage solutions for people looking to travel the world by bike, race across continents and carry all they need to do so. It's now a successful global brand, but Fahey remains reflective about what else the company can do for people.

10 . Ever wonder how your brain works when making decisions bigger than medium versus spicy salsa, like buying a car or accepting a job offer? Researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland conducted a study that clarifies why you may want to have a small bite before making that big decision.

Benjamin Vincent from the University of Dundee’s Psychology department and his co-author Jordan Skyrnka tested 50 people two times: once when they followed their normal eating patterns and once when they did not eat anything during the day. Using three different types of rewards (food, money, and song downloads), the team discovered when presented with the choice of receiving the reward now versus double the award at some point in the future, participants would usually volunteer to wait for 35 days to earn a larger bounty, but when they were hungry, they said they would only wait three days.

“We wanted to know whether being in a state of hunger had a specific effect on how you make decisions only relating to food or if it had broader effects, and this research suggests decision-making gets more present-focused when people are hungry,” Vincent said in a story about the study on the university’s website. “You would predict that hunger would impact people’s preferences relating to food, but it is not yet clear why people get more present-focused for completely unrelated rewards. Hunger is so common that it is important to understand the non-obvious ways in which our preferences and decisions may be affected by it,” he said.

In an earlier study of the subject by a team at Cambridge University in England, the researchers noted that serotonin plays a major role in the decision-making process. “Since the raw material for making serotonin—an amino acid called tryptophan — only comes from diet, levels of the chemical decline between meals,” reports a piece in the Telegraph about the study. “This can lead to aggressiveness and impulsiveness,” say the team.