3 . Why should I stay off Facebook and other social media when I am involved in a lawsuit or personal injury case? Social media has become an important part of our everyday lives. Facebook, Instagram, and other social media have changed the way we communicate with friends, family, and colleagues. Many of us use these platforms to post opinions, show off our achievements or show your opinions on public affairs.

This means that social media is public information and can be used against you. Lawyers can use social media as evidence. They often look for pictures and posts that could potentially disprove your injury claim. Your posts can still be found even if your information is private when the posts potentially are related to your case. The court may determine that your public posts may lead to admissible evidence. They will not make you offer entire information, but only what they think is related. Defense lawyers wish to prove that the injured party, physically, emotionally, or financially, is lying about their injuries.

Even posting about your emotions can discount your claim greatly. Say, you are suing (起诉) someone for your pain and suffering because you are depressed, yet you post pictures of yourself smiling and you have quoted “Life is good” attached to the photo. If and when the defense lawyers get a hold of the posts, your pain and suffering claim may not hold up in court.

Most people only post about the good times on social media, rarely about the hardships and misfortunes. Insurance companies are allowed to follow you and gather information as evidence. Social media makes it easier. Before social media, insurance companies and lawyers had to hire investigators to follow people around to spy on them. Social media makes this entirely a lot easier.

If you have posted content related to your claim, you must not change evidence. Deleting your account would be considered you’re destroying evidence and that will affect your case. The best practice would be to stay off social media until your case has come to a close.

4 . A map is a drawing that give us information about a place at a particular time. Maps are a representation of the real world drawn _________ on a flat surface but many times _________ than the place itself. Maps are one of the oldest forms of nonverbal (非言语的) _________. Every culture in every part of the world makes and uses maps. The art and _________ of making maps is called cartography (制图学). A person making maps is called a cartographer. In fact, all the information about one place cannot be _________ in a single map. Different _________ of a place can be shown in different types of maps.

There are two main types of maps—physical maps and political maps. Physical maps show the _________ of the land-hills, lakes, forests, the coast and so on. _________ maps show how the land is used by people—counties, provinces, countries, town boundaries, etc. Both types of map have _________ over time because forests are cut down, roads are built, towns expand and borders change. Most maps include a compass rose which indicates the __________. In the meanwhile, they __________ include a scale (比例尺), which is useful for estimating __________.

People use or “read” maps because of different __________. For example, we often use them when we are traveling to the places that we are not __________ with. News reporters use maps to tell us __________ things are happening in the world, __________ use them to navigate (导航) the skies and fishermen to navigate the seas.

Maps have an exciting history of their own. Over time, they __________ from being rough sketches, often based on travelers’ tales and stories __________ through word of mouth that may or may not have been __________. Nowadays maps are accurate scientific instruments. Their __________ runs along with the progress of civilisation.

5 . There are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term. Information in long-term memory can be recalled at a later time when it is needed. The information may be kept for days or years. Sometimes information in the long-term memory is hard to remember. Students taking exams often have this experience. In contrast, information in short-term memory is kept for only a few seconds, usually by repeating the information over and over.

Dr. Hunter studied short-term memory in rats. He used a special device which had a cage for the rat and three doors. There was a light in each door. First, the rat was placed in the closed cage. Next, one of the lights was turned on and then off. There was food for the rat only at this door. After the light was turned off, the rat had to wait a short time before it was released from its cage. Then, if it went to the correct door, it was rewarded with the food that was there. Hunter did this experiment many times. He always turned on the lights in a random order. Hunter’s results show that rats have a short-term memory of about ten seconds.

Later, Dr. Henning studied how people learning English as a second language remember vocabulary. To begin with, the participants listened to a recording of a native speaker reading a paragraph in English. Following the recording, the participants took a 15-question test where they circled the word they remembered having in the recording. Some of the questions had four choices that sounded alike, while others had four choices having the same meaning.

Henning found that people with a lower level in English made more of their mistakes on words that sound alike; people with a higher level made more of their mistakes on words that have the same meaning. Henning’s results suggest that beginning learners hold the sound of words in their short-term memory, while advanced learners hold the meaning of words in their short-term memory.

6 . Antarctica is the highest, driest, and coldest place on Earth. It is also the remotest, a fact which demystifies its unspoiled environment. It is difficult for people to get there, and not a comfortable place for people to stay once they arrive. It is widely described as the last true wilderness on our planet.

The cold climate is responsible for maintaining the continent’s year-round ice fields: They never melt. Even though Antarctica receives more sunlight than the equator, the temperatures are lower because the ice sheet reflects the heat back into space. Thus, the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was in Antarctica in July, 1983. Soviet scientists shivered (瑟瑟发抖) through temperatures that fell to minus 89.2 degrees Celsius.

Once completely inaccessible, Antarctica has more recently been playing host to adventurers seeking excitement, scientists interested in experimenting, and companies looking to exploit this wild zone for profit: gold, uranium and oil are just some of the valuable resources which lie beneath the continent’s icy covering.

For centuries, Europeans wondered about the existence of a South-pole continent, but no one actually knew for certain Antactica was there until 1820 when European explorers “discover” it. Since then, men have gone to Antarctica in search of adventure. Testing their abilities, several teams of explorers set out in 1911 to be the first men to stand at the South Pole.

Yet, Antarctica’s fragile and complicated ecosystem is threatened by its human visitors. Damage to the environment occurs as people come looking for resources beneath the ice, or carelessly leave their garbage behind. Currently, countries are working to ensure that the damage to Antarctica’s environment is minimized, and that the last wilderness on Earth will remain an unspoiled place.

7 . A few people are born resilient (自强不息). Liz Murray is one of them. Her parents were cocaine addicts who spent most of the family’s money in feeding their habits. Liz explains that as a result, she and her sister were neglected. The girls often lacked food and warm clothes. By age 15, Liz was homeless. Her mother had died of AIDS, and her father was on the streets. Liz made a swear to herself after her mother’s death that her life would be different. She refused to end up like her mom and decided that the best way to avoid that fate was to go back to school.

Liz Murray stuck to her plan firmly. She stood out in her high school courses in an accelerated two-year program. Liz Murray applied for a New York Times scholarship offered to needy local students. New York Times was looking to make a difference by helping kids who had overcome obstacles. Her story apparently came through loud and clear.

Liz hoped to study at Harvard University on her scholarship. Harvard agreed that Liz Murray belonged at the university and accepted her as a member of the class of 2004. Her reaction to the acceptance letter was to scream with delight.

When she looks back on where she has come from and the burdens her parents gave her, Liz says that she is neither bitter nor angry. She understood, from an early age, that they had a disease that prevented them from giving her more than they did. She misses having her family together. And her father, with whom she is now close, has developed AIDS. Liz says she doesn’t feel like she has moved past the events of her childhood, rather they’ve stayed with her and are part of everything about who she is. She has learned from her experiences and makes use of the lessons.

8 . Every year, the biggest and the best garden designers get together to create the Chelsea Flower Show, providing inspiration, trendsetting ideas and a glimpse of how our gardens might look next year.

On Trend: Green garden

Sustainable gardens have become a big trend in our towns and cities. Joe Swift inspired gardeners with his gold-winning design for the Homebase Teenage Cancer Trust that featured drought-buster (治理) architectural planting.

It could cope with even the driest conditions typically found in places where water is precious. His large pools of water had a cooling effect on people and plants.

On Trend: Space-saving Herbs

The Brewin Dolphin garden designed by Cleve West and Steve Swatton followed the Arts and Craft tradition, showing the beautiful strong lines of neatly beech (山毛榉) among its soft herbs planting. It proved to be a style that has never gone out of fashion.

You don’t need a large garden to have a piece of topiary (树木造型). These evergreens, which can be boxed or grown in pots, are easy to cut into shapes, such as balls, cubes and pyramids.

On Trend: Rhododendrons (杜鹃花) Woodland

Chris Beardshaw’s gold-winning design was packed with rhododendrons woodland bushes. It paid tribute (致敬) to Furzey Gardens in Hampshire, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Rhododendrons might not be the trendiest choice but they deserve a comeback.

On Trend: Drought Buster

The Herbert Smith garden for WaterAid was inspired by the work of the charity and the transforming power of clean water.

Using water wisely is today’s issue, so invest in water butts (积水桶) to collect rainwater and gather waste water from baths, sinks and washing machines.

9 . Growing up, I was always fortunate to be around well-tended gardens at my parents’ and my grandparents’ homes. My grandfather was considered quite “green-fingered”, as there were always _______ flowers in his garden. Not only was it a nice one in the _______ sense, but what he _______ in it was also often on the dinner table, so it was also a very _______ garden.

I decided to turn my hand to growing some plants recently. I only have a small balcony to _______ my horticultural activities, but that has not _______ me at all. It’s possible to _______ a nice “garden” even in the most _______ space. I had already _______ to grow some flowers, but couldn’t ________ the difference between those and weeds, so my ________ and efforts turned to something much more practical: ________.

I took the ________ of one little tomato and planted them in a number of pots. After several weeks, I was ________ to see 15 tomato plants on my balcony in different ________ of growth. I keep my fingers crossed that one day they will ________ me something very practical indeed: some tasty tomatoes.

In this age when we have such fast-paced lives and ________ modern technology for so much, it’s very ________ to see this greenery on my balcony and to engage in a practice as old as time itself. ________, plant life is the most basic and oldest “technology” on our planet.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to have “green fingers”, it is something that’s well worth a try. You could be amazed by the ________.

10 . Children are more likely to prefer foods they believe to be natural to human-made options, rating them higher for tastiness, safety and desirability, a study shows.

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Yale studied the preferences of more than 374 adults and children in the United States when presented with apples and orange juice and told of their origins.

In one study, 137 children aged 6 to 10 years old were shown three apples. They were told one was grown on a farm, one was made in a lab, and another grown on a tree inside a lab. Adults took part in the same study to compare age groups. Both children and adults preferred apples they believed were grown on farms to those grown in labs, researchers found. Children were more likely to refer to freshness, being outside, or sunlight when considering why they chose the farm apple. Adults were more likely to mention naturalness.

In a second study, 85 children aged 5 to 7 years old and a group of 64 adults were shown four different kinds of orange juice—one described as squeezed on a farm, one with no information about it, one with chemicals removed and one described as having chemicals added. Researchers found that the information on the juice’s naturalness had a significant effect on its rating. The participants tended to choose the more natural option based on perceived taste, safety and desire to consume.

Dr Matti Wilks of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences said, “Overall we provide evidence that our tendency to prefer natural food is present in childhood. This research offers a first step towards understanding how these preferences are formed, including whether they are socially learned and what drives our tendency to prefer natural things.”