3 . It will come as no comfort to a child shivering (打哆嗦) on a playing field on a cold winter’s day. But regular organized school sport helps children in their academic studies in years to come. The researchers said other “structured” activities such as music or religious activities were not as beneficial for attention as taking part in a games lesson. The difference in academic ability was noticeable even at age ten, with those who had taken in sports since the start of junior school performing better than those who hadn’t.

The Canadian study looked at children aged six and then ten. Professor Linda Pagani said:“We worked with information provided by parents and teachers to compare kindergarteners’ activities with their classroom activities as they grew up. By the time they reached the fourth grade, kids who played structured sports were clearly better at following instructions and remaining focused in the classroom. There is something special to the sporting environment — perhaps the sense of belonging to a team to a special group with a common goal — that appears to help kids understand the importance of respecting the rules and honoring responsibilities.”

Researchers began studying 2,694 Canadian children around the age of six, with teachers filled in questionnaires about their behavior in school. Meanwhile, the children’s parents were interviewed by phone or in person about their home life. The exercise was the repeated four years later to test what effect the behavior had.

Professor Pagani said: “We found children who had better behavior in the kindergarten class were more likely to be involved in sport by age ten. Nevertheless, we found those children who were specifically involved in team sports at kindergarten scored higher by the time they reached the fourth grade.” The researchers believe sporting activities and attention skills go hand in hand. Professor Pagani added: “The results should be encouraging for schools looking to cut childhood obesity rates and low attainment in schools.”

4 . NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS 2020 PHOTO COMPETITION!

Woo-hoo! Get your cameras and smartphones at the ready, because it’s time for this year’s NG KIDS photography competition.

What you need to know

Competition is open only to legal residents (居民) of the UK and Ireland who are between the ages of 7 and 14.

We have THREE categories (类别) in the competition — animals, people and environment (a new category started this year). You can enter as many categories as you like but just ONE photo per category, please!

All photos should be sent through our website. If you’ve not already registered, you or your parent will need to do so at natgeokids. com/uk/ photocomp — it will only take a minute to do!

You can submit (提交) ONE photo for each of the three categories. Photos should be in JPEG format, between 1MB and 5MB in size. Enter at natgeokids. com/uk/photocomp.

Before you submit your photo, make sure you rename it with your full name and the category you are entering. For example, Joe-Bloggs-Animals. jpg.

Don’t forget to tell us your full name, date of birth and the title of your photo!

The prizes

Our Star Prize is a family holiday in Morocco!

And that’s not all! Each category winner will win a number of prizes too, including an amazing Nikon COOLPIX W150 camera, which is built to go anywhere.

The closing date is 23:59 (GMT) on 21 October 2020. Winners will be notified (通知) before 18 November 2020.

8 . For a while, my neighborhood was taken over by an army of joggers. They were there all the time: early mornings, noons and evenings. There were little old ladies in gray sweaters, young couples in Adidas shoes, middle-aged men with red faces. “Come on!” My friend Alex encouraged me to join him as he jogged by my house every evening. “You’ll feel great.”

Well, I had nothing against feeling great and if Alex could jog every day, anyone could. So I took up jogging seriously and gave it a good two months of my life, and not a day more. Based on my experience, jogging is the most overvalued form of exercise around, and judging from the number of the people who left our neighborhood jogging army, I’m not alone in my opinion.

First of all, jogging is very hard on the body. Your legs and feet take a real pounding running down a road for two or three miles. I developed foot, leg and back problems. Then I read about a nationally famous jogger who died of a heart attack while jogging, and I had something else to worry about. Jogging doesn’t kill hundreds of people, but if you have any physical weaknesses, jogging will surely bring them out, as they did with me.

Secondly, I got no enjoyment out of jogging. Putting one foot in front of the other for forty-five minutes isn’t my idea of fun. Jogging is also a lonely pastime. Some joggers say, “I love being out there with just my thoughts.” Well, my thoughts began to bore me, and most of them were on how much my legs hurt.

And how could I enjoy something that brought me pain? And that wasn’t just the first week; it was practically every day for two months. I never got past the pain level, and pain isn’t fun. What a cruel way to do it! So many other exercises, including walking, lead to almost the same results painlessly, so why jog?

I don’t jog any more, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m walking two miles three times a week at a fast pace, and that feels good. I bicycle to work when the weather is good. I’m getting exercise, and I’m enjoying it at the same time. I could never say the same for jogging, and I’ve found a lot of better ways to stay in shape.

9 . British Cycling had recently hired Dave Brailsford as its new director. At the time, professional cyclists in Great Britain had ________ nearly one hundred years of mediocrity(平庸). In fact, their________   had been so poor that one of the top bike companies in Europe ________ to sell bikes to the team because they were afraid that it would hurt sales if other professionals saw the British people using their bikes.

What made Brailsford different from previous coaches was his________ of searching for a tiny improvement in everything they do. The whole principle came from the idea that if you________   everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, improve it by 1 percent and you will get a________ increase when you put them all together.

Brailsford and his coaches began by making small________. They redesigned the bike seats to make them more________. They asked riders to wear electrically heated over-shorts to ________ ideal muscle temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to ________how each athlete responded to a particular workout.

But they didn’t stop there.They________ to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked areas. They hired a(n)________ to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the ________ of catching a cold. They even painted the ________ of the team truck white, which helped them ________little bits of dust that would normally slip by ________ but could affect the performance of the________tuned bikes.

As these and hundreds of other small improvements were ________, the results came faster than anyone could have ________. Just five years after Brailsford took over, they________ the road and track cycling events in all the important Games.