1 . Think back to when you were in a maths classroom, and the teacher set a difficult problem. Which of the two following responses is closer to the way you reacted?

A: Oh no, this is too hard for me. I’m not even going to seriously try and work it out.

B: Ah, this is quite tricky, but I like to push myself. Even if I don’t get the answer right, maybe I’ll learn something in the attempt.

Early in her career, the psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University gave a group of ten-year-olds problems that were slightly too hard for them. One group reacted positively and loved the challenge. She says they had a ‘growth mindset’ and are focused on what they can achieve in the future. But another group of children felt that their intelligence was being judged and they had failed. They had a ‘fixed mindset’ and were unable to imagine improving. Some of them looked for someone who had done worse than them to boost their self-esteem.

Professor Dweck believes that there is a problem in education at the moment. For years, children have been praised for their intelligence or talent, but this makes them vulnerable (脆弱的) to failure. They become performance-oriented, wanting to please by getting high grades, but they are not interested in learning for its own sake. The solution, according to Dweck, is to lead them to become mastery-oriented (i.e., interested in getting better at something). She claims that the ever-lasting effort over time is the key to outstanding achievement.

Psychologists have been testing these theories. Underperforming school children on a Native American reservation were exposed to growth mindset techniques for a year. The results were nothing less than incredible. They came top in regional tests, beating children from much more privileged backgrounds. These children had previously felt that making an effort was a sign of stupidity, but they came to see it as the key to learning.

4 . Feeling achy and feverish? Your misery has plenty of company. By the end of December, the tally (计数器) of flu-like illnesses in the state exceeded the peaks in the two previous seasons, when the biggest number of cases occurred in February and March. This time, the flu virus seems to be hitting even harder.

Flu is unique among human diseases. It circulates constantly in cool and dry areas. Because it spreads from person to person and can be picked up easily, nearly everyone is exposed. While it’s unclear whether the annual flu epidemic (流行病) will worsen this year, or just arrived earlier, fears have been increased by the severity of flu in Australia during its most recent season and the fact that the vaccine may protect against the predominant (盛行的) kind of the flu only 30 percent of the time.

Despite the worries, doctors and public health officials say there is no evidence that people are getting sicker than usual. Flu cases in Massachusetts started rising around Thanksgiving and increased steadily, with an especially steep climb in the last week of the year. “This is a bad flu season but not a horrible one,” said Dr. Andrew G. Villanueva, a lung specialist and chief quality officer at the Lahey Hospital & Medieal Centre in Burlington.

The flu season, while clearly in full swing, doesn’t “feel different” from previous years, Villanueva said. “We’re not seeing a lot of people being hospitalized because of flu,” he said. “Most people with the flu recover on their own without medical care.”

5 . A robot created by Washington State University (WSU) scientists could help elderly people with dementia (痴呆) and other limitations live independently in their own homes.

The Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, uses sensors installed in a WSU smart home to determine where its residents are, what they are doing and when they need assistance with daily activities. It navigates (定位) through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, provides video instructions on how to do simple tasks and can even lead its owner to objects like their medication or a snack in the kitchen.

“RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected,” said Bryan Minor, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Currently, an estimated 50 percent of adults over the age of 85 need assistance with every day activities such as preparing meals and taking medication and the annual cost for this assistance in the US is nearly $2 trillion. With the number of adults over 85 expected to triple by 2050, researchers hope that technologies like RAS and the WSU smart home will relieve some of the financial strain on the healthcare system by making it easier for older adults to live alone.

RAS is the first robot researchers have tried to incorporate into their smart home environment. They recently published a study in the journal Cognitive Systems Research that demonstrates how RAS could make life easier for older adults struggling to live independently.

“While we are still in an early stage of development, our initial results with RAS have been promising,” Minor said. “The next step in the research will be to test RAS’ performance with a group of older adults to get a better idea of what prompts, video reminders and other preferences they have regarding the robot.”

6 . Is there a way to turn back the aging process in people? For centuries, people have been looking for a “fountain of youth.” The idea is that if you find a magical fountain, and drink its water, you will not age.

Researchers in New York did not find an actual fountain of youth, but they may have found a way to turn back the aging process. It appears that the answer may be called the hypothalamus, which is part of your brain. It controls important body activities, including growth, the way we process food and so on. Researchers found that hypothalamus neural stem cells (干细胞) also influence how fast aging takes place.

Dongsheng Cai was the leading researcher in a study on aging in mice. He and his team reported their findings. “when the hypothalamus starts aging, particularly the loss of hypothalamus stem cells, so does the body.” he said.

Using this information, the researchers began trying to activate (激活) the hypothalamus in laboratory mice. The results show that the treatment slowed aging in the animals. “When we injected the hypothalamus stem cells to the middle-aged mice, the mice aged slowly and they could also live longer.”

But these results were just from studying mice in a laboratory. If the mice can live longer, does that mean people could have longer lives? The next step is to see if the anti-aging effects also work in human beings. If so, they say the findings could lead to new ways to help doctors identify and treat age-related health problems.

7 . I was cycling and noticed a person, about a quarter of a kilometer in front of me. I could tell he was cycling a little slower than me and decided to try to _______ him. I had about a kilometer to go on the road _______ turning off.

So I _______ cycling faster and faster and every _______ I was gaining on him just a little bit. After just a few minutes I was only about 100 yards _______ him, so I really picked up the pace and _______ myself You would have _______ I was cycling in the last section of London Olympic triathlon.

_______,I caught up with him and passed him by. On the inside I felt so _______.I beat him, of course, but he didn't even know we were __________ .

After I passed him, I __________ that I had been so focused on competing against him that I had __________ my turn. I had gone nearly six blocks past it and had to turn around and go all the way back.

Isn't that what happens in life when we __________ competing with co-workers, neighbors, and friends, trying to __________ that we are more successful or more important? We spend our time and ____________ chasing after them and we miss out on our own __________ to our future.

Therefore, just take what life has given you, your height, weight and personality. Stay focused and live a healthy life. There's no __________in life. Run your own race and wish others well!

8 . Sarah, a classical dancer from India, had to have her right leg cut after a car accident. She was also ______ on her career（事业） road.

Though the accident brought her bright career to a   ____, she didn’t give up. In the ____ months that followed, Sarah met a doctor who developed an artificial (人造的)   _____ made from rubber filled with sponge (海绵). So   _____ she wanted to go back to   _____ after she had been fitted with an artificial leg. Sarah knew that she believed in   _____and could realize her dream,   _____ she began her courageous journey back to the world of dancing —   _____to balance, bend, stretch, walk, turn, twist and twirl.

After every public recital (个人表演), she ____ ask her dad about her performance. “You   _____ have a long way to go” was the answer she used to get ____. In January 1984, Sarah made a historic _____by giving a public recital in Bombay. She performed in such a great manner that it   ______everyone to tears and this ______ pushed her to the number one position again. That evening when she asked her dad the _______question, he didn’t say anything. He just touched her feet as a praise.

Sarah’s comeback was ______ moving that a film producer ______ to make the story into a hit film. When someone asked Sarah how she had   _____ to dance again, she said quite simply, “YOU DON’T NEED FEET TO DANCE.”   ______is impossible in this world. If you have the will to win, you can achieve anything.

9 . These days, teenagers often have their noses buried in a cellphone or other electronic devices. They are often so _________ with what’s happening on social media that they often _________ what’s going on around them. But you _________ can’t say that about this 17-year-old. Seeing _________ the teen helped an elderly woman who was _________ at the Dollar General just restored my _________ in our youth!

17-year-old Senquavlous Driver joined his _________, Connie, for a trip to the Dollar General. They’d put down their shopping and were starting to _________ when Senquavious noticed a woman in her eighties struggling to get out of her car. She _________ but was having trouble walking. Senquavious wasted no time coming to the __________!

The teen jumped out of his aunt’s car without __________. He helped the elderly woman to the sidewalk and __________ with her into the store. She was there to get soda, but could __________ walk. The woman explained that she’d recently __________, hurting her back and face. So, Senquavious stayed with her the whole time, helping her get her shopping done, and then saw her back to her __________.

His aunt watched on, __________ by her nephew’s compassion (同情). She pulled out her cellphone and took some photos. “I was in __________ taking pictures because he didn’t hesitate to help her, and that made me happy,” she said. “I’m so __________ of him.”

Connie proudly __________ the photos of her nephew’s act of __________ on Facebook, saying, “I hope he continues to do great things in his life.”

10 . In 2015, a man named Nigel Richards memorized 386, 000 words in the entire French Scrabble Dictionary in just nine weeks. However, he does not speak French. Richards’ impressive feat is a useful example to show how artificial intelligence works — real AI. Both of Richard and AI take in massive amounts of data to achieve goals with unlimited memory and superman accuracy in a certain field.

The potential applications for AI are extremely exciting. Because AI can outperform humans at routine tasks — provided the task is in one field with a lot of data — it is technically capable of replacing hundreds of millions of white and blue collar jobs in the next 15 years or so.

But not every job will be replaced by AI. In fact, four types of jobs are not at risk at all. First, there are creative jobs. AI needs to be given a goal to optimize. It cannot invent, like scientists, novelists and artists can. Second, the complex, strategic jobs — executives, diplomats, economists — go well beyond the AI limitation of single-field and Big Data. Then there are the as-yet-unknown jobs that will be created by AI.

Are you worried that these three types of jobs won’t employ as many people as AI will replace? Not to worry, as the fourth type is much larger: jobs where emotions are needed, such as teachers, nannies and doctors. These jobs require compassion, trust and sympathy — which AI does not have. And even if AI tried to fake it, nobody would want a robot telling them they have cancer, or a robot to babysit their children.

So there will still be jobs in the age of AI. The key then must be retraining the workforce so people can do them. This must be the responsibility not just of the government, which can provide funds, but also of corporations and those who benefit most.