1 . J.K. Rowling frequently shows there is magic every day. Her Harry Potter series has helped people through times of stress and depression and she is always there to deliver wise words of encouragement.

She is one celebrity who is very active on Twitter. So when a single dad named Matt Burke sent her a message thanking her for the series, she noticed. Her series had helped strengthen his relationship with his 9-year-old daughter Bailey.

He included a link to his article titled Being a Broke Parent. He explained how he hadn’t found a level of financial stability that allowed him to pay bills on time and take his daughter on more activities and events. The family also doesn’t have the Internet or TV, which means there’s no “digital babysitter”, and he has to rely on his own creative ways to bond with his daughter. Since he received the series, the main thing that has occupied them these days is reading books together.

Burke admits that he thought he was “too cool” for the books when they first came out and he was in his twenties, but he’s loving reading them now. “We switch off chapter by chapter reading them out loud,” Burke explains. “This not only allows her to get more used to reading aloud in front of someone, but it gets me directly involved in something she loves, and it gives me the chance to be very dramatic when I read my chapters and bring myself into the characters in the book, which has proven to be a ton of fun.”

After hearing Burke’s story, Rowling said how honored she was when Harry Potter was a part of his family’s life and offered Burke more signed books. Besides, people are also offering to send Burke more books as gifts. For Burke, this experience, far more than gifts, will be what he treasures.

Advertising     1     (refer) to the activity of promoting a product or service. It has become part of our modern life.

Advertising has always been closely linked with the mass media. In addition to making people aware of a product or service, a successful advertisement can also create a desire to buy, thus     2     (boost) business. That is     3     when a company wants to promote a product or service, it often launches a mass media advertising campaign.

Based on the psychology behind creating a desire to buy, advertisers have developed ways of persuading people into purchasing their     4     (product) or services. A common technique to make an impact is to create     5     memorable slogan, which uses simple but impressive language to make people remember the product or service. Another technique advertisers often employ is     6     (link) their company or product to a “brand ambassador”. Moreover, some advertisements such as product placement     7     (be) not so obvious. We absorb the marketing messages without thinking about them too much, yet they     8     (probable) have an effect on us the next time we go shopping.

In the future, advertising will be more about understanding individual customers and sending them advertisements that are tailored     9    specific needs. Not only will this make them feel     10     (valued), but it will also help companies target their customers more efficiently.

An unforgettable English Poetry Recitation Competition

6 . Roughly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the Roman city, Herculaneum. Now a group of scientists is working to figure out one of the great mysteries of that time—the scrolls of Herculaneum.

In 1752, workers digging in Herculaneum uncovered a home with over 600 scrolls. Most of the scrolls were made from papyrus-a paper-like material. The heat from the volcano had burned the scrolls so much that just touching them could make them fall apart. So scientists have been looking for ways to read the scrolls without opening them.

Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky has been working on this for over 20 years. He uses a CT scanner to take 3D X-ray images. Then he uses a computer program to “unroll” the scroll, and gets pictures of what it looks like on the inside. In 2016, his team used this method to read a burned scroll found near the Dead Sea.

But the scrolls from Herculaneum are much harder. The ink is made from charcoal and water, and doesn’t show up well in CT scans. Still, Dr. Seales hoped to be able to find the writing on the scrolls by training an AI program to look for these patterns.

Though Dr. Seales was making progress, it was slowly going. Then Dr. Seales met with two businessmen. They had the idea of creating a contest for decoding the scrolls. The contest, called the Vesuvius Challenge, offered large prizes to people who met certain challenges in decoding the scrolls. About 1,500 people have taken part in the contest.

In August, Casey Handmer found a pattern that revealed where the ink had been on the scrolls. Soon afterward, Youssef Nader created an AI program that found a whole word: “πoρραc”, which means “purple”. This was the first word ever read from these ancient scrolls. For their efforts, Mr. Handmer and Mr. Nader each won $10,000.

Now people are eagerly working to earn the contest’s $700,000 top prize, which is for decoding four longer sections of the scroll by December 31. The people behind the contest say that, with all the recent progress, it’s likely that someone will win this prize, too.

After my son, Scott, graduated from high school, he took a job in North Carolina.Two thousand miles suddenly separated me from the person who’d been the focus of my life for 18 years.As the days went by, I missed Scott more and more.I’d always been able to take care of myself, but now I seemed to need Scott’s help constantly, like getting a tool from the top shelf, or moving something heavy.Most of all, I just missed having him to talk to.I was lonely.I knew this day would come.But why does it have to be so hard?

However, a mother spider(蜘蛛) taught me a lesson.

On my way out from my storeroom, I noticed a spider building her web across the top corner of the doorway.I reached for a hoe (锄头), tore down the web, and watched the giant spider run away in the grass.She was back the very next morning, in the exact same spot, busily rebuilding.I stared for a moment, and then reached for the hoe again.Then I twisted the hoe round and round, catching the spider in her own web.I carried her far into my backyard, shook the hoe and watched her fall to the ground and disappear in the bush.The third morning, I stopped short as I entered the storeroom.The spider was back in the same corner, her web almost completed again.I reached for the hoe, but stopped.I thought her persistence (坚持) in building her web should pay off.I stepped back and watched her long legs busily knitting the web.

For the next few weeks, the spider and I were close neighbors.One particularly boring day, I was feeling so down that I didn’t even glance up at my spider as I entered.Suddenly I found a hundred tiny creatures on the floor.I realized that these were baby spiders and the web the mother had built was to protect her young.

As the mother watched from the corner of the web, her young were making their way to the ground safely.

I decided that I would leave this web as a reminder.

9 . One day, the sewer line (污水管道) under our house burst. My first _______ was to call the plumber (水管工)．I expected the man to _______ of such a miserable job._______, he simply asked, “The address?”

An hour later, Steve arrived in his truck. I _______ anxiously as he walked down into the damp depths. A few moments later he_______, saying, “It’s broken.”

“Can you fix it?” I asked with a mixture of doubt and _______.

Steve looked at me as if scolding me for my lack of   _______ saying, “Sure.” Then he told me that he had to get a backhoe (挖土机) and   _______the street to the main sewer line and that it wouldn’t be done until evening.

I felt somewhat_______upon driving off in my clean vehicle, leaving Steve to such a(n) ________task. I went into town and visited a few friends.________, around 6 p.m., my curiosity got the better of me. I went home and saw a sweeter________: the newly-paved street and a covered-up excavation across my front garden.

I sat down, lost in________. I was taken by the very idea that, sometimes terrible things might happen to an unlucky homeowner, ________ there is always somebody who is ________in its solution.

10 . One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the rural areas with the purpose of showing him how poor people lived. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a stream that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.”

“Our courtyard reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”

Isn’t perspective a wonderful thing? It makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.