1 . Benjamin Spock was a famous doctor for children. He completed his medical degree at Columbia University in New York City and began to treat babies and children in 1933. During the next ten years he continued to fit the theories about how children develop with what mothers told him about their children. What he found gave birth to his first book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care.

Before Dr. Spock’s book appeared, the most popular guide to raising children was Psychological Care of Infant and Child, whose writer was John B. Watson. He urged extreme firmness in dealing with children. The book warned parents never to kiss, hug or physically comfort their children.

Dr. Spock’s book was very different. He gave gentle advice to ease the fears of new parents. Dr. Spock said his work was an effort to help parents trust their own natural abilities in caring for their children. He emphasized that parents’ “natural loving care” for their children is most important.

Dr. Spock based much of his advice on the research and findings of the famous Austrian psychoanalyst (精神分析学家), Sigmund Freud. “I was interested in how children grow emotionally. And I think Freud has given us a very good explanation of development. ”

Dr. Spock’s book discusses the mental and emotional development of children. It urges parents to use that information to decide how to deal with their babies when they are crying, hungry or tired. For example, Dr. Spock dismissed the popular idea of exactly timed feedings for babies. Baby care experts had believed that babies must be fed at the same times every day or they would grow up to be demanding children.

Dr. Spock said babies should be fed when they are hungry. He argued that babies know better than anyone about when and how much they need to eat. He did not believe that feeding babies when they cry in hunger would make them more demanding.

750, 000 copies of the book were sold during the year after its release.

2 . As the most typical part of the art of Chinese language, idioms have contributed to the inheritance and development of the old Chinese culture.     1     This set of stamps includes three Chinese idioms often used to enlighten and encourage people.

The idiom Yu Gong Yi Shan (The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains) is from Liezi. In ancient times, there was an old man in front of whose house were Taihang and Wangwu Mountains.     2     So he gathered his family and began to dig the mountain and move the earth elsewhere, believing that with their continuous efforts, the mountains would finally be leveled.     3    

The idiom Wo Xin Chang Dan(Sleeping on Brushwood and Tasting Gall)is from Records of the Grand History. In the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Wu defeated the State of Yue, and captured the king of Yue, Gou Jian. After he was released and returned to his country, Gou Jian, never forgetting his shame, slept on a pile of brushwood and tasted gall before every meal.     4     This story encourages those who were once defeated to inspire themselves and struggle hard for recovery.

The idiom Wen Ji Qi Wu (Rising up to Practice Swordplay upon Hearing the Rooster Crow) is from The Book of Jin Dynasty. In the Jin Dynasty, to realize his ambition of serving the country, Zu Ti rose up every morning at the moment he heard the crow of a rooster to practice swordplay, and finally became a capable general.     5    

3 . In the animal world, speed is king. Fast animals have a leg up in outrunning other animals, which puts them high on the food chain. It would seem that all animals would go for speed, but then there’s the sloth (树懒). While a lion can go from 0 to 60 miles an hour in only five seconds, it takes a sloth all day to cover no more than 50 meters.

Sloths live entirely in trees on a diet of leaves. And for this, they are extremely rare. While most of the land world is covered in trees, there are very few vertebrates (脊椎动物) that call the tree home. The aim of a 2016 study, says Jonathan Pauli, a University of Alabama professor of forest and wildlife ecology, was to help uncover why sloths are indeed so unique. “Among vertebrates, this is the rarest of lifestyles”, says Pauli. “When you picture animals that live off plant leaves, they are almost all big-things like deer. What’s super interesting about sloths is that they can’t be big.”

For their research, Pauli and his Wisconsin team studied wild sloths at a field site. When the researchers measured the energy use of sloths, they found a wildly low burning of as little as 110 calories of energy a day. And for this, they take the cake: it is the lowest measured energetic output for any mammal (哺乳动物).

“The measurement was intended to find out what it cost sloths to live over a day,”says Pauli, who adds that a diet of little but leaves lacks nutritional value and the animal’s small size doesn’t allow for overeating-so sloths need to find ways to make the most of their diets, which means using tiny amounts of energy, dramatic control of body temperature and living at an extremely slow pace.

Their reward? A wonderfully widespread ecological system to call their own, one slow inch at a time.

Every four years the best players in the world gather for one month in summer to take part in the biggest event in football—the World Cup.     1    will be very different when the 2030 edition rolls around.

In October, FIFA released a statement     2     the 2030 FIFA World Cup will take place in six countries across three continents to celebrate the soccer tournament’s 100th anniversary. Morocco, Portugal and Spain are combined applicants to host most of the     3     (match), while Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina are targeted to host kickoff games     4     (respective) to begin the 2030 World Cup.

“The World Cup’s first match was hosted in Uruguay in 1930, so the centennial (百周年的) World Cup could not be far from South America,       5     everything began,” said     6     FIFA officer. He added, “We will have a unique     7     (globe) footprint in 2030 welcoming and uniting the world while     8     (celebrate) together the beautiful game and the centennial World Cup.”

Actually, the 2026 World Cup     9     (hold) in cities across America, Canada and Mexico, the first time it will be played across three host nations. The current size of the World Cup, 32 teams, increases     10     48 in the 2026 event.

6 . In a small town in the countryside, there lived a happy family named the Andersens. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson had two children — Jack and Emily. They were known in the town for their sense of_______.

Mr. Anderson was the town’s mayor and had a lot of_______to take care of. He was always working hard to_______his town and help improve the lives of its residents. Mrs. Anderson was a teacher at the local school and_______the town’s children. Jack and Emily were also very capable children, despite their_______. Jack was only twelve, but he was already helping his father with some of his duties in the town hall. Emily, who was only ten, loved to help her mother prepare_______for her students.

In October of last year, the_______was preparing for the town’s annual carnival, which was a big_______. Everyone in the town looked forward to the carnival and the Andersons were responsible for organizing the event. Mr. Anderson was_______arranging the rides and games, while Mrs. Anderson helped with the food and drinks together with other women. Jack and Emily were________given jobs and duties. Jack was________to paint the carnival signs. Emily called on her friends to________the carnival stage and make sure they looked attractive and colorful. All four members of the Anderson family worked hard to ensure that the carnival was a________. They spent long hours and________nights preparing for the event, ensuring that this year’s carnival would be even more________than before. The family’s devotion to the neighborhood shone a warm light in everyone’s heart.

7 . The mushrooming video screens in buses, taxis and apartment halls in cities like Shanghai are taking away our already rare resource: a place for a moment of peace. Taking a nap or reading a book on buses is less pleasant now, as the LCD screens broadcast news, entertainment and advertisements at unbearable volumes.

You pay the bus fare simply to get a ride—undisturbed—but now you are exposed to this “added value”, whether you like it or not. If it’s a crowded bus, the noise is even more exasperating. More and more Chinese cities have joined Shanghai, regarded as the first to put video screens on buses, disturbing millions of passengers.

Some may like to watch programme aired on buses or in apartment halls. But those who don’t should be equally respected. Because of the bus screens, students cannot focus on reviewing their lessons or preparing for a test. People who like to read or reflect feel unsettled by the noise. Youngsters who like to listen to music on their iPods must increase the volume to fight against the competing audio. If you already feel stressed after a busy day, the bus video advertising certainly increase the tension of both your muscles and nervous system. Bus drivers are surely the worst victims because they have to bear it at least eight hours a day, non-stop.

A high public tolerance for noise pollution has helped bus video advertisers to expand their businesses. But opposition has already started to make its voice heard. Some people have already accused bus companies of breaking their contracts, since their obligation is only to deliver passengers to their destinations.

Shanghai, as a world-class city, should set an example for the country. It should first adopt world-class behavior in its massive public transportation system to return the public a peaceful place.

8 . While taking a 20-hour train ride along the edge of the Taklimakan Desert in northwestern China, I had the kind of humbling, educational, and above all else, wonderful ________ with a local that all travelers long for. A young Chinese man ________ me on the train. My ________ friend spoke virtually no English, so I happily took the ________ to practice my Chinese.

Over several hours, he would tell me about how he had ________ a two-year professional school to quickly find a job ________ highways in order to help support his family. Perhaps the most ________, however, was the fact that this man spent hours studying every day after hard physical labor. Without batting an eye, he would ________ a translated Emerson passage before asking about the literary influence of American ________ as a whole. ”And what do you all learn about Russian authors?” I ________ him asking at one point.

It would have been easy to ________ my assumptions about this highway builder who had never been more than a few hundred miles from home. But this highly informed, ________ , and admirable person prevented me doing so. In the course of a couple of hours, he ________ me just how much one can gain from ________ with an open mind, and a willingness to ________ with locals from all walks of life.

9 . Scientists at the University of Washington (UW) have come up with an unusual way to help farmers get information about the plants in their fields.

Farmers already use drones (无人机) to collect information about their crops. But they can only fly for 10 to 20 minutes, and can only travel for a few miles. Last year, the team at UW showed off “RoboFly”, a tiny robot that weighed as much as a toothpick and could fly. But it can’t fly far at all and it needs a laser (激光) for power. So the scientists began to think about things that already knew how to fly, which led them to the bumblebees (大黄蜂) that fly all day. Compared to many flying insects, bumblebees are so large and strong as to fly carrying almost as much as their own weight.

The UW scientists created a special device with sensors, a small battery, and a way of storing tiny amounts of information. This “backpack” weighs about as much as seven grains of dry rice.

To track the bee, the scientists send radio signals from several spots along the edges of the field where the bee is. The tiny computer on the bee’s back uses the strength of the signals to figure out where it is. The backpack records information about the temperature and light. When the bee return s home at the end of the day, a device can wirelessly download the information the bee has collected. Another device can wirelessly recharge the backpack’s battery.

In the UW experiment, the scientists cooled the bumblebees down so that they stopped moving, and then glued the backpacks onto the bees. But it would be difficult for farmers to do the same thing for hundreds of bumblebees. Besides, bumblebees don’t live long — about a month. Farmers would need to be careful as the bees got older, otherwise the trackers could die while they are out in the field, leaving the electronic litter behind.