In our family, we have a beloved pet named Max, a golden retriever (寻回犬) with a heart of gold. Max has been an integral part of our family for the past five years, bringing joy, laughter, and countless precious memories into our lives. His intelligence and adorable personality never fail to bring joy and laughter into our lives. Every day, when I come home from school, Max greets me at the door with his tail wagging and his eyes sparkling with excitement. He always seems to know when I need a comforting presence, and his playful bahavior never fails to cheer me up.

Max’s intelligence is truly remarkable. He has learned numerous tricks and commands over the years, and he never ceases to amaze us with his problem-solving skills. One time, I accidentally dropped his favorite toy behind the couch, and without any prompting (提示), Max fetched a stick and used it to fish the toy out. His creativity and resourcefulness never fail to impress us.

Max’s playful personality brings endless joy and laughter into our family. Whether we are flying disc in the backyard or going for walks in the park, Max is always ready for a good time. His boundless energy and enthusiasm are contagious (有感染力的), and he has a way of making even the simplest activity feel like an adventure. His playful barks and exaggerated jumps when he’s trying to catch a ball never fail to make us laugh.

Max’s ability to sense our emotions and respond with love and affection is truly remarkable. He seems to know when we are feeling down or stressed and always finds a way to comfort us. One warm summer evening, as the sun was beginning to set, I was sitting comfortably in my living room, buried in a captivating book. Max, my loyal golden retriever, was lying peacefully beside me, enjoying a well-deserved nap. However, as the day drew to a close, Max suddenly sprang to his feet, his ears got a lift, and his eyes fixed intently on something outside the window. Without warning, he let out a series of loud, urgent barks, as if trying to alert me to a potential threat or disturbance. Alarmed by his sudden outburst, I set my book aside and joined Max at the window, curious to see what had caught his attention.

As I approached the window, I witnessed my elderly neighbor, Mr. Thompson, lying motionless in his backyard.

In the days following Mr. Thompson’s accident, Max and I visited him at the hospital as often as we could.

5 . With artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic technology improving at impressive rates, there are some who worry that there’s a risk of artistic and creative people being replaced. A new study by the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology, however, is showing exactly why that can’t and shouldn’t happen. It all started when the South Korean company posed this question: Can robots replace conductors?

Over a year ago, work to develop automaton (自动化) began. At first, it was designed like a machine, and didn’t live up to expectations. Then the company sought ways to improve it. In the end, it was given two arms with joints to copy wrists and elbows, allowing it to move a stick similarly to how a human conductor would move it. It was named the EverR 6 robot, and stands at 1.8 meters. It was finally time to figure out how it could follow through on its musical role.

“We got involved in this project to see how far robots can go in more creative fields like the arts, and what the challenges are,” Dong-wook Lee, a senior researcher at the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology said.

In order to pull this off, Dong-wook Lee cooperated with the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra. The 12-minute piece they planned to perform, “Feel” by Il-hoon Son, was created specifically for this event. It was created with the strengths of both EverR 6 and the human conductor, Soo-yeol Choi, in mind.

To pull off this impressive performance, the robot was preprogrammed to conduct through 30 cycles of beat patterns. Meanwhile, it was up to the human conductor to lead the orchestra in creating an improvisational (即兴的) score, adding depth to the otherwise planned piece.

Together, they pulled off a masterful performance that the audience seemed more than happy to have had the opportunity to witness it firsthand!

With the concert having gone so well, this is only the start of EverR 6. Still, no matter the improvements they’re able to make to this Android robot, the human conductor isn’t concerned about being replaced.

“Let’s leave the accuracy to the robots,” Soo-yeol Choi said, “but the musical and artistic aspects to a human conductor.”

As I was packing up, I noticed my colleague had left his laptop bag in my office. Since he was already home, I decided to bring it to him. It was 4:30 p. m. The snow wasn’t supposed to start until later according to the previous warning, but just to be safe, I decided to use the country roads near his home instead of the highway, which could fast become a skating rink (滑冰场).

After I dropped off the laptop case and got right back on the road, the snow started. Within minutes I was in a whiteout. I rolled down my window, thinking I could follow the edge of the road and keep to a straight line. But really, I hadn’t a clue where I was or even which side of the road I was on. I had to stop because I was afraid of driving into a farmer’s field, or worse. I called 911, only to be told that nobody was coming to get me until morning at the earliest.

Those seconds after the call were the worst of my life. Getting out to walk in a whiteout and high winds when it was -10°C wasn’t an option. So I texted my colleague whose laptop bag I had just returned. I joked about my good deed ending in disaster. But he had an idea. “Pin your location on Google Maps and send it to me,” he said.

I did, and soon he texted me back a screenshot of the satellite view of where I was. We figured out that I was on a road in between two farms. I posted this new information to my Facebook community group, pleading (恳求) for anyone who knew someone living here to help me get rescued.

Soon enough, people started responding on my post. I got a message from someone who was going to put me in touch with the family living there. At 8 p. m., my mobile phone rang. It was the son of the farmer who owned the land beside the road I was stranded (使滞留) on. He told me that his dad was coming to get me!

Then, about 45 minutes later, I saw a tall figure walking toward me in the dark, carrying a flashlight.

As his wife treated me to hot drinks, André went into the storm again and brought back another two families stranded on the road.

I spent almost three years in food service doing everything from washing dishes to working as a service director at a country club, Firstly, I waited tables, and it was actually one of my favorite jobs, mostly because of the people, One thing I learned is doing your job right .and focusing on ensuring that your customers have the best dining experience.

During college, I worked at a place called O’Malleys. It’s not open anymore so I don’t have to worry about getting anybody in trouble, and besides, this isn’t that kind of story.Every Sunday, these two ladies and a little girl would come in, and nobody wanted to wait on them because they were super cheap and never tipped, so I volunteered, and they became my regulars, I quickly learned that it was a mom, her young daughter, and her mother. They always ordered the same thing. They’d each get water, The two women would split an entree (主菜), and the young girl would get something off the child’s menu. And they’d leave no tip. I didn’t really care because Sunday lunch was always busy with the crowd, and their check was so small that even a 20% tip would have been just a few dollars. Besides, they were super nice, and I understood that this was their special time out. Going out just wasn’t something they could do. I did my best to treat them just like everybody else，which they appreciated.

This went on for over a year, Every Sunday, they would come in their pretty dresses, sit in my section, order the same thing they always did, and not leave me a tip... until one day,they did.

That day, they came in and ordered iced tea and a soda for the girl, I knew something was up. The two ladies each got their own entree nothing share, The little girl got a full order of chicken strips. I’m not sure why I remember exactly what she ordered.

Of course, I asked what the celebration was.

The mother said they were moving to Dallas the next week.

9 . The growth mindset is the belief that intellectual abilities can be developed and are not fixed, which have received a great deal of attention in schools and among researchers.

According to a study, a teacher’s growth mindset acts as a “support” that can draw out a student's growth mindset at the very beginning and make it maintainable and actionable in the classroom. These teachers may convey how, in their classes, mistakes are learning opportunities, not signs of low ability, and back up this view with assignments and evaluations that reward continual improvement. This could encourage a student to continue acting on their growth mindset.

The study analyzed data from the National Study of Learning Mindset, which was an intervention experiment conducted with a sample of ninth-grade students’ math grades. The present focus on math grades is motivated by the fact that students tend to find math challenging and anxiety inducing, and therefore, a growth mindset might help students face those challenges productively.

In the study, researchers show that the positive effect of a short growth-mindset intervention on ninth-grade students’ math grades was concentrated among students whose teachers themselves had growth mindset. They also found that baseline students — serve as a benchmark (基准点) for comparing and evaluating the progress of other students — who reported more fixed mindset in classrooms showed a significantly positive effect on math grades.

Successfully teaching a growth mindset to students lifted math grades overall, but this was not enough for all students to reap the benefits of a growth-mindset intervention. Supportive classroom contexts also mattered.Students who were in classrooms with teachers who approved of more of a fixed mindset did not show gains in their math grades over ninth grade, whereas the same kind of students in classrooms with more growth-mind set teachers showed meaningful gains.

In general, they view the testing and understanding of the causal effect of teacher mindset as the next step for mindset science. Such research will be challenging to carry out, however.

10 . At the age of 12, I withdrew into my bedroom with my guitar. I had neither musical talent — many_______music lessons had proved that — nor musical training. My fingers ached as I tried to press down on the strings without making them buzz (发出嗡嗡声). _______, I worked my way through 2-, 3- and even 5-chord (和旋) songs and discovered the _______ thrills of these musical notes. No one _______ me to do this. I did this myself and of my own free will for a week, and the sense of happiness－ true happiness _______ in absorption in something － has _______ me. Fifty years later, that week’s self-directed practice became a model and _______ for almost every meaningful thing I have done since. It makes me understand the _______ between achievement and accomplishment.

The world favors achievement while _______ accomplishment. The former is the completion of the task imposed (强加) from the outside — the ________ being a path to the next task. The latter is the end point of an activity we have chosen, whose bonus is the sudden ________ of happiness.

The seeking of accomplishment always ________ people. I learned so long ago in that ________ week that simply lifting one finger from the guitar’s C chord, you should get the most moving ________ in tune. I didn’t know then it was a major 7th chord, a favorite of some masters’. I just ________ accomplishment. That’s real human “achievement”.