1 . Walking while texting could lead to fines of up to $50 or 15 days’ imprisonment as state lawmaker warns of the dangers of “distracted walking”. Jared Schumacher is one of hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans who _________ use electronic devices to text, listen to music or do other tasks as they walk outdoors.

If a “distracted walking” measure recently proposed by a state assemblywoman (女议员) becomes law, Jared and others like him could face _________ or even jail time.

“I admit that I’m usually listening to music, talking on my phone or texting while I’m walking around,” Schumacher, 20, said while _________ to a text as he walked along a street in the state capital last weekend.

Experts say distracted walking is a growing _________, as people of all ages become more _________ on electronic devices for personal and professional matters. They also note pedestrian deaths have been _________ in recent years. In 2005, 11% of all US fatalities involved pedestrians, but that number rose to 15% in 2014.

The rise in deaths coincides (相符合) with states _________ bills that target pedestrians and bicyclists. For instance, a bill in Hawaii would fine someone $250 if he or she were to cross the street while _________ an electronic device. Similar bills have failed in states including Arkansas, Illinois, Nevada and New York.

“Thus far, no states have enacted a law _________targeting distracted bicyclists or pedestrians,” said Douglas Shinkle, transportation program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. But he added that “a few states __________ to introduce legislation every year.”

The measure recently put forward by New Jersey assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt would __________ walking while texting and ban pedestrians on public roads from using electronic communication devices unless they are __________.

Lawbreakers would face fines of up to $50, 15 days imprisonment or both, which is the same punishment as jaywalking. Half of the fine would be distributed to safety education about the __________of walking and texting, said Lampitt, a Democrat.

Some see the proposal as a(n) __________ government overreach, while others say they understand Lampitt’s reasoning. But most agree that people need to be made __________of the issue.

2 . Coral Refugees

As the planet and oceans continue to heat up, sites where coral (珊瑚) has recently boomed are becoming less and less habitable. For instance, thanks to extreme ocean temperatures, much of Australia's Great Barrier Reef suffered mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017 that turned parades of colorful coral into dull, white masses.

    1     By studying fossils in Daya Bay, just northeast of Hong Kong in the South China Sea, a team of researchers found that during periods of warming in the distant past, coral reefs migrated away from equatorial warm waters to the bay's more hospitable subtropical latitudes.

"We showed that the higher-latitude reefs up around China did grow during earlier warm periods," says Tara Clark, a paleontologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia.     2     There the researchers randomly collected dead corals and calculated their ages using radio isotopic (同位素的) dating techniques. The ancient reefs grew between 6,850 and 5,510years ago, the scientists reported in January in Geology, which coincides with a time when ocean temperatures around South China and nearby seas were one to two degrees Celsius warmer on average than they are today.     3     Of course, the idea of refuges for endangered reefs on the move is not new, but using the fossil record to help locate such places is relatively novel approach.

Although the fossil evidence suggests that Daya Bay could one day provide a heaven for corals, there are some hurdles in the way of making the refuge an inviting place, Clark says.     4     And Daya Bay is now heavily polluted, which could threaten its ability to sustain reefs. But in light of the new discovery, Clark says, "we might as well do the best we can to protect these areas, just in case."

When Stephanie Andel can feel her eyes glaze over scrolling through academic papers, institutional emails or student marking, she'll open a new tab in her web browser and explore. "I take a few minutes every hour or two to surf the web, look at news or     1     my Facebook feed to catch up with friends," Andel, assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University—Purdue University of Indianapolis, admits.

This phenomenon is "cyberloafing." The word is a（n）     2     of "cyber," which means "related to computers," and "loafing," which means "relaxing in a lazy way."

It is a（n）     3     slope, which can damage productivity. A study from the University of Taxes suggests we are     4     of this form of procrastination（拖延）for 14% of our working day. On a Friday afternoon, it's more than that.

Cyberloafing is often presented as a     5     . Yet more recent research suggests that a degree of cyberloafing may be beneficial to employees；those small breaks help them     6     between tasks and even deal with workplace stress.

The key question is when a short break to reset after a     7     task turns into procrastination. "There's a fine line between cyberloafing to refresh the mind and when people are doing it as an     8     from the task because they find the task challenging," says Dr Fuschia Sirois of the University of Sheffield's Department of Psychology.

Sirois says that     9     a break to recalibrate（重新校准）needs to be done with care. "You've always got to be     10     ," she says. "A 15-minute break because your brain is turning into mush is fine. But if you find yourself saying you just need another few minutes, it's bad. If you go past the point where you set a limit on your break time, it just becomes procrastination."

4 . Teachers and parents usually call attention to the pictures when reading storybooks to preschool children. But a new study suggests that calling attention to print – the words and letters on the page may lead to _________readers.

The two-year study_________children aged 3 to 5 who were divided into two groups.The teachers helped each group to read in two different ways. Over three hundred students were considered to be likely to_________reading problems in future life, and they were_________ in a classroom setting. After reviewing the recorded lessons, the researchers found that those students whose teachers most often_________the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding.

Professor Shayne Piasta, the study's author, says most teachers would find this method_________because it needs only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only_________ in the new method would be increased attention to the print.

Ms.Piasta says if adults can_________children in the stories and get them to pay attention to letters and words, it is certain that they will do better at_________recognition.But few parents and teachers do this in a(n)__________way by starting first with letters, then__________moving to words, sentences and paragraphs.__________,they habitually turn to the attractive pictures first, thus misleading the children.

Teachers and parents can point to a letter and outline its shape with a finger. They can point to a word and__________"This is 'dog'". They can discuss the meaning of the print to find how the words are combined to tell the story. And they can talk about the__________of the print, for example, how words are written from left to right. By__________ training in this way, the teachers will definitely raise the students’ ability to read.

Fire That Was Started 92,000 Years Ago

Human are actively changing landscapes across the globe, but shaping ecosystems is not just a modern activity.

An analysis of the northern shores of East Africa's Lake Malawi reveals ancient inhabitants used fire 92,000 years ago to prevent forest     1    . These Stone Age humans burned forest to make room for a growing population.

The Yale-led study discovered settlements in the area, along with charcoal deposits in the core of the lake, allowing researchers to     2    the story together.

Jessica Thompson, the paper's lead author, said: "This is the earliest evidence I have seen of humans     3    their ecosystem with fire. It suggests that by the Late Pleistocene（晚更新世）, humans were learning to use fire in truly new ways.

The work began in 2018. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University examined fossils, pollen（花粉）and minerals     4    from the bottom of the lake. The analysis showed environment changes that could not be explained with     5    factors.

Normally forest along the lake shore     6    during dry periods and recover when the lake reaches normal levels. But here researchers discovered that when wetter periods     7     and water levels became normal, forests along the shore did not recover, and the species richness went     8    .

Sarah Ivory from Pennsylvania State University said: "The pollen that we see in this most recent period of     9    climate is very different than before. Specifically, trees are no longer common and are replaced by pollen from plants that deal well with frequent fire."

It's not clear why people were burning the landscape. It's possible that they were experimenting with controlled burns to produce     10    . It could be that their fires burned out of control, or that there were simple a lot of people burning fuel in their environment that provided for warmth, cooking, or socialization.

How Much Understanding Opportunity Cost

Decisions, decisions! Every day we come across situations in     1    we have to make a choice. Economists have long realized that when we make decision, we are considering our unlimited wants     2    limited time, money, services, and opportunities.

    3    we choose, we not only have to think about the cost of one item we can have now, but we must take into account the thing we have to give up. Economists call this "opportunity cost," and you don't have to have a PhD in economics     4    (benefit) from knowing how the concept works and now it can improve our life choices.

A simple choice between buying a dinner in an expensive restaurant and at a     5    (affordable) food stand can illustrate opportunity cost. The money you spend on the high-class restaurant meal is certain to be more than the     6    at a food stand. If you choose the restaurant, you will enjoy a good meal and the enjoyment of fine dining. However, the extra money spent on the meal compared to the food from the food stand     7    (lose). You sacrifice cheaper meal for a costlier one. This is an example of "opportunity cost."

    8    you go to college? That would take at least four years plus the expenses for tuition, books, and other supplies. During that time you would probably not be earning any money. The lost opportunity of earning money is your opportunity cost of obtaining     9    college degree. Before you make your next purchase, whether for a house, car, college degree, or just coffee, consider     10    you must give up to make that purchase.

8 . American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years.The complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul（全面修订）of immigration rules for farm workers.

Congress has obstructed（阻挠）efforts to create a more straightforward visa for agricultural workers that would let foreign workers stay longer in the U.S.and change jobs within the industry.    1     .

Perhaps half of U.S. farm laborers are undocumented immigrants.As fewer such workers enter the country，the characteristics of the agricultural workforce are changing. Today's farm laborers.while still predominantly born in Mexico，are more likely to be settled rather than migrating and more likely to be married than single.They're also aging. At the start of this century，about one-third of crop workers were over the age of 35.Now more than half are.And picking crops is hard on older bodies.One oft-debated cure for this labor shortage remains as implausible as it's been all along：Native U.S.workers won't be returning to the farm.

Mechanization isn't the answer，either--not yet，at least. Production of corn，cotton，rice，soybeans，and wheat has been largely mechanized，but many high-value，labor-intensive crops，such as strawberries，need labor.    2     .

As a result，farms have grown increasingly reliant on temporary guest workers using the H-2A visa to fill the gaps in the workforce.Starting around 20l2，requests for the visas rose sharply；from 2011 to 2016 the number of visas issued more than doubled.

    3     . Even so，employers complain they aren't given all the workers they need.The process is cumbersome，expensive，and unreliable.One survey found that bureaucratic delays led H-2A workers to arrive on the job an average of 22 days late.The shortage is compounded by federal immigration raids，which remove some workers and drive others underground.

In a 2012 survey，71 percent of tree-fruit growers and almost 80 percent of raisin and berry growers said they were short of labor.Some western farmers have responded by moving operations to Mexico.    4     . Little more than a decade later，the share of imports was 25.8 percent.

In effect，the U.S.can import food or it can import the workers who pick it.

9 . It is curious that Stephen Koziatek feels almost as though he has to justify his efforts to give his students a better future.

Mr.Koziatek is part of something pioneering. He is a teacher at a New Hampshire high school where learning is not something of books and tests and mechanical memorization, but practical. When did it become accepted wisdom that students should be able to name the 13th president of the United States but be utterly overwhelmed by a broken bike chain？

As Koziatek knows, there is learning in just about everything：Nothing is necessarily gained by forcing students to learn geometry at a graffiti desk stuck with generations of discarded chewing gum.They can also learn geometry by assembling a bicycle.

But he's also found a kind of insidious prejudice. Working with your hands is seen as almost a mark of inferiority.Schools in the family of vocational education "have that stereotype...that it's for kids who can't make it academically, "he says.

On one hand, that viewpoint is a logical product of America's evolution. Manufacturing is not the economic engine that it once was. The job security that the US economy once offered to high school graduates has largely evaporated. More education is the new principle. We want more for our kids, and rightfully so.

But the headlong(轻率的)push into bachelor's degrees for all---and the subtle devaluing of anything less---misses an important point:That's not the only thing the American economy needs. Yes, a bachelor's degree opens more doors. But even now, 54 percent of the jobs in the country are middle-skill jobs, such as construction and high-skill manufacturing. But only 44 percent of workers are adequately trained.

In other words, at a time when the working class has turned the country on its political head, frustrated that the opportunity that once defined America is vanishing, one obvious solution is staring us in the face. There is a gap in working-class jobs, but the workers who need those jobs most aren’t equipped to do them.Koziatek's Manchester School of Technology High School is trying to fill that gap. Koziatek's school is a wake-up call. When education becomes one-size-fits-all, it risks overlooking a nation's diversity of gifts.

Forests give us shade, quiet and one of the harder challenges in the fight against climate change. Even as we humans count on forests to soak up a good share of the carbon dioxide we produce, we    1     (threaten) their ability to do so. The climate change we are hastening could one day leave us with forests that emit more carbon than    2    absorb.

Thankfully, there is a way out of this trap—but it involves striking a subtle balance. Helping forests flourish as valuable “carbon sinks” long into the future    3       require reducing their capacity to absorb carbon now. California is leading the way, as it does on so many climate efforts, in figuring out the details.

The state's proposed Forest Carbon Plan aims to double efforts    4    (thin) out young trees and clear brush in parts of the forest. This temporarily lowers carbon-carrying capacity. But the remaining trees draw a greater share of the available moisture, so they grow and thrive,     5    (restore) the forest's capacity to pull carbon from the air. Healthy trees are also better able to fend off (抵挡) insects. The landscape is considered less easily burnable. Even in the event of a fire, fewer trees    6     (consume).

The need    7    such planning is increasingly urgent. Already, since 20l0, drought and insects have killed over 100 million trees in California, most of them in 2016 alone，and wildfires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

California plans to treat 35,000 acres of forest a year by 2020, and 60,000 by 2030—financed from the proceeds of the state's emissions-permit auctions. That's only    8     small share of the total acreage that could benefit, about half a million acres in all, so it will be vital to prioritize areas at greatest risk of fire or drought.

State governments are well accustomed to managing forests,     9     traditionally they've focused on wildlife, watersheds and opportunities for recreation. Only recently have they come to see the vital part forests will have to play in storing carbon. Califomia's plan,     10     is expected to be finalized by the governor next year, should serve as a model.