At Piedmont Middle School, a kid could run track or play tennis, but everyone wanted to be on the soccer team. Piedmont and the surrounding towns were pretty small, so instead of having separate girls and boys teams, each school had one team made up of both girls and boys. Laura had dreamed of earning glory for the team Los Halcones ever since the first grade when her older brother Toni won in the county middle school championship. Now he was away at college on a soccer scholarship. The day she joined the team as a sixth-grader, she felt like she could fly.

But, unfortunately, her joy didn’t last. She spent most of the season on the bench.

Walking to the car after the last game of the season, Laura tried to smile at her mother. Having spent yet another game sitting on the bench, Laura hadn’t even broken a sweat. “Well, at least you don’t have to wash my uniform,” she joked, but she could feel tears in her eyes. Her mother said, “You still have chances. Don’t lose heart. Toni once made the same mistake. And now you can watch soccer videos to learn more skills when sitting there.” Laura could only shake her head.

Lying in bed that night, Laura thought back to her first game, the day of her huge mistake.

“Pass, pass, pass!”

“Clear that ball!”

Voices yelled from every side. Laura ran nervously in front of the goal (球门) as both teams rushed down the field. She knew the children in green were her teammates. Those in blue were on the other team. At that time, a boy on the opposing team had the ball when a battle for that ball broke out a few feet from her. Green and blue uniforms swirled (打转) around her, and Laura could barely keep track of the ball. Then, suddenly, it came her way!

“Laura, I’m open!” one of her teammates called from near the sideline. Then Laura kicked the ball.

But the ball went in the completely wrong direction!

Sitting on the bench for game after game, Laura decided to tell Toni that she wanted to quit.

Tripod’s story started one spring morning as I was finishing a morning surgery at the veterinary clinic (兽医诊所) I owned. I was writing up medical records of the surgery patients when my receptionist (接待员) stuck her head into my office. She told me there was a big cat lying outside with a seriously injured front leg. What’s worse, nobody knew whom it belonged to.

Then I sent two of my pre-vet students to pick up the poor cat while I went back to my record-keeping. But it wasn’t long before I heard the students returning with this newest patient who seemed to be in pretty bad condition.

I carefully checked up the injuries which seemed to be caused by the pressing of a heavy object. With the extremely horrible smell, I knew from years of experience this cat didn’t have an owner. “Well, then,” I sighed, “I’m not sure whether we are able to bring this cat back to life, but let’s give him our best shot anyway. Afterwards, let’s see if we can find a home for him. ”

Just then, when one of the students began touching the cat’s head gently, somewhere deep in the cat’s throat, a weak purr (呼噜声) began. As the student continued to pet the cat, I noticed the cat’s breathing became less laboured (缓慢而困难的).

When I performed the complicated operation, I whispered, “You’re a fighter, aren’t you, boy? You deserve a chance to live.” However, after the surgery, he lost one leg, and still struggled with life and death. Over the next few weeks, Tripod, the cat, went through many ups and downs, but I was sure about his resilience (快速恢复的能力). News about Tripod spread. A number of customers stopped by regularly to check on the progress of his recovery, including Mrs Melson, a pet lover.

The day finally came when I decided Tripod had really recovered.

Though unwilling to part with Tripod, we were happy to see Mrs Melson come for him.

I stared at myself in the mirror: blue tights, yellow vest, a fish tail trailing behind me, and large eyes sitting at op my head. I raised my eyebrows and sighed.

“Mom, I don’t think this costume is right,” I said. “Maybe the makeup will add something,” Mom replied hopefully.

Somehow Mom had convinced me to play the Fish Footman in Alice in Wonderland. I can’t say it’s been the time of my life.

“What if I forget my lines?” I hesitated.

“Oh Riley, is that what you’re afraid of? I know you’ve been rehearsing for two months, you were the first off-book in your scene, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.” Mom said, kneeling down and hugging me.

The next day we pulled into the parking lot, and I stepped out of the car, wearing the questionable costume. I shrank inside myself, but Mom pulled me toward the makeup room. When the makeup was done, I looked at myself in the mirror. My jaw dropped.

“Mom! I can’t go onstage like this!” I cried.

“Why not?”

“I’d be a laughing stock (笑柄)! ”

“Riley, look around you! You’re not the only one in an odd costume.”

“What if we just sneak out? No one will miss me.” I whispered.

Mom’s lips disappeared into a thin line, and I knew I had gone too far. “Riley, I’m going to watch you go out on that stage tonight. And that’s the end of it.” Then mom disappeared into the audience. I sat there, alone and bored, as the play began and the curtain rose on.

The two boys dressed as Two of Clubs (梅花2) near me chatted casually about this and that. Suddenly, they asked, “You’re awfully quiet. Is this your first show?” I tried to respond, but my voice caught in my throat and refused to escape. I coughed and nearly yelled, “YES!”

The Ace of Diamonds (方块A) sitting nearby laughed. “The audience will certainly hear you if you talk that loud. But you might have to clear your throat first, she chuckled. I gave them a weak smile.

“Don’t worry about us,” the Ace said. “We’re only teasing.”

“Yeah,” the Two said. “When you’ve done as many shows as we have, projecting will be second nature to you.”

When my name was called, I stepped onto the stage uneasily.

Suddenly I was determined to make a lasting impression.

In my childhood, under the influence of my el der brother and my peers in the neighborhood, I tried a number of outdoor activities. Of course, I was not so taken by all of them. whether I was doing them for the first time or continuously. However, fate had its own plans in store. You never know when an outdoor activity will change my life.

The name of this activity is “fishing”. About ten years ago, I didn't really like the idea of sitting on the bank of a lake or river, spending long hours under the sun's ultraviolet rays, which can cause sunburns and skin damage, and anxiously anticipating some fish to be kind to take my bait(诱饵). In fact, I used to think of this outdoor activity as some kind of “hide-and-seek-game” that is popular with most young kids, except that it was much harder because I could see my “prey (猎物)” only after catching it.

However, all that changed when I paid a visit to my aunt in the countryside during a summer holiday. I was finally convinced by one of my cousins to accompany him to a nearby lake in order to do some fishing practice with him. In fact, he even assured me that fish would eat my baits. So I agreed and went to the lake expecting to catch some fish. Before throwing my fishing line into the water, my cousin did some tricks attaching some sort of food to my fishing pole.

Learning to fish in a river or lake can be challenging for the beginners like me. The act of dropping a line is easy, but being a successful fisher is hard. That's why they call it fishing but not catching But with practice and patience, it can become easier over time. Patience is essential in lake fishing. It may take some time to find the right spot or lure (鱼饵) that will attract fish.

My cousin had to repeatedly remind me to keep patient.

When we finally left the lake, I had caught three fish!

6 . The human voice is delicate. The vocal cords (声带) can easily get damaged by stress, infections, or overuse. According to a 2005 study, 30%of the population will experience a voice disorder at some point in their life.

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications this week, a group of bioengineering researchers from the University of California have put forward an attractive solution. They have designed and tested a soft patch (贴片) that can be stuck onto a person’s neck, where it will pick up muscle movements when speaking, process the signals and translate them into speech.

Even though the team’s device is an early prototype, it has the potential to offer a great improvement on current alternatives. When a person loses their voice today, the easiest fix is to type, text, or write notes to communicate. Typing can be slow and inconvenient, says Jun Chen, the paper’s lead author, and writing is only possible in good lighting. A patch would theoretically clear all these hurdles.

When the throat muscles move under the silicone (硅酮) patch, the resulting magnetic-field variations can be converted into electrical signals. In a test with eight participants, the researchers captured the signals arising as the subjects spoke and lip-sounded five different sentences. They then trained a machine-learning model to recognize the distinct shapes of the electrical signals associated with each sentence. This device then predicted which of the five sentences the participants spoke with more than 90%accuracy, whether aloud or in silence.

In addition to stretchiness, the patch remains sticky on sweaty skin, and can be used continuously for 40 minutes without heating up.

For now the device can only recognize the five phrases it was trained on. Plus, individual difference in vocal cords means the algorithm has to be personalized to each user. To make it practical at scale, the researchers will need to collect a lot more data.

Javon was the shortest kid in the class. He’d had to ask to get his gym locker changed so that he didn’t have to strain (拉紧) so much to reach it. But he didn’t care about his height? Either he would grow or he wouldn’t — there was nothing he could do about it, so why let it bother him?

That was Javon’s attitude about most things. He didn’t like to get all worked up about stuff, especially stuff he had no control over.

The one exception was school work. Javon had worked hard. He was one of the top kids in the class. He was still the shortest, but now he also got called one of the smartest.

For Javon, math used to be easy. He figured that since he had ten fingers, he could do most of it. However, when Mr. T started a new unit and threw letters into his math problem, Javon could not wrap his mind around using these letters. Although Mr. T explained over and over again, he still didn’t understand. Soon the day when the class had to take the chapter test arrived. The test was brutal (残酷的).

Hard as Javon tried, he hadn’t finished all of the problems: The day came when the class finally got their papers back. D. 64%. Written in red ink on the corner of Javon’s paper. The worst grade he had ever got. In the seat next to him, Tyler got a red 72% on Tyler’s paper. Javon was surprised that Tyler, who is dyslexic (阅读障碍), got a higher grade than him.

“How did you get such a grade?” asked Javon. “I get extra time on tests. Because of my —” Tyler said. “You got extra time?” Javon cried out.

At this point, Mr. T appeared at the corner. Javon walked up to him and said, “Mr. T, why Tyler could get extra time for this test? Plenty of people didn’t finish, including me. It’s unfair!”

Paragraph 1: Mr. T was astonished, and then started to explain.

Paragraph 2: “You asked for a different locker in the gym.” said Mr. T.