2 . Benefits of Sports

Doing sports is a physical, mental and social adventure. It’s a great way for children to take a break from studies and release extra energy. It also helps them lead fuller and happier lives as regular sports have proven beneficial to overall well-being.

The physical benefits of doing sports are probably the most obvious. Regardless of your fitness level when you start playing sports, you’ll notice an increase in your overall fitness once you’re involved.     1     Basketball players focus on strength training; football players work on speed while track athletes train through longer runs. The training process helps promote physical fitness and performances in competitions.

    2     Playing sports also contributes to mental health, helping to increase confidence and self-worth. A pat on the back, a high five from a teammate, or a handshake after a match really boosts a child’s confidence. Words of praise and encouragement from the coach, parents and other players raise self-worth.     3     So after a game, it’s a better idea to ask “Did you enjoy the game?” rather than “Did you win?”

Children who participate in sports might also benefit from the social aspect, feeling part of a group, building up responsibility and leadership.     4     Teamwork involves both being dependable as a teammate and learning to rely on your teammates to achieve a positive outcome. Teamwork breeds responsibility and challenges you to be responsible for your actions. Being part of a team gives you an opportunity to be a leader.

Discipline is another social advantage. Most organized sports require a strict training and practice schedule. As a student-athlete, you need to balance studies and athletics.     5    

There is no shortage of reasons to find a sport to get involved in. Are you ready to go? Pick one and get moving!

3 . In your life, sometimes you may be asked to speak in front of a large group of people. Although it sounds a little scary, even those with stage fright can speak successfully to the group with adequate preparation.

Practice your speech before the big day.    1     If possible, practice the speech in front of a friend or family member to get used to saying it to real people. If you feel you must have note cards, limit the amount to about three cards. This will force you to keep your speech brief and help you keep your eyes focused on your audience.

Remember why you’ve been invited to speak. If you’re battling fear over speaking to a large group of people, keep your mind on the fact that you were selected for this important role. The speech organizers must have seen something valuable in you or your expertise.    2    

Remember that fear of public speaking is very common.    3     Most of the people in the audience would be feeling the same fear and stress that you do in your position. Knowing this may make you feel better.

    4     What you say should be tailored (专门的) to why you’re there and who you’re speaking to in order to avoid sounding general. If speaking to a charity group,mention the good work certain specific individuals have done for the cause. If speaking at a business conference, briefly state why you want to help these people.

Keep eye contact with the crowd.    5     Pick one person in each section and look at him while you’re speaking. After each important point in your speech, switch your focus to another section. When you focus only on one person at a time, the size of the crowd isn’t as frightening.

4 . Gone are the days when you and your best friend shared everything about your life. Whether you’re at fault or she is, mending a broken friendship is far from easy. If the relationship means a lot and you aren’t willing to simply throw it away, fixing it is possible. That’s what I have learned in the past months.

When I first moved to Florida, I felt so out of place. I had come from a small town and was so unsure of myself. Luckily, my husband and I moved into a friendly neighbourhood, and things became better.  

For many years, my neighbour across the street and I shared happy times. But then a misunderstanding occurred, and she quit speaking to me. I tried many times to speak to her about the issue and tell her how sorry I was that I had let her down. But she refused to take my phone calls and avoided me when I was outside.

During our conflict, my husband and I put our house up for sale. We weren’t leaving the neighbourhood because of a feeling of hurt; we were having twins and needed more room for our growing family.

Months later, I moved away without talking to her and putting an end to our misunderstanding. It always made me sad when I thought of how poorly it had ended. For many times I wished we had renewed our friendship. I just hated the feelings left from our unsolved conflict. It was like a scab(痂) that kept reopening and worsening with pain and upset.

About eight months after we moved, I decided to take a drive back into the old neighbourhood. As I drove down my street, I saw my former neighbour washing her car in her front yard. I knew that I needed to stop and greet her. I opened the car door and got out. To my surprise, she came up and gave me a big hug. We both apologized for our actions, and I felt that I finally achieved closure. I was able to say I was sorry and have it accepted.

5 . Do you have a best friend at work? A person once said, “Relationships _______ more than work. Years from now, you will forget the _______ of the work you have done, but you will still _______ the people and the relationships you built.” 

We hear a lot about this and it’s true. We spend more time with our co-workers than our families. Getting along well with workmates is the _______ to our success in the job. 

Gallup, our employee engagement survey provider, has been asking us to _______ “Do you have a good friend at work?” for 30 years. He has discovered a strong _______ between having a good friend at work and performance on the job. 

I’ve worked with a lot of people over my career. The most _______ achievements, when I looked back, were made with _______ that I felt a strong social connection with. We not only worked as a team but also spent our spare time _______ with each other and caring about each other’s daily life. I do believe that our success ________ strong social connections at work. 

I’ve been through a lot with many people I would ________ my best friends at work. We’ve celebrated our ________ of the work, promotions(升职) and retirements(退休) together. We have supported each other through marriages, births, illnesses and even deaths. 

Good relationships and a sense of ________ are part of work culture that we shouldn’t ignore. ________, I have been working with amazing people over the years. Can you imagine going to a ________ every day where there is no fun or friendship?

6 . In October, I told the eight-year-olds in the class I teach in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, about my plan. “Since all of you have done extra jobs around the house to earn some money,” I said, “then we’ll buy food for a Thanksgiving dinner for someone who might not have a nice dinner otherwise.”

I watched them while they walked up and down the supermarket. “Flowers!”   Kristine cried. The group rushed towards the holiday plants.

“You can’t eat flowers.”— It was wiser to use any extra money to buy something that could be turned into meals.

“But Mrs Sherlock,” came the begging voice, “we want flowers.”

Defeated finally, I put a pot of “funny” purple mums in the cart full of foods. “She’ll like this one,” the children agreed.

An organisation had given us the name and address of a needy grandmother who had lived alone for many years. We finally pulled up in front of a small house. A slightly-built woman with a weary face came to the door to welcome us.

My little group ran to get the foods. As each box was carried in, the old woman kept on saying “Thanks.”— much to her visitors’ pleasure. When Amy put the mums on the counter, the woman seemed surprised. She was wishing it was a bag of rice, I thought.

We returned to the car. As we fastened our seat belts, we could see the kitchen window. The woman inside waved goodbye, then turned and walked across the room, past the turkey, past the goods, straight to the mums. She put her face in them. When she raised her head, there was a smile on her face. She was transformed (转变) before our eyes.

The children were quiet. At that moment, they had seen for themselves the power they have to make another person’s life better. The children had sensed that sometimes a person needs a pot of funny purple flowers on a dark November day.

7 . When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation(住所). I suggested that they should stay at local bed and breakfasts, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

“We didn’t stay at bed and breakfasts,” they said, “because we found that most families were away on holiday.”

I thought this was odd. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is “vacaciones”. So they did not go to the house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to the house where there was a sign saying “NO VACANCIES”, because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full.

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. But that was not the case. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means fun. In English, however, it usually means that you have to take the road because the usual roads are closed.

English people have problems too when they are faced with foreign languages. Once in Paris, I happened to see a “librairie”. I thought it was a library and walked into it, asking to borrow some books. However, to my surprise the “librarians” all stared at me in amazement! Later I found out that “librairie” in French means “bookstore”.

At the end of the 16th century, about five to seven million people spoke English. Nearly all of them lived in England.They were native     1    (speaker). Later in the next century, people from England made voyages     2    (conquer) other parts of the world and English began to be spoken worldwide. Today, the number of people     3    (learn) English in China     4    (increase) rapidly. Besides, people of many other countries also speak English     5     their foreign language. 

The English language has been changing quite a lot over the last four centuries. Old English sounded more or less like German for it was based on German, but     6    (gradual) between AD 800 and 1150, English became     7    (little) like German because those who ruled England spoke first Danish and later French. 

Two people had great effects on the English changes.One was Shakespeare, who     8    (enrich) the English vocabulary, making English with more words;     9     other was Noah Webster, who wrote a dictionary     10     gave American English its own identity.

Liu Yang is a Chinese pilot and astronaut. She graduated     1     People’s Liberation Army Air Force Aviation College of Changchun. After two years of astronaut training, Liu     2    (be) excellent in testing. Liu was selected for the crew (机组) of Shenzhou-IX, the first manned mission (任务) to the Chinese space station Tiangong- 1. Liu became the first woman Chinese astronaut     3    (go) into space.

The mission was launched on June 16, 2012. During this manned space mission, Liu did some     4     (experiment) in space. Wang Yaping became a crew member of the Shenzhou- 10 space mission in 2013. And more     5    (important) , she was famous as China’s first space teacher after giving     6     40-minute live lesson to students from the place     7    (many) than 300 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Again Wang Yaping     8    (choose) to take part in the Shenzhou- 13 crewed mission, with the spaceship launched on Oct. 16, 2021. She became the first woman who entered China’s space station core module (核心舱)     9    is called Tianhe. She drew global attention again during her second space mission. Many     10     (challenge) tasks have been completed by her: a spacewalk and the second class.