A red envelope is simply a long, narrow, red envelope.     1     (tradition)red envelopes are often decorated with gold Chinese characters, such as the characters for     2     (happy)and wealth.

During Chinese New Year, money     3     (put)inside red envelopes. Parents, grandparents, relatives, and even close neighbors and friends give them to younger generations. Red envelopes are also popular gifts     4     birthdays and weddings.

It depends on the situation as to how much money should be put into a red envelope. For     5     (young)children, the equivalent (等量) of about $7 is fine. More money is given to older children and teenagers. The amount (金额) is     6     (usual)enough for the child to buy a gift, like a T-shirt. If you go to     7     wedding, the money in the red envelope should be equivalent to a nice gift     8     would be given at a Western wedding.

For all occasions, certain amounts of money are     9     (avoid). Any amount with the number four in it is best avoided because four     10     (sound)similar to death in Chinese. Even (偶数的) numbers, except four, are better than odd ones-as good things are believed to come in pairs. For example, gifting $20 is better than $21.

When Jonah Larson was 5 years old, he found a crochet hook (钩针) in his aunt's bag. He never heard of crochet(钩针编织), a craft similar to knitting, but with the help of     1     (lesson) online, he taught     2     (he)crochet. He started his first project—a small dishcloth     3     turned out great, so he moved on to more projects.

To share his passion for crochet, Jonah started to post his video     4     the Internet. He opened an online store and named it Jonah's Hands, selling crochet kits and books. As his audience grew, Jonah set his sights a little higher. “I saw how crochet inspires lots of people, ”he said. “I wondered whether I could use crochet     5     (change)the world. ”

Jonah     6     (decide)to use the profits from Jonah's Hands to buy books for a school in Teza Gerba of Ethiopia, the African country he was     7     (original)from. “The kids in the village where I was born live in very poor conditions, ”he said. “They don't always have opportunities for the same     8     (educate) as I've had. ”

With the help of his mom, Jonah also launched a campaign to raise money to buy books for the school in Teza Gerba. Jonah was very happy after     9     (raise)almost $35, 000 - enough for not just books but also to build     10     entire library.

7 . A 7-year-old girl, Bella Smith, had thought all kids had a happy childhood like her. Then one day she was told that a girl of her age had never __ a birthday party because her family couldn’t __ it. Hearing that, she felt, __ to her family for being able to hold birthday parties for her, but she also felt sorry for those who couldn't even had a birthday celebration because of __ issues.

So she went to her mom, Marlana Evans, and they __ an idea. That’s how they decided to start Bella’s Boxes, a(n) __ through which they made birthday boxes for children whose families were badly off.

The boxes were __ with balloons, cake mix, candies, and sprinkles inside. Most of these were donated by the local community. Bella couldn’t be shocked more that the community had joined in her __ .

As the girl’s mother __ , Bella is always ready to reach out to help others in need. Bella, whose birthday is on March 26, only asks for more __ for her project every year.

___, the girl had to stop her project for a while because of the pandemic(流行病), though they had already more than 70 birthday boxes __ . By that day, she had already handed out 300 boxes.

The girl has melted (融化)hearts of millions __ her kindness and she was highly spoken of over the years online “You are so __ !Thank you for what you are doing, ” someone wrote, while someone else commented(评论), “You are a shining light in dark times and you really make a __ to those kids!”

8 . Schools in US are huge consumers of energy. According to ENERGY STAR, K- 12 schools spend more than $6 billion every year on energy, far more than the amount spent on other resources, and at least 30 percent of this energy is used inefficiently or needlessly.

Realizing that, some schools are seeking measures to save energy in several ways, from low-cost adjustments, such as turning off lights in unused rooms, to large-scale projects, such as turning to green equipment.

As solar energy is becoming a more financial choice for powering buildings, more schools are making the move toward the renewable energy and using solar panels(太阳能电池板)on their rooftops. According to an online solar marketplace EnergySage, schools have their strong points to use solar energy. They often have the kind of enough space, suitable locations that are perfect for setting up solar panels.

In September 2020, a nonprofit Generation180 released its third edition of a study on solar use in US schools. The findings showed that more than 7, 300, or 55 percent, of K- 12 public and private schools used solar energy, the number has increased by 81 percent since 2014.

They also described how solar schools were saving millions in energy bills, and provided several cases to show the increased savings achieved by solar-powered school districts. For ex- ample, an Arkansas school district used its every year's energy savings of nearly $100, 000 to increase its teachers' salaries.

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council, which tracks the number of K- 12 schools with solar equipment and helps schools go solar, says on its website that schools with solar setups have an opportunity to educate students about clean energy, and show them that they are de- voted to do something for students' and the planet's health and future.

Third-party ownership also makes funding for 79 percent of schools to use solar energy possible, meaning a majority of schools don't have to spend large amounts of money but can get the rewards of solar energy.

9 . Having friends is obviously good for countless reasons. And showing the world that you have lots of friends, for example on social media, seems like a winning strategy. If that is the truth, your goal is to expand your social network. Once people see how popular you are, they'll want to join that popular circle, perhaps in the hope that some of your popularity will rub off on them.

Nevertheless, can a person even have too many friends at the same time? It’s always been a misconception that if you have more friends, people will be more likely to want to be friends you.

In fact, a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that having too many friends may work against you. In a series of experiments. the authors prove that people usually prefer to befriend those who have fewer friends than they do, rather than those with more friends. The authors call this phenomenon the “friend-number paradox(悖论)”, which is also the title of their new paper.

Social ties are obviously important. Having more of these connections suggests greater social value, and more potential possibilities. So it seems reasonable to assume that people will focus their social energies on befriending people who have lots of friends already.

But the problem is that these social ties are only valuable if there’s reciprocity(互惠) involved. Friendship goes hand in hand with certain responsibilities and expectations. And people with lots of friends may not be able to fulfill those responsibilities—especially those with too many friends.   

In other words, “friendship quality” matters as much, if not more, than only the number of friends you have. Having lots of friends means your precious social resources become dilute (稀释了的), making you less able to be a good friend. And other people take that into account consciously(有意识地)or unconsciously when deciding whether to befriend you. They don’t want to spend their valuable social resources on someone who is unlikely to pay it back.

10 . Kairo McLean was waiting for his mom to pick him up from school. She arrived with the car windows down, playing Kairo's song Easy Now as loud as the sound could go. That was when she informed him that he was nominated (提名)for the Juno Awards, one of Canada's most influential music awards, for Reggae Recording of the Year. At age 13, Kairo was the youngest artist ever nominated for Reggae Recording of the Year at the JUNOS. His Juno- nominated single Easy Now appears on his first-ever album(歌曲专辑)of the same title.

“I’m so glad that reggae music, which is originally from Jamaica(牙买加), is being rec- ognized and appreciated here in Canada, ”Kairo said in an interview. “It's really exciting that all my efforts have been recognized in spite of my young age, and it motivates me to keep struggling hard to realize my musical dream, ”he said.

“Kairo would try to play the keyboard before he was tall enough to reach it. He wanted to learn how to play the guitar before it could even fit on his lap, ”Kairo's mom recalled. “Listening to music from reggae music artists like Cocoa Tea, Yellowman and Bob Marley is a normal thing in our household. Apart from that, he really put many efforts in his interest, ” she added.

As a Canadian reggae artist outside of Jamaica, Kairo feels that music should spread a message about love and peace, not things like violence and hate. Kairo’s music is about bright light in the world, though we might be always caught in the darkness such as bullies(仗势欺人者)at school or crime in the society. “I bring up the injustices that I see in the world and I talk about them because they need to be spoken about and they need to be heard, ”said Kairo.