1 . Have you ever wondered what the real meaning of the saying “A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed” is?     1    . True friendship is the one, in which the individuals do not have to maintain good manners with each other. Sharing true friendship is the situation, when the person you are talking about is regarded as one among your family members, when the relation you share with him/her reaches a stage that even if you don’t correspond for some time, your friendship remains unchanged.

The trust between best friends is such that if one friend falls in trouble. the other will not think twice to help. If the bond between two friends is strong, true friends can tolerate even long distance.     2    . It would not affect their friendship.

    3    . They would face it together and support each other, even if it is against the interests of the other person. Best friends don’t analyze each other and they don’t have to do so.

They accept each other with their positive and negative qualities.     4    . They know each other’s strengths as well as weaknesses. One would not overpower the other. They would respect each other’s individuality. In fact, they would understand the similarities and respect the differences.

True friendship is marked by selflessness. Best friends support each other, even if the whole world opposes them.     5    . If you have even one true friend, consider yourself blessed.

3 . Is Managing Kids' Screen Time a Good Idea?

Screen time is a big topic of conversation in today's households, particularly during the pandemic when online education hours have multiplied for many students.    1    They hope to spare their kids from the countless challenges that technology can bring. Yet the challenges of screen time overuse seldom come from kids' devices themselves, but rather from the tense relationships that technology can bring to families.    2    But technology has positive benefits too. Since every child and family is different, managing screen time calls for joint family decision-making.

If parents believe they can manage a child's screen time through adolescence, they are not only fooling themselves but also inviting relationship trouble with their teens. It is a myth to think that parents can or should manage their kids' screen time through authoritarian restrictions, even during elementary school.     3     When children are left out of those decisions, they often become less communicative with parents and siblings. This is the opposite of what parents want to achieve.

    4     From early ages, children are quite capable of understanding that a good life involves awareness and balance. Just as they learn right from wrong, and good from bad, they can also learn to use technology in healthy ways. Learning how to regulate oneself and develop healthy behaviors is one of the primary tasks of childhood and adolescence. What happens when an adult tries to regulate a child is that the child misses out on the opportunity to learn for themselves. Enforced restrictions can also make children feel helpless and less confident.

To be clear, this article is not suggesting that families never use apps or trackers, or that there should be no restrictions on screen time.    5    Parents should give voice to children and involve them in the planning and decision-making process.

Changing People’s Bad Impression On Us

Some of us have made bad first impressions in front of people we wanted to become good friends with.First impressions are important because they form the foundation on which all future thoughts about someone will be based.    1    However,there are actions you can take to change people's bad impression of you.

●Apologize immediately.A sincere apology can go a long way because you will prove to everyone that you value their thoughts about you.Tell the people that you didn’t intend to offend（冒犯）them and that you wish to correct the situation.Explain the reasons why you acted the way you did in your apology.    2    Otherwise,it will make others feel uncomfortable that you keep bringing up the past.

●Use humor.When you are around the people you made a bad impression in front of,play a small joke on yourself.Once they know you are not afraid to laugh at yourself,it can break up some of the tension.Remember to only direct humor at yourself.    3    

●Do not make assumptions.After you have made a bad impression,it can be easy to assume that everyone thinks the worst of you.    4    Instead of assuming what someone thinks about you,explain to her that you feel ashamed about how you acted and ask him how your behavior affected him.

●    5    In order to overcome a bad first impression,your words and actions in the time to come must be consistently good.With enough time and patience,gaining trust and changing wrong beliefs is possible.

5 . We certainly look different. The most obvious differences between boys and girls are our bodies, inside and out. For example, can men have babies? Can women grow beards?     1    

In the 1800s, scientists developed a theory called craniology (头骨学), which said that intelligence could be measured by skull size. Men have bigger skulls than women. So men must be smarter, people thought.     2     No one encouraged them to go on in school. Some doctors even said women who went to college would no longer be able to have children! Of course, now we know these beliefs aren’t true.

In the 1950s, psychologists gave girls and boys science tests to see if they could tell who was smarter. On average, the girls did worse than the boys.     3     But is this really true? Instead of measuring natural ability, maybe the tests revealed something about the conditions under which children were being taught. Parents and teachers didn't expect girls to do well in math or science，and so they didn’t encourage them. In class, teachers focused their attention on boys.     4    

As scientists continue to investigate, they have discovered that boys do seem to be better than girls at something called spatial rotation (空间转动）. Girls，on the other hand, do better on some tests of vocabulary and language. Why?     5     They often give girls dolls to play with, while they more frequently give boys blocks. Playing with blocks helps children develop spatial skills. So without meaning to, adults might be helping boys develop better spatial skills. And maybe they talk to girls more, which helps girls with those vocabulary words.

6 . How long does a year last?    1    Your parents might say that a whole year can pass―in the blink of an eye. Why does time seem to pass faster as we get older?

    2     This physical change causes the rate at which we take in and process new information to decline. Babies, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they're processing images at a faster rate. They take in a lot of information and do many things in a single day.    3    However, as people's brains degrade over time, fewer images are processed in the same amount of time. Therefore, older people receive less information during a day than younger people. This causes things to seem as though they're happening more quickly.

    4    People may measure time by the number of memorable events that can be recalled within a certain period. Have you ever noticed that when you recall your firsts, they seem to be in slow motion? That's because when something is a first, there are many exciting things to remember. Recalling these memories makes you feel like they took forever.

For many adults, life is routine. When they look back, they might feel like there are not many novel things to remember.    5    

7 . For thousands of years, salting was a common way to preserve food. Corned beef (咸牛肉）, bacon, green beans, and hundreds of other foods were preserved with salt.    1     Then, in the 1800s, a Frenchman named Louis Pasteur discovered the secret: bacteria.

What does salt have to do with bacteria? Two things: First, bacteria need moisture (水分）to grow and multiply. Salt pulls moisture out of food, so the bacteria die.     2     If you cover food with salt or very salty liquid, bacteria outside the food die before they get in, and bacteria already in the food are poisoned by the salt that goes inside.

    3     For meat or fish,you pour on a layer of salt, then rub it in well, leaving a salt crust (盾）all over the outside. Hams are often made this way. Another way is to put food into very salty water, called brine (卤水）.    4     The salt will draw the moisture out of the food, creating a kind of brine that the food sits in.

Today, in most parts of the world, salting, is no longer necessary.     5     But even though we no longer rely on salt to keep our food fresh, we haven’t lost our taste for salt. We don’t want to give up our bacon, corned beef or salted beans.

8 . Water Skiing

Water skiing is an exciting water sport that can be a ton of fun. It takes a little patience to learn, but once you do, water skiing is a sport you can enjoy whenever you have a boat and enough flat water.

    1    Every water skier needs water skis(划水板) and they differ depending on the size of the skier and the experience level of the skier. Of course, no one can water ski alone, so you will need to find at least two people to go with you on your water skiing adventure. You and everyone you go with will have more fun if the friends you go with also want to water ski.    2    After you have the boat, the people, and the skis, you will also need a water skiing cable(缆绳) and a life jacket.

For your first time water skiing, you may want to either take a lesson from an expert or find a friend that has experience to teach you.     3    The observer rides in the boat，but watches the water skier for any signals and helps the driver know when to start and stop.

The person skiing starts by crouching(蹲伏)in the water, this is called a deep water start. The skis will float ,but you want your body to be in a crouching position in the water. Your skis tips should be pointing out of the water.    4     When you are ready, you give a signal to the driver of the boat ,who starts speeding. Ideally you are pulled into an upright position with your skis underneath you, gliding along the surface of the water.    5    

9 . One major reason Americans don’t get enough exercise is that they feel they don’t have enough time. It can be difficult to squeeze in the 75 minutes of aerobic (有氧的) exercise per week that federal guidelines recommend.    1    .

In a new analysis of 14 studies, researchers tracked deaths among more than 232,000 people from the U.S., Denmark, the U.K. and China over at least five years, and compared the findings with people’s self-reports about how much they ran. People who said they ran any amount were less likely to die than those who didn’t run at all.    2     This was true even for those who didn’t log a great deal of time. The analysis divided people into groups, with 50 minutes or less per week representing the group that ran the least―but still ran. ‘‘Regardless of how much you run, you can expect such benefits,” says Zeljko Pedisic, one of the authors of the new analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The analysis is the latest to illustrate the benefits of running on the human body. It’s what we evolved (进化) to do.     3     But as leisure-time exercise, running keeps us healthy. “One of the best ways to avoid having to see a doctor,” Zeljko says, “is to stay physically active.”

    4     Running is good at guarding against cancer partly because it uses up blood sugar, starving the cancer cells that rely on it for fuel. And it protects you in other ways not necessarily measured in the latest research: by decreasing inflammation (炎症), for example, which is at the root of many diseases, and stimulating the production of a protein that improves brain health.

    5     Neither were how often people ran and the pace they kept. As long as you’re running, more isn’t always better, especially given that the risk of injury increases with repetition.

10 . Music makes you more creative.    1    , they come up with more creative solutions, according to researchers. It may be because music improves your brain’s flexibility. Another reason may be that it relaxes you enough for the creative juices to flow. But don’t play music   too loudly.

Music can help during surgery.     2    . After surgery, it helps reduce pain. An analysis   of 73 studies confirmed that listening to music before, during or after surgery reduces anxiety and pain levels, which in turn means less pain medication.

    3     Studies have found that when you’re running, biking or walking, you’ll go farther with music on. Music relieves your discomfort and motivates you to stay on. The effect is so obviously great that the author of a review examining the psychological effects of music   on exercise called music “a type of legal performance-improvement drug”.

Music aids sleep. Listening to music before bed can help you fall asleep faster and wake up less often during the night.     4    . In one study, seniors with sleep problems who listened   to 45 minutes of soft slow music before bed reported a 35 percent improvement in their sleep.

Music gets you to ignore the passing of time. Scientists have shown repeatedly that people judge a period of waiting shorter when music is playing. Businessmen use that to their advantage, playing music so you stay longer and spend more. For instance, more drinks and food are sold in bars and restaurants when music is played.     5    , grocery sales increase by 38 percent.