1 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

4 . In the future, people may travel to Mars（火星)by water-powered spaceship! Today's spaceships are fine for getting things into space, but they are not so good at travelling long distances. These spaceships burn chemical fuels(燃料)and they are very expensive. Scientists say that a water-powered spaceship could make the trip to Mars much cheaper. The idea is just in the planning stages now, but scientists think such a spaceship could be developed soon.

The key to the water-powered spaceship is the engine(发动机).Regular engines push spaceships by burning fuel. The water engine will use steam, created by solar panels(太阳能板)that heat water to a high temperature. Of course, the spaceship will have to carry a lot of water for the long trip to Mars.

Today's spaceships could not carry that much water. But scientists think that a spaceship blown up like a balloon will be able to.

One Us company has already developed a spaceship like this. These spaceships are made of a strong material. Two of them have already been sent up into space, using rockets and then later filed with air. “Balloon” spaceships could be very large and carry enough water for a long trip. With the “Balloon” spaceships, enough water could be carried to power the engines and grow food during the trip. And the people on the spaceship might even get to take a hot bath!

Scientists say the biggest advantage of such a spaceship would be cost. The “Balloon” spaceship uses water to push it through space and costs about one thirtieth of a normal spaceship. Such savings naturally encourage continued research into balloon spaceships and water engines. If these scientists are correct, we may soon be on our way to Mars in a spaceship powered by water.

5 . What will the future school look like is difficult to make clear, but most experts agree that the school will be electronic in the future .

" Present-day schools will no longer exist in the next century," says a report in The Age. "At that time, future schools will become community-style centers, which run seven days a week,24 hours a day. ” At the same time, computers will surely become a central part of the school in the future.

According to The Age, the distant learning will be popular and students will listen to teachers on computers. Going into classrooms on their computers, students will study at any time, which is very easy for them. However, it is necessary for students to go to the actual school in order to develop some social skills.

The Seashore Primary School is an imaginary school in the future created by the Education Department of Australia. At this school, all the teachers and students have laptop computers . Teachers check messages and call students back on a special telephone system and students use telephones to search for information or speak to their experts who teach their lessons. Besides, all the lessons are related to all sorts of subjects and all the students have their own learning plans created by teachers .

As one headmaster says, a laptop computer is students⁵ library, data storage （数据存储）as well as the bridge to a wider world. Technology has changed the emphasis of future learning. Thus, well pay more attention to the learning of kids rather than the teaching.

6 . The City of the Future

To find out what young people think about the future of urban life, a teacher at a university in Texas in the United States asked his students to think how they would run a city of 50,000 people in the year 2025. Here are some of the ideas they had:

Garbage ships To get rid of garbage problems, the city will load huge spaceships with waste materials and send them towards the sun, preventing landfill and environmental problems.

Batman Nets Police will arrest criminals by firing nets instead of guns.

Forget smoking No smoking will be allowed within a future city's limits. Smoking will be possible only outside cities, and outdoors.

Forget the malls In the future all shopping will be done online, and catalogues will have voice commands to place orders.

Telephones for life Everyone will be given a telephone number at birth that will never change no matter where they live.

Recreation All forms of recreation, such as cinemas, bowling, softball, concerts and others, will be provided free of charge by the city.

Cars All cars will be powered by electricity, solar energy or wind, and it will be possible to change the colour of cars at the flick of a switch.

Telesurgery Distance surgery will become common as doctors carry out operations from thousands of miles away, with each city having its own telesurgery outpatient clinic.

Holidays at home Senior citizens and people with disabilities will be able to go anywhere in the world using high-tech cameras attached to their head.

Space travel Travelling in space by ordinary citizens will be common. Each city will have its own spaceport.

7 . What will man be like in the future? How about in 5,000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make a________, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from________he is today, for man is slowly________all the time.

Let us take an example. Man, even 500 years ago, was________than he is today. Now, on average, men are about three inches taller. 500 years is a relatively short period of________, so we may guess that man will________to grow taller.

Again, in modern world we use our________a great deal. Even so, we still________only about 20% of the brain’ s capacity (容量).As time________, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more --and finally we shall need even larger ones! This is likely to________a physical change, too. The head,________, the forehead, will grow larger.

Nowadays our eyes are in________use. In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear________. But over a very long period of time it is likely that man’s eyes will grow stronger.

On the other hand, we________to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time,________our fingers will grow more sensitive (敏感的) because they are used a great deal in modern life.

But what about hair? This will probably________from the body altogether in course of time because it does not________a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald(无发或少发的).

Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very________creature to look at! All the same, in spite of all these changes, future man will still have a lot in________with us. He will still be a human being, with________and emotions similar to our own.

8 . Have you ever forgotten to lock the door of your house? Or, have you ever forgotten to switch off the TV or computer?     1    , and can sometimes lead to problems. However, in the not-too-distant future, we will be living in smart homes that will help solve those problems.

Intelligent controls

Today, we have to use switches for your lights, and remote controls for our TVs and air conditioners. In the future, we will be using advanced technology every day for automatic control of just about everything in our home. You will no longer have to think about turning switches on and off yourself.     2    , so everything will be ready for you.

Regular Health Checks

In addition, your smart home will be monitoring your health for you every day. Your bed, for example, will record how well you sleep every night.     3    . If you start to have sleep or weight problems, it will send a warning to your phone. It will also give you suggestions on a healthier diet and how to sleep better.

No more disasters

    4    . For example, if a water pipe starts leaking, or if there is a short in the electrical wiring, your smart home will detect it and provide you with the relevant information. This way, you will be able to fix the problem before your home becomes flooded or catches fire.

This smart technology is not a fantasy.     5     and being used in some homes. In this sense, the home of tomorrow is already the home of today. Nevertheless, it will take some years, before most new homes begin to use this new technology.

When I was a little boy, I see a science fiction film. It was about the future world, in that the way people lived was so astonished. What made me especially surprised was that I could drive cars in the sky! Since now, I have been curious the future world. Just about 100 years ago, flying in the sky seemed totally impossible, but now we can travel around a world by plane. With the latest achieve in technology, we can deal with most of our problem. Now we can even pay our bills online. I believe that the future world will become a much more nicer place than what it is.

10 . For centuries, people have moved to and lived in cities. These urban centres are places to find work, friends and fun. It's no surprise that they continue to grow as more and more people flood in hoping to make the most of the chances they offer but adding to the congestion and pollution that already exist.

According to a report by the United Nations, 54 percent of the world's population lives in urban areas and it predicts that by 2050,this figure will have increased to around 70 percent. But as more and more people move from the countryside to the city to get better chances, they can end up with nowhere to live.

This is true in places such as Rio de Janeiro, where the people from the countryside can't rent or buy a home,and they end up building their own communities and houses on unoccupied land. These are called shanty towns— poor communities where the houses are built out of cheap materials—and often don't have any electricity or water supply.

These are, of course, not the future cities we want to see. Some serious urban planning is needed to make our cities of the future good, safe and modern places to live in. This involves improving the housing conditions, the chances for education and employment and so on.

Something urban planners are looking at now is the creation of“smart cities”. According to John Rossant, founder and chairman of the non-profit organisation New Cities Foundation, technology is the way forward. He thinks that it's generally accepted that “cloud computing, ubiquitous Internet, robust 5G networks etc, will change our cities”. He says technology is really “a game changer” in urbanization (城市化). It would collect large amounts of data about how a city is working and may improve how a city functions.