2 . Walking might seem simple. “But it’s not,” explains Peggy Cawthon, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “It’s an amazingly complex behavior when we try to understand how to improve our lives as we age.”     1    ? Here are a few ideas.

Don’t stop exercising

Cawthon agrees that the worst thing a person can do is to stop exercising. “You’ll feel the effects almost immediately,” says Cawthon. Sitting for hours leaves her uncomfortable, and it’s the days when she types that her arthritis (关节炎) doesn’t cause much pain.     2    .

Train yourself to walk with skill

To truly improve your walking, you need to think like an athlete. Imagine you want to play tennis, but you have a bad backhand. Playing lots of tennis won’t fix the problem, Cawthon says.     3    . It’s the same thing with walking.

Give your brain a boost (激励)

    4    . So don’t forget that when working out your fitness plan. Cawthon has been studying an area of the brain related to motivation (动机) and executive function. Subjects with a boost walk more steps on average than the control group, and they have been maintaining that even several months later.

    5    

So when should we face the music about our mobility? There is no final answer for when walking problems begin to come up. “You should be as active as you can at any age,” Cawthon says, noting that people who are healthy in their 20s and 30s are best equipped to deal with future age-related challenges. “The best time to start is now. Next best is tomorrow,” she says.

4 . The 187-foot-tall Tower of Pisa is famous all over the world mainly because it leans (倾斜). For many years, people believed that the tower’s designer intended it to lean. As it turns out, though, the tower’s lean is an accident caused by poor planning. The Tower of Pisa was constructed (建造) on a riverbed of sand and clay (黏土) that was not strong enough to support a building so tall and heavy.

Construction of the tower began in 1173. Because Pisa experienced several wars, the tower wasn’t completed until 1350. Only a few years after the construction started, people could see that the first three floors of the tower were already leaning. As the next three floors were added, builders purposefully built them with one side higher than the other to try to correct the lean. This resulted in the tower leaning in the opposite direction

Fortunately for the people of Pisa, the long delays (耽搁) during construction gave the structure time to settle and the ground to become compacted (结实的). This mad the foundation (地基) stronger over time, which is the main reason why the tower never fell over. For hundreds of years, the tower was indeed falling. It would lean one more inch about every 20 years. In the end, in 1990, it was closed to the public for fear that a large group of people at the top would weigh enough to make it fall down.

From 1990 to 2001, engineers from around the world helped balance the tower After several unsuccessful attempts at a solution, engineers finally came up with a plan that worked. They slowly removed ground under the high side of the tower. When they had finished, they had returned it to the position it held in about 1838—the tower had been straightened by nearly 16 inches. Except a sudden great disaster, such as a earthquake, engineers believe the tower is safe for another 300 years now.

5 . By the time Joy Ryan, a US grandma, turned 85, she had never seen the ocean or mountains. For Joy, trips to the local fishing area with her husband were about the farthest place she had ever gone, even if she loved watching the Travel Channel.

But one day Joy’s grandson, Brad Ryan, discovered that he and his grandma had a common interest in their love for traveling, when they began to visit the American great outdoors together.

Brad said, “When I learned my grandma had never seen the great wildernesses of America—deserts, mountains and oceans, I thought there was something I needed to do.” It was after taking his grandma out of Ohio on a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that he came up with the idea of visiting all the 63 US national parks with her to create inspiring memories.

Going to all the 63 US National Parks is a huge achievement even for a much younger adventurer (冒险家). Brad said his grandmother’s physical strength (体力) grew with their trips. For example, his grandma went water rafting (漂流) at 91, with class three rapids and when walking at the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, she broke the record by almost a decade!

It wasn’t always like this, however. Joy was so wobbly (不稳的) on her first trip, challenged by her balance. A group of college students clapped their hands when she reached the top of a path they were following.

Joy broke her age limitation (限制) and at the age of 93, she made history as the oldest living person to visit every US National Park. Joy believes it’s the mix of hopefulness, willpower, and the good health that gives her strength.

“Hello”,     1     always makes a point about the importance of how we greet (问候) others, is a very common word in our daily life. The word we choose sets the     2     (begin) for the whole communication, and in turn, shapes the future of     3     (we) relationship with others. At times we may use something like a formal “good day” in certain situations, and a more informal “hey” or “hi” in others. Knowing how     4     (say) hello in different languages is always the first step when it     5     (come) to becoming more communicative with the rest of the world. “Hello” is     6     (important) than any other word for you to remember when you’re learning a new language. Now let’s learn some different     7     (form) of “hello” in different languages around the world: in English— Hello; in Chinese— Nin ho; in French— Bonjour; in Spanish— Hola. Isn’t it     8     (interest) to get you ready for some situations? There are even more ways to say hello in every language. The way of greeting someone can change depending     9     the time of the day, or your relationship with the person you’re saying hello to. Beyond the words, people also use a mixture of body language and physical (身体的) touch to greet each other, from handshakes to hugs or cheek kisses. Learning to greet someone is all about making a connection, so have     10     try and do your best.

8 . This morning I was reading a book outside my favorite beachside coffee shop when an 18-year-old boy sat down next to me and said, “The ______   in your hands is great, isn’t it?” I closed the book and we started ______ .

He told me he was getting ready to ______   high school next week and then started his college life in the fall. But he had no ______ what he wanted to do with his life.

He asked me many questions, and I ______ them as well as I could, trying to give ______ advice with the time I had. And after a half-hour conversation, he thanked me and we parted ways.

But on my way home I realized the ______ I had with that 18-year-old boy was ______ quite nostalgic (令人怀念的) . He made me ______ the time when I was his age, more than twenty years ago. I had so many ______ back then. So, I started thinking about his questions again, and I began remembering all the helpful little things someone told me ______ I was 18.

The ______ is that you’d better do your best, one ______ , not all at once. And above all, laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can’t ______ when everything develops. Life is short, yet ______ . Enjoy the ride!