1 . A great printer makes an important part of a household working device, and besides work, they're useful for printing labels and scanning documents. We've selected three printers for the home.

Epson EcoTank ET-8500

The EcoTank ET-8500 is undoubtedly a quality product, coming with six-colour Epson Claria ink which can print up to 2,300 photos with one bottle. The printer can print in high quality in A4 and is more economical (经济的，实惠的), printing more pages with fewer ink bottles, eventually saving you in ink costs in the long run. It has additional A3 printing function-with Wi-Fi printing allowing for easy access from smartphones. There's also a double-sided printing feature and a maximum speed of 12 pages per minute.

HP Envy 6430e all-in-one

Coming in on the lower price scale for printers is the HP Envy 6430e, another all-in-one colour printer that comes with six months of HP instant ink, a service that sends you ink automatically (自动地) when you run out. Also featured is a document feeder that can take up to 35 pages at once, with automatic double-sided printing and borderless printing function.

Canon Pixma MG3650

The Pixma MG3650 is a more budget (预算)-friendly choice for standard printing with a slower print speed and no on-device control screen. However, you can fix and set up the printer easily, and connect with up to three devices to control it with, for easy and quality printing.

8 . While I was working at a French school, I was often preparing my work in the staff room. Sometimes I would hear the school secretary talking. At first I thought she was talking to me, as there was no one else in the room except me, so I tried to respond to her. However, I soon realized that in fact, she was talking to herself. I noticed a lot of people do this in France. In the UK, people might think you’re a bit strange if you talk to yourself at work, but there it seemed quite normal. It really did confuse me at times, because I was not sure whether people were talking to me or just talking to themselves.

Another area of confusion involved the French language. In French, there are two ways to say “you”: “tu” is the informal form while “vous” is the formal form. This is an aspect of French which, even now, I do not really understand. When I learnt French, I was taught to call everyone vous unless they were my family or friends. So I was surprised that virtually everyone in France used the informal tu all the time. School children used tu when they stayed with their teachers and all the staff called the head teacher tu. But I continued to use vous because I didn’t want people to think I was impolite.

As you might know, school children in the UK traditionally wear school uniforms but in France pupils do not wear a uniform. It was a culture shock for me to see children wear Spiderman T-shirts and baggy (宽松的) blue jeans in the classroom.

I found the differences puzzling at times, but I couldn’t deny what a great opportunity it was to live and work in another country. The UK and France are only separated by a small channel of the sea, but there are many differences between the two countries.

9 . Many people will never forget their campus life, for it gave them something important for their career. Even though it is very difficult nowadays to attend a college or university after graduating from high school, there are still a large number of reasons to go to college.

In general, college graduates make more money than people who only have a high school degree. Besides higher pay, college graduates also experience better jobs than those who haven’t graduated from college. Many employers expect their employees to have a college degree. College programs provide students with peculiar training that only higher education can offer, giving them popular and valuable qualifications (资格证书).

To deal with heavy college study, you have to be organized. Finishing several different classes is not an easy task, considering that each class covers plenty of materials. If you’re unable to stay organized, there are teachers, advisers and professors there to help you. The organization skills you’ll learn in college will help you succeed in future jobs. Whether you’re solving a math-based problem or make out the main idea of a novel, college classes train your brain to solve difficult problems and will prepare you for problems in the workplace.

Whether you grew up in a small town or in New York City, being admitted into a college or university means that you will meet a great number of new people. Your social skills will improve by communicating with them, which could help you when you enter into the job market. When you take part in classroom activities, study groups and school clubs, you are introduced to intelligent people with whom you could one day start a company or form a life-long friendship.

Study-abroad programs are offered by most colleges and universities and are seen as one of the most meaningful experiences offered during four years of college life. In addition to learning more about a foreign culture, students are required to complete their studies.