The government has awarded $5 million to three different local nonprofit organizations. The money will     1    (distribute) over a four-year period and is aimed at helping approximately 1, 000 homeless people in the county of Arvada.

One agency,     2    (base) in Woodbridge, is expected     3    (receive) $1. 5 million. The agency director says that they will focus their resources on     4    (educate) the homeless. “We will probably build another school-home with this money,” he said. “A school-home is exactly     5     it sounds like. It is a school and a home. We have already built four school-homes throughout the county. We get the homeless off the street,     6     we educate them so they don’t have to return to the street. We teach them how to be gardeners, painters, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, and air-conditioning repairmen.”

“You wouldn’t believe     7     success that we have had. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, our office air-conditioning went out. My secretary called a repairman. To our surprise, the repairman     8    (be) one of our first homeless students. He now owns his own air-conditioning business, plus two houses, two cars and a boat! He has a dozen employees. He’s doing better than I am. He fixed our air-conditioning     9     free. I think I might sign up for the air-conditioning class     10    (I). ”

4 . You’ve got mail…and it’s a postcard

Paulo Magalhaes, a 34-year-old Portuguese computer engineer, loves to open his mailbox and find a brightly colored picture of Rome’s Colosseum. Or Africa’s Victoria Falls. Or China’s Great Wall.     1    

“I often send postcards to family and friends.” he says to China Daily, “but you can imagine that after a while, you never receive as many as you send, and you realize that not everyone is into it.     2    ” Seeking other like-minded souls, however, Paulo started looking in a somewhat unlikely place: online. Many would say the Internet is a place for people who have given up on the traditional postal service, but Paulo’s hunch(直觉)paid off.

Today his hobby has developed into the website postcrossing.com, a social network that has grown to 575,217 registered users in 214 countries and regions since he started it 10 years ago.     3    Running the website has almost turned into a full-time job.

Language is certainly a barrier for many people. For postcrossing to work worldwide, a common communication language is needed so that everyone can understand each other. As cool as it may be to receive a postcard written in Chinese, the concept doesn’t work if one doesn’t understand it.     4     So a common language is required and in postcrossing that’s English since it’s widely spoken.

“Many people in China have limited exposure to English.     5     That said, we know of many postcrossing members, including Chinese, who have actually improved their English skills through their use of postcrossing,” Paulo says.

5 . There has been a very serious decline in the numbers of shallow-water fish as a result of overfishing. People still want to eat fish, so the fishing industry must look at other sources, especially the deep waters of the Atlantic.     1    

Conservation measures will have to be put in place if these deep-sea fish are to survive. Research on five such species shows that numbers have declined by between 87 percent and 98 percent.     2     Many species could well disappear completely if the present trend continues. These are species that have been swimming in our oceans for hundreds of millions of years.

The problem is emphasized by the fact that the decline in numbers happened in less than twenty years. Deep-sea fish take a long time to reproduce and normally live for many years.     3     The average size of such fish also declined, with one species showing a 57 percent decline in average size. This is of particular concern, as large fish tend to produce more offspring than small ones.

    4     The deep-sea species have been caught as if they were the fast-breeding (快速繁殖) fish like sardine and herring. It is like killing elephants as if they reproduced at the same rate as rabbits.

The damage done by overfishing goes beyond the sea environment. Millions of people make a living in the fishing industry.     5     Measures must be taken to not only conserve ecosystems, but also sustain livelihoods and ensure food security.

10 . For people who are planning a trip, a visit to a museum might not be the first thing they think of. After all, there are plenty of ways to appreciate the world’s civilization, gain exciting experiences and spend quality time with family and friends.     1    

Museums are where people learn something new, at every age! Are you interested in something specific?     2    . There, you will find yourself drawn in and inspired! Museums are a fantastic place to learn about a region’s history, scientific achievements, major cultural events, and of course, dinosaurs. They also design exhibitions related to visual arts, industrial innovations and anything that inspires an individual to learn about the past and create new paths to the future.

    3     They will surely be an exciting part of the educational experience with the main purpose to expose children to knowledge of various fields and expand their horizons. To achieve that, museums are working to create meaningful and engaging activities, interactive and knowledge-based.

Museums support tourism. They are tourism promoters in small towns and large cities. Museums aren’t a burden on tax revenue (税收) or a separate concern from other city projects.     4    Statistics show that museums support more than 726, 000 jobs in America.

Museums shape communities. They have activities and exhibitions through which visitors can learn about local history. Museums are places where a shared heritage is celebrated and a collective identity is formed. They provide an interesting public space where people meet and talk to each other.     5