3 . Hundreds of friends on Facebook can’t replace a handful of close friends in real life, a study has found. In a recent study, researchers discovered that people with only a few friends were at least as happy as those with far more if many of theirs were online.

Social media, the researchers said, has encouraged younger people to have larger but more impersonal networks of “friends”. But instead of trying to amass friends, they added, a better cure for loneliness might be spending time with those you’re closest to.

Scientists from the University of Leeds did their study using data from two online surveys on 1,496 people by a non-profit research organization. People taking part in the study showed their ages, the make-up of their social networks, how often they had different types of social interactions, and their own feelings of well-being. They included details of how often and how they interacted (交流) with families or neighbors, and whether they included people who provided services to them in their networks.

The number of close friends someone had appeared to be the only thing which influenced how satisfied they were with their social life.

“Loneliness has less to do with the number of friends you have, and more to do with how you feel about your friends,” said Dr Wändi Bruine de Bruin. Actually, it's often the younger adults who admit to having a bad opinion of their friends.

If you feel lonely, it may be more helpful to make a positive connection with a friend than to try and seek out new people to meet.

One Saturday afternoon, Li Hua and Wang Ping were having an environmental protection activity in the woods while they caught sight of a bird on the ground. They picked it up and found it wounding. Thinking it might dies without timely help, they took it home. They made a nest for it and feed it with rice and water. It was with their treatment that the lucky bird gradual got recovered. When time came for it to fly the bird back to the woods, they felt a little pitiful but very delighted. In my opinions, their good deeds deserve more praise. Here I call on public to show respect for nature. Only in changing the way we treat the environment can we get along well with it.

A few months ago, I left my hometown for Canada to study. I felt nervous because I was going to     1     new place with new people. What worried me at first was that I couldn’t speak English     2     (fluent), and I also couldn’t understand     3     (they) customs. Everything was different     4     my own country. I had to deal with everything alone. It was a sad moment     5     I had to say goodbye to my family and friends at the airport. Suddenly, I felt I didn’t want     6     (leave) my hometown because I grew up there and had wonderful     7     (memory) of the familiar place. However, I know studying abroad was an     8     (importance) and challenging thing for me. I had to accept the challenge. By now I     9     (get) used to the new life here already, though I’m looking forward to     10     (spend) the coming vacation with my old friends back home.

7 . Even though it was only October, my students were already talking about Christmas plans. With each passing day, everyone became more _______, waiting for the final school bell. As soon as the bell _______, everyone would run out of school and go home, everyone except David.

David was a small boy in ragged (破烂的) clothes. I had often _______ what kind of home life David had, and what kind of mother could send her son to school dressed so _______ for the cold winter months, without a coat, boots, or gloves. But something made David _______. I can still remember he was always _______ a smile and willing to help. He always_______ after school to straighten chairs and mop the floor. We never talked much. He _______   just simply smile and ask what else he could do, then thank me for letting him stay and slowly_______home.

Weeks passed and the __________ grew into restlessness with the coming Christmas until the last day of __________ before the holiday break. I smiled in __________   when the last of them hurried out the door. Turning around I saw David __________ standing by my desk

“I have something for you,” he said and __________ a small box from behind his back. He __________   it to me and he said worriedly, “ Open it. ” I took the box from him, thanked him and slowly unwrapped (打开) it. I lifted the lid (盖子) and to my __________ saw nothing. I looked at David’s smiling face and looked back into the box and said, “The box is nice, David, but it’s __________ .”

“Oh no it isn’t, ”said David. “It’s full of love. My mum told me before she died that love is something that you couldn’t see or touch unless you know it’s there.”

Tears filled my eyes __________ I looked at the proud dirty face that I had seldom given__________ to. After that Christmas, David and I became good friends and I never forgot the meaning __________ the little empty box that I put on my desk.

9 . Yesterday, a salesman called me by phone, on behalf of a telecom company, to sell his phone plans. I was at work and I usually didn't like telemarketing (电话销售), so I excused myself that I couldn't talk yet and said he could call me back one hour later, at 6:00 pm.

That's what he did. So we talked for 15 minutes. He explained to me his different phone plans, which he stated to be better than my current one. While listening to him, sometimes I was lost in my thoughts and I gave several “hmm hmm” as a sign of agreement to convince him that I was still there. Sometimes, I felt a bit impatient, especially as he had difficulty in correctly talking in French. But I stayed calm and polite until the end of the discussion.

At the end of the conversation, he revealed (袒露) the following to me:“Thank you, Linda. You are the first person in a long time with whom I had an enjoyable conversation. Usually, people shout at us, speak to us rudely, and treat us as thieves. Today, since 10:00 am, I hadn't had a conversation without an offense. I know you had a long day at work and you could have relaxed in front of your TV. Instead, you listened carefully to me. I sincerely thank you. I wanted to tell it to you.”

I thanked him for this revelation. I realized how much he could have been the subject of verbal violence, all through his working days. Unfortunately, the telephone enables the customers to have such aggressive behavior. Indeed, physical barriers do not exist in this situation and a kind of dehumanization (非人性化) seems to happen. I am also conscious that those people getting impatient could have been me. Yet, he was only doing his job and he shouldn't have suffered from the violence.

10 . In October, 2019, Beijing Daily warned the youth that they shouldn't let Internet slang （俚语） deepen the generation gap（代沟），after People Daily started a discussion on Chinese microblog Weibo on how to "explain" the youth's Internet slang terms to parents. The post got 40,000 likes. People were commenting that they couldn't keep up with the rapidly developing Internet lingo （术语）in China.

People also fear that Chinese Internet slang will negatively influence broader linguistic （语言的） trends of Mandarin Chinese, in particular, the gradual taking over of pinyin, the romanization of traditional Chinese characters using the Western alphabet. As pinyin gets widely used when people text or write on mobile phones or computers, while less and less people write characters by hand, people gradually forget how to write them, which is called "character amnesia" in China.

2019^’s latest slang terms add a further simplification: the use of pinyin acronyms. "Awsl"   in pinyin, for instance, means Ah, wo si le (Oh, I'm gonna die), and is used if something is too cute or adorable. "Nsdd" stands for ni shuo de dui (you're right).

Certainly, as an age-old written language, Chinese has been evolving and developing over the years. But the Chinese Internet lingo is unlikely to replace the existing use of Mandarin Chinese, but will rather be enriching it by adding another layer.

Acronyms aren't new. They have appeared with the limited space available in early-generation cell phone messaging. Some of them have become a part of the English language, such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud), while others had a rather short lifetime. That's likely to be what's going to happen with China's Internet slang terms. Some are going to be old in a few weeks, while others might make it into mainstream use, and as they do, young net users are coming up with new slang words to differentiate themselves.

In China, using Internet slang means belonging to a certain generation that likes to watch the same talk shows, play the same games, etc., and therefore, creates unity. Older generations don't have to feel left out, and certainly don't have to fear a degradation (没落)of the Chinese language. While language development is unavoidable, Internet slang is not going to let 6,000 years of Chinese written language completely change overnight.