1 . Schools need to give students all the tools they need when they graduate. Besides teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, teaching about mindfulness, and mental health are important life skills for young people to have. The state of Florida agrees.

Now, public schools in Florida have been required to teach five or more hours about mental health for students in grades 6-12. This new idea was welcomed by the Florida Board of Education in July and is being carried out as a potential lifesaver.

The new curriculum (课程) requires students to learn about the symptoms (症状) of mental illness and where to find help if they are feeling sad or have other problems and even teaches the teenagers how to help their friends and classmates if they see them struggling.

“We know that 50 percent of all mental illness cases begin by age 14, so we are being active in our promise to provide our kids with the necessary tools to see them through their successes and challenges. Providing mental health instruction is another important step forward in supporting our families,” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said.

Florida is the third state, following New York and Virginia in 2020, to pass laws that require mental health education in schools. According to CNN, the New York law updated the health curriculum to include mental health for elementary, middle and high school students. The Virginia law required that mental health education be provided for 9th and 10th graders.

These three states in the US are taking bold steps to help youth deal with the intricacy (错综复杂) of life as they grow from teenagers into adults. It is a confusing world they face and giving them the tools they need is essential. Mental health is something that should be taught in schools in all the US and across the globe.

Following My Dream

I grew up in a poor family with six brothers, three sisters, my father and mother. We had little money and few goods, but plenty of love and attention. I was happy and full of energy. I understood that no matter how poor a person was, he could still afford a dream.

My dream was athletics. By the time I was sixteen, I could throw a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball and hit anything that moves on the football field. And I was so lucky that my high-school coach was Ollie Jarvis, who not only believed in me, but often told me “The dream is priceless.” However, when I was about to get off the ground, one particular thing happened, which almost ruined (毁坏)my long-held dream.

It was the summer holiday in Senior Two and a friend recommended me for a summer job. I was offered $12.25 per hour. Compared with the average $3.5, that was a big sum. I was so excited, because this meant a chance for money in my pocket, certainly, money for a new bike and new clothes, and the start of savings for a house for my mother. The prospect (前景)of the job was inviting, and I wanted to jump at the opportunity.

Then I realized I would have to give up summer baseball training to handle the work schedule. I didn’t dare to tell my coach. I thought of the advice my mother often gave me when I lacked courage, “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” I decided to talk to my coach by myself. After all, my dream of buying my mom a house and having money in my pocket was worth facing his disappointment to me. I gathered my courage and knocked at his door…

The origin of facial makeup used in Peking Opera can go back to the Northern and Southern dynasties,    1     was a time when leading actors used to wear masks. As the operatic arts developed,    2     (performer) gradually took off their masks and painted colorful patterns on their faces instead, so people could better see    3     (they) facial expressions.

Chinese Opera facial makeup is a special makeup method with Chinese cultural characteristics.     4    painting technique for Chinese facial makeup in dramas is closely related to the character's personality. Over the past years of development, it     5       (become) an important part of Chinese culture.

There    6     (be) four roles in facial makeup, sheng, dan, jing, and chou. Chinese facial-makeup is     7     (extreme) stylized in the colors and patterns used, but no two painted faces are alike. For example, there are more than 100 face-painting styles     8     (design) for Xiang Yu, the hero in Farewell My Concubine, and each one is different. Various types of Chinese facial makeup let the audience able     9     (know) a character easily and get more involved     10     the appreciation of the performance.

4 . Children start out as natural scientists, eager to look into the world around them.     1    .There’s no need for a lot of scientific terms or expensive lab equipment. You only have to share your children’s curiosity.   

Listen to their questions. I once visited a classroom of seven-year-olds to talk about science as a job. After my sharing, a boy raised his hand and asked me some questions, “Have you ever seen a grasshopper eat? When I try eating leaves like that, I get a stomachache. Why?”    2    

Give them time to think. Studies over the past 30 years have shown that, after a question, adults typically wait only one second or less for an answer.     3    When adults increase their “wait time” to three seconds or more, children give more logical, complete and creative answers.

    4     Once you have a child in a science discussion, don’t jump in with “That’s right” or “Very good”. These words work well when it comes to encouraging good behavior. But in talking about science, quick praise can signal that discussion is over. Instead, keep things going by saying, “That’s interesting”or “I’d never thought of it that way before,” or coming up with more questions or ideas.

Show rather than tell. Real-life impressions of nature are far more impressive than any lesson children can learn from a book or a television program. Let children look at their fingertips through a magnifying glass (放大镜).    5    

The mountain bongo antelope (山地紫羚), one of the most     1     (endanger) animals, is likely to continue wandering in the wild for longer. Having followed 18 years of conservation efforts, staff members from the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy reached a milestone this year — the first baby mountain bongo was born in the wild.

Native     2     equatorial forests, the mountain bongo is the largest and most colorful of the forest antelopes. The species     3     (see) a dramatic decline in numbers in the last few decades from     4     estimated population of 25, 000 to less than 100. It was mostly humans who caused its population to decrease     5     (dramatic). Now the Conservancy is making efforts in partnership with the Kenyan government to help the mountain bongo through one     6     (create) breeding (饲养) and rewilding program.

“Due to the massive decline, we     7     (leave) with less than 100 of the species in the wild. The mountain bongo is only found in Kenya and its decline in this area therefore means its decline in the world. That explains     8     taking immediate action here is so urgent,” Robert Aruho from the Conservancy said. He added that     9     (enable) the animals to adapt to life in the wild, they had taken a series of measures. With the first phase of the     10     (adapt) being complete, the Conservancy has moved to the second phase which involves introducing the antelopes to the wild.

7 . I was cleaning out a cupboard the other day when I made an amazing discovery. Inside I _________ the manuscript (手稿) of a novel. It included an outline of the _________ and a pile of typed pages telling a story. It was written, to my _________, by my father who has been dead for more than 50 years. It isn’t _________, as novels go, perhaps fifty or sixty typed pages, but without my _________ it has somehow accompanied me through my years of _________, several jobs, a marriage, the birth of my children and grandchildren, retirement and even the relocation across the country where I live.

Yet there it was, resting under a lot of paper to be recycled. I might have _________ my father’s legacy (遗产). I was truly _________ by my discovery.

I’m in the middle of reading another book _________ my dad’s novel has a place on my bedside table. I intend to __________ enough time for it, but I haven’t __________ examined it yet. I’m going to spend a whole afternoon giving it the __________ it deserves. As yet I don’t know what the storyline is about and I don’t even know if it is complete but I __________ a highly emotional process of finding out.

I find it fascinating to think that this could happen: After more than fifty years my father could __________ his only son through the mists of time. It’s those things that we don’t see coming that make life so __________.

8 . It’s hard to say why, but it’s just true: Music is good for you. It can calm your spirit and help you vent (发泄) your anger.     1    . But there’s one surprising yet well-documented effect that has really surprised people. Music lessons are very good for language comprehension — and they might even be better than reading lessons.

    2    . But in this new study from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), researchers were able to see music lessons improve word comprehension right before their eyes. Led by Robert Desimone, the director of McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the team tested 74 children between the ages of four and five to see how their growing language skills were affected by piano lessons.

The 74 participants were divided into three groups.     3    . The other two had their weekly academic lessons supplemented with three 45-minute lessons per week — the first got piano lessons and the second took part in reading lessons.

What are the results? The ones who received a little extra learning every week outperformed those who just continued on with their normal studies.     4    . Perhaps even more surprisingly, the children who took the music lessons even outperformed the ones who took the reading lessons when it came to telling the difference between two words that were very similar.

“That’s a big thing for kids in learning language: being able to hear the differences between words,” Desimone said in a statement. “They really benefited from that.” To the researchers, the results point to one clear conclusion:     5    

9 . Here’s an idea whose time has come: A flu shot that doesn’t require an actual shot.

For the first time, researchers have tested a flu vaccine patch (疫苗贴) in a human clinical trial and found that it delivered as much protection as a traditional injection with a needle (注射针). Doctors and public health experts have high hopes that it will increase the number of people who get immunized (免疫的) against the flu.

Seasonal flu is responsible for up to half a million deaths around the world each year according to the World Health Organization. A team led by Georgia Tech engineer Mark Prausnitz has come up with another method that uses “microneedles”. These tiny needles are so small that 100 of them, arranged in order on a patch, can fit under your thumb. Yet they’re big enough to hold vaccine for three types of flu.

None of the study volunteers had serious side effects. The groups that got patches had mild skin reactions that were not seen in the regular needle group, while the volunteers in the regular needle group were more likely to experience pain. Overall, 70 percent of the volunteers who got vaccine patches said they’d rather use them again than get a traditional flu shot. The study authors declared it a success on all fronts.

The biggest beneficiaries (受益者) could be people in low-and middle-income countries, where flu vaccines are hard to come by. Reducing pain is nice, but other benefits—the patch costs less, is easier to transport, doesn’t require fridge, can be self-administered and doesn’t cause waste of needles—are even better.

“Microneedle Patches have the potential to become ideal candidates for vaccination programs,” wrote Katja Hoschler and Maria Zambon of Public Health England.

Nowadays, one of the common     1     (phenomenon) is to see ordinary people listening to music with headphones,     2     (absorb) themselves in their own world. Moreover, people often share     3     (satisfy) records with their friends. In     4     (add), we can gain relief from pressure in the deepest part of our being.

    5     is proved that music can be used as a cure     6     diseases. Listening to positive and peaceful music will have     7     positive impact on people, which enables many patients     8     (reduce) pain. Classical music has reached a stage     9     it is often used in cancer treatment     10     the aim of relieving aches and side effects.