1 . Technology use seems to be the new wave of addiction hitting people of all ages. Its extreme use can be compared to the use of drugs, which is called Plugin Heroin.

The next time you’re in a crowded public place, look at the people around you. It’s hard to find someone who isn’t glued to the tiny screen, fingers moving at lightning speeds, texting their friends, emailing co-workers or listening to music. It may seem ridiculous that someone is that addicted to such a small object. I’ve seen people who seem to be at their wits’ end (不知所措) if their phone or iPad has been taken away, lost or left at home.

Some people may ask, “What’s wrong with technology use? It’s a way for people to communicate.” While this is true, the overuse of technology isn’t always appropriate in certain settings. Schools are becoming stricter about the use of cell phones, iPads and other electronics in classrooms. Various workplaces have signs hanging on their walls warning employees that “Cell phone use is not permitted” or “Cell phones are forbidden.”

Electronics may be a way for people to communicate and stay in touch with each other, but the disadvantages may outweigh the benefits. People are losing the ability to hold face-to-face conversations with others. However, it’s hard to avoid electronics in this day and age because almost everything is turning into an electronic format. Books, originally meant for paper design, are now being transferred (转存) to electronic forms. Photo albums, and even yearbooks, can now be viewed via the internet. With this growing trend, future generations are bound to become even more addicted to technology.

Is there a cure for electronic addiction? Simply turning electronics off for an hour or two a day may help to an extent, but it will not completely rid electronic addiction. There only seems to be one cure left, and it may be the hardest: self-control.

3 . There are times when people are so tired that they fall asleep almost anywhere. We can see there is a lot of sleeping on the bus or train on the ______ home from work in the evenings. A man will be reading the newspaper, and seconds later it ______ as if he is trying to ______ it. Or he will fall asleep on the shoulder of the stranger ______ next to him. Another place where unplanned short sleep ______ is in the lecture hall where a student will start snoring(打鼾) so ______ that the professor has to ask another student to ______ the sleeper awake. A more embarrassing situation occurs when a student starts falling into sleep and the weight of the head pushes the arm off the ______, and the movement carries the ______ of the body along. The student wakes up on the floor with no memory of getting there. The worst time to fall asleep is when ______. Police reports are full of ______ that occur when people fall into sleep and go off the road. If the drivers are ______, they will not be seriously hurt.One woman’s car,______, went into the river. She woke up in four feet of ______ and thought it was raining. When people are really ______, nothing will stop them from falling asleep—no matter where they are.

4 . Lise Meitner was born in Vienna, Austria on November 7, 1878. She was the third child of eight children in the family. Her father Philipp, who was a lawyer, hired personal teachers to teach the children, and she learned mathematics very well. Music was important to the family, and all the children learned to play the piano. The Meitner children were taught to listen to their parents, but to think for themselves.

When Lise Meitner finished school at the age of 14, she could not go to college for higher education, as were all girls in Austria. But, inspired by the discovery of Henri Becquerel, she was determined to study radioactivity (放射性).

When she turned 21, women were finally allowed into Austrian universities. Meitner was admitted into the University of Vienna; there she was excellent at math and physics and earned her doctor’s degree in 1906. She wrote to Marie Curie, but there was no room for her in the Paris lab, so Meitner made her way to Berlin. There she worked with Otto Hahn, but as an Austrian Jewish woman, she was excluded from the main labs and allowed to work only in the basement.

In 1912, the pair moved to a new university and Meitner had better lab equipment. Though Meitner was forced to escape Nazi Germany in 1938, they continued to co­work. Meitner continued her work in Sweden and later they found the phenomenon “nuclear fission (核裂变)”. The discovery, which finally led to the atomic bomb, won Hahn the Nobel Prize in 1944. Meitner, ignored by the Nobel committee (委员会), refused to return to Germany after the war and continued her atomic research in Stockholm into her 80s.

6 . It’s 2035. You have a job, a family and you’re about 40 years old! Welcome to your future life.

Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the   mirror. “Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from   sky blue to deep red.Tiny preprogrammed electronics   (智能电子元件) are rearranged in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror, you find it hard to believe you’re 40. You look much younger. With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live   to be 150 years old. You’re not even middle­aged!

As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your breakfast cereal into a bowl, you hear, “To lose weight, you shouldn’t eat that!” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code(电子源码) on the cereal box to find out the nutrition details. You decide to listen to your shoes. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?”A list of possible foods appears on the counter as the kitchen checks its food supplies.

“Ready for your trip to space?” you ask your son and daughter. In 2015 only specially trained astronauts went into space—and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacations. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor says you need   these   for   space   travel.” Thanks to medical advances, vaccination shots (防疫针) are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain special vaccines. With the strawberries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.

It’s time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office. Autopilot,”you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e­newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video film rather than read it.

The Students’ Union

9 . Sonja Redding and her family were on their way home to Omaha, Nebraska, after a weeklong visit to Washington, D. C. with her two sons, one of whom, 5-year-old Xayvior, has autism(自闭症).

Although all of the other flights had gone fine, Xayvior became angry during one of the flights, and Redding couldn’t calm him.

“It felt like everyone on the plane was looking at us and got angry with my son, ” she wrote in a Facebook post after she got home. “I don’t know what to do when others just don’t understand that he is not just a kid with no discipline(自制力)，but a child with special needs who doesn’t know how to control himself.”

The day was saved by Delta flight attendant(空乘人员)Amanda Amburgy. She tried to help Xayvior watch a movie, but when that failed, she offered to take him on a tour of the airplane. That worked, and soon the child was not only calm, but having a good time.

“When they came back, Xayvior was much calmer and happier,” wrote Redding in the post，which now has 2,700 likes and over 500 shares. “I want to thank this Delta attendant. She didn’t judge, and she just showed love. We need more people like this in the world. ”

It wasn’t long before Amburgy was told about the post.“ We’re there to help, and that’s what we want to do,” she said in an interview. “So, we always want to make anything easier for the family as well as other passengers.”

She also shared what she felt when she read Redding’s story. “When I read it, it touched my heart. It’s something I would do for anyone on the plane, because that’s what I’m here for. It really made a difference in her life.”

When a news came that I was not chosen as a member of the volleyball team, I was so disappointing that I almost decided to give up. Therefore, my best friend Miranda analyzed my problems, pointed out that my laziness and poor preparation led to my failure. From then on, I devote all my spare time to practising playing and consult my teachers about skills every day. When another chance came up, I had got fully prepared, as a result of that, I selected and became one of the most important players in our school team. From this story, I am definitely convinced that the well prepared we are, the more likely we are able to achieve our goal.