Three friends and I was driving on a highway. While we were going at least 50 miles per hour, we passed over a car. It had broken down, stopped on the side of the road. My friend slows down, and pulled behind the other car. He got out of the car immediate and before I knew it he was helping the other person push the car down the road to a spot where wasn’t so close to the passing cars. From the way they were pushing the car, it looked as if my friend was pushing them all by himself. I thought my friend help a complete stranger like this was a great thing, but I won’t forget his good nature or character.

3 . Since the pre-historic times, man has had an urge to satisfy his needs, but as we climbed the steps of evolution with giant leaps, we somehow left behind common sense and logical thinking — we forgot that we have stopped thinking ahead of times.

If you are hungry, what do you do? Grab a piece of your favorite meal and stay quiet after that?     1     But it never lets you know, because you keep it busy thinking about your favorite star and many such absurd things. When mind looses its freedom to grow, creativity gets a full stop. This might be the reason why we all sometimes think “What happens next?”, “Why can’t I think?”. Well this is the aftermath of using our brain for thinking of not-so-worthy things.

Hunger of the mind can be actually satisfied through extensive reading. Now why reading and not watching TV?     2     Just like that to develop other aspects of our life, we have to take advantage of reading. You have innumerable number of books in this world which will answer all your “How to?” questions.     3     Now this seed is unknowingly used by you in your future to develop new ideas. The same seed if used many times, can help you link and relate a lot of things, of which you would have never thought of in your wildest dreams! This is nothing other than creativity. The larger number of books you read, your mind will open up like never before. Also this improves your speaking skills to a large extent and also makes a significant contribution to your vocabulary in writing.     4    

Actually, I had a problem in speaking English fluently, but as I read, I could improve significantly.     5     So guys do join me and give food for your thoughts by reading, reading and more reading. Now what are you waiting for?

5 . Now let us look at how we read. When we read a printed text, our eyes move across a page in short, rough movement. We recognize words usually when our eyes are still when they fixate (凝视). Each time they fixate, we see a group of words. This is known as the recognition span or the visual span. The length of time of which the eyes stop -the duration of the fixation — varies considerably from person to person. It also varies within one person according to his purpose in reading and his familiarity with the text. Furthermore, it can be affected by such factors as lighting and tiredness.

Unfortunately, in the past, many reading improvement courses have concentrated too much on how our eyes move across the printed page. As a result of this misleading emphasis on the purely visual aspects of reading, numerous exercises have been devised to train the eyes to see more words at one fixation. For instance, in some exercises, words are flashed on to a screen for, say, a tenth or a twentieth of a second. One of the exercises has required students to fix their eyes on some central point, taking in the words on either side. Such word patterns are often constructed in the shape of rather steep pyramids so the reader takes in more and more words at each successive fixation. All these exercises are very clever, but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently. Reading requires the ability to understand the relationship between words. Consequently, for these reasons, many experts have now begun to question the usefulness of eye training, especially since any approach which trains a person to read isolated words and phrases would seem unlikely to help him in reading a continuous text.

6 . A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I’d had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate. “You from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was, “No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage (抵押贷款) on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We’d begun to accept that we’d have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to let his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet’s offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It’s almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

If you always hate certain vegetables. you may be more than a picky eater. Instead, you might be a “super-taster”, a person     1     biter genes(苦味基因). Those people who have the “biter genes” are 2.6 times more likely to eat     2     (few) vegetables than others, according to a new study     3     (present)at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.

“We don’t get the taste of food equally,” said Professor Duffy, an export in the study of food taste. “It could explain some of the differences in our food     4     (prefer)”. About half of us can taste bitter and sweet, so we are not especially sensitive to bitter food. Another 25% are called “non-tasters” to     5     bitter food might be a bit sweeter. The rest of us are     6     (extreme) sensitive to the bitterness that some     7     (plant)develop to keep animals from eating them.

Food scientists are trying to develop ways     8     (reduce)the bitterness in vegetables, in the hope that we can keep “super-testers” from rejecting vegetables. In fact, some vegetables we grow today     9     (be)much sweeter than before.

We might also try to use various cooking methods, either by adding me fat, sweetness, strong flavors like garlic     10     roasting them, to improve the taste of the vegetables.

8 . Advice for Cooking on a Tight Schedule

From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time.

    1    Money is a topic that I’ll talk about another day. So today I want to give you some advice about how to make the most of the time in the kitchen. Here are three tips for great cooking on a tight schedule:

Think ahead. I usually think cooking is a pain when I’m already hungry and there is nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week. When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already?    2    

Make your time worth it. When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on. Are you making one loaf of bread?    3    It takes around the same amount of time to make more of something. So save yourself the effort for a future meal.

    4    This may surprise you, but one of the best ways to make cooking worth your time is experimentation. It gives you the chance to hit upon new ideas and recipes that can work well. The more you learn and the more you try, the more ability you have to take control of your food and your schedule.

Hopefully that gives you a good start.    5    And don’t let a busy schedule disappoint you and stop you from making some great changes in your life!

9 . Many children want to have their own pets, but how to be a good pet owner? Besides giving them food and water, what else can we do to give our pets much love?

Provide your pet with the correct diet.

If you prefer to change the previous diet of your pet, do it slowly so that they adjust (适应) properly.     1     Young dogs will need different types of dog food compared to older dogs. And remember, do not overfeed your pet.

Clean their housing often.

Clean your pet’s home at least once a week and any other times if necessary. Generally, a pet’s home should be clean so it is a good environment for the animal.     2    

Keep your pet clean.

If you have a dog that always plays in the mud, it’s necessary to give it a shower every day!     3     If it is too hot or too cold for you, then it will be the same for the animal.

Train your pet.

    4     However, a lot of bad pet behavior is simply caused by boredom, so shake it up a little. If possible, take your pet to some classes.

    5    

Put a collar on your pet with your personal information and the pet’s name. Remember to close the cage door so there is no chance of escaping and being in an unsafe place.

10 . When I was a kid,I was the girl who kept the training wheels on my bike as long as possible.Even my younger sister had got rid of them much earlier than me.But as I began to grow older,this changed.

All this happened on the Bike Safety Day.It is supposed to be a fun day at school when all of us kids bring our bikes to school and the school provides us with the opportunity to ride outside and learn proper bike safety.Sounds like fun,right?No.In fact,it caused me to panic.What was I going to say when my friends asked me about my training wheels?

With the pressure of everyone seeing my training wheels,I determined to let them go.This was the first big change I’d ever made on my own.

I went to my parents and told them all about my dilemma.They were more than happy to help.We went outside and got my bike.Instead of running away and hiding behind,I stood in front of my bike and took great pride in my decision as my dad removed the training wheels.

I got on and steadied myself.My heart raced but my feet and hands were calm.My dad started to push before my feet even moved and suddenly I was off.The fear faded away and a relaxed mind came into its place.It was crazy to think how quickly I learned something that took so long for me to even try!

My confidence soared (高涨).This was going to be the start of a brand new world for me.My accomplishment would carry me forth to new goals and wins.I realized that if I set my mind on doing something,I could achieve it.