1 . Games are anything but a waste of time. By playing games, children learn and precise important skills that they will use long after the games have been ______. Young children learn to follow rules and wait their ______. They also practice how to cooperate and ______ winning or losing. Older children develop thinking skills including using a strategy and planning ahead. Psychologist say strategy games encourage the frontal lobes (额叶) of the brain to develop. This part of the brain is ______ for skills which include planning, organizing and decision-making.

Playing board games can improve children’s focus and increase their attention span. But to be successful, games must be played to the end without any ______. Players cannot check their phone s or leave the table for a snack. Playing board games or card games is also a great way to unplug. A variety of studies ______ of the negative effects of too much screen time. Everyone gets ______ in a task with other people — in person — when playing a game.

Playing games is not just for kids, either. It’s ______ for adults as well. They need to make time in their day for enjoyment. This kind of activity can trigger (触发) the ______ of the feel-good chemicals that make people feel happier. The social interaction of playing games with family and friends also helps prevent ______ and depression. Sharing laughter and fun while playing games not only improves relationships and draws people closer but also improves brain ______. When people engage in games like chess or other strategy games, their brains are ______.

Playing games can also stimulate the mind and boost creativity. Taking a break for game — playing can also increase your ______. By the time you finish playing a game, your brain will have relaxed, so it’s ______ when you go back to work.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” It follows then, that play keeps you ______. So make some time to play a game today!

2 . Our goal is to bring a simple and effective solution to the spread of harmful bacteria and viruses both in home and hospitals

While hand-held communication devices are Increasingly being used to help foster better processes and outcomes, they bring with them the unintended consequences of increased risk of pathogen transmission when not properly disinfected. Shared-use devices are frequently touched and carried from room to room, patient to patient -like a third hand you never was?. We hope to be part of helping solve this problem with the introduction of PhoneSoap ExpressPro.

A 30-second cycle in PhoneSoap ExpressPro kills 99.99% of all harmful viruses and bacteria on your phone. Stay happy and healthy by sanitizing your phone along with your hands, as the two are inseparably connected.

It only takes liking one Instagram post, answering a phone call, or sending a single tweet to transfer all the bacteria you’ve touched straight to your phone. It’s the third hand you never wash, and when it isn’t sanitized regularly these germs can make you sick.

3 . Super Size Me

Fast food, otherwise known as junk food, is a huge passion for a large number of people across the Western world. But what would happen if you ate lots of junk food every day? Would it seriously damage your health? These were the questions which led Morgan Spurlock, an independent film-maker, to do an experiment, which he came into a documentary film entitled Super Size Me.

The main basis of his experiment was that Spurlock promised to eat three McDonald’s meals a day, every day, for a month. He could only eat food from McDonald’s and every time an employee asked if he would like to ‘super size’ the meal, he had to agree. ‘Super sizing’ refers to the fact that with this type of meal you get a considerably larger portion of everything for only a very small price increase.

Before he started, three doctors certified that Spurlock weighed about 84kg and was in good health. Although both Spurlock and his doctors knew he would put on a bit of weight, and that this diet was unhealthy, none of them were quite prepared for just how unhealthy it turned out to be. The changes in his body were horrifying. In the first week, he put on 4.5 kilos and by the end of the thirty days he had gained nearly 14 kilos, bringing his total weight to 98 kg.

Weight gain was only one of the negative effects, however. When all three doctors saw the severe damage to his liver, they all recommended stopping the experiment after 20 days. Spurlock continued to follow the diet, however, because he wanted to show people what this kind of diet can do to you. Watching the film, you begin to realize that it could be a fast-forward picture of your life: in 30 days you go to see what could happen to you over 20 or 30 years of overconsumption.

Junk food is exactly what it says it is -- junk. Spurlock says, ‘I’d love people to walk out of the movie and say, “Next time I’m not going to ‘super size’. Maybe I’m not going to have any junk food at all. I’m going to sit down and eat dinner with my kids, with the TV off, so that we can eat healthy food, talk about what we’re eating and have a relationship with each other.”’ Food for thought indeed.

When did the voice inside your head start talking? I became       1     of mine at about the age of 15. At night, I sometimes found it difficult to get to sleep because there was so much “mind chatter” inside my head.

In fact, mind chatter is quite common for human beings. Usually, whenever our       2     isn’t occupied, a stream of mental associations flows through our muds— thoughts about the future or the past, daydreams about alternative realities, or friends or celebrities. We often call this mental activity “thinking”, but this isn’t really accurate.

Real thinking suggests something active over which we have conscious(有意识的)     3    . It happens when we consciously use powers of reason and logic to make decisions and plans, organize our lives, solve problems and so on. But mind chatter isn’t like this. It’s random(随机的)and     4    , running through our head regardless of our desires and distracting us.

For example, imagine you’re thinking about what elective course to take for the next school year. As you are considering them, thoughts about your favorite subjects flood in,     5     you of a project that you really like. This makes you remember chatting with friends about some documentaries that       6     to young people. Suddenly, you remember the upcoming science fair and you worry about       7     your time. All these thoughts leave you struggling to       8    , and you end up seeking advice from classmates.

However, it’s       9     to expect to silence our mind chatter altogether. It’s such a natural part of our minds that it won’t disappear. We should accept it and treat I t as a kind of physiological process that takes place inside us but is not part of our identity. We don’t get our sense of identity from our digestion or blood circulation, so why should we       10     with the voice inside our head?