1 . To improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously (臭名昭著地) careless drivers, Russian police have tried to get drivers to slow down at zebra (斑马) crossings by having painted horses as zebras walk across on the busiest streets in some of the big cities.

The light grey horses, painted with black stripes (条纹), carried signs on their backs reading: “Careful, children are on their way to school.” The police sent the “zebras” to several different locations in the Russian capital, where officials in orange vests walked them over zebra crossings and handed out leaflets (传单) to passing drivers.

Some held up rainbow-coloured umbrellas over the painted animals to protect them from the rain. Russian roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely take steps to avoid pedestrians. Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the country’s big cities are caused by cars hitting pedestrians, and a third of those occur on crossings, according to traffic police figures published last month.

In the first six months of this year, 378 people were killed and more than 6, 600 injured on pedestrian crossings in Russia, according to police. In Moscow alone, 43 people were killed, including two children.

Though police officials said that only safe paint would be used on the animals, animal rights activists still disagreed with the idea, accusing the police of “treating animals like garbage”.

“Children understand that paints are bad for animals,” the Interfax news agency quoted president of Vita animal rights group Irina Novozhilova as saying.

Let’s hope this part of the campaign is over and animals are left out of future attempts to raise pedestrians’ awareness.

China is a big old country,     1     has a history of more than five thousand years. We are proud of     2     (it) culture and part of the culture even influences the world     3     (great), for example, the thought of Confucius. As Chinese economy develops very fast and plays     4     important role in the world, more and more     5     (foreign) learn Mandarin (普通话) in Confucius institutions. The Chinese traditional culture can be tested by the time. It unites the whole nation and no matter     6     kind of disaster comes, we will fight together for the country's future. Today, many young people lose faith in     7     (tradition) culture and they are crazy about the western culture. They follow the western fashion,       8     (think) we are the old style. But some day, they     9     (realize) it is wrong     10     (abandon) traditional culture.

3 . TikTok has pushed a new safety update to its app that allows parents to take more control of their teenager’s accounts, as social media companies come under increasing pressure to make their platforms safer for children.

The company said that its Family Pairing now enables parents to turn off comments on their children’s videos entirely or limit them to friends only. Parents whose accounts are linked to their kids will also be able to set their accounts to private ones, turn off the search function for content or users, and limit who can see which videos their children have liked.

The Family Pairing lets parents see how long their children are spending on TikTok each day and limit the content they can see.

TikTok allows children to register (注册) and create an account if they’re over the age of 13. All they need to do is provide their date of birth. However, because TikTok doesn’t require registrants (注册人) to prove their identities, some children under 13 have registered by lying about their age, according to U.K. regulator Ofcom (英国通信管理局)

Alexandra Evans, head of child safety public policy for TikTok in Europe, told CNBC that Family Pairing has “put itself in parents’ shoes”since it was launched. “If we’re thinking of it as a toolbox, we want to offer more tools,” she said on a video call ahead of the announcement.

5 . Smartphone Stress: Are You a Victim of “Always On” Culture?

You are on holiday but secretly check your work emails the moment you wake up.You get anxious if there’s no Wi-Fi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain.     1     And you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you’re not there. There are the typical signs of “always on” stress induced by smartphone addiction.

Pittsburgh-based developer Kevin Holesh was so worried about how much he was ignoring his family and friends that he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage.The app enables users to see how much time they’re spending on the device and set up warnings if self-controlled usage limits are offended. His website explains, “    2     Some time on your phone; some time off it, enjoying your loving family and friends around you.” And some employers are acknowledging that getting the work-life balance right isn’t so easy. They need help.

    3     You are not giving your body time to recover, so you’re always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make.     4     The fact that we can stay connected to the workplace wherever we are in the world is feeding deep-rooted insecurities.

We now consume media for more hours than we sleep.     5     It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many are becoming less productive because they’re overwhelmed by it all and feel they can never escape the office.

7 . Many people like to explore the Internet. Exploring the Internet is one of the most important activities of the day. The Internet brings the outside world closer to people’s homes. Some people say the world is smaller than before because of the Internet.

What’s going on in other countries? How do people live in faraway places? Is there a good sports game somewhere? What’s life like in the deepest part of the sea? If you want to answer all these questions, just come to the Internet. Of course, people can also learn through reading or listening to the radio. But with the Internet they can learn better and more easily. A lot of information can be collected at a great speed.

Can we go shopping without leaving home? Can we see a doctor without going to the hospital? Can we study without going to school? All these things seemed to be impossible, but now they have become true.

The Internet helps us to open our eyes. The Internet also helps to open our minds. The Internet often gives us new ideas. In a word, it helps us in many ways. Great changes have taken place in our life since the use of the Internet.

9 . Today, we are told children don’t spend enough time in the fresh air. Many of them are addicted to a screen either on a computer or a TV—they seem to be living in a virtual world. They have lost touch with nature.

But now 400 organizations in the UK, from playgroups to the National Health Service, are encouraging children to have some “wild time”. They want kids to swap at least 30 minutes of watching TV or playing computer games for time playing outside. Activities such as building dens, climbing trees, rummaging for conkers and playing hide-and-seek are just some of the things kids can do. Even if they live in a city, they can go on adventures in the garden or the park.

Children often need a helping hand from mums and dads. They need to be shown what to do and where to go. Andy Simpson from the National Health Service says, “We want parents to see what this magical wonder product does for their kids’ development, independence and creativity, by giving wild time a go.”

So despite the complicated world that young people grow up in now, it seems that going back to basics and experiencing “nature’s playground” is what modern children need. David Bond from Project Wild Thing says, “We need to make more space for wild time in children’s daily routine, freeing this generation of kids to have the sort of experiences that many of us took for granted.”

This might sound a bit old-fashioned to you but there’s no age limit on enjoying yourself!

As to the topic “The Internet helps or harms friendships”,different people have different     1     (opinion). Robert thinks friends should focus more     2     face-to-face communication and less on online communication. Firstly, talking online is no replacement for face-to-face contact. Communication through     3     screen makes it more difficult for people     4     (develop) important social skills     5     enable us to develop lifelong friendships. Secondly, the Internet can make people self-centred because they are only     6     (concern) with their online popularity rather than rewarding friendships. Thirdly, online relationships are not always honest and can be dangerous for people who are easily     7     (influence) or too trusting. However, Cathy thinks otherwise. She thinks the Internet makes communication convenient and interesting. There     8     (be) many online tools you can use to be     9     (create). What is     10     (amaze) is that both of them think the Internet brings people closer.