2 . For many American high school seniors and their families, May 1 is “National College Decision Day,” when students make a decision about their academic future.     1     According to a recent survey, more than half of Americans don’t even think college is worth the cost. This is upsetting, as completing college is as important as ever.

    2     Even in today’s competitive labor market, college graduates find work much easier and tend to command significantly higher incomes. The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or greater is currently half that of those with a high school degree. This college income advantage is due to technological advances like the personal computer and the Internet, which have caused a huge demand for skilled workers. The rapid advances today in automation and artificial intelligence will further increase the need for a highly skilled workforce.     3    

It is understandable why many students and families suspect that college is no longer “worth it.” College tuition has been rising for years, and many students fear being burdened with loans after graduation. But in fact, the net price of a four-year college, which is what students pay after financial aid, has been falling since 2018 and is now lower than it was in 2006.     4     In other words, the investment paid off.

To make smart decisions about where to go and what to study, students and parents can make use of resources available today to make informed choices.     5     With these resources, students can gain a reasonable picture of what their future holds down each potential path.

3 . In 2013, Alie Ward’s life was falling apart. In quick succession, her relationship with her partner ended; her dad was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer; and she was feeling increasingly unhappy in her job.

Ward lived in Los Angeles at the time. To distract herself from her sadness, she liked to find and take pictures of her unconventional obsession (痴迷) : bugs. Sometimes, if she found a beetle or a bee that she particularly liked, she’d post it to social media. Those posts attracted the attention of a woman named Lil a Higgins, who worked as an entomologist at the local natural history museum. After seeing Ward’s pictures, Higgins reached out to her to see if she would want a tour of the museum’s insectary (昆虫饲养研究室).

“For most people in the middle of a really terrible year, question like ‘Do you want to come to see 40 cockroaches (蟑螂) in a fish tank’ is not what most people would say ‘absolutely’ to,” Ward said. “But this is my jam. There was nothing I wanted more than to see some scorpions (蝎子).”

When Higgins led her through the different exhibits in the museum, for the first time in ages, Ward felt herself light up. Higgins noticed her enthusiasm and suggested Ward volunteer at the museum for a few hours every week.

Despite her doubts, Ward decided to sign up. “It gave me this sense of purpose. It helped me reconnect with my love of science and nature that I really put on the back burner to chase those careers that were not really what I like,” said Ward.

Soon, Ward quit her job and started working in science media. She now is the host of a podcast called Ologies. Ward had Higgins on the show as her first guest. “She has caused such an increasing effect in my life. It was really because of her that I was able to reconnect with that part of myself, and do something that I really love,” said Ward.

If you have not heard of Yangshi Lei, the     1    (honour) name of the Lei family responsible for imperial architecture during the Qing Dynasty, then you have missed an important detail about the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and Yuanmingyuan Garden.

All the above great cultural relics and popular tourist attractions have been included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List,     2     surprisingly enough, they are all designed by the Lei family.     3     (represent) the great achievements of science and technology in ancient China, their architectural practice covered a wide range of city planning, imperial palaces, gardens, temples, princes’ residences and schools.

Yangshi    4     (refer) to architect or architecture in Chinese. Yangshifang, the then government authority similar to the National Architecture Design Institute today, was in charge of site     5     (select), design and construction of imperial architectures.

    6     (amaze), eight generations of the Lei family were appointed director of Yangshifang consecutively from 1662 to 1911.

With so many architectural    7     (work) on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the Lei Family is    8     unique phenomenon in the architectural history throughout the world. Apart from the grand architectures, China has another treasure left by the Lei family - design drafts. In the National Library of China alone, there     9     (be) up to 20,000 architectural design drafts, each of     10     plays an important role in the research of the history of the Qing Dynasty and how architecture developed at the time.

8 . Terri Bolton is a dab hand when it comes to DIY (do-it-yourself). Skilled at putting up shelves and piecing together furniture, she never pays someone else to do a job she can do herself.

She credits these skills to her late grandfather and builder Derek Lloyd. From the age of six, Terri, now 26, accompanied Derek to work during her school holidays. A day’s work was rewarded with £5 in pocket money. She says: “I’m sure I wasn’t much of a help to start with, painting the rooms and putting down the flooring throughout the house. It took weeks and it was backbreaking work, but I know he was proud of my skills.”

Terri, who now rents a house with friends in Wandsworth, South West London, says DIY also saves her from losing any deposit when a tenancy (租期) comes to an end. She adds: “I’ve moved house many times and I always like to personalise my room and put up pictures, so, it’s been useful to know how to cover up holes and repaint a room to avoid any charges when I’ve moved out.”

With millions of people likely to take on DIY projects over that coming weeks, new research shows that more than half of people are planning to make the most of the long, warm summer days to get jobs done. The average spend per project will be around £823. Two thirds of people aim to improve their comfort while at home. Two fifths wish to increase the value of their house. Though DIY has traditionally been seen as male hobby, the research shows it is women now leading the charge.

9 . Li Jian, aged 61, is a senior lab scientist at the Chengdu Institute of Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences， and has dedicated himself to scientific sketching (速写) in the area of animal and plant taxonomy (动植物分类学). Over the past 40-plus years, he has sketched thousands of animal and plant drawings with a scientific attitude and superb skills, presenting to readers more than 730 species on the planet.

Over decades of work, Li has developed a particularly keen eye that helps him identify even the tiniest features of animals and plants. “It is impossible for an animal to arrange every part of its body in the way we want it to be so that we can take a clear picture of it,” Li said, explaining the necessity of scientific sketching in research work. “Different from works of art, my drawings require a high level of scientific rigor (严谨),” he said.

In animal and plant taxonomy, species are often identified through tiny features. Take frogs, for example. Some have long fingers, while others have short ones. Some have fingers that are unwebbed, some partially webbed, and others fully webbed. The tip of their fingers can be pointed or round, and with or without long narrow cuts. “When I sketch, I must sketch accurately. Sometimes, I need to study the structure of my subject under a microscope before getting down to draw,” he said.

Usually, it took Li about ten days to draw a palm-sized animal. For complicated animals like snakes covered in scales, it would take him more than half a month. A big obstacle Li encountered in his work was the fading of the color in samples as a result of long-time immersion in chemicals. In this case, he would need to rely on known morphological (形态学的) characteristics of the samples and text descriptions to make his sketches more accurate.

“With the assistance of Li’s large number of high-quality drawings, China’s illustrated scientific publications rank among the best in the world,” said Fei Liang, a famous Chinese zoologist.