When we are hunting for a job, the primary thing that we should consider is to get your resume impressive. The term “resume” means a document describing one’s educational qualifications and professional experience. However, guidelines for preparing a global resume are constantly changing. The best advice is to find out what is appropriate regarding the company culture, the country culture, and the culture of the person making the hiring decision. The following list is a good place to start.

* In many countries, it is a standard procedure to attach a photo or have your photo printed on your resume. Do not attach a photograph to your resume if you are sending it to the United States, though.

* Educational requirements differ from country to country. In most cases of “cross-border” job hunting, just stating the title of your degree will not be enough. Provide the reader with details about your studies and any related experience.

* Pay attention to the resume format you use — chronological (时间的) or reverse-chronological order. If you find no specific guidelines, the general preference is for the reverse-chronological format, which means listing your current or most recent experience first.

* The level of computer technology and accessibility to the Internet varies from country to country. Even if a company or individual lists an e-mail address, there is no guarantee that they will actually receive your email. Send a paper copy of your resume, as well as the emailed copy, just to make sure that it is received.

* If you are writing your resume in English, find out if the receiver uses British English or American English because there are variations between the two versions.

* Although English is widely accepted today as being the universal language of business, most multinational companies will expect you to speak the language of one of the countries in which they do business, in addition to English. Have your resume prepared in both languages, and be ready for your interview to be conducted in both languages. Most companies will want to see and hear proof of your language skills.

* Be aware that paper sizes are different in different countries. The United States standard is 8½ by 11 inches, while the European A4 standard is 21 by 29.7 centimeters. When you send your resume by email, reformat it to the receiver’s standard. Otherwise, when it is printed out, half of your material may be missing.

A monsoon(季风)refers to a seasonal shift in the atmospheric circulation because of irregular heating of the sea and the land. For the most part, the term is used to describe the rainy period of a season. However, there is also a dry period associated with the term. Half of the world’s population live in areas affected by Asian monsoons, but monsoons are difficult to predict. American researchers have put together a 700-year record of the rainy seasons, which is expected to provide guidance for experts making weather predictions.

Every summer, moist(潮湿的)air masses, known as monsoon, produce large quantities of rainfall in India, East Asia, Indonesia, Northern Australia and East Africa, which are pulled in by a high pressure area over the Indian Ocean and a low pressure area to the south.

According to Edward Cook, a weather expert at Columbia University in New York, the complex nature of the climate systems across Asia makes monsoons hard to predict. In addition, climate records for the area date back to 1950, too recent and not detailed enough to be of much use. Therefore, he and a team of researchers spent more than fifteen years travelling across Asia searching for trees old enough to provide long-term records. They measured the rings(年轮)or circles, inside the trunks of thousands of ancient trees at more than 300 sites.

Rainfall has a direct link to the growth and width of rings on some kinds of trees. The researchers developed a document — a Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas(地图集). It shows the effect of monsoons over seven centuries, beginning in the 1300s.

Professor Cook says the tree-ring records show periods of wet and dry conditions. “If the monsoon basically fails or is very weak one year, the trees affected by the monsoon at that location might put on a very narrow ring. But if the monsoon is very strong, the trees affected by that monsoon might put on a wide ring for that year. So, the wide and narrow ring widths of the tree chronology(年表)that we developed in Asia provide us with a measure of monsoon variability. ” Armed with such a sweeping set of data, researchers say they now can begin to refine(提炼)climate computer models for predicting the behavior of monsoons.

“There has been widespread starvation and human dying in the past in large droughts. And on the other hand, if the monsoon is particularly heavy, it can cause extensive flooding,” said Eugene Wahl, a scientist who is with America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s paleoclimate(古气候)branch studying weather patterns over the history of the Earth. “So, to get a knowledge of what the regional moisture patterns have been, dryness and wetness over such a long period of time in great detail, I would call it a kind of victory for climate science.”

People think that pets are good and helpful companions. Some of them even go so far as to say that animals are as good as humans. Humans have been keeping animals as pets for tens of thousands of years, but Dr. Jean-Loup Rault, an animal scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, believes new companions are coming: robot pets.

“Technology is moving very fast,” Rault told ABC News, “The Tamagotchi in the early 1990s was really the first robotic pet, and now Sony and other big companies have improved them a lot.”

This may not sit well with pet lovers. After all, who would choose a plastic toy over a lovely puppy? But Rault argues that the robotic kind has a lot going for it: “You don’t have to feed it, you don’t have to walk it, it won’t make a mess in your house, and you can go on a holiday without feeling guilty.” The technology also benefits those who are allergic to pets, short on space, or fearful of real animals.

It’s not clear whether robot pets can replace real ones. But studies do suggest that we can bond with these smart machines. People give their cars names and kids give their toy animals life stories. It’s the same with robots. When Sony stopped its repair service for its robot dog Aibo in March 2014, owners in Japan held funerals.

As an animal welfare researcher, Rault is concerned about how robotic pets could affect our attitudes towards live animals. “If we become used to a robotic companion that doesn’t need food, water or exercises, perhaps it will change how humans care about other living beings,” he said.

So are dogs and cats a thing of the past, as Rault predicts? For those who grew up with living and breathing pets, the mechanical kind might not do. But for our next generation who are in constant touch with smart technology, a future in which lovely pets needn’t have a heartbeat might not be an unlikely dream.

A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps, for there is a companionship of books as well as of men.     11    

    12     It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of difficulty. It always receives us with the same kindness, amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting us in age.

Men often discover their close relationship with each other by the love they have for a book.    13     Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together and he, in them.

A good book is often the best urn(瓮)of a life holding the best that life could think out, for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which are remembered and cherished for ages.

Good books stand the test of time. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues vanish, but books survive. Great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their author’s minds ages ago, won’t fade with time going by.     14    

The only effects of time have been to filter out the bad products, for nothing in literature can long survive but what is really good.

Books introduce us into the best society.     15     We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we enjoy with them and grieve with them. Their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were actors with them in the scenes which they describe.