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I was eleven years old standing outside in just my underwear while I watched the house that I grew up in rapidly burn to the ground. A few minutes earlier I had been sound asleep in my nice warm bed when a scream woke me up.

My grandmother's bedroom was just next to mine and my brother's, A fire had broken out there and awakened her. Hearing her my older brother had sprung into action. While I stumbled around in the smoke and darkness he ran from room to room quickly waking everyone in the house. The house, however, was over 50 years old and made of wood. Before we could do anything the fire consumed it. We all barely made it outside before the flames engulfed every room. I stood there shivering while the fire destroyed my books, clothes, and toys. I watched helplessly while my Mom cried and my Dad swore. I wondered what was going to happen to us now that we had lost all of our things. As I looked around, though, I realized something for the first time: The things that matter, aren't things.

I saw my older brother running across the swinging bridge by our house to get help. I saw my oldest brother who was on crutches from an earlier accident standing unsteadily on one leg. I saw my grandmother and Dad huddled together and my Mom holding our little dog in her arms.

I realized at that moment that we were all alive.

I still think of that fire in the night that helped me to become who I am today.

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。

Today I tried cooking a simply dish myself. I like eating frying tomatoes with eggs, and I thought it must to be easy to cook. My mom told me how to preparing it. First I cut the tomatoes into pieces but put them aside. Next I broke the eggs into a bowl and beat them quickly with chopstick. After that I poured oil into a pan and turned off the stove，I waited patiently unless the oil was hot. Then I put the tomatoes and the beaten eggs into pan together.＂Not that way，＂my mom tried to stop us but failed. She was right. It didn't turn out as I had wished.

The following pictures are all relative to Chinese traditional culture. Write the key word of each picture and then describe it in one or two sentences.

American teens are seen as "in a state of disaster". A report released last week paints a deeply disturbing of the mental health of high students.

 more than 17, 000 teens conducted in a survey in 2021, 42 percent said they experienced the  of sadness or hopelessness. The issue is  more widespread than in a  survey in 2011, and girls are dramatically worse. A  of girls — 57 percent — reported persistent despair,  with 29 percent of boys.

Nearly 1 3 girls seriously considered suicide (up from 19 percent in 2011), and 13 percent say they attempted it in the . "What caused this?" The CDC offered definitive answers, but consider has happened over the past decade. "Instagram was released in late 2010. TikTok in 2016." Soon , 90 percent of teen girls reported using social every day. These apps, create more "social comparison, social pressure, and peer interactions," with teens measuring their self-worth — or lack of it — in likes and followers. Then in 2020 Covid-19 the picture.

its root causes this epidemic of hopelessness should considered "a national crisis". Did the reopening of schools and social spaces this year help teens' suffering? The CDC survey comes out only every other year, so we'll have to wait to out.

注意：1.词数100左右；2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。

Dear Sir/Madam,

……

Yours sincerely,

Li Hua

Strengthening Your Core

If there's one indication that someone is fit, it's a tight and lean stomach. Men and women alike hope that eating right and putting in hard work at the gym will earn them a perfect six pack. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. The rising popularity of fast food has led to an increase in obesity rates and waistlines around the globe. If someone is out of shape you will notice the extra kilograms around their midsection. In both cases, a person's core muscles seem to tell a lot about their fitness and eating habits.

Many people associate the core with just the stomach area, but science actually defines it as our body without arms and legs. Although many people want a solid core to look good, the development of these muscles affects many areas of our lives. In athletics and general life for that matter, we all rely on our core muscles heavily to get things done. Studies have shown that athletes that build a powerful core foundation aren't injured as much. Meanwhile, the benefits for ordinary people may be even greater. They use their core muscles for nearly every task they do. This includes picking things up, sitting in a chair, or tying our shoes. Our core muscles provide stability, so we can keep our balance and easily move in any direction. If we neglect them, life can become much more difficult.

As a result, we should always consider our core muscles when designing our workouts. However, if you've been inactive for years, performing thousands of repetitions will probably get you injured. Instead, start off slowly and gradually build up your numbers. An excellent exercise for both beginners and advanced exercisers is the plank. You simply get in an extended pushup position as if you have just finished a rep. Maintain this position, but place the weight on your forearms instead of your hand. Then, hold the position as long as you can. You should feel your core muscles working hard to help your hands and support the weight of your body. In the beginning you may only be able to hold it for a few seconds but keep at it. The Guinness World Record for abdominal planking is three hours and seven minutes!

Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month. .

One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories.  We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing(加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear. 

Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day. 

Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right. The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 percent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.

If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's sleep, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information—our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.

Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. "You keep what matters." Tononi says.

A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.

B. It's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.

C. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.

D. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.

E. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.

F. "Sleep is the price we pay for learning," says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.

G. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.

Hollywood's theory that machines with evil(邪恶的)minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence (AI) may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics(控制论)，put it this way: "If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预)，we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire."

A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things: a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans; it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So, if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.

The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work: we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.

Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in Al seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some Al researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams--yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just "switch them off" as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent Al will never happen. On September 11, 1933, famous physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, with confidence, "Anyone who expect a source of power in the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." However, on September 12, 1933, physicist Leo Szilard invented the neutron-induced(中子诱导)nuclear chain reaction.

Measles(麻疹)，which once killed 1450 children each year and disabled even more , was nearly wiped out in the United States 14 years ago by the universal use of the MMR vaccine(疫苗). But the disease is making a comeback, caused by a growing anti-vaccine movement and misinformation that is spreading quickly. Already this year, 115 measles cases have been reported in the USA, compared with 189 for all of last year.

The numbers might sound small, but they are the leading edge of a dangerous trend. When vaccination rates are very high, as they still are in the nation as a whole, everyone is protected. This is called "herd immunity", which protects the people who get hurt easily, including those who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons, babies too young to get vaccinated and people on whom the vaccine doesn't work.

But herd immunity works only when nearly the whole herd joins in. When some refuse vaccination and seek a free ride, immunity breaks down and everyone is in even bigger danger.

That's exactly what is happening in small neighborhoods around the country from Orange County, California, where 22 measles cases were reported this month, to Brooklyn, N.Y., where a 17-year-old caused an outbreak last year.

The resistance to vaccine has continued for decades, and it is driven by a real but very small risk. Those who re- fuse to take that risk selfishly make others suffer.

Making things worse are state laws that make it too easy to opt out(决定不参加)of what are supposed to be required vaccines for all children entering kindergarten. Seventeen states allow parents to get an exemption (豁免), sometimes just by signing a paper saying they personally object to a vaccine.

Now, several states are moving to tighten laws by adding new regulations for opting out. But no one does enough to limit exemptions.

Parents ought to be able to opt out only for limited medical or religious reasons. But personal opinions? Not good enough. Everyone enjoys the life-saving benefits vaccines provide, but they'll exist only as long as everyone shares in the risks.        

Grown-ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. He can play catch and hit a ball as well as his son. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, additional learning trials increase the length of time we will remember it.

In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, bicycle riding, and playing baseball long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.

The multiplication tables(乘法口诀表)are an exception to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.

The law of overlearning explains why cramming(突击学习)for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to get by on the examination, but he is likely soon for forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.

Honey from the African forest is not only a kind of natural sugar, it is also delicious. Most people, and many animals, like eating it. However, the only way for them to get that honey is to find a wild bees' nest and take the honey from it. Often, these nests are high up in trees, and it is difficult to find them. In parts of Africa, though, people and animals looking for honey have a strange and unexpected helper—a little bird called a honey guide.

The honey guide does not actually like honey, but it does like the wax in the beehives. The little bird cannot reach this wax, which is deep inside the bees' nest. So, when it finds a suitable nest, it looks for someone to help it. The honey guide gives a loud cry that attracts the attention of both passing animals and people. Once it has their attention, it flies through the forest, waiting from time to time for the curious animal or person as it leads them to the nest. When they finally arrive at the nest, the follower reaches in to get at the delicious honey as the bird patiently waits and watches. Some of the honey, and the wax, always falls to the ground, and this is when the honey guide takes its share.

Scientists do not know why the honey guide likes eating the wax, but it is very determined in its efforts to get it. The birds seem to be able to smell wax from a long distance away. They will quickly arrive whenever a beekeeper is taking honey from his beehives, and will even enter churches when beeswax candles are being lit.

Globalization is the connection of different parts of the world. The process of globalization is very controversial. Many people say globalization will help people communicate. Aid agencies can respond more quicklya natural disaster. Advanced medicines are more easily and widely available to people who may not have been able to afford them. Globalization (increase) the number of students studying abroad over the past few years. some people worry that Western culture will destroy local cultures around the world. What they fear is that everyone will end up (eat) hamburgers and pizza.

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. (dark) would make him more appreciatively of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound. I who am blind can give one hint to thosesee: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can (apply) to the other senses. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.

Thomas Gainsborough was an 18th-century English painter. One of his works, (title) A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, is finally returning to England after 100 years. It will be showing at the National Gallery in London from January to March 2022. Painted in approximately 1770, the painting was nicknamed The Blue Boy because it shows a young boy (wear) a striking blue outfit. the major newspapers at the time said is that the painting was "the world's most beautiful picture".

A Very Special Special Olympian

I am thankful to this day that I signed up volunteering in this Special Olympics event. If I had missed the event, I would have missed one of the most unforgettable moments that I have ever1 .

Standing at the finish line, I was able to witness many amazing efforts and close races. I was most impressed by the effort each athlete put into his or her event. What also impressed me was the sincere2 each athlete expressed while participating though sometimes the joy of participating in a sporting event can get3 in the fierce competition of winning and losing.

Then an amazing moment happened right before my eyes. A group of athletes were4 up to run a short race. One of them was in a wheelchair, a little girl with a5 smile. The gun sounded. They were off. Runners sped up in the track with all their might. There she was, pumping her arms with all the6 she had. Her efforts were getting little result, but that did not stop her. I noticed as she got closer that she also had an injured arm. But that did not stop this bright star. The race was long over7 the young athlete kept pumping her arms. As she finally8 the finish line, the noise of the crowd was thunderous. There I stood cheering, with tears falling down my cheeks.

After all these years, I can still hear those cheers. I grew up a lot that day because of the9 of that little girl in the wheelchair. I was10 that day of a poem from a book that states, "Whatever you do, do it with all your might."