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When Matthew Shifrin turned 13, he got a life-changing birthday present from his friend, Lilya Finkel. 

It was an 843-piece Middle Easten1 palace. And with it were instructions that Finkel made2 for it. Finkel invented a unique name for every piece in the palace set. Then she spent countless hours typing building3 in Braille （盲文） that spelled out how to4 them all together. 

His mind was 5 . As a blind person, he had never before been able to complete a Lego set on his own, Shifrin knew immediately that he had to help other blind children find the same 6 .

Shifrin says, "For blind people, Lego sets act as small 3D7 for real-life buildings instead of two-dimensional photographs. Lego bricks allow me to see things that are8 to explore by touch. "

For years after that incredible Lego experience, he created similar instructions for about 45 other Lego sets, together with Finkel, all published on a website they created, "Lego for the9 . "

Shifrin began10 to Lego several years ago to discuss his work,11  it was in 2017, when Finkel died of cancer, that he finally connected with the right person. 

His years-long devotion12 when the Lego company released its first audio and Braille building instructions. The project is a high-tech version of what Shifrin and Finkel did for their13 .

It couldn't have been completed without Shifrin's 14 or without his determination. 

He just wished Finkel had been here to see it. "I think she'd be very glad that we came this15 Shifrin said. 

It's normal for us to feel nervous in some social situations.. But for people suffering from social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia （恐惧症）, even everyday communication causes significant anxiety, self-consciousness and embarrassment. It's because they fear to be judged negatively by others. 

Feelings of shyness or discomfort in certain situations aren't necessarily signs of social anxiety disorder, particularly in children. Comfort levels in social situations vary, depending on individual personality. Some people are naturally reserved （矜持的）.

In contrast to everyday nervousness, social anxiety disorder includes fear, anxiety and avoidance that affect relationships, daily routines, work, school and other activities.However, it can sometimes start in younger children or in adults. 

Children who experience teasing, bullying, rejection or humiliation （羞辱） may be more prone（易于遭受的） to social anxiety disorder. In addition, other negative events in life, such as family conflict, trauma or abuse, may be associated with this disorder. 

There's no way to predict what will cause someone to develop social anxiety disorder, but you can take steps to reduce its impact. One approach is to get help early. Anxiety, like many other mental health conditions, can be harder to treat if you wait.Continually tracking and recording your personal life can help you and doctors identify what's causing your stress and what helps you fcel better. 

A. And you can also keep a journal. 

B. And others can be more outgoing. 

C. Left untreated, social anxiety disorder can control your life. 

D. Social anxiety disorder typically begins in the early to mid-teens. 

E. There are some typical signs appearing on your body or in your mind. 

F. Several factors can increase the risk of developing social anxiety disorder. 

G. For example, going on a date or giving a speech may make you feel uneasy. 

When the alphabet （字母表） was first invented, Plato, a great philosopher of ancient Greece, was worried that those who adopt it would not use their memories and thus appear to be a know-it-all but actually know nothing. So if Plato were alive today, what would he say about ChatGPT?

ChatGPT, a conversational artificial intelligence program released recently by OpenAI, is a significant advancement that can produce articles comparable to good high school essays. 

When I asked ChatGPT a range of simple questions, the answers were well-reasoned and clear, It's also interactive: I could ask for more details or request changes. But then, on trickier topics or more complicated concepts, ChatGPT gave completely wrong answers. 

However, that doesn't mean ChatGPT can't be a useful tool in education. Schools have already been dealing with the Internet's wealth of knowledge along with its misleading essay mills （制造厂）. One way has been to change how they teach. Instead of listening to a lecture in class and then going home to research and write an essay, students listen to recorded lectures and do research at home, then write essays in class, with supervision（监督）, even cooperation with peers and teachers. This is called flipped classrooms （翻转课堂）, in which students wouldn't use ChatGPT to create a whole essay. Instead they'd use it as a tool to generate critically examined building blocks of essays. 

Plato was wrong to think that memory itself was a goal rather than a means for people to have facts so they could make better analyses. The Greeks developed many techniques to memorize poems like the "Odyssey", with its more than 12, 000 lines. Why bother to force this if you can have it all written down in books?

As Plato was wrong to fear the written word as the enemy, we would be wrong to think we should resist a process that allows us to gather information more easily. The way forward is not just to lament （为……而遗憾） the replacement of skills, as Plato did, but to recognize that as more complex skills become essential, our society must educate people to develop them. Value people as people, not just as packs of skills. And that isn't something ChatGPT can tell us how to do. 

The most successful inventions have one thing in common: creativity. But keeping creativity can be difficult. Previous research has focused on the benefits of awards or recognition, but Professor Markus Baer has found something different. 

To study the effect receiving an award or recognition had on producers, Baer and other researchers conducted a study of 224 first-time cookbook authors in the United Kingdom. It was found that only about 50% of cookbook authors with a successful debut went on to produce a second cookbook. Interestingly, they also discovered that the more creative the first cookbook was, the less likely the author was to produce a second cookbook. 

"In our study, we found that people who develop creative ideas and receive awards for them start to see themselves as a creative person. This new-found identity is then in need of protection, " Baer said. "Stepping out of this new-found identity—by producing an idea that may disappoint in comparison to their earlier work—always makes them stressed out. "

One way to avoid the bad situation is to stop producing works altogether. You cannot compromise （使陷入危险） your good name when you do not produce anything new. According to Baer, Harper Lee is a perfect example of this. Her first book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is one of the bestselling and most loved American novels of all time. Yet she didn' t publish again until 55 years later. 

Creativity is most likely to thrive in environments where producers are motivated primarily by the challenge and meaning of the work itself and don't have to worry about the impact on their previously established reputation, Baer said. 

Therefore, in Baer's view, to encourage continuous creativity, we must make sure that rewards and recognition are not only offered for the outcome of the creative process-a new product—but aiso for the process of developing the outcome. Besides, we must reward both success and learning from failure. While success is difficult to predict and often requires a fair amount of luck, learning from failure can be immensely beneficial and should be encouraged. 

Humans, by nature, have always lived in groups and social interaction is fundamental for every part of our health. Lack of it can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. A strong support network and solid community bonds promote our emotional and physical health, and are critical components of a balanced adult life. However, just as with many other aspects of our lives, there seems to be a limit to how large our personal networks can grow. 

Back in 1992, a British scholar named Robin Dunbar came up with a hypothetical（假 设 的） number defining the maximum sum of meaningful human relationships a person can have. The number, which was later named after him, was discovered accidentally while he was studying the cleaning and brushing tendencies — a social behavior— of non-human primates（灵长类动物）. Around that time, researchers had discovered that the large brain of these primates was a result of their socially complex societies. The relevance was that the larger the brain, the larger the animal's social group was likely to be. Scientists could then theoretically use an animal's brain size to calculate how many members could make up this group. Dunbar applied this theory to humans, and the resulting number was roughly 150. 

Dunbar's Number, however, only refers to the limit of meaningful contacts within our social network. It does not account for other relationships. Human social relationships tend to have numerous layers, and extend outward from the individual in circles with the same centre. The innermost circle contains five people: our loved ones. The next circle holds of our good friends. The third circle is reserved for people we consider friends, and the fourth is where the limit of 150 can be found. Nowadays, with various forms of electronic communication, such as websites for social networking and microblogging people find it very convenient to create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other contents. Consequently, it is possible for a human to get into the fifth （500acquainitances） circle, an impressive breakthrough that was difficult to achieve in the past. 

Natural. High quality. Unique.

That's Almased.

My middle child, Jake, was smart and good-looking, but he always sees the cup of life as half empty. Every day when he came home from school, Jake would list everything bad that happened that day!

On his ninth birthday, we saved enough money to take the family to Disneyland for two days. His dad and I didn't make much then, so it cost a considerable amount, but we felt Jake's birthday was worth it. After doing Disneyland to death ( 玩 够 了 ), we returned to our hotel room, all exhausted. And I asked the birthday boy, "Did you have fun today, Jake?"

All my fault-finding son could say to me was "Pirates (海盗) of the Caribbean was closed!" "Jake Marshall," I was clearly unable to contain my anger, "we stood in line for an hour and a half to see The Haunted Mansion. We rode Space Mountain three times. We spent two days playing in the park, and all you can say is, Pirates of the Caribbean was closed?" Clearly, something had to be done about his negative attitude and I was going to be the one to do it!

I was determined to help him. I read every article and bought every book. With the help of great resources, I found my son had the tendency to see the worst in every situation. My research told me that people with negativity have an emotional need for order and sensitivity. That meant I needed to listen to my son's daily pessimistic reports. My usual reaction was to try to talk Jake out of his negativity, but that wouldn't satisfy his need for sensitivity, so I had to let him finish his complaints and ask what good things happened. Then I needed to wait until he could tell me. This would help Jake realize that good things really were happening to him.

注意：1. 续写词数应为 150 词左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

参考词汇：World Book Day 世界读书日 注意：1. 词数 80 左右；2. 开头和结尾已给出，可以适当增加细节，使行文连贯。

Dear fellows,

……

English Club

July 20th

Terracotta Warriors exhibition opens in Spain

The Archaeological Museum of Alicante opened on Tuesdayunique exhibition of China's renowned Terracotta Warriors, known as the " (eight) Wonder of the World." The exhibition(title) "The Legend of China's Qin and Han Dynasties" and open to public between Wednesday and January 28, 2024, showcases more than 120pieces from nine

Chinese museums.

The exhibition is  divided into  three galleriesshowcase the history of  the unification of China by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, his tomb, and the(mystery) Terracotta Warriors. The museum uses advanced technology to create an immersive exhibition space(use) light, music, and scent.

Curator of the exhibition Marcos Martinon-Torres, an archaeologist and professor at the University of Cambridge, said the exhibition would provide an "unforgettable experience" for thousands of visitors.

The exhibition is part of a series of activities intendedthe China-Spain Year of Culture and Tourism. Apart from the 10 life-size Terracotta Warriors and horses, it also features gold and silver, bronze, pottery, and jade cultural relics.

At the opening ceremony on Tuesday, Carlos Mazon, president of Alicante provincial council, called the exhibition "a(history) moment." He said his province "will become a cultural center in Europe in the next ten months, it is the first time that the Chinese Terracotta Warriors(exhibit) abroad since the (COVID-19)pandemic."

Earlier this year, I moved into a suburb of Atlanta. I decided to1 the area on foot.

On my walks, as I admired the range of residential 2 , I also admired another type of house: Little Free Libraries. I'd seen them all over Atlanta and3 it'd be fun to build my own, but when I looked at the website's official map, it turned out there were already a handful nearby. 4 , I decided to seek each of them out.

I've since found six sites of these free book5 . Without them, I would never have been able to "meet" people in my community. I quickly6 my neighbors' reading tastes, sorting through their small boxes of books. Each library is unique and shows the7 of the person who built it, with8 colors and designs. These Little Free Libraries are also the perfect way to 9 conversations with strangers.

Since the pandemic began, Little Free Libraries have become a lifeline for many. They don't10 social distancing and everything is on an honor system. People11 a book in exchange and some libraries have even become12 food pantries (食品储藏柜) for people in need. In all the13 they've taken on, these libraries have brought people together in a sense, especially when it feels like everything is trying to14 us. Beyond conversation starters and personality15 , Little Free Libraries find common ground — a precious thing, pandemic or not.

Once upon a time, we were all question-asking experts. We started asking our parents numerous questions as kids. By preschool, our inquiries even reached the depths of science, philosophy, and the social order. Where does the sun go at night? Why doesn't that man have a home like we do? Why do rocks sink but ice floats?

Why does the child's urge to ask questions grow inactive in so many adults? An important factor is how the social environments surrounding us change as we age. Schools transform from a place for asking questions to one funded by our ability to answer them. And we recognize that society rewards the people who propose to have the answers.

  We can be braver about asking questions in public and encouraging others to pursue their curiosity, too. In that encouragement, we help create an environment where those around us feel safe to ask questions.

When it comes to how we phrase questions, we are advised to open with less sensitive questions, favor follow-up questions, and keep questions open-ended. We can also practice asking questions of and for ourselves by keeping a running list of questions in a journal.

Finally, we could set aside time to ask absurd questions like "How would you accomplish a week's work in two hours?" This type of questions forces us to break the boundaries of our comfort zone.

In the world that does not look much as it did years ago, we must ask questions.

Great questions can open up our capacity to change because they allow us to draw people in, opening them up to sharing knowledge, ideas, and opinions. And they are also our primary means of learning about the world. In short, asking questions is the best way to deepen our understanding of the things that matter to our life.

A．Then, at some point, our inquiring desires disappear.

B．It is a high-payoff behavior especially in times of change.

C．The questions we ask depend on our attitudes as well as the situations. D．But as we grow up, asking questions fills us with worry and self-doubt. E．As such, one way to renew our inquiring spirit is to change the atmosphere.

F．We learn to sell ourselves on the job market by what we know, not what we don't.

G．It not only removes the publicity from question asking, but offers us a place to experiment.

Technology seems to discourage slow, immersive reading. Reading on a screen, particularly a phone screen, tires your eyes and makes it harder for you to keep your place. So online writing tends to be more skimmable and list-like than print. The cognitive neuroscientist Mary Walt argued recently that this "new norm" of skim reading is producing "an invisible, game-changing transformation" in how readers process words. The neuronal circuit that sustains the brain's capacity to read now favors the rapid absorption of information, rather than skills developed by deeper reading, like critical analysis.

We shouldn't overplay this danger. All readers skim. Skimming is the skill we acquire as children as we learn to read more skillfully. From about the age of nine, our eyes start to bounce around the page, reading only about a quarter of the words properly, and filling in the gaps by inference. Nor is there anything new in these fears about declining attention spans. So far, the anxieties have proved to be false alarms. "Quite a few critics have been worried about attention span lately and see very short stories as signs of cultural decline," the American author Selvin

Brown wrote. "No one ever said that poems were evidence of short attention spans."

And yet the Internet has certainly changed the way we read. For a start, it means that there is more to read, because more people than ever are writing. If you time travelled just a few decades into the past, you would wonder at how little writing was happening outside a classroom. And digital writing is meant for rapid release and response. An online article starts forming a comment string underneath as soon as it is published. This mode of writing and reading can be interactive and fun. But often it treats other people's words as something to be quickly harvested as fodder to say something else. Everyone talks over the top of everyone else, desperate to be heard.

Perhaps we should slow down. Reading is constantly promoted as a social good and source of personal achievement. But this advocacy often emphasizes "enthusiastic", "passionate" or "eager" reading, none of which adjectives suggest slow, quiet absorption.

To a slow reader, a piece of writing can only be fully understood by immersing oneself in the words and their slow comprehension of a line of thought. The slow reader is like a swimmer who stops counting the number of pool laps he has done and just enjoys how his body feels and moves in water.

The human need for this kind of deep reading is too tenaciou     for any new technology to destroy. We often assume that technological change can't be stopped and happens in one direction, so that older media like "dead-tree" books are kicked out by newer, more virtual forms. In practice, older technologies can coexist with new ones. The Kindle has not killed off the printed book any more than the car killed off the bicycle. We still want to enjoy slowly-formed ideas and carefully-chosen words. Even in a fast-moving age, there is time for slow reading.

From the moon to Mars, scientists have been hunting for alien life in the solar system for decades. However, Venus was not regarded as an ideal place because of its hot temperature and dry atmosphere. But a recent discovery of traces of a gas in the clouds of Venus has excited astronomers, as it may serve as a potential sign of life.

On Sept 14, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada announced that scientists have detected phosphine(磷化氢) in the clouds of Venus. Phosphine is a colorless, toxic gas that has an odor of garlic. Though toxic, it is viewed as a possible sign of life because on Earth the gas is made by microorganisms that live in oxygen-free environments.

"I was very surprised, stunned, in fact." astronomer Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in Wales and lead author of the research, told MSN. "There is a chance that we have detected some kind of living organism in the clouds of Venus."

This layer of clouds is about 48 kilometers above the Venus surface, with its temperature ranging from 30 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit (about -1 to 93℃). Scientists have inferred that if life exists on Venus, this cloud deck is likely the only place where it would survive.

Scientists went through every possibility that could have led to the formation of phosphine gas in Venus' clouds, including volcanoes, lightning strikes, small meteorites(陨石)falling into the atmosphere. But they ruled all of them out. It was concluded that there is no explanation for the existence of this gas in Venus' clouds, other than the presence of life, USA Today reported.

Although the detection of phosphine is not strong evidence for life, this finding is great enough to change scientists' view on Venus, which is thought to be a completely inhospitable planet.

What signs of life we looking for?

⒈Liquid water: It can dissolve a huge range of molecules needed for life and facilitate their chemical reactions.

⒉Mild temperatures: Temperatures higher than 122 ℃ will destroy most complex organic molecules, and make it almost impossible for carbon-based life to form.

Frane Selak, a music teacher in Croatia, was born in 1929. He is probably the unluckiest and luckiest man in the world, whose story is so incredible that it will leave you speechless.

The first time he was on the verge of death was on a cold January day in 1962, when he was traveling by train to Dubrovnik. The train suddenly derailed in a frozen river, killing 17 passengers. He managed to escape with only a broken arm and a few scratches. A year later, he was flying from Zagreb to Rijeka, when suddenly a door came off and the teacher flew out of the plane. We don't usually hear much about survivors when it comes to plane crashes, as evidenced by the 19 people who lost their lives in the crash. With one exception — Frane Selak, who was lucky enough to land on a haystack and woke up a few days later in hospital with minor injuries.

The series of unfortunate events did not stop here. Or are they fortunate? In 1966, Frane Selak was traveling in a bus that crashed and fell into a river. There were four victims, but Selak cheated death again. In 1970, Selak was driving when suddenly his car caught fire. He was lucky to get out of the car just before it exploded. Three years later, another of Selak's cars caught fire. He lived moments of horror, caught fire, and lost almost all his hair, but again he survived without major injuries.

In 1995 he was in Zagreb and one day he was hit by a bus, but miraculously survived and was left with only a few injuries. The following year, Frane Selak drove into a fence to avoid a truck coming from the opposite direction. He was thrown out of the car and left hanging from a tree, only to see his car explode 100 meters below.

To make the picture complete and the character's luck unquestionable, in 2003, Selak won 1 million dollars in the Croatian lottery. In 2010, the 81-year-old retiree decided that "money can't buy happiness", and decided to live a modest life with his fifth wife.

Frane Selak is now world-famous for escaping death.

Sometimes, we need a little help and get back to a state of mindfulness when it comes to taking care of our physical and mental health. Wellness vacations are on the rise.

■ Ketanga Fitness

When: April 6 — 10

Where: Phoenix, Arizona

What: Sweat it out surrounded by the red rocks of Arizona's desert. P.E. Club owner Nedra

Lopez leads a mixture of high and low intensity workouts in the mornings and evenings.

During breaks, guests will have plenty of time to explore the desert. After your last workout class, you can hit the town for dinner and drinks.

■ Rksolid Retreat

When: April 15 — 22

Where: Oahu, Hawaii

What: What better excuses to relax yourself in Hawaii than a retreat led by Barry's Bootcamp star Rebecca Kennedy? During your week-long journey to Oahu, you'll surf, climb waterfalls, and hike the Stairway to Heaven trail. In between all those workouts, Kennedy creates a special stretch and recovery class so you won't skip a beat next day.

■ Wellness Immersion

When: August

Where: Amanbagh, India

What: The Amanbagh hotel offers 4-21 day programs focusing on immersion courses that focus on relieving stress from people's body. Activities include hikes overlooking beautiful gorges, yoga and meditation sessions, and meals made with organic, locally harvested produce.

■ Mile High Run Club

When: August 18 — 28

Where: Reykjavik, Iceland

What: After landing in Reykjavik, runners can work towards their best time in the annual marathon, half marathon, or 10K. After a race, you'll relax your muscles in the geothermal Blue Lagoon spa and hit the ground running again with guided runs through Thorsmork National Park. Do we even have to mention Skaftafell's crazy glacier views?