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A Little Boy

A little boy selling magazines for school walked up to a house that people rarely visited. The house was very old and shabby and the owner hardly ever came out. When he did come out, he would not say hello to his neighbors or passers-by but simply just glared at them. 

The boy knocked on the door and waited, sweating from fear of the old man. The boy's parents told him to stay away from the house, and a lot of other neighborhood children were told the same thing from their parents.

Dusk found the boy lingering on and hesitating what to do. As he was ready to walk away, the door slowly opened. "What do you want?" the old man said impatiently. The little boy was very afraid but he had a quota (定额) to meet for school with selling the magazines. So he got up the courage and said, "Uh, Sir, I am selling these magazines and, uh, I was wondering if you would like to buy one from me. "

The old man just stared at the boy without a word. The boy could see inside the old man's house and saw that he had dog figurines (小雕像) on the fireplace mantle. "Do you collect dogs?" The little boy asked. "Yes, I have many collections in my house. They are my family here and they are all I have. " The boy then felt sorry for the man, as it seemed that he was a very lonely soul.

"Well, I do have a magazine here for collectors. It is perfect for you. I also have one about dogs since you like dogs so much. " The old man was ready to close the door on the boy and said, "No, boy. I don't need any magazines of any kind, now goodbye. "

The little boy was sad that he was not going to make his quota with the sale He was also sad for the old man being so alone in the house that he owned. The boy went home and then had an idea. He had a little dog figurine that he got some years ago from an aunt. The figurine did not mean nearly as much to him since he had a real live dog and a large family. 

注意： 1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式作答。

The little boy headed back down to the old man's house.

From that day on something changed inside the old man.

注意：1. 100词左右。2. 开头已给出，不计入单词总数。

Dear fellow students, 

It's my honor to be here to share my opinion . . .

Li Hua

Imagine for a moment that your unborn child has a rare genetic disorder. Not  at least vaguely familiar, such as sickle-cell anaemia or cystic fibrosis, but rather a condition  (bury) deep within the medical dictionary. Adrenoleukodys trophy, maybe. Or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. 

Would you, when your child is born, want to know about it? If effective treatments were available, you probably would. But if not? If the outcome were fatal, would your interest in knowing about it depend on whether your newborn had five years of life (look) forward to, or ten? Or 30?

Today these questions are mostly hypothetical. Precisely because they are rare, such disorders are seldom noticed at birth. They manifest (显现) themselves only gradually, and often with unpredictable severity. But that may soon change. Twenty years after the first human genome  (map), the price of whole-genome sequencing has fallen to a point  it could, in rich countries at least, be offered routinely to newborns. Parents will then have to decide exactly how much they want to know. 

Early diagnosis brings with it the possibility of early treatment. Moreover, sequencing the genomes of newborns could offer a lifetime of returns. A patient's genome may reveal drugs will work best in his or her particular case for conditions such as ADHD, depression and cancer. Combined with information about someone's way of life, it could highlight easily neglected health risks such as cancers and cardiovascular disease, leading to better preventive measures. A database of genomes, (match) to living people, would be a benefit to medical research. The fruits of that research, in turn, would make those genomes more useful to their owners as time goes on.

Such a powerful new technology create new dangers. Widespread screening for thousands of potentially harmful genes may be counterproductive: some results may worry parents unnecessarily, because some genetic variations, occasionally indicative of disease, are not strongly so. Parents may not want to unlock all the secrets that their newborn's genome might reveal. Some may indeed prefer not to know about conditions that cannot be treated. Adult-onset illnesses pose a different dilemma — a reasonable position is that it be up to the children themselves, once grown, to decide whether they want to look at their genomic information. A further concern is that data will not be kept secure, and may be leaked or otherwise misused some point in the future.

The expression, "Everybody's doing it, " is very much at the center of the concept of peer pressure. It is a social influence applied on an individual in order to get that person to act or believe in a(n) 1 way as a larger group. This influence can be negative or positive, and can exist in both large and small groups.

People are social creatures by nature, and so it is hardly 2 that some part of their self-respect comes from the approval of others. This instinct explains why the approval of peers, and the fear of 3 , is such a powerful force in many people's lives. This instinct drives people to dress one way at home and another way at work, or to answer a simple "fine" when a stranger asks "How are you?" even if it is not necessarily true. There is a(n) 4 aspect to this: It helps society to function efficiently, and encourages a general level of self-discipline that 5 day-to-day interaction between people.

For certain individuals, seeking social acceptance is so important that it becomes a(n) 6 : in order to satisfy the desire, they may go so far as to 7 their sense of right and wrong. Teens and young adults may feel forced to use drugs, or join gangs that 8 criminal behavior. Mature adults may sometimes feel 9 to cover up illegal activity at the company where they work, or end up in debt because they are unable to hold back the desire to buy a house or car that they can't afford in an effort to 10 the peers.

However, peer pressure is not always negative. A student whose friends are good at contests may be 11  to work harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of 12  can also get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. 

Although peer pressure is sometimes quite obvious, it can also be so 13  that a person may not even notice that it is affecting his or her behavior. For this reason, when making important decisions, simply going with a(n) 14  is risky. Instead, people should seriously consider why they feel drawn to taking a particular action, and whether the real 15  is simply that everyone else is doing the same thing. 

As the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) has gone global, we've watched professionals fail as they try to improve their emotional intelligence because they either don't know where to focus their efforts or they haven't understood how to improve these skills on a practical level. In our work consulting with companies and coaching leaders, we have found that if you're looking to develop particular EI strengths, it helps to consider areas for improvement others have identified along with the goals you want to achieve, and then to actively build habits in those areas rather than simply relying on understanding them conceptually.

The first step is to get a sense of how your self-perception (how you see yourself) differs from your reputation (how others see you); . For example, most of us think that we're good listeners, but very often that's really not the case. Without this external reality check, it will be difficult for you to identify the ways that your actions affect your performance. Getting feedback from others can also provide proof of the necessity of shifting our behaviour and motivation to do so.

To give you the best sense of where the differences lie between your self-perception and reputation, you should use a 360-degree feedback assessment that takes into account the multiple facets of EI; . Secondly, when you get your feedback from an assessment, let that inform what you want to improve. But also consider what your goals are. When it comes to cultivating strengths in emotional intelligence, . Your emotional intelligence is so tied up in your sense of self that being intrinsically motivated to make the effort matters more when changing long-standing habits than it does when simply learning a skill. 

That means the areas that you choose to actively work on should lie at the crossroads of the feedback you've gotten and the areas that are most important to your own aspirations; as you do the work of strengthening your emotional intelligence.

Once you've determined which EI skills you want to focus on, identify specific actions that you'll take. If you're working on becoming a better listener, for example, you might decide that when you're conversing with someone you'll take the time to pause, listen to what they have to say, and check that you understand before you reply. Keep it specific:.

By starting to change your routine reactions, you'll be well on your way to figuring out the old habits that aren't serving you well and transforming them into new, improved ones that do.

A. you're at a huge disadvantage if you're only interested because others said you should be

B. bearing your goals in mind is so helpful to improve the positive impact of your current EI habits

C. you should also take every opportunity to practice the skill you are developing, no matter how small

D. understanding the impacts of your EI habits relative to your goals will keep you going over the long run

E. the key is to find one that guarantees no personal information of those giving you feedback will be leaked

F. how others see you will to some extent decide how you see others and help you become a good listener

G. this is true because we can be blind to how we express and read the emotional components of our interactions

Some ants have figured out how to avoid getting lost: build taller anthills, according to a recent study. 

Desert ants living in the hot, flat salt pans of Tunisia spend their days looking for food and reach as far as 1.1 kilometers from their nests. To find their way home, desert ants use a navigation system, relying on the sun's position and counting their steps to track their location relative to their nest.

But this system becomes increasingly unreliable as the distance from the nest increases. "We realized that, whenever the ants in salt pans came closer to their nest, they suddenly pinpointed the nest hill from several meters distance, " says Markus Knaden, a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. "This made us think that the hill serves as a nest-defining landmark. "

So Knaden and colleagues captured ants from nests in the middle of salt pans and from along their shorelines. Only salt-pan nests had distinct hills, up to 40 centimeters tall, whereas the hills on shoreline nests were lower or barely noticeable. Next, the team removed any hills and placed the captured insects some distance away from their nests. Salt-pan ants struggled more than shore ants to find homes. Shore ants relied on the shoreline for guidance and weren't affected by the hill removal, the researchers concluded.

The team further conducted another study to see if desert ants were deliberately building a taller hill when their surroundings lacked any visible landmarks. So, the researchers removed the hills of 16 salt-pan nests and installed (安装) two 50-centimeter-tall blocks near eight of them. The other eight nests were left without any artificial visual aid. After three days, the researchers found that seven ants from the unaided nests had rebuilt their hills. But only two ants from the nests with man-made blocks nearby had bothered to rebuild. 

"It implies that ants regularly assess the complexity of their environment and change their decisions based on their conclusion" says ecologist Judith Bronstein of the University of Arizona.

We may weep for the dodo, but could and should we bring this lovely bird back from the dead? De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news for decades. 

The story in modern times began in 1990 when Michael Crichton published his science fiction novel Jurassic Park, in which he imagined a world where scientists were able to bring dinosaurs back to life. Crichton imagined that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology could be a way to amplify (放大) tiny quantities of dinosaur DNA and thus build a living embryo. 

Sadly, biologists soon realized that DNA in fact breaks down super-fast; even after 100 years, DNA from museum skins of dodos was decayed (腐烂) beyond repair. They could be sequenced (测定序列) using massive computational power, but then only with considerable uncertainty. And even if you capture a DNA sequence, there's still the problem of how you get living cells to read that sequence and express proteins that make the dinosaur or the dodo.

But why would anyone want to see mammoths, or something like them, roaming (漫游) present-day Siberia? Well, they were undoubtedly amazing beasts. As well as hunting them, our distant ancestors painted their likenesses in caves across Europe. Fascinating as they may be, there's some ecological justification for the project too. 

It was this diversity of land surface, broken up by heavy limbs and randomly fertilised by faeces (排泄物), that supported so much flora (植物群). Without the mammoths, that diversity disappeared. Return them and landscapes would once again be with a variety of species, including flowers and bushes. 

True, it's not de-extinction in the sense of bringing a long-dead species back to life. Instead it's more like making a "dodo" by engineering a modern pigeon, its closest relative, to become huge and flightless. The result would be a big, fatty pigeon that, whether it looked like a dodo or not, would probably fulfil some of its ecological roles.

As a palaeontologist, I would of course love to see living dinosaurs, mammoths and dodos. In some ways, though, I am relieved that the optimistic claims for cloning and genetic technologies have not been borne out. The slowdown gives us time to consider the outcomes—and hopefully avoid some of Michael Crichton's more fevered imaginings.

Is future you? It might seem like a strange philosophical question. But the answer to how you think about your future self could make the difference between decisions you ultimately find satisfying and ones you might eventually regret. 

The brain patterns that emerge on an MRI (核磁共振成像) when people think about their future selves most like the brain patterns that arise when they think about strangers. This finding suggests that, in the mind's eye, our future selves look like other people. If you see future you as a different person, why should you save money, eat healthier or exercise more regularly to benefit that stranger?

However, if you see the interests of your distant self as more like those of your present self, you are considerably more likely to do things today that benefit you tomorrow. A paper in the journal PLoS One revealed that college students who experienced a greater sense of connection and similarity to their future selves were more likely to achieve academic success. Relationships with our future selves also matter for general psychological well-being. In a project led by Joseph Reiff, which includes 5, 000 adults aged 20 to 75, he found that those who perceived a great overlap (重叠) in qualities between their current and future selves ended up being more satisfied with their lives 10 years after filling out the initial survey.  

So how can we better befriend our future selves and feel more connected to their fates? The psychological mindset with what we call "vividness interventions" works. We have found, for instance, that showing people images of their older, grayer selves increases intentions to save for the long term. Besides, you might try writing a letter to-and then from-your future self. As demonstrated by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson in their 2020 study in the journal Self and Identity, when high-school students engaged in this type of "send-and-reply" exercise, they experienced elevated (升高的) levels of feelings of similarity with their future selves.

Letter-writing and visualization exercises are just a couple of ways we can connect with our future selves and beyond, but the larger lesson here is clear: If we can treat our distant selves as if they are people we love, care about and want to support, we can start making choices for them that improve our lives-both today and tomorrow. 

If you really want a taste of Dutch life, a bike tour through Amsterdam is the way to go. 

What is included in an Amsterdam bike tour

The bicycle is of course provided and included in the price of the tour. Some tours offer coffee and tea after the tour finishes. Every tour especially has its own theme and route (路线). You can compare them by visiting webpages about a particular tour. 

Amsterdam bicycle tour basics

These tours are usually between one and two hours long. They are guided by friendly and knowledgeable tour guides who are well capable in human interactions and Amsterdam information. What's more, the tour guides usually know many languages and are used to dealing with communication barriers (障碍).

If it rains, no worries, you can choose to cancel your tour free of charge. This applies of course also in case of (万一) other bad weather or in case you simply don't feel like taking the tour. The cancellation is easy, without question, and free.

Important during the bicycle tour of Amsterdam

Please don't become so Dutch that you disregard the traffic laws. It is a fact that some Amsterdammers often cross a street or a bridge when they feel like doing it. That is why staying alert (警惕的) and a little bit of biking experience can help you to cross the small city streets during an Amsterdam bike tour. Also, unless you are 100% sure that the weather will be plenty sunny, you'd better bring a jacket. When you start moving on the bike, the Amsterdam's air can get quite cold.

要点如下：1.感恩的具体事例；2.给你带来的积极影响；3.你的祝福。

注意：1.词数100左右；2.可以适当增加细节，以使得行文流畅；3.涉及的学校或人物不可使用真名。

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。

Responsibility is one of the most important human quality. Responsible people can be trusted, and this benefits to both the person and the people counted on him. No one can become successful without good sense of responsibility.

What does responsibility mean for we students? Firstly, being responsible means making our own choices, attending classes on time, and cleaning our own rooms regular. Secondly, being responsible means caring about others in social communication. Therefore, we should help them when they were in need of help. Finally, we are all members of our country, that implies we need to obey the laws, regulations and rules of the country. Beside, we need to do some voluntary work for our community.

All in all, being responsible surely enable us to contribute to the world. Let's be responsible.

A small village in Yunnan Province is (wide) known as the Dai paper factory. There are nets for (dry) paper all over the village and inside villagers' houses. Dai paper (make) for over 800 years there up to now.

One of the best papermakers is Yan, who was already interested in Dai paper at an early age. Taught  his grandparents to be a papermaker at 16, Yan was quickly able to complete  production independently.

Unlike ordinary papermaking where trees need to be cut down, Dai paper is environmentally friendly. This is its raw material is the recyclable bark of a kind of trees unique to the area. Dai paper' production process is still used today. In a workshop, Yan demonstrated 11 different papermaking (process) to us.

Although Dai paper carries the culture and (believe) of the Dai people, the crafting of it is faced with great challenges. (address) the problems, Yan improved Dai's papermaking technology, thus saving production time and reducing labor costs. And then he (start) teaching the villagers his new papermaking process for free.

People may misunderstand what they used to be familiar with. I remembered a 1  professor was invited to our school, teaching stress management principles in a school hall 2  with students.

As she 3 a glass of water, every one of us expected we'd be asked the 4 "glass half-empty or glass half-full" question. 5 , with a smile on her face, the professor asked, "How 6 is this glass of water I'm holding?"

All of us shouted out answers ranging from eight ounces to a couple of pounds.

She replied, "From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn't matter. It all 7 how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it's fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm8 a little. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel 9 numb (麻木的) and paralyzed, 10 me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the 11 of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me."

As the whole class 12 our heads in agreement, she continued, "Your 13 and worries in life are very much like this glass of water. Think about them for a while and 14 happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little. Think about them all day long, and you will feel specially numb and paralyzed— 15 of doing anything else 16 you drop them."

It's important to remember to 17  your stresses and worries. No matter what happens during the day, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don't 18  them through the night and into the next day with you. If you still feel the weight of 19  stress, it's a strong sign that it's time to put the 20  down.

Anyone can book a trip, but not everyone can plan the best adventure that is affordable and fun. If you want to do it better, the places to stay in for the nights must be chosen carefully. 

Check distances on a map. It's common for hotels to slightly exaggerate （夸大）their closeness to attractions around town. They will not tell you the true distance. If being close to a particular airport is important for your trip, you'd better confirm the distance on Google Map before you book a hotel.

 A little niceness goes a long way, especially with the hotel staff who have to deal with difficult guests on a regular basis. When you check in, simply say hello to the cleaning staff when you pass them in the hall. This is not only common politeness, but it also increases your chances of getting incidental benefit during your stay.

Give up the package deals（套餐）To appeal to new guests, some hotels will offer themed package deals. Sometimes these packages include things you don't want or need and the special prices could be higher than the regular ones.

Ask about parking.  You'd better look for a hotel offering free parking. If you have to afford the expensive parking, apps like Best Parking can help you find nearby parking lots at lower prices. As parking costs really go up, if not necessary, we suggest you take a taxi or a bus from the hotel to travel around the city rather than travel in your own car. 

When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. But thinking about the future helps overcome relationship conflicts, according to a University of Waterloo study just published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology is the lead author of the study, which he published with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University.

Previous research has shown that third-perspective reasoning can be a positive strategy for reconciliation (调解) of interpersonal struggles. Huynh and his collaborators investigated whether similar benefit can be induced by simply thinking about the future. Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.

The team examined participants' written responses through a text-analysis program for their use of pronouns — such as I, me, she, he. These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants' focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict. Written responses were also examined for forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively, both of which implied the participants' use of reasoning strategies.

The researchers found that envisioning future relationship affected both participants' focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether, especially when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future.

"Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict — reflecting on how one might feel a year from now — may be a valuable coping tool for one's psychological happiness and relationship well-being," said Huynh.

Many farmers in China are exploring new career paths. From drone (无人机) operators to social media influencers, new types of occupations taken on by Chinese farmers not only bring higher incomes but also put new life into China's rural area. 

In April 2016, Yu Xiaojun, 28, founded an agricultural machinery services cooperative in partnership with his friends to provide services including sowing, crop protection and harvesting for large farms with drones. 

The cooperative now has over 100 sets of machinery and equipment and more than 20 staff members. Many young people ask Yu to teach them how to fly drones. 

As a short-video craze sweeps China, many farmers are becoming enthusiastic about sharing their lives online. Livestreaming has become a new farming tool, allowing farmers to reap the benefits of selling goods directly to urban consumers. 

Holding a plate of dried sweet potatoes, Zhang Chuanfeng stood in front of a mobile phone to introduce the local products. The 40-year-old farmer is 1.4 meters tall and was worried about his future after struggling in various jobs because he is too short. However, his transition has been a success. 

With the support of the local government, Zhang rented a stall and opened his online business. To improve his marketing skills, he attended training courses and learned from other online streamers. 

In April 2020, Zhang started livestreaming sales. The products received positive feedback from the market, and that encouraged Zhang to include more types of local specialties in his sales. 

His hard work paid off. Now Zhang has over 90,000 followers on the Douyin short-video platform. He made 5 million yuan from sales of local specialties last year. He also volunteered to help locals sell other products including honey, organic eggs and fish through livestreaming. 

"Through my efforts, I have lifted my family out of poverty, which was unimaginable before," Zhang said. "Compared to professional livestreamers, we are just at the primary stage. I hope more professionals will join us and we can build our brand."

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is one of the best books I have read in years. This is a page turner with complex characters and situations that will make you think hard about friendship, good and evil, betrayal, etc. It is intense and a great book by many measures.

On one level, The Kite Runner is the story of two boys in Afghanistan and Afghan immigrants in America. It is a story set in a culture that has become of increasing interest to Americans since the September 11, 2001 attacks. It also explores the history of the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. On this level, it provides a good way for people to learn more about Afghan history and culture in the context of the story.

Looking at The Kite Runner as a story about culture, however, misses what the book is really about. This is a novel about humanity. This is a story about friendship, loyalty, cruelty, longing for acceptance, redemption(救赎), and survival. The core story could be set in any culture because it deals with issues that are universal.

The Kite Runner looks at how the main character, Amir, deals with a secret in his past and how that secret shaped who he became. It tells of Amir's childhood friendship with Hassan, his relationship with his father and growing up in a privileged place in society. I was drawn in by Amir's voice. I sympathized with him, cheered for him and felt angry with him at different points. Similarly, I became attracted by Hassan and his father. The characters became real to me, and it was difficult for me to put the book down and leave their world.

I highly recommend this book, especially for book clubs. For those of you who are not in a reading group, read it and then lead it to a friend. You are going to want to talk about it when you finish.

Visiting the Met

Masters and Masterpieces: Chinese Art from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection (January 30—June 5)

An outstanding selection of Chinese art gifted to the Met by Florence and Herbert Irving is the focus of this exhibition. Beginning in the early 1970s, the Irvings built one of the most comprehensive collections of Chinese art in the world. The approximately 120 works on display cover almost all major categories of Chinese art.

P.S. Art 2021 (January 23—June 5)

P.S. Art is an annual celebration of achievement in the arts in New York City public schools. This exhibition showcases the creativity of 152 prekindergarten through grade 12 students from all five boroughs.

Baseball Cards from the Collection of Jefferson R. Burdick (June 3—November 22)

The Burdick collection of baseball cards tells the history of popular printmaking in the United States, In 1947, Jefferson R. Burdick began to give away his baseball cards to the Met. This exhibition features over one hundred cards produced between the 1880s and the 1950s.

Relative Values: The Cost of Art in the Northern Renaissance (January 23—August 7)

Bringing together sixty-two masterpieces of sixteenth-century northern European art from the Met collection and one important loan, this exhibition centers around questions of historical worth, exploring relative value systems in the Renaissance era.

Open

Sunday—Tuesday, and Thursday: 10:00—17:00

Friday and Saturday: 10:00—21:00

Closed Wednesday

Closed Thanksgiving Day, December 25, January 1, and the first Monday in May.

Tickets

$25 for adults; $17 for seniors; $12 for students; free for children under 12.