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I used to think my life was perfect. My mom had her dream job and a beautiful office and I had my own room with a computer and a garden to look after. But one Sunday, everything changed. A hurricane1 our neighborhood while we were visiting my grandparents in Raleigh. Our kitchen was2 , and our clean and comfortable home was in ruins. 

But something3 happened. Our neighbors, the Flores family, came to our4 . They helped clear broken pieces and offered us a place to stay. Their5 was most impressive. We had never6 spoken to them before, but they7 their home to us and made us feel like family. 

We started a new8 of having weekend dinner together. We invited other families from the neighborhood to join us, and our9 were filled with laughter and delicious food. It was a beautiful thing to see our10 come together in the wake of a disaster. 

I11 knew Rosica, their daughter, before the hurricane. But she quickly became my friend. 

She had a gift for12 and our evenings together were filled with adventure and laughter. 

Looking back, I realize that the hurricane13 unexpected benefit. It brought us closer to our neighbors and14 our lives in ways we never could have imagined. Sometimes, it takes a(n)15 to bring out the best in people. 

项。

A new app helps blind people know the world around them

One of the best uses of technology is to make life easier. A new product from Micro Corporation can just do that for people who have trouble seeing. The product, an app called Seeing

AI, is currently available for free for Apple's iPhone and iPad. "AI" is short for artificial intelligence, a term for computers with an ability to think and learn like human beings.The app then announces what the camera sees, so users will know what is in front of them.

People can also use Seeing AI to learn words in English. With Seeing AI, users can hear a description of not just objects, but other people. It can even tell you about their emotions. 

It can read products' bar codes (条形码) so users will know whether a can is filled with fruit or dog food. Microsoft says Seeing AI will soon be able to identify banknotes, so people will know whether they are holding a bill that is worth $ 100 or $ 1.

People can use Seeing AI to identify images. People even use the app to read signs and get directions, although Microsoft warns against using it for navigation purposes. 

Seeing AI is a new app and will not be 100% correct all the time. For example, that someone is smiling does not necessarily mean he or she is happy. The app recognizes text, but not handwriting yet. 

The app is currently available in Canada, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States. 

A. People can use the app when going shopping. 

B. That feature may be available in the future. 

C. The app can identify more than one person in a photograph. 

D. The app can identify what is in the image, as if it were right in front of you. 

E. With the app, you can point your iPhone or iPad at any object and Seeing AI will say what the object is. 

F . Seeing AI uses both a camera and artificial intelligence to identify places, objects and people. 

G. With this intelligent app, just hold up your phone and hear information about the world around you. 

What makes people so special? Tool use, self-consciousness, language, and culture are high on the list, but in fact all of these characteristics can be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. 

Humans and apes are close relatives, so it is perhaps not surprising that chimpanzees use tools or that gorillas (大猩猩) have a sense of fair play, even rejecting carrots (which they normally accept) when they see their neighbors getting grapes. But the qualities that we often think of as uniquely human exist not just on land, but in the ocean as well. 

Among the invertebrates（无脊椎动物）, octopuses (八爪鱼) are known for their intelligence, even exhibiting evidence of playfulness, tool use, and personality. But these skilled predators（捕食者） live alone and consequently lack culture. Dolphins, on the other hand, are large-brained, long-living, social- group-based predators, and it is here that we find the greatest similarity to human-like culture and awareness. 

Culture depends on the ability of animals to pass on things they have learned to others. Many animals have culture in this sense, but what sets dolphins apart is what they pass on. Some bottlenose dolphins hold sponges in their mouths that they use as tools to sweep for fish hiding on the ocean floor. This ability is handed down through generations (especially in females), with some families- grandmother, mother, and daughter - all feeding in this highly specialized way. 

Another characteristic that dolphins share with humans is their ability to recognize themselves in a mirror. When facing a mirror, most animals behave as though they are interacting with another individual. Even in humans, the ability to recognize that the image in a mirror is oneself does not occur before the age of 18 months. Dolphins not only recognize themselves, but if a black mark is put on the body of a dolphin, it will spend extra time at the mirror to look at the mark. 

Each year, backed up by a growing anti-consumerist movement, people are using the holiday season to call on us all to shop less. 

Driven by concerns about resource exhaustion, over recent years environmentalists have increasingly turned their sight on our "consumer culture", with Groups such as The Story of Stuff and Buy Nothing New Day growing as a movement that increasingly blames all our ills on our desire to shop.

We clearly have a growing resource problem. The products we make, buy and use are often linked to the destruction of our waterways, biodiversity, climate and the land on which millions of people live, but to blame these issues on Christmas shoppers is misguided, and puts us in the old trap of blaming individuals for what is a systematic problem. 

While we complain about environmental destruction over Christmas, environmentalists often forget what the holiday season actually means for many people. In fact, for most, rather than an add-on to an already heavy shopping year, Christmas is likely the only time of year they have the opportunity to spend on friends and family, or even just to buy the necessities needed for modern life. 

This is particularly true for Boxing Day, often laughed at by anti-consumerists the most. While we may look down on the queues in front of the shops, for many, those sales provide the chance to buy things they've needed all year. As journalist Leigh Phillips argues, "This is one of the few times of the year that people can even hope to afford such ‘luxuries', the Christmas presents their kids are asking for, or just an appliance that works. "

Indeed, the richest 7% of people are responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. This becomes particularly harmful when you take into account of our consumption "problem" anyway.

Why are environmentalists attacking these individuals, while ignoring people like Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has his own £ 1.5bn yacht with a missile defence system?

Anyway, anti-consumerism has become a movement of wealthy people talking down to the working class about their life choice, while ignoring the real cause of our environmental problem. It is no wonder no one is changing their behaviour—or that environmental destruction continues without becoming any less severe. 

At 74 James Patterson has sold more than 425 million copies of his 200 novels globally, making him one of the highest paid authors in the world. "I do not work for a living. I play for a living. I love doing it, " Patterson tells CNBC. But Patterson's road to success didn't happen overnight. He started writing as a side hustle and he faced a lot of rejection before getting his first book published. Patterson grew up in the woods in Newburgh, New York with an insurance salesman father and a schoolteacher mother. Despite having dreams of being a writer, the idea "always seemedpresumptuous", Patterson says. But after reading books by James Joyce, "it really turned me on to reading, and then I started writing, " he says.

After college, Patterson got his first job as a junior copy writer at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. While climbing the corporate ladder, Patterson wrote his first book, The Thomas Berryman Number in the mid-70s. The book "got turned down by 31 publishers", Patterson says. But after it was finally published in 1976, "then it won an Edgar Award for best first novel. " The Edgar Award, which is named after Edgar Alan Poe, honors the best writers in mystery fiction and non-fiction. Despite publishing his first book at age 26, Patterson didn't have a bestseller until he was 40.

"It wasn't like all of a sudden, " he says. In fact, Patterson kept his day job for decades and got promoted to CEO of J. Walter Thompson in 1988. During that time, Patterson says he would read well over 100 books a year to help spark his creativity. "I have a huge imagination and I'm constantly asking, what about this? What about that?" he says.

Despite his success, Patterson says he doesn't like to give advice, especially about writing. But he credits his own success to his work ethic and passion. "I also don't take myself too seriously, " he says. "Yeah, I sell a lot of books, so what?"

China is one of the world's ancient civilizations and has the earliest outstanding bronze casting

technology. Here we've created a list of 4 museums where you can gain an in - depth understanding of Chinese bronze.

Sanxingdui Museum

Address: Sanxingdui Ruin Site, 133 Xian Road, Guanghan, Deyang, Sichuan province

Hours: Comprehensive Gallery (the first exhibition hall): 8:30-18:00; Bronze Gallery (the second exhibition hall): 8:30-18:30. Last tickets sold at 17:00. Closed on the morning of Chinese New Year's Eve

Ticket booking: 0838-5651526

General admission: Gallery ticket 80 yuan

Note: Children shorter than 1.2m (including 1.2m) can visit the gallery free of charge. The ticket must be used on the day it is sold and authorizes one visit to each gallery. 

National Museum of China

Address: East side of Tian'anmen Square, Dongcheng district, Beijing

Hours: 8:30-17:00 (no entry after 16:30)

General admission: Free (passport required for entry), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)

E - mail: webmaster@chnmuseum. cn

Shanghai Museum

Address: 201 Renmin Avenue, Huangpu district, Shanghai

Hours: 9:00-17:00 (no entry after 16:00), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)

E - mail: webmaster@shanghai-museum. org

General admission: free (a max of 8, 000 admitted daily)

Hunan Museum

Address: 50 Dongfeng Road, Changsha, Hunan province

Hours: 9:00-17:00 (no entry after 16:00), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays) and the eve of Chinese New Year

Tel: (+86-731) 8415833, 84475933

E - mail: web@hnmuseum. com

General admission: Free (passport required for entry)

注意：词数不少于100；可增加适当内容，以使行文连贯；开头和结尾已给出，不计入词数。

Dear David, 

How are you?

Yours, 

Li Jin

In the last week, terrible floods have hit Prague, the beautiful old capital city of the Czech Republic. These are the worst floods for over 100 years, leaving thousands of people without homes. 

The floods rushed into Prague zoo as well, and hundreds of zoo animals had to swim for their lives. One of the monkeys drowned in two minutes, because the place where he lived was covered by water. 

An elephant, called Kadir, also drowned, but his death helped to save other animals. Kadir was famous because he had appeared on TV. When they heard the news of his death, hundreds of people phoned the zoo offering help. 

After the sad news of the elephant's death, many volunteers came to the zoo to help the animals. This was not easy. They had to use the huge machines to lift things onto ships. Without these, it would have been impossible to lift the very large animals like elephants.

Other animals swam out and were helped to survive by people. For example, one of the seals, Gaston, swam to Germany, 120 kilometers away. In the end, four hundred animals were salvaged.