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My wife and I wanted to share our new home with family and friends by hosting a small gathering in the early summer. She had prepared lots of snacks, while my job was to have the backyard in order.

There was plenty of space for the kids to run and play. There was just one thing I hadn't counted on: My brother chose to bring his dog Toby, a 50-pound ball of fire. Though friendly, he could easily knock over my niece's small boys and my six-month-old granddaughter. So, when my brother showed up, I asked him to watch Toby and keep him outside.

My plan was working out just fine. Toby was using up his energy by running back and forth in the backyard and giving the kids plenty of room. Unexpectedly, after supper, the weather changed. It started to rain and everyone went indoors.

It was an awkward moment. I didn't want Toby to be running around in the house, and my brother wasn't happy with driving home with a wet dog. Eventually, my brother decided to leave rather than force the issue.

A few days passed, and I hadn't heard anything from my brother. I texted him and expressed wishes for him to come out again. His reply came as a surprise – a shock, actually: "Not a chance." Clearly, he was unhappy over the way we had parted. After all, I had left him little choice. Well, he'll get over it, I reasoned.

Two months passed. My wife suggested I get in touch with my brother, but I resisted, thinking he should call first. However, my conscience (良心) kept bothering me. I tried to put myself in my brother's shoes. He was facing health issues and his wife of thirty-five years had passed away a few months earlier. Toby was his constant companion, the one who kept him going.

注意：（1）续写词数应为150个左右；（2）请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。

注意：（1）写作词数应为80个左右；（2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

An exhibition at the Jiushi Art Museum in Shanghai is featuring artwork inspired by Go, or weiqi in Chinese,  originated in China more than 4,000 years ago.

Go is one of  earliest binary-based (基于二元的) games. The movements of the black and white pieces reflect the basic ideas of Eastern philosophy, according to Tu Ningning, who is in charge of the exhibition.

"The exhibition brings together Go culture, cutting-edge technology and contemporary art," says Tu. "We hope  (present) the rather abstract Go game and AI in a visual context, and initiate dialogues with minimalist art, conceptual art and expressionism."

"In a Go game, each move should serve a long-term goal. You try to lead the opponent into your trap and force them to follow your‘ (guide)' till they lose, " explains Wang Wei, a Go player among the visitors to the exhibition.

"The players' personalities  (reveal) during the game, and one's weaknesses are exposed to the opponent," she adds. "A decent winner always  (try) to beat the opponent  no more than one or two points as a gesture (姿态) of respect for the other side."

Tu says that the balance between the black and white pieces, the beauty in the  (strategy) placement of the pieces,  the energy flow following each move inspired artists to create oil paintings, sculptures,  (digital) generated pictures and silk-screen prints for the exhibition.

One August afternoon, I sat in my kitchen staring at a glass vase that hadn't seen daylight since my wedding.

My husband and I had just sold our house and we were busy 1 the beloved home our family had spent 23 years filling up. We had decided on key items for the 2 we were moving to in town, donated what we could, and rented a place to 3 our supposedly important objects. That left a house still 4 with things that, while not particularly 5 , didn't belong in a landfill (垃圾填埋场).

I took a picture of the vase and posted it online, for $10. A couple of messages came in, one wanting additional 6 , another asking for a price cut. As our 7 day drew near, I settled on a new price ($0) and reposted it. The 8 : "I hate this vase. Maybe you won't." In an instant, a woman raced into my house and left happily with the vase.

 9 ，I posted more. My daily posts and the 10 I received became a precious ray of light in the chaos of my house. Each exchange provided a chance to 11 the landfill and to please another person I might not otherwise have 12 . 

I sit in my apartment today, loving each of the 13 that share our small space. I take 14 in knowing that, somewhere nearby, someone is 15 something that couldn't come with us.

An Unsung Hero

Need a break between classes or just a quick pick-me-up in the morning? The College Cafe has just that, and more. 

Catherine Murphy, a cafe worker in a green shirt and black hat, makes sure that each customer gets exactly what they order. She goes back and forth between machines to make the drinks.  As the customer grabs the drink from her hand, she smiles and says, "Hello, how is your day?" Even when the line is getting longer, she doesn't let it get in the way of her genuine conversations.

Murphy gets up at a quarter to five and drives thirty minutes every day to get to work on time.  "I do so because I like to make coffee for the students. I know they need it in the morning," Murphy said. Being a mother and wife has helped her become the woman she is. She believes she is here to serve.

One thing Murphy may not know is that her smile is contagious (有感染力) and can be the difference in a student having a much better day than they were having before seeing her. Joanna Wright, a senior political science major, loves coffee and goes to the cafe at least six days a week.  "Catherine always has a huge smile on her face, which always puts me in a cheerful mood," Wright said.

"I enjoy working in the cafe," Murphy said.  She has every intention of staying and continuing doing what she loves.

Microplastics have become a common source of pollution across the Earth – they have settled in the deep sea and on the Himalayas, stuck inside volcanic rocks, filled the stomachs of seabirds and even fallen in fresh Antarctic snow. They are even appearing inside humans.

Now, new research suggests that a simple, cheap measure may significantly reduce the level of microplastics in water from your tap (水龙头): boiling and filtering (过滤) it. In a study published Wednesday in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, researchers from China found that boiling tap water for just five minutes – then filtering it after it cools – could remove at least 80 percent of its microplastics.

Crucially, this process relies on the water containing enough calcium carbonate (碳酸钙) to trap the plastics. In the study, boiling hard water containing 300 milligrams of calcium carbonate led to an almost 90 percent drop in plastics. But in samples with less than 60 milligrams of calcium carbonate, boiling reduced the level of plastics by just 25 percent. Additionally, the research didn't include all types of plastics. The team focused only on three common types – polystyrene, polyethylene and polypropylene – and they didn't study other chemicals previously found in water such as vinyl chloride.

Still, the findings show a potential path forward for reducing microplastic exposure – a task that's becoming increasingly difficult. Even bottled water, scientists found earlier this year, contains 10 to 1,000 times more microplastics than originally thought.

Scientists are still trying to determine how harmful microplastics are – but what they do know has raised concerns. The new study suggests boiling tap water could be a tool to limit intake. "The way they demonstrated how microplastics were trapped through the boiling process was nice," Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay, an environmental engineer at the University of Glasgow in Scotland who was not involved in the research, tells New Scientist. "We should be looking into upgrading drinking water treatment plants so they remove microplastics."

While safety improvements might have been made to our streets in recent years, transport studies also show declines in pedestrian (行人) mobility, especially among young children. Many parents say there's too much traffic on the roads for their children to walk safely to school, so they pack them into the car instead.

Dutch authors Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet are bothered by facts like these. In their new book Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets andTransform Our Lives, they call for a rethink of our streets and the role they play in our lives.

Life on city streets started to change decades ago. Whole neighbourhoods were destroyed to make way for new road networks and kids had to play elsewhere. Some communities fought back. Most famously, a Canadian journalist who had moved her family to Manhattan in the early 1950s led a campaign to stop the destruction of her local park. Describing her alarm at its proposed replacement with an expressway, Jane Jacobs called on her mayor (市长) to champion "New York as a decent place to live, and not just rush through." Similar campaigns occurred in Australia in the late 1960s and 1970s as well.

Although these campaigns were widespread, the reality is that the majority of the western cities were completely redesigned around the needs of the motor car. The number of cars on roads has been increasing rapidly. In Australia we now have over twenty million cars for just over twenty-six million people, among the highest rate of car ownership in the world.

We invest a lot in roads that help us rush through, but we fail to account for the true costs. Do we really recognise what it costs us as a society when children can't move safely around our communities? The authors of Movement have it right: it's time to think differently about that street outside your front door.

In my ninth-grade writing class last year, I met a cowboy who saved his town, a strict father who demanded his son earn straight A's, and a modern-day Juliet who died of heartbreak after her parents rejected the love of her young life. More than once, I found myself wondering just how my students, who'd created these people, knew their subjects so well.

But things were different for their first essay, which was about the question: "Why is writing important?" Most of the essays filled less than one page, and few contained a sentence that could be interpreted as a thesis (论点) statement. I was shocked. Then I realized that the problem was the question itself. They could have written pages on the necessity of computers, but writing, in and of itself, simply didn't strike them as important. This would have to change.

As a new unit started, I asked everyone to write a persuasive piece on a health-related topic of their choice. This time they found the exercise much more interesting. For the next two assignments, a personal-narrative unit followed by a creative-writing workshop, I only required that the piece meet the specifications of its genre (体裁) and that it contain a thesis. The results were staggering. The students took on diverse topics and turned in stories, 10 to 20 pages each, with characters that broadened my view and touched my heart.

I walked into class believing that writing is important as a means of communication. However, my students demonstrated something more important to me. When the final bell rang in June, I walked away with a yearbook full of messages about writing's most powerful significance – the ability to connect people, to put us in another's skin, to teach us what it means to be human.

The greening of planes, trains and automobiles

Moving goods and people around the world is responsible for a large part of global CO₂emissions (排放). As the world races to decarbonize everything, it faces particular problems with transportation – which accounts for about a quarter of our energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Here's the breakdown of the emissions in 2018 for different modes of transport.

The fuels for transport need to be not just green, cheap and powerful, but also lightweight and safe enough to be carried around. Each mode of transport has its specific fuel needs. Much is still to be settled, but here are some of the solutions to get us going green.

This energy transition (变革) is global, and the amount of renewable energy the world will need is "a little bit mind-blowing," says mechanical engineer Keith Wipke at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It's estimated that the global demand for electricity could more than double by 2050. Fortunately, analyses suggest that renewables are up to the task. "We need to speed up the development of green energy, and it will all get used," says Wipke.

A little boy, named George, was raised in an orphanage. He had always wished that he could fly like a bird. There were birds at the zoo, and they could fly. "Why can't I?" he thought, staring longingly at the sky. He wondered, often sitting alone in the orphanage garden, watching the birds soar above.

Another little boy, Issac, was crippled. He had always wished that he could walk and run like other little boys and girls. His room was filled with toys that other children played with on their feet, but for him, they remained still, a constant reminder of what he could not do. "Why can't I be like them?" he thought, as he looked out of his window at the children playing in the street.

One sunny afternoon, George, who dreamed of flying, wandered to a nearby park. The grass was lush and green, and the trees swayed gently in the breeze. Suddenly, he came across the crippled boy, Issac, sitting in a sandbox and watching the other children play. His eyes lit up with curiosity as he approached Issac.

They quickly became friends, sharing their dreams and frustrations. George told Issac about his desire to fly, while Issac shared his longing to walk and run. They made sandcastles together, their laughter ringing out across the park.

As the hours passed, the sun began to set, casting a golden glow over the park. The time came for Issac's father to pick him up. Seeing the joy his son had found in this new friendship, the father's heart softened. He watched as the two boys played, their laughter filling the air.

George, with a determined look in his eyes and dirt smeared across his face, approached Issac's father. "Sir," he began, his voice trembling with sincerity, "I know my friend wishes he could walk and run like other kids. Is there anything I can do to help him feel that freedom?" The father was taken aback by the sincerity of George. Then, he replied, "You can give him the gift of hope."

注意：

(1)续写词数应为150个左右;

(2)请按如下格式在相应位置作答。

Though confused, George was determined to bring a smile to his friend's face.

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From that day on, the park became their special place.

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(1)你的作品内容及寓意；

(2)你的收获与感想。

注意：

(1)写作词数应为80个左右；

(2)请按如下格式在相应位置作答。

Dear James,

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Yours,

Li Hua

When Andrea Cavazzuti, an Italian student, first saw China on a map in his teenage years, he was filled with (curious). He learned by chance that Chinese was taught at a university in Venice and traveled to the city (investigate). Nevertheless, there was little introduction the program, and some people even tried to persuade him not to learn the language. But the young Cavazzuti was rebellious. "The more they discouraged me, the I thought it was worth doing," he said.

After enrolling in the program, Cavazzuti got the opportunity to take a language workshop at Nanjing University in the summer of 1981. The next year, he (offer) a scholarship to study contemporary Chinese literature at Fudan University, and he graduated in 1984.

Between 1981 and 1984, Cavazzuti took pictures of local people in over 30 cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Qingdao, Xiamen and Sanya. (image) of workers, farmers, hairdressers and kids were all captured by his lenses. Cavazzuti and another Italian photographer displayed their photos at an exhibition in Beijing in 1993. And 18 years later, he published his first Chinese photographic collection—At Ease, showcasing some of his black and white photos (take) between 1981 and 1984. "The photographic collection recorded a bygone era, in fact was significant to Chinese people," Zhi An, a Chinese writer and a friend of Cavazzuti said. "Cavazzuti was interested in minute changes in Chinese society, (capture) ordinary people's minor but happy moments, which may (ignore) by other photographers."

She2 the announcement on the social platform. "Almost three years ago, I started the project. Then I3 my parents by buying the house!" she began. "The house was extra sentimental as it was my grandparents' house that my father, a(n)4 from Mexico, grew up in," she continued. "This house represented my grandfather's journey and achievements,5 that he had truly ‘made it' in a6 land."

"After my grandfather passed away, my parents faced a(n)7 decision. To ease the financial burden of my grandmother's8 medical care, they planned to sell the house. Well… I pretended like I was going to assist them in preparing the house for sale.9, I had planned to buy it for them all along."

Jessica shared the emotional10 of purchasing the house, explaining its significance and how it represented her father's past. Her goal was11: to ensure that this piece of family history remained within their12, rather than being sold to a stranger.

The moment Jessica surprised her parents was also13 in the video, with her father brought to tears as he was14 with emotion. "That's so sweet, Jessica. That's a big surprise," he said while embracing his daughter,15 his pride.

Pessimists may appear unenthusiastic or demotivated, worrying excessively that things will turn out badly. In order to become optimistic, here are some natural things to bear in mind.

Find a job you are passionate about. If you wake up dreading the day and have to drag yourself out of bed to get to work, it might be time to look for greener pastures. For optimists, work is more than just an opportunity for a paycheck. Eventually, happiness and satisfaction at work will seep into other aspects of life.

Try, and try again. When faced with challenges, pessimists tend to be focused on the obstacles rather than exploring potential solutions for improvement. However, optimists' minds quickly shift to finding solutions and exploring opportunities.

Write down the good things that happen to you. Take a few minutes each day to write a journal about the good things in your life. Most situations can be seen in both a positive and negative light. A study found that those who focus on more uplifting content end up living longer.

Many optimists share their creativity with others, like cooking up a new dish for their coworkers. If creativity doesn't come naturally to you, don't despair. Try this: write down your top five strengths, and then use one in a different way every day for one week. Afterwards, you are more likely to explore new ideas and facilitate personal growth.

By cultivating an optimistic mindset, you can lead a more fulfilling, successful, and happy life.
 

A. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

B. Besides, optimists have fewer chances of feeling lonely.

C. You could attempt to use your advantages in a new way.

D. So optimists tend to be more successful at work in the long run.

E. It's also an opportunity to learn, grow, and do what they love.

F. By contrast, those focusing on the bright side see things differently.

G. Even if it isn't a particularly great day, try to find something positive.

Two California cities have had enough of the junk food marketing strategy. The Perris City Council passed a law requiring healthy checkout options in local grocery store aisles. The rule applies only to grocery stores 2,500 square feet or larger, and it doesn't prohibit grocers from stocking junk food elsewhere in their stores. The Perris law was set to take effect July 1, but amendments were made to it over the summer and those were approved by City Council on August 29. The law's new start date is January 1, according to city spokesperson Stephen Hale. Perris is the second city to approve such an ordinance. Berkeley OK'd a similar law previously. In both cities, the ordinances were passed unanimously by their respective city councils.

Perris City Manager Clara Miramontes said she was excited about seeing healthier food options in checkout aisles. "We are committed to the long-term health and wellness of residents and look forward to successful results," she said in a news release announcing the law.

The initiative to get Perris on a healthier track was encouraged by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Inland Valley and another advocacy group Public Health Advocates. Julia Burch, assistant director of development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Inland Valley, praised the effort. "As a youth-serving organization, we are excited to see healthier options at checkout to help create a brighter and healthier future in Perris for our youth," she said in the city's news release.

It's not just youth who might benefit from the Perris ordinance. According to health officials at Shape Riverside County, 38.2 percent of adults in Perris were considered obese.

Perris Mayor Michael Vargas championed the city's policy. "This program will help our residents maintain a healthy lifestyle by giving them alternatives to traditional snack foods," Vargas said in the news release. "Our council is committed to providing our residents with healthy snack options that benefit all generations of consumers."

Engaging in activities that make people with severe depression feel good may seem like overly simplistic advice. But the science behind this idea, called "behavioral activation", is well established. Multiple studies have found that encouraging people to get outside or socialize can help ease the symptoms of depression. Now, researchers have discovered that engaging in enjoyable activities with a virtual reality system may be as effective in treating depression as carrying depression patients out in the real world. And for those depressed to a level that makes leaving the house a challenge, it could provide the benefits of getting outside.

A study by the team followed twenty-six people with major depressive disorder. Thirteen people were assigned traditional behavioral activation, engaging with real life activities by going on outings in their community or socializing with friends. The other thirteen people received a VR headset to participate in activities ranging from playing table tennis to touring foreign cities.

After four weeks, both groups saw a significant decrease in their symptoms of depression and their depression ratings. Moreover, many people who had used the VR devices said the virtual activities had helped push them to get out of the house and be more involved in in-person activities. A researcher said, "These virtual activities got their motors running just enough to get out of bed."

The only negative feedback is learning how to set up the device, as well as the need for alerts or reminders to keep people accountable for engaging in the behavioral activation. The researchers have since developed a companion VR behavioral activation app that helps address some of these concerns.

The team says larger and longer-term studies are needed to find the best ways to administer virtual behavioral activation, as well as which patient populations might be best targeted with the VR treatment. They also think more efforts are needed to inform clinicians about how to prescribe VR behavioral activation appropriately. They believe the cost and ease of many VR platforms make it an easy treatment to scale up.