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Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was not living the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important.

Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut to participate in Adamah, a farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. When she return ed to New York, her life was with a new purpose and many new skills to make her dreams a reality.

"One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah was how little waste they produced and how they handled the waste they did have, primarily through composting（堆肥）," she says. The Adamah program opened Sacks' eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2017, she began what she calls "trash walking".

During. tours around her community, Sacks picks through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her "trash walking" expanded to include corporate trash along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff—like clothing, decorations, and food —all of which she documents on TikTok.

Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her videos that highlight the problems with consumerism. "The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste," she says.

The fact is, companies often choose to trash items rather than give them away to people who might need them. A big reason for this waste is the way our current tax laws are structured, Sacks says. Sellers who destroy goods can claim the cost as a loss on their taxes and be refunded. If they give away goods, they can claim only a small amount as a charitable reduction on their taxes.

Sacks' main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. "Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve," she says.

From: Bridget Pecolini <bpecolini@mathcontest.com>

To: Anson Wong <mransonwong@email.com>

Re: Questions about online math contest

Date: February 18, 2024.

Dear Mr. Wong,

Thank you for your email. We're so glad your child is signed up to participate in our math contest. I hope it will be a rewarding and enriching experience for him.

You can access the training session and practice tests by logging into our website at www.mathcontest.com. Once you're signed in, you will see several tabs on the left-hand side.

One of them will say "Enrolled." If you click on the drop-down menu there, you'll find the name of the child you registered. If you click on the name, you'll be given the option of joining a training session or doing practice tests. Of course, you can choose neither.

I hope that answers your question!

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Sincerely,

Bridget Pecolini

My story started one autumn morning, at the bend on a path.

I was 13 years old, and was on the way to school. It was the first time I had caught sight of a fox. Fascinated to the point that I forgot all fear, I dared to go up to it. I had never come so close to a wild animal. There was nobody else around, only me and the fox.

"Hey, fox!" I tried to greet it, though my voice was so weak it felt like I was saying hello to myself. It didn't hear me. It stayed there and I watched it. My heart was beating flat out. It was so cute. For a moment, I thought I might be able to touch it.

Throughout the day at school, I could only think of the fox at the big beech（山毛榉）tree. At my return to the place where we met, I was sure I'd find it there.

And I did. This time I gathered a little bit more courage and called out to it, "Fox!" Of course it escaped. But that only made me long to meet it again. I decided that if I could find its kennel（洞）and catch it, I would try and tame（驯服）it, making it my friend.

Thus, I spent most of my free time in the forests trying to find the fox during the following months. But I never saw it again before winter came. During the winter, I followed its footprints far across the fields. Suddenly I was alarmed by the howling of wolves near me. I ran away frightened, stumbled and hurt my ankle. It healed very slowly, so that I had to stay at home during the winter, reading a book about animals of the forest and foxes.

When spring arrived, I was free again. I looked for fox kennels and waited for my fox. To my amazement, it had got young ones but kept moving because of my observations; therefore I decided to observe the fox from a longer distance.

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

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。

Dear Patrick,

……

Yours,

Li Hua

Japan is a country known for its iconic landmarks, from ancient temples of Kyoto to neon-lit skyscrapers of Tokyo. However,  often goes unnoticed is the approach Japan （take）to beautify its manhole covers（窨井盖）since the 1980s. These metal plates, of which there are roughly 6,000, serve not only functional infrastructure but also as canvases showcasing cultural symbols.

Photographer Remo Camerota, documented these unique manhole covers in his book "Drainspotting," describes the experience of finding them as a treasure hunt. The designs on these manhole covers show Japan's （commit） to integrating functionality with art and culture. Each cover tells a story, whether it's representing a local festival, historical event, natural landscape.

The practice of decorating manhole covers has not only added touch of artistic genius to Japan's streets but has also become a popular tourist attraction. Visitors now （encourage）to seek out and appreciate these often overlooked pieces of urban art, adding a new dimension to their travel experiences.

Japan's （create）approach to decorating its manhole covers reflects the country's rich cultural heritage. These unique pieces of urban art are living proof of Japan's attention to detail and the importance placed on preserving and （celebrate）its cultural identity.

I'm a physical therapist（治疗师）for severely disabled children in the South Bronx. I had one student named Tamisha who was stuck in a wheelchair. She could 1 move her eyes. She couldn't speak, but I could basically 2 her mind.

Tamisha was very intelligent, and very humorous. If someone terribly dressed got on the elevator, she'd 3 her eyes and giggle. I'd have to 4 I didn't know what she was laughing in order to avoid embarrassing that person. We grew so close over the years. On Halloween I 5 her up as a butterfly, because that's how I saw her. She was 6 in this body, but she was a soul with so much depth and so much 7 .

When Tamisha graduated, my husband and I went to Home Depot and got paint, and butterflies, and rainbow decals（印花胶纸）. And we completely 8 her bedroom. We made her sleep in the living room 9 she wouldn't know it. But at the end of the weekend, when Tamisha's father carried her in, she started going wild. Her face 10 . She's making all kinds of sounds. Her father is holding her, and he's 11 . The makeover was a real 12 .

We've done about 20 of them now. Our process always begins with an 13 process. We ask the person: what makes you happy? What colors do you love? What are your favorite things? We let them design their 14 room. Then we become the 15 who bring that dream to life.

Advice on Choosing Your Career

You probably are very much concerned about which direction you take in your career, but before working through the process of generating and refining specific career choices, helicopter up to 10,000 feet from where you can view your overall career map, answer the big questions and set your overall direction. What is your aim? How long have you got? Remember that there are no right answers, only the best choice for you, based on what you know now.

Having laid out your overall map, set boundaries and defined your personal targets, you can then turn to practical issues.  Write down examples of how you demonstrate key employ ability skills such as team work, leadership, and communication.

 Go out and meet people, attend talks, go to relevant lectures, watch videos about industries and organizations, seek out websites that can give you objective and general career advice, for example, the open access Oxford university careers website.

Over time you can start to narrow down your choices and then choose one. 

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off with a compass and direction, and a general destination of mapping the new Louisiana territories in America. But they had no exact map.  Your career will be much longer but, like Lewis and Clark, it is about direction, not destination.

A. Where, roughly, are you going?

B. Their successful expedition took two years.

C. In any event, you have a few years to explore.

D. Identify what you are good at, based on your skills and experiences.

E. That way, you'll be more focused and thus more likely to achieve your goal.

F. You are looking for a match to what might suit you now, but that changes over time.

G. Your care er project might take some time, as now you are probably short of information.

Turning around corners, weaving through traffic, every second matters. It is neither a street race nor a 007 chase, but the risky journey of a sushi（寿司）roll.

The streets of China are filled with delivery drivers racing noodles, sandwiches and soups across cities. While the everyday consumer may find these services convenient, most do not realize the true cost of their delivery. How much is that late-night snack really worth?

Strict time limits are the main concern for delivery drivers. The Chinese delivery app Meituan decreased the maximum time allowance from 50 minutes to 30 or even 20. Time literally means money: Surpassing the limit can result in fines, which are paid to the firm rather than to the consumers. Yet, beyond fines, there is often a great er cost. According to Pandaily News, one delivery worker is injured or killed in accidents every 2.5 days in Shanghai and, sadly, companies seldom provide insurance claims when their time limits lead to these consequences. Drivers are pushed to break traffic rules and risk their lives so your sushi is not a minute late.

Furthermore, low wages and extensive working hours exacerbate these issues. Some companies in China take advantage of the economic inequalities between China's large cities and less developed interior to offer extremely low pay to migrant delivery drivers while demanding long hours. Yet these long hours and low pay are common throughout the global delivery industry. In the United States, advertised earnings of $22 per hour are largely exaggerated while workers complain that food delivery apps rarely give them all their tips.

What is the solution? First, consumers should recognize what is behind their impossibly cheap and fast delivery: exploitation. We should expect more from the delivery app companies and less from their drivers. That is, we should pay more and wait longer while only ordering from companies who offer their drivers fair wages, insurance and a safe working environment. In the end, your sushi is just not worth it.

Leadership is a quality that is hard to define. Everyone can think of inspiring leaders from history but managers who think they can base their style on Nelson Mandela or Elizabeth I are suffering from misunderstandings of greatness.

The biggest mistake is to consider leadership entirely equal to charisma（魅力）. Billy McFarland was just 25 when he set up the Fyre festival which promised attendees a luxury experience on a deserted island in the Bahamas. As shown by the Netflix documentary, "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened", Mr McFarland was an unusual salesman. He convinced investors that he was a visionary businessman and persuaded talented young people to work for him.

But he lacked the skills to put his vision into practice. Festival guests arrived to find their food consisted of cheese sandwiches, rather than first-class cuisine. They were housed not in luxury villas, but in tents left over from a hurricane-relief program. The whole event ended with Mr McFarland being sentenced to six years in prison.

His example could have been a case study for the book by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic— "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?（and how to fix it）". As an organisational psychologist, he points out that people tend to assume that confident individuals are competent, when there is no actual relationship between the two qualities. Those confident people are promoted and then their abilities turn out to be over-estimated.

Mr Chamorro-Premuzic argues that competence is more important than charisma or confidence. Managers need enough presence to persuade their teams to follow the business plan, but they should think in terms of coaching rather than inspiration. Employees are more likely to be engaged with their work if they get frequent feedback from their bosses, and if they are involved in setting their own goals. Another key factor in leadership is the ability to set a good example. Subordinates（下属）notice what behaviour gets rewarded and which standards are set by the person at the top.

Coco Gauff used to visit the Grand Slam tournament（大满贯锦标赛）as a kid to see her idols Serena and Venus Williams. Now she is a champion there herself. On Sept 9, the 19-year-old from the US won her first major women's singles title at the 2023 US Open（美国网球公开赛）.

After an average start, Gauff surged to a 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over her bigger, stronger opponent, Aryna Sabalenka, from Belarus, who became the new world No.1 the day after the tournament ended.

Unlike the Williams sisters, who have obvious force and power, Gauff is small and slim. But she moves fast on the tennis court. Forbes magazine said, "She is the quickest and perhaps already the best returner of impossible shots in tennis history."

Even though Sabalenka is a very powerful hitter, it felt like she had to finish each point four or five times, as Gauff's defense was so perfect, noted The Telegraph. This ended up frustrating Sabalenka and caused her to make 46 unforced errors.

Gauff thus became the first American teenager to win the US Open since Serena Williams, then 17, in 1999. When asked about "taking the torch" from the 23-time Grand Slam winner and the similarity between their tennis careers, Gauff told ESPN, "Serena is Serena. She's the greatest of all time... I'd hope to do half of what she did. But I'm not going to compare myself to her. She's some one that I look up to."

Now, Gauff's big win has left tennis fans wondering: When's her next Grand Slam? That's no easy task. Two of the past four US Open women's champions were teenagers at the time, Canada's Bianca Andreescu in 2019 and the UK's Emma Raducanu in 2021, and neither has come close to repeating their success yet. But one thing about Gauff is certain--that at just 19 years old, the sky's the limit.