1. Mrs. Brown’s old grandfather lived with her and her husband. Every morning he went for a walk in the park and came home at half past twelve for his lunch.
But one morning a police car stopped outside Mrs. Brown’s house at twelve o’clock, and two policemen helped Mr. Brown to get out. One of them said to Mrs. Brown, “The poor old gentleman lost his way in the park and telephoned us for help, so we send a car to bring him home.” Mrs. Brown was very surprised, but she thanked the policemen and they left.
“But, Grandfather,” she said, “You have been to that park nearly every day for twenty years. How did you lose your way there?”
The old man smiled, closed one eye and said, “I didn’t quite lose my way. I just got tired and I didn’t want to walk home!”
2. After a long period of studies, scientists are uncovering surprising new findings about dolphins. They believe that dolphins do \"talk\" to each other, whistling \"names\" among themselves and others in their group. They help one another when in trouble. Like bats, they use sound waves to \"see\". Because of these and many other findings, many scientists now place dolphins among the cleverest animals on earth.
Dolphins love to mimic. If we swim on our backs, they do too. If we dive, they follow. Once a trainer blew a puff of cigarette smoke against the window of an
observation tank, a young dolphin suddenly swam to its mother, nursed a moment, and spit out a cloud of milk. It is even more surprising that dolphins are able to understand sign language. One of Herman's dolphins has mastered more than 50 sign words. For example, it understands the difference between \"bring the surfboard to the person\" and \"bring the person to the surfboard.\"
Scientists are learning how dolphins \"speak\" to each other. \"Each dolphin,\" says Peter Gyack \"has its own 'signature' whistle.” Dolphin can also mimic the signature of others.
Dolphins help one another. When birth-giving takes place, females gather to keep off sharks. Later, while the mother looks for food, they take care of the young dolphin, swimming in a circle.
Dolphins reach out to us in astonishing ways. What would the world be like without them?
3. My son Joey was born with club feet. The doctors assured us that with treatment he would be able to walk normally — but would never run very well. The first three years of his life were spent in surgery, casts and braces. By the time he was eight, you wouldn't know he had a problem when you saw him walk.
The children in our neighborhood ran around as most children do during play, and Joey would jump right in and run and play, too. We never told him that he probably wouldn't be able to run as well as the other children. So he didn't know.
In seventh grade he decided to go out for the cross—country team. Every day he trained with the team. He worked harder and ran more than any of the others — perhaps he sensed that the abilities that seemed to come naturally to so many others did not come naturally to him. Although the entire team runs, only the top seven runners have the potential to score points for the school. We didn't tell him he probably would never make the team, so he didn't know.
He continued to run four to five miles a day, every day — even the day he had a 103—degree fever. I was worried, so I went to look for him after school. I found him running all alone. I asked him how he felt. \"Okay,\" he said. He had two more miles to go. The sweat ran down his face and his eyes were glassy from his fever. Yet he looked straight ahead and kept running. We never told him he couldn't run four miles with a 103—degree fever. So he didn't know.
Two weeks later, the names of the team runners were called. Joey was number six on the list. Joey had made the team. He was in seventh grade — the other six team members were all eighth—graders. We never told him he shouldn't expect to make the team. We never told him he couldn't do it. We never told him he couldn't do it...so he didn't know. He just did it.
4. Even though you may not be able to eliminate culture shock, there are ways to ease the stress. The following are some activities that can help:
Get out of your room or apartment, so you are able to experience first-hand what Americans are doing.
Make friends so you can talk to them and ask about what you don’t understand.
Read to learn about the culture of the country you’re in.
Find an activity that you can enjoy so you will be able to reduce stress and depression. Americans like to jog（慢跑） and they also like to play sports.
Find out from your host family or other Americans about community activities, religious services, or volunteer opportunities. Make the most of this opportunity to become a member of their community.
Improve your English. Ask about anything you don’t understand. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Someone will be happy to put you right.
5. Thomas Tommy Carter is a plant scientist in North Carolina. He works for the Agricultural Research Service in the United States Department of Agriculture. He leads Team Drought, a group of researchers at five universities. They have been using conventional breeding methods to develop and test soybeans that can grow well under dry conditions. Tommy Carter started working on drought resistant soybeans in 1981. His research has taken him as far as China, where soybeans have been grown for thousands of years. Farmers in the United States, however, have grown soybeans for only about a century. Tommy Carter says the soybeans they grow are for the most part genetically similar. More differences, or diversification, could better protect crops against climate changes that can reduce production.
Those changes include water shortages which could increase from global warming. The Agriculture Department has a soybean germplasm collection, a collection of genetic material passed from one generation to the next. Members of Team Drought studied more than 2,500 examples from the collection. They looked at ones from the ancestral home of soybeans, Asia. They searched for germplasms that could keep plants from weakening during hot, dry summers in the United States. Tommy Carter says they found only five. But these drought resistant lines, he says, produce four to eight bushels more than normal soybeans under drought conditions. The yield depends on location and environment.
6. The most important use of drifting (漂流) bottles is to find ocean currents. When the position and direction of currents are known, ships can use the forward movement of a current or stay away from currents that would carry them off their course. Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to use bottles in the study of currents. He wondered why British mall ships needed a week or two longer than U.S. ships needed in order to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Franklin thought the Gulf Stream (墨西哥湾流) might explain this difference.
Franklin talked with captains of U.S. ships. He found that they knew each turn of the Gulf Stream. They used the current in every possible way. From his talks with the captains， Franklin made his first map of the Gulf Stream. Then he checked his map by using sealed (密封的) bottles. The map that he finally made is still used, with only a few changes, today.
7. The distance between favor and love is not so far, but fewer people can
easily change favor into love. Walking around the favor forever, you can always have a slight feeling of sweetness without any burden… but it is a successful step and reborn emotion for you to make favor into love.
Favor will say loudly “Hello, I am coming!” Otherwise, love will whisper “Going ahead, I will come with you.”
“ I am walking through the green grass; wandering on the small dike. Sun is embracing me; wind is hugging me…… ”The favor sings. “You have tender eyes and considerate soul. If you do not mind, please allow me to be close to you, I think I will understand you…” Love whispers.
Favor make a fool person lovely and smart, but love make a clever person with lower intelligence. A Girl will always be a girl, beautiful, charming and lively, when she comes across favor; a girl will become a women, strong, generous and tender, when she falls in love.
Favor makes a person pure; but love makes a person profound.
Favor is a baby, but love is in the quietness.
Favor likes the street light, colorful and bright; however, love is the candlelight, it can illuminate people’s inner world, everything around it becomes gentle and obscure, but full of connotation.
Favor means to choice, but love means to accept.
Favor and love have many differences. They have their own meanings. Therefore, don’t mistake favor for love, and vice versa.
8. Cuddy's new book explores how to feel more confident.
People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating?
Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and has discovered patterns in these interactions.
In her new book, \"Presence,\" Cuddy says people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you:
•Can I trust this person?
•Can I respect this person?
Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence respectively, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both.
Interestingly, Cuddy says that most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor.
After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.
But in fact warmth, or trustworthiness, is the most important factor in how people evaluate you.
\"From an evolutionary perspective,\" Cuddy says, \"it is more crucial to our survival to know whether a person deserves our trust.\"
It makes sense when you consider that in cavemen days it was more important to figure out if your fellow man was going to kill you and steal all your possessions than if he was competent enough to build a good fire.
While competence is highly valued, Cuddy says it is evaluated only after trust is established. And focusing too much on displaying your strength can backfire.
Cuddy says MBA interns are often so concerned about coming across as smart and competent that it can lead them to skip social events, not ask for help, and generally come off as unapproachable.
These overachievers are in for a rude awakening when they don't get the job offer because nobody got to know and trust them as people.
\"If someone you're trying to influence doesn't trust you, you're not going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because you come across as
manipulative,\" Cuddy says.
\"A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you've established trust, and helps your strength become a gift rather than a threat.\"
9. A young man asked Albert Einstein, the great German scientist, what the secret of success is. The scientist told him that the secret of success is hard work. A few days later the young man asked the same question again. Einstein was very annoyed．He did not say anything ,but wrote a few words on a piece of paper . On it was written: A=X+Y+Z.
“What does this mean ?” asked the young man .
“A means “ success”” explained the old scientist . “X stands for hard work, Y for good method and Z means stop talking and get down to work.”
10. Housework is often too heavy for our parents, especially for our mothers. Although we are very busy working at our lessons，I think we should do some housework for our parents, because our parents are also busy and tired after a day's work. They care for us and we should care for them too. What's more，doing housework can also help us learn to look after ourselves and make our tired brains relaxed.
But，now，many parents don't let their daughters or sons do anything，because
they hope that their children can have more time for lessons so that they can go to university and then have good jobs. But some of us don't make good use of the time. They just take it for granted that the housework is something done by parents. In other words，they don't value the time，or rather, they are just wasting the time.
I think we should study hard every day in order to learn all the lessons well. At the same time，we should also do some housework every day. It is good for us. Now we are not small children any longer. We should spend some of our spare time on housework to reduce our parents' burdens.
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