Here are apps that can help you make a schedule and a budget, take better notes, organize a big project, and stay safe. Check out these apps to get a head-start on being on top of your life!
Flashcards Deluxe
Price: $3.99
Platform: iOS and Android
Flashcards can be a very effective way to study, and Flashcards Deluxe makes creating them very easy. You can input information right into the app, make cards with up to five sides, and even add pictures and sounds to cards. The app can be set to automatically tum of cards that you get correct so you can focus more on the ones you got wrong.
Circle of 6U
Price: free
Platform: Android, iOS
When you're on a college campus, walking home late at night can be frightening. So, make sure to download Circle of 6 U, which helps you feel more secure. Not only does it help you find your location, but it makes communicating with your trusted friends easier. Once you build a network of trusted contacts in the app, it lets you send a pre-edited group message, with your location to all of them in two taps.
CampusBooks
Price: free
Platform: iOS, Android
The CampusBooks app helps you get the lowest price when you're buying or renting textbooks, and helps you get the highest price when you're ready to sell! If you need a book right away, you'll be shown the closest stores and libraries that have your book in stock.
Dragon Dictation
Price: free
Platform: iOS
Dictating homework and emails to the Dragon Dictation app can save you time! You can send your dictation to a text, email, or paste it into any application. The included editor will suggest words, and the app will improve its accuracy over time as it gets to know your voice. It also works in many languages other than English.
Andrea Yoch loves her adult sons, but would also love not to live with them. This is especially true in the 2, 200-square-foot rental in St. Paul, where she and her husband moved after the boys left their childhood home (a 5,000-square-foot property with a pool). But now Ben, 20, and Ryan, 23 are crammed with their parents in a house where a movie playing in one room can be heard in almost any other.
After her sons showed up due to the lockdown after the Coronavirus crisis struck—Ben from Boston, where he is a college student, and Ryan from New York, where he was starting out as an assistant advertising account executive—Ms. Yoch rushed to set up temporary offices in a bedroom and a basement that now also functions as a super crowded gym. "I would give anything for them to restart their lives," she said.
As the pandemic continues, Wall Street bankers, Uber drivers, academics, artists and many other adults have given up their independent lives and migrated home. Some fled heavily populated cities for the rural suburban houses where they grew up and for the promise of home-cooked meals and free laundry. Others ended up in downsized spaces designed for empty nesters or in apartments already shared with other family members, such as grandparents or teenage siblings.
Parents caught by the increase of layoffs and canceled contracts found themselves feeding grown children who were in the same position. Mothers who had grown accustomed to freedom were suddenly expected to go back to cooking and cleaning.
"Some parents see this as a welcome surprise, but it can also add a lot of financial stress," said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at the investment bank Stifel. "You can't assume that parents are necessarily in a better-off position than their adult children: a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and don't have enough savings to accommodate extra people living in their households."
Space is becoming more crowded. Quite a few low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites have been launched into the sky, which are designed to move around the Earth only a few hundred kilometres above its surface. SpaceX and OneWeb plan to launch LEO satellites in their thousands, not hundreds, to double the total number of satellites in orbit by 2027.
That promises to change things on Earth. LEO satellites can bring Internet connectivity to places where it is still unavailable. This will also be a source of new demand for the space economy. Morgan Stanley, a bank, projects that the space industry will grow from $350 billion in 2016 to more than $1.1 trillion by 2040. New Internet satellites will account for half this increase.
For that to happen, however, three worries must be overcome. Debris (碎片) is the most familiar concern. As long ago as 1978, Donald Kessler, a scientist at NASA, proposed a scenario (设想) in which, when enough satellites were packed into low-Earth orbits, any collision could cause a chain reaction which would eventually destroy all spacecraft in its orbital plane. Solutions exist. One solution is to grab the satellites with problems and pull them down into the Earth's atmosphere. Another is to monitor space more closely for debris. But technology is only part of the answer. Rules are needed to deal with old satellites safely from low-Earth orbits.
Cyber-security is a second, long-standing worry. Hackers could take control of a satellite and steal intellectual property, redirect data flows or cause a collision. The satellite industry has been slow to respond to such concerns. But as more of the world's population comes to rely on space for access to the Internet, the need for action intensifies. Measures will surely be taken to protect network security.
The third issue follows from the first two. If a simple mistake or a cyber-attack can cause a chain reaction which wipes out hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, who is responsible for that? Now the plans of firms, wishing to operate large numbers of satellites are being studied. But there is a long way to go before the risks are well understood, let alone priced.
As space becomes more commercialized, mind-bending prospects open up: packages moved across the planet in minutes by rocket rather than by plane, equipment sent to other small planets, passengers launched into orbit and beyond. All that and more may come one day. But such activities would raise the same questions as LEO satellites do. They must be answered before the space economy can truly develop.
Alibaba Group will extend its digital operating system to 1.5 million small neighborhood stores in China. Under the so-called Plan W, Alibaba is looking to develop a number of smaller shops with a daily revenue of over 10,000 yuan ($1,456) in lower-tier cities, townships and villages.
The latest move falls under Alibaba's Ling Shou Tong (LST) business unit, which connects the millions of street stands in China and improves marketing, delivery, and inventory management abilities through digital means. The data-backed retail management system has been designed to digitize the business of millions of mom and pop stores and neighborhood convenience stores.
Alibaba will offer a smart point-of-sale system, some 10,000 new product offerings, and a variety of online touchpoints to help users access offline stores virtually. Alibaba intends to help these mom and pop stores double or even triple their revenue, and they can sell more efficiently, and get flexibility to refill stocks based on their changing needs.
Its POS machine performs every function throughout the retail process and provides real-time suggestions. For instance, it would send out alerts on potential stock shortage, and would recommend cost-effective purchase to enhance the store's profitability. The machine also collects average selling price for a certain product in the nearby areas, thereby giving references to shop-owners to make informed pricing decisions.
Furthermore, an inventory monitoring system is in operation to give real-time advice on product display. This is coupled with a three-layer warehouse system covering 200 cities and townships to ensure the timely delivery of products, based on geographical shopping preferences that are present in Alibaba's data book.
Despite slow consumption growth at home and abroad, one in every five small shops surveyed by LST reported they have witnessed positive revenue growth. Average daily revenue surpassed 7,000 yuan, compared with the 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan range for average offline stores.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia (百科全书), is the largest encyclopedia ever. An encyclopedia is a collection of informative articles about various things. Encyclopedias used to be printed as books.
"Wiki" is an Internet term that means "a website that can be edited by the public". It comes from "wikiwiki", a Hawaiian word for "quick". Two Americans, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, created Wikipedia in 2001. It has about 6 million articles in 300 languages and is visited by billions of people each day, who want to find information about anything — science, math, languages, art, culture and company histories. There are articles on sports stars, too, and even long-forgotten soap operas from the 1970s.
Except for a small number of pages, anyone can edit articles and registered users can create their own articles. Editing is unpaid, although Wikipedia does employ a small staff. Wikipedia is freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Its founders hoped that the model would make use of humanity's collective knowledge.
Many Wikipedia pages contain errors, although the organization has a content review system that works to fix this problem. Several studies have concluded that Wikipedia is as accurate as most print encyclopedias. Indeed, a 2005 report in the journal Nature found it to be only slightly less reliable than Encyclopedia Britannica.
Today Wikipedia faces many challenges. It does not rely on advertising. Perhaps more importantly, the number of its volunteer editors is shrinking.
Despite these difficulties, Jimmy Wales says he will still stick to his dream. He has big plans for the future. He wants Wikipedia available in all of the world's languages.
A. Most of its editors are volunteers.
B. Now, they are mostly found online.
C. Wikipedia employs an open editing model.
D. Instead, all of its funds come from donations.
E. It allows users to get information within seconds.
F. It is now the fifth-most visited website on the Internet.
G. However, some people doubt the accuracy of Wikipedia's content.
I enjoy feeding a colorful flock of birds in my garden. About three years ago, I noticed a newcomer to this festive display. It was a baby chipmunk, apparently on its own. Over that summer, I watched it 1. The brown stripes on its back darkened. The next summer, when the chipmunk was 2, I wondered whether it would 3 me to feed it by hand. I named it Chip.
I decided to employ the 4 I used to persuade wild cats to come close for food: patience, a soft voice, slow 5 and repetition.
Before Chip would approach, I'd 6 its favorite food — sunflower seeds, bend down and keep very 7. I'd leave my open hand in place, unmoving, 8 the animal would know I wouldn't 9 it. I continued doing this for a few weeks.
Finally, late in that second summer, Chip did 10 more trust. One day as I 11 a seed in my palm, it 12 and carefully took the seed into its mouth.
After about two months of this 13, I went further. With my index finger, I touched its back 14 for the first time. Chip stayed put, eating seeds, before rushing into the bushes. Today, the chipmunk comes out of 15 when I call its name, and lets me pet its soft, silky body.
A friend once mentioned that after she 16 a dog, she noticed that her elevated blood pressure had approached 17 without medication, and she became calmer and could handle stress better. I think I, too, feel calmer from my 18 with Chip.
I've also developed a greater respect for nature and its 19 and the opportunity to 20, protect and save wildlife.
"Du Fu: China's Greatest Poet", a 58-minute film released recently on BBC introduces Du Fu to the Western world for the first time the form of documentary. In the film, Michael Wood, one of BBC's most popular hosts, visited number of Chinese cities to retrace Du's steps. The documentary invited a well-known British actor Ian McKellen, played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies, (read) 15 of Du's poems that have been translated into English.
Born in 712, Du Fu lived through the violent fall of China's brilliant Tang Dynasty. He had the desire to serve his country, but his life (destroy) by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755. Of the many (poem) he wrote, 500 have been preserved over the ages. For generations he (be) the guardian of the moral conscience (良知) of the nation.
The documentary compared Du to Shakespeare to help audiences (well) understand the poet's great achievements in literature. It also highlighted Chinese poetry, noting that its 3000-year-old history makes the oldest poetry in the world.
Even today, people (suffer) under COVID-19 are still inspired by Du Fu's poems.
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。
Patsy Smith has raised ducks for many years. One of her ducks, Peg, losing one of his legs in a fight with a tortoise. Mrs. Smith called for help to see whether anyone could create new leg for him. Three students thought it probably to use their 3D printer to print a leg for the poor duck. They spent several months creating and testing different model. It turns out to be a lot more difficult than they had thought! Luckily, their hard work was paid off and they created a model who fitted Peg's leg perfectly. Now, Peg can walk or even run just like her duck partners! Moreover, Mrs. Smith is very thankful for them.
要点：1）简要介绍中医文化；
2）推荐央视《中华医药》 (Traditional Chinese Medicine) 栏目。
注意：1）词数100左右；
2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3）结束语已为你写好，不计入词中。
参考词汇：中医/中医文化：TCM = Traditional Chinese Medicine
央视网址：www. cctv.com.
Dear Peter,
……
Best wishes.
Yours,
Li Hua
