Lightning flashed through the darkness over Sibson's bedroom skylight（天窗）.Sibson was shaken by a clap of thunder 1 he knew what was happening. The storm had moved directly 2 his two-story wooden house. Then he heard the smoke alarm beeping.
Sibson rushed down the stairs barefoot to 3 ; he opened the door to the basement（地下室）, and flames 4 out. Sibson ran back upstairs to call 911 from his bedroom. “I felt 5 because the room had a separate outdoor stairway,” he explains.
But the phone didn't work, and when he tried to go down the outdoor stairway, he was 6 by a wall of flames. Sibson realized he was trapped（困住）.
Sibson's house was three kilometers 7 the main road and was so well hidden by trees that he knew calling for help would be 8 .
Up a hill nearby lived Sibson's neighbor, Huggons. He was lying in bed when something like a smoke alarm 9 his ears. He jumped out of bed, took his 10 and flashlight, and headed down the hillside toward the 11 . That was when he saw the rolling heavy smoke.
Huggons dialed 911, and the operator warned him not to 12 the house. But Huggons said, “There is no way I am going to listen to Sibson 13 and die in that fire.”
“Anyone there?” Huggons called out. Then he heard “Help! I'm trapped!” coming from the second floor balcony（阳台）. He entered the house, but soon had to run back to catch his 14 .
After one more 15 inside the house, Huggons gave up and 16 around back.
The wind parted the smoke just 17 for him to catch sight of Sibson. But there was no way to get to him. He 18 the flashlight into the woods and noticed a ladder. He took it over to the balcony and 19 Sibson down just as the second floor of the house fell off.
Sibson is still 20 when he tells the story. “ I was alone that night,” he says. “Then I heard the most beautiful sound in my life. It was Huggons.”
On a hill 600 feet above the surrounding land, we watch the lines of rain move across the scene, the moon rise over the hills, and the stars appear in the sky. The views invite a long look from a comfortable chair in front of the wooden house.
Every window in our wooden house has a view, and the forest and lakes seldom look the same as the hour before. Each look reminds us where we are.
There is space for our three boys to play outside, to shoot arrows, collect tree seeds, build earth houses and climb trees.
Our kids have learned the names of the trees, and with the names have come familiarity and appreciation. As they tell all who show even a passing interest, maple (枫树) makes the best fighting sticks and white pines are the best climbing trees.
The air is clean and fresh. The water from the well has a pleasant taste, and it is perhaps the healthiest water our kids will ever drink. Though they have one glass a day of juice and the rest is water, they never say anything against that.
The seasons change just outside the door. We watch the maples turn every shade of yellow and red in the fall and note the poplars' (杨树) putting out the first green leaves of spring. The rainbow smelt fills the local steam as the ice gradually disappears, and the wood frogs start to sing in pools after being frozen for the winter. A family of birds rules our skies and flies over the lake.
Here is your best chance to travel around the UK in 2012: More than 200 B&Bs（bed & breakfast）across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are selected to offer you amazing services for your stay at their lowest prices! Don't miss it. Just collect the vouchers（活动券）in our B&B Daily printed from 01/04/2012 to 07/04/2012 and book the stays for your travel following the terms and conditions below:
The offer includes a room for the night and a breakfast the next morning.
The offer is of two kinds: ￡20 per room, valid（有效的）during stay period of 02/04/2012—31/05/2012 and then again 01/09/2012—31/10/2012；￡35 per room, per night, valid during stay period of 01/06/2012—31/08/2012.
The offer is valid for a basic twin or double room only.
The stay must be booked directly with the chosen B&Bs before 28/04/2012.
Each voucher can only be used by the holder to book one room for one night.
If voucher holders book either the ￡20 or ￡35 per room per night, any additional services such as lunch, evening meal or activities may require an extra charge. But these are not required in order to take up the offer. Please check directly with your chosen B&Bs to see what extra services are available.
Vouchers must be presented on arrival. If no vouchers are presented, the B&Bs may reserve（保留）the right to charge at full price for every night of stay.
Vouchers may not be used together with any other offer.
The voucher holders must pay for the stay in full at the time of booking. Additional ￡10 may be paid to confirm（确认）the booking and will be returned on arrival.
The B&Bs reserve the right to refuse voucher holders' bookings for people under the age of 18.
I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn't think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.
I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.
It takes confidence to make a new start — there's a dark period in-between where you're neither one thing nor the other. You're out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you're too ashamed to say, “Well, I'm writing a novel, but I'm not quite sure if I'm going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published ,
I put it aside.
Then I met an agent（代理商）who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.
The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.
It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there's no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.
In a recent announcement, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology（MIT）said that they have joined forces to offer free online courses in an effort to attract millions of online learners worldwide.
Beginning this fall, a number of courses developed by teachers at both universities will be offered online through a new $60 million program, known as edX. “Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can use our online courses,” Harvard President Drew Faust said during a meeting to announce the plan.
MIT has offered a program called OpenCourseWare for ten years that makes materials from more than 2,000 classes free online. It has been used by more than 100 million people. In December, the school announced it also would begin offering a special certificate, known as MITx, for people who complete certain online courses. Harvard has long offered courses to a wider population through a similar program.
The MITx will serve as the foundation for the new learning platform.
MIT President Susan Hockfield said more than 120,000 people signed up for the first MITx course. She said Harvard and MIT hope other universities will join them in offering courses on the open-source edX platform.
“Fasten your seatbelts,” Hockfield said.
Other universities, including Stanford, Yale and Carnegie-Mellon, have been experimenting with teaching to a global population online.
The Harvard-MIT program will be monitored by a not-for-profit（非盈利的）organization based in Cambridge, to be owned equally by the two universities. Both MIT and Harvard have provided $30 million to start the program. They also plan to use the edX platform to research how students learn and which teaching methods and tools are most successful.
Plants are flowering faster than scientists predicted（预测）in reaction to climate change, which could have long damaging effects on food chains and ecosystems.
Global warming is having a great effect on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some living patterns, scientists say.
Increased carbon dioxide（CO2）in the air from burning coal and oil can have an effect on how plants produce oxygen, while higher temperatures and changeable rainfall patterns can change their patterns of growth.
“Predicting species' reaction to climate change is a major challenge in ecology,” said the researches of several U.S. universities. They said plants had been the key object of study because their reaction to climate change could have an effect on food chains and ecosystem services.
The study, published on the Nature website, uses the findings from plant life cycle studies and experiments across four continents and 1,634 species. It found that some experiments had underestimated（低估）the speed of flowering by 8.5 times and leafing by 4 times.
“Across all species, the experiments under-predicted the speed of the advance — for both leafing and flowering — that results from temperature increases,” the study said.
The design of future experiments may need to be improved to better predict how plants will react to climate change, it said.
Plants are necessary for life on the Earth. They are the base of the food chain, using photosynthesis（光合作用）to produce sugar from carbon dioxide and water. They let out oxygen which is needed by nearly every organism on the planet.
Scientists believe the world's average temperature has risen by about 0.8℃ since 1900, and nearly 0.2℃ every ten years since 1979.
So far, efforts to cut emissions（排放）of planet-warming greenhouse gases are not seen as enough to prevent the Earth heating up beyond 2℃ this century — a point scientists say will bring the danger of a changeable climate in which weather extremes are common, leading to drought, floods, crop failures and rising sea levels.
—What seems to be the problem?
—
—How long have you been like this?
—Since Saturday night.
—
—Yes, I also feel lighthearted.
—Can you think of anything you ate Saturday that might have caused it?
—All I can think of is the fish I had. It didn't taste quite right.
— Now I'll give you some medicine. Take it and you should be feeling better soon.
—
—I also suggest that you follow a special diet.
—
—You should stick to eating lighter foods.
A:What's that?
B:That might be it.
C:Thank you, doctor.
D:Any other problems?
E:I have a running nose.
F:Have you seen a doctor?
G:I have a terrible stomachache.
此行多一个词：把多余的词用斜线（／）划掉，在该行右边横线上写出该词。并也用斜线划掉。
此行缺一个词：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），在该行右边横线上写出该加的词。
此行错一个词：在错的词下划一横线，在该行右边横线上写出改正后的词。
注意：原行没有错的不要改
Dear Mom,
Mother's Day is coming. I'm sorry that I am abroad ①
and can't send your flowers, so I'm writing to you. ②
Mom, I know I have never expressed my thank to you ③
before. But on today, at this special time, I just want to tell ④
you loudly: I love you, Mom! Thank you so much by not ⑤
only giving me life, but also teach me how to be a good ⑥
person. Thank you for all you had done for me. Mom, though ⑦
I may often say it, I do love you. Nobody can take your ⑧
part in my heart. Whenever I am, I will always love you. ⑨
Hope you good health and much happiness every day! ⑩
Your little girl,
Jennifer
