That two bicycle salesmen were the first people to fly is as surprising today as it was over a century ago. In 1903, the Wright brothers flew above the crowd at a public exhibition in the United States. For a long period, the whole world was still in shock.
The Wrights' success is worth reviewing today because it challenges the 21st century's belief that, for young engineers, courses in arts and humanities are not as important as math and science. In fact, however, neither of the Wright brothers went to college or had any formal technical training.
To see what we can learn from the Wright brothers today, we must consider what made them different then. The Wright brothers grew up in a family where there was always encouragement on curiosity. The bookshelves in their home were filled with novels, poetry, and ancient history. The Wrights' parents had great curiosity for learning. They encouraged their children to read widely and find out the truth on their own. In their late 20s, the Wrights began reading books on the movement of bird wings, which led to their original air-control system.
The Wright brothers often compared themselves to artists because their invention had a lot to do with arts. For example, the art of flying was actually a complicated dance between man, machine and air, which required thousands of hours of practice to perfect. Technical skills and math were certainly necessary to build the machine, but much of the challenge lay in the art of flying in order to have beautiful lines during flight and landing.
If today's schools hope to have more extraordinary engineers, they should broaden the limited academic requirements and encourage students to be curious about different subjects as the Wright brothers did.
Will doing housework save you a trip to the gym? If you think so, you need to think again. A new study finds that people who do housework as their weekly exercise tend to be heavier than those who get their exercise by doing sports.
In fact, the more time people spend on performing housework as exercise, the heavier they tend to be. The finding is shocking, because people thought more physical activities — no matter what the form — would always lead to a lower weight.
Richard Cotton, an exercise physiologist, agreed that it is hard to lose weight only by doing housework. You'll get the most reward for your time if you add some traditional physical activities, he said. For example, 30 minutes of sweeping floors bums about 130 calories, while 30 minutes of riding a bike bums 400 calories. But some housework does give you exercise. For example, 30 minutes of washing the clothes by hand bums 215 calories, close to what you would bum in 30 minutes of combined jogging and walking.
The study collected information from more than 4,600 people who were interviewed about their weekly physical activity. About 42 percent of them had 150 minutes of physical activity per week. Of those people, nearly two-thirds said that at least 10 minutes of their weekly activity was spent doing housework. Women and older people tended to report more time spent in doing housework as part of their physical activity. In other words, if the researchers didn't count housework as a type of physical activity, just
20 percent of women had enough physical exercise.
Therefore, it is possible that people who said they exercised by doing housework were not really honest about the time or length of the activity, researchers said. "After all, the combination of different physical activities is the best choice," Cotton said.
Ice volcanoes erupted on the shores of Lake Michigan last weekend, and an employee from National Weather Service (NWS) caught sight of an astonishing scene on the spot. "You never know what you'll find at the lake until you go out there," the employee said, "Today it were volcanoes."
Despite their nickname, ice volcanoes aren't really volcanoes at all. They form at the edges of lakes, where thin sheets of ice form, and water shoots through holes in the ice, Water flows beneath the ice sheet and builds up enough pressure to push water to the surface. If the air above is cold enough, the released water freezes over the surrounding ground, forming a mini volcano of sorts.
Ice volcanoes can be very dangerous to climb on because they are empty inside and built over that hole in the ice. Although some frozen volcanoes were discovered a few years ago, it is still rare to witness one.
Ice volcanoes typically form near large bodies of water where freezing temperatures below allow an ice shelf to form over the water's surface along the coastline. Meanwhile, waves beneath the shelf must be strong enough to crack the ice and push water out. For this reason, ice volcanoes tend to form along shorelines where winds blow up waves constantly.
For example, when the Oval Beach volcanoes were spotted, the wind was almost due west, which was perfect for pushing waves right into the shoreline at this location. Due to their superior size, the Great Lakes may be more likely to form ice volcanoes along their shores than smaller lakes.
So if you want to see an ice volcano in person, the Great Lakes may be your best choice—but be cautious where you step!
Effective Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent-teacher conference is a golden chance for parents to know their kids, school life and what is really going on at school. But only if they use the opportunity wisely.
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●Do Your Homework
Parents need to speak with a number of teachers in a short period of time, making it difficult for them to get everything straight. . Cyndy McDonald, a guidance consultant in California, suggests parents make good plans in mind, such as who they would like to meet, and what issue they need to address.
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Parents may only have a few minutes with your child's teacher to find out how things are going at school. McDonald suggests having a few questions ready, and she recommends asking these questions: Is my child raising his/her hand and participating in class? How is my child getting along with their classmates? Do you see any problems I should be aware of? What can I do as a parent to provide support at home?
●Be on the same team
Cyndy McDonald stresses," The most important thing is to go in with the attitude that we're all on the same team. . " If your child is missing homework, for example, be sure to talk with your child's teachers to find out. Tell them what works in other classes for your child and let them try this in their class.
With enough preparations, parents may get their problems solved more easily. " ," she says.
A. Help children in trouble
B. Prepare questions to ask
C. Here's how to make the most of this precious opportunity
D. Sometimes this approach doesn't lead to a positive result
E. Without a plan in advance, the time can pass quickly without getting anything
F. Teachers want to hear that parents will support them in educating the children
G. If a parent comes to me with good preparations, my job will be so much easier
Lisa Meeks was in medical school at Harvard. However, she 1 a rare muscle disease and the 2 thing she expected was to be stopped from her goal. Unfortunately, then came the sad news that her 3 in the field was zero and she had no right to go into medicine. Lisa 4 from medical school but didn't end up becoming a practicing doctor. This was before the Disabilities Act passed in 1990, so she just didn't have the 5 to do so.
Doctors are often 6 as super humans who can create miracles of all kinds.
They're seen as fearless 7, not the ones who are also in need of care. However, an online campaign is now starting to 8 that view. "We believe it is 9 to respect medical professionals with disabilities and protect their right", says Lisa Meeks, the 10 of this project. "The 11 has successfully helped many doctors stand up12," she says.
Meeks had this thought earlier this year:" If doctors with disabilities saw more people like themselves, would they be more confident and talk more13 about their challenges?" 14, she decided to start an online movement called Does With Disabilities. The goal was to find 20 disabled doctors who were 15 to share their stories. Her mailbox was soon16with personal stories from doctors with disabilities. And now another campaign, Nurses With Disabilities, has 17, too.
"I felt this was a really 18 opportunity to introduce doctors with disabilities to the 19," she says. "To let more people know that there is not only one or two doctors with disabilities, but that there are a number of them and they never20in their career."
Green seaweeds played important part in the ocean, long before green plants took control of the land. According to a new study, the oldest green seaweed appeared about 1 billion years ago.
Scientists have discovered the fossils of is considered to be the oldest green seaweeds ever known. Even though it was tiny, the seaweed had a big role: It could produce oxygen (use) sunlight, water, and the gases in the air.
Until now, researchers didn't have (evident) that green seaweeds lived that long ago. Now that researchers have a fossil, they can (confident) say that green plants we see today can (trace) back to at least 1 billion years ago.
Life on earth depends green plants and seaweeds for oxygen, yet land plants did not appear about 450 million years ago. Moreover, green seaweeds aren't the oldest seaweeds on record. Red seaweeds (exist) over a billion years ago, and the red and green seaweeds came from a common ancestor. So the discovery of (they) fossils helps fill the gap and strengthens the timeline for the development of early life.
1）你推荐的城市以及推荐理由；
2）提醒和建议。
注意：
1）词数80左右；
2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
The Magic Necklace
Josie went to her grandmother's house for summer holidays. One day, when grandma was making lunch, Josie felt bored and wanted to do something interesting. She saw an old and dusty box in her room. She was digging through her grandmother's things in the box when she found a necklace with a big purple stone in it. The stone, shining with inner light, was so beautiful that she loved it so much. She sat down on the floor, stared at the stone and became lost in the necklace, trying to see what was within the stone.
However, she did not notice the world around her became foggy and began to fade. The lines between worlds began to be unclear, and when she finally shook her head and tried to wake up, she found that she was in another world! She was surprised and excited, because things had become so different in this world.
The sky looked strange, because it was purple. The grass was blue, and the trees around her were tall. Bugs of bright colors and different shapes flew around her, and the light came from a pair of suns in the sky. Nearby, pink water flowed at a black sand beach. Everything was so different and interesting.
She walked around for a time, amazed by what she saw. She walked along the beach, feeling the black sand between her toes. She drank some pink water, which was sweet, like sugar water, and then she ran through the forest, where trees smiled at her when she passed. It was all so strange and beautiful.
After several hours traveling in this magic land, Josie began to feel hungry and tired. Suddenly she realized that she didn't know how to get home. She was frightened and worried about what to do. After thinking for a few moments, she realized that the necklace must be the key to the world she belonged.
注意：
1）所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2）至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4）续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
She grabbed (抓) the necklace around her neck and looked into it.
Paragraph 2:
Filled with many questions, she rushed downstairs to tell her grandmother what she'd seen.
