One beautiful day, I showed up for work, where I had just been promoted. I was right in the middle of training a new girl, when my boss asked to talk to me for a second. After that conversation, you can effectively cross "had a good job" off my comfortable living checklist. No warning. In fact, just the month before I had received my fifth Employee of the Month award. I was speechless and so was everyone else. Seven of us were cut from my department that day. Later, I would discover that there were thousands of cuts companywide. I worked at a bank. A failing one.
When something like this happens to you, it's natural to ask why. I reviewed all my work accomplishments. I thought about how I had been a top performer every month since I was hired and about how they gave me the highest rating on my review. What had I done wrong? What could I have done better?
The truth is that sometimes we search for a logical explanation in a situation that can't be understood. The only way to move past it is to have confidence in the job you did as an employee and understand that you are a victim of an unfortunate circumstance.
Speaking of writing, with all of the extra time on my hands, I reunited with the long lost love of my life: writing.
I decided to pursue writing as an actual job. I designed a website and applied for writing jobs. I started getting more and more clients. It occurred to me that with some hard work I might be able to make a living doing what I love. So there I was, three months after the sky fell, thinking about how incredibly blessed I was. And this would never have happened had I not lost something in the first place.
According to the statistics shared by UNESCO, at least 43% of the total languages that are estimated as being spoken across the world are in danger of extinction. Moreover, many languages around the world have less than 1,000 speakers now. Linguists（语言学家）and researchers believe that by the end of the century, at least half of the world's languages will have died. This is troublesome, given that cultural identity and languages go hand in hand.
Language activists and people who speak these endangered languages are fighting back tooth and nail. Scientists believe that digitization might be our only hope to preserve some of these quickly disappearing languages in the online world.
For instance, Oxford University Press launched Oxford Global Languages a few years ago. It is an initiative that boosts "digitally underrepresented" languages. They are focused on promoting languages that might have closed to a million speakers worldwide, yet have little or no online presence. Therefore, they have been creating digital dictionaries as a fundamental building block to help preserve them.
There have been countless other projects like this with the same aim. Another is the Rosetta Project, which aims to create a handheld digital library that will carry more than 1,500 languages. It will be appropriately sized to fit nicely into our hands, and will come with around 13,000 pages of information. It will also have a high life expectancy of anywhere between 2,000 and 1,0000 years. Initiatives like these have as their primary objective to ensure the preservation of local languages long after their speakers have died.
Countless languages are dying every day, and they will continue to perish as the remaining speakers die. Of course, we cannot merely rely on digitization to deal with worldwide languages loss. However, it is a step in the right direction. These digital tools offer endangered languages many opportunities to bounce back and survive.
Researchers have been looking into silicon carbide(碳化硅), a promising alternative material for the semiconductor (半导体) industry, for several years now. Size, weight and efficiency are three important factors for power electronic to fit in e-cars. Silion carbide meets all three factors. It is more efficient but leaves a smaller footprint than conventional semiconductors such as silicon.
Even so, silicon carbide isn't to be found in any e-cars on the road today. This semiconductor material is still limited to research labs. To shift it from the lab to the factory, the Si on Carbide Module (模块) project has taken into consideration all the conditions of industrial production. The module's design is a good case: researchers at the Fraunhofer IZM are basing it on the structure of the classic printed circuit board that the industry has long favored. This should speed up its first display.
The module is also benefiting from the latest scientific advances. Instead of wire-bonding the semiconductor to the package, the researchers decided to put it directly in the circuit. The team also brought the potential customers on board for this development effort. In the project's first year, they drew up a specification (规格) sheet illustrating the requirements for the module and semiconductor. The researchers worked closely with users, catering to their wishes when they determined the product specification.
Automakers, component suppliers and OEMS were directly involved in the effort to map out the power-electronic module's size, layout and electrical circuits. The group sought to make the most of the space available in the vehicle's power train. Lars Bottcher, group leader at the Fraunhofer IZM and head of the SiC sub-project, says, "The major goal is to advance the new semiconductor material silicon carbide to mass production."
What Can We See in a Logo?
We see hundreds of logos on signs, vehicles, websites, and even on the clothes we wear. All of these logos are designed to attract our attention. They also help us remember a product or service connected to that image.
Researchers gave 85 students a simple assignment to draw the Apple logo purely from memory. Surprisingly, only one student in the study could accurately draw the logo from memory.
Researchers have developed a theory that they think might help to explain this blind spot in our memories.
Logos are typically designed to be simple and easy to recognize with a quick glance. This process is known as "attentional saturation (注意力饱和)." Our brains actually signal us to ignore information we don't think we will need to remember.
Even though the brain is accustomed to ignoring unnecessary details, it is also programmed for recognition. This constant exposure leads to something scientists refer to as gist (梗概) memory. It means that our brain remembers the basic idea without all of the details. This general sense of memory has its own benefits. In fact, familiarity with a popular logo can even make people feel more comfortable about purchasing or using certain products.
Logos are everywhere we look today. A fancy design or a thoughtful color combination may be a good start for a logo concept, but there are other factors to consider. A clever design may be interesting, but most people will forget the details—especially if our brains have anything to say about it.
A. This may be inspiring to logo designers.
B. People will know the product behind the logo.
C. So why is it so difficult for people to recall the details of images?
D. Yet the frequent exposure to these logos can actually make our brains overlook them.
E. When we see images such as logos over and over again, we become familiar with them.
F. Logo designers need to know that people will only remember what they believe is worthwhile.
G. However, recently research supports the idea that remembering what a logo looks like is a very difficult task.
I was taking a nap(小睡) when a loud noise woke me. Outside the window in a parking lot, a car had just 1 into a chain-link fence. The fence bent out in exactly the 2 of the car's back end.
A short man wearing a shirt unbuttoned to 3 his chest got out of the car, with a shaven head. I disliked him 4. After a few seconds of 5 the damage, the man tried to 6that. He first attempted to pull the 7 fence back into place, but it wouldn't move. I took a drink from the glass, 8 cheering. Then he pulled against the fence's support pole, which bent 9 and was more likely to recover. But the pole suddenly broke. I laughed out loud this time. This was10. He went back to his car. He must be going to leave all the 11 behind for someone else to tidy up.
That, I thought, would be the 12. But he reappeared a few minutes later with some 13 and got to work using them. He fixed the fence, and even 14 it using a support bar bought from a nearby grocery. Now it would be extra 15, stronger than before.
This man was actually a 16 for me, and I was the lazy one. My 17 assumptions were all about myself. I wouldn't fix that fence and would 18. Years later, I still look out of my window at that 19. It still looks new. And it makes me 20 what else that man has made better, and how I can make myself more like him.
The Shenzhou XII spacecraft departed China's Tiangong space station on Thursday morning,(carry) three Chinese astronauts on a journey back to Earth, the China Manned Space Agency said.
It said in a brief statement that the spacecraft left the station's core module(核心舱) at 8:56 am and started to orbit Earth its own. Before their departure, the astronauts transmitted some experimental data back to ground control and arranged materials inside the station, the agency said. By Thursday morning, the crew (be) in space for 91 days, almost three times longer than the Shenzhou XI mission, saw Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong spend 33 days in orbit. Shenzhou XII (launch) on a Long March 2F carrier rocket that blasted off on June 17 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China. The astronauts entered Tiangong later that day, becoming first inhabitants of the station. Their work was expected to enable the China Manned Space Agency (accumulate) experience and check the capability, performance and compatibility of systems involved in the space station program to prepare for the next steps in its construction.
During the mission, the astronauts carried out two extravehicular activities, or spacewalks, using a large robotic arm and other (equip) to install and adjust devices outside the station. They also performed a number of (science) experiments and technological tests, which laid an important technical foundation for the following manned missions. After living in the space station core module Tianhe for 90 days, the spaceship returned as (plan).
1）活动开始时间；
2）活动内容；
3）学生住宿安排。
注意：1）词数80左右；
2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
I peered over my grandma's shoulder as she sewed pieces of cloth together. The two pieces became one faster than I'd imagined. The colors, however, looked ugly when put together and none of the patterns matched. All the patches (补丁) on this blanket seemed to disagree.
"Grandma, that's the ugliest quilt (棉被) I've ever seen."
"Oh, sweetie, it's warm and beautiful," said Grandma, pointing to a pile of crazy patterned shirts and suits. "I can take these old clothes that Grandpa and I will never wear again and turn them into something useful and good. It's not the quilts appearance but the love that sews it together that makes it beautiful. This quilt will keep you warm on a cold night like tonight. And I know that for a fact." Grandma put her hand on my shoulder, "Not everyone is as lucky as we are. Here, put on your coat. We'll get a second opinion about how ugly my quilts are."
Grandma folded a finished quilt and tucked it into a shopping bag. Afterwards, we got in the car and drove downtown. The white snow turned grayer as we got to the city. Eventually, Grandma pulled up at a dark alley (胡同) and we got out of the car. The terrible smell of rotting garbage made me feel sick and pinch my nose shut. Grandma took my hand and led me to the street lamp. I could see the snow shimmering (发出微光) in the light.
Grandma paused. "There's usually somebody down this alley. It's quiet and out of the wind—a good place to stay on cold nights. A nice warm quilt might make it even better."
The dark engulfed (吞没) Grandma and I as we stepped deep into the alley. The pavement was cracked and missing in spots. Chicken bones and stained boxes littered their way. And Grandma's shoes made a loud sound with each step. Feeling frightened, I squeezed Grandma's hand. Grandma squeezed my hand back. "It's OK." she smiled.
"Who's there?" shouted a voice out of the darkness.
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:
"I have a nice warm quilt, if you want it." said Grandma.
Paragraph 2:
Back home, I found a worn-out quilt by accident in a cupboard.
