If you're looking for the perfect activity to do with your teens — try board games! Here are three board games for teens that will exercise their brains in amazing ways.
Hive (Ages: 8 and up)
Hive is considered a board game, except there is no board. As each player adds pieces, the board is created. Hive comes with a rulebook that explains what each piece can/can't do.
About the Game:
As more and more pieces are added, the game becomes a fight to see who can be the first to capture the opposing Queen Bee. You can become quite skilled soon because playing the game is easy — even though you have to be on your toes thinking through each move.
Blokus (Ages: 7 and up)
Blokus Board Game received a Mensa award for promoting healthy brain activity.
About the Game:
The goal of this game is for the players to fit all of their pieces onto the board. The piece cannot lie next to the other player's pieces. But it must be placed touching at least one corner of their pieces already on the board. The player who gets rid of all of their tiles (棋子) first is the winner. The game can be repeated for more family fun.
Codenames (Ages: 14 and up)
Codenames is a family game for 4-8 players.
About the Game:
There are two opposing spymasters who know the identity of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Teammates try to guess words while avoiding those belonging to the opposing team. The team managing to contact all their agents first wins the game.
At 98, Dick Van Dyke still sings with his group, The Vantastix, and still makes it all look easy. When asked how important it is that he's having fun when he's doing it, Van Dyke replied, "My whole career has relied on that. It's such a blessing to find a way of making a living that you love. I feel so sorry for people who hate their job. I look forward to going to work every morning!"
And some of his work helped define a generation. Take "The Dick Van Dyke Show"; it ran for five years on CBS, and it was such a hit that they're bringing it back. This week, CBS aired a two-hour tribute (致敬), "Dick Van Dyke, 98 Years of Magic", and for the occasion, they recreated the original Dick Van Dyke Show" set, down to that well-known sofa.
Early in his career Van Dyke was quoted as saying he only wanted to make films his children could watch. That got the attention of Walt Disney, who promptly cast him in "Mary Poppins". And his next few films were equally family-friendly, like "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, " which happened to have been co-written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. From then on, Van Dyke was almost always assigned to play the good guy, though he claims to have missed out on a choice part: "Yeah, I could have been James Bond. When Sean Connery left, the producer said, ‘Would you like to be the next Bond?' I said, ‘Have you heard my British accent?' That's a true story!"
It seems that in show biz the true legends never stop. In an interview from 2017 with his friends, Van Dyke described what it was like hitting 90: "People are more afraid of aging than they are of death these days. And I want to say that remain young in heart and there's a lot of good living to do. "
Before humans stored memories as zeroes und ones, we turned to digital devices of another kind — preserving knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms.
When Mogao Caves was uncovered in 1900, an aging drawing was lifted from a trove of religious manuscripts. The drawing illustrates a mnemonic (助记符号) system, a way of projecting knowledge onto the hands so it can be studied, memorized, and stored in a pocket. Around the same time this mnemonic was made, a monk named Bede halfway around the world was developing a different system of manual knowledge. These two systems are perhaps the earliest examples of manual mnemonics.
Beginning roughly twelve hundred years ago, we started using the hand itself as a portable (便携的) place of knowledge, a place to store whatever tended to slip our mental grasp. The hand became an all-purpose memory machine.
In different times and places, hands provided mnemonic maps of sound. As early as the thirteenth century, Chinese scholars were projecting syllable charts (音节图表) onto the palms and fingers. The so-called "Guidonian hand" owes its name to the eleventh-century Italian music teacher, Guido d'Arezzo. Arranging the different pitches in a scale onto the joints, he developed this technique to help students learn "unheard melody most easily and correctly". Other thinkers in Europe, perhaps inspired by Guido, developed systems for learning the sounds of language.
Then questions arise. First, what makes the hand so popular as a mnemonic prop? A large part of the answer, surely, involves portability. The hands are always, well, ready to hand. A further advantage stems from how hand mnemonics offer both visual and kinesthetic (动觉的) routes to memory: They are both seen and felt.
It's also hard to determine when and why hand mnemonics faded out. Hand mnemonics are still used to teach the "right-hand rule" in physics classrooms and remain especially popular in medicine. Today we increasingly store our "thoughts" in virtual realms (领域), but we sometimes still reach for that original "digital" repository (存储库) in our pockets.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that mushrooms are much more than just a tasty addition to your favorite dish. In fact, they are the "Internet of trees" — a vast network of underground mycorrhizal (菌根的) fungi (真菌) that connects trees and other plants in a similar way to how the Internet connects people.
The mycorrhizal network is made up of hyphae (菌丝), which connect the roots of different plants and trees. These hyphae act like an underground internet, allowing plants to exchange nutrients, water, and even hormones (激素). For example, if one tree is under stress due to drought or disease, it can send out hormones to warn other nearby trees of the danger. The other trees can then prepare themselves for the coming threat.
Human beings can help trees and mushrooms by practicing "mycorestoration" in regenerative projects. With the Global Tree Initiative working towards reforestation and preserving natural habitats, it is important to share how mycorestoration can supply innovative ways to mitigate the impact of human activities.
Fungi are natural decomposers (分解器) that break down complex organic matter, like dead trees, into simpler compounds that can be absorbed by plants. This decomposition process is crucial for the health of our forests, as it contributes to nutrient cycling, soil formation, and carbon sequestration. By introducing native fungi species into areas where deforestation has occurred, we can help regenerate soil and support the growth of new trees. Fungi form symbiotic (共生的) relationships with tree roots, improving their ability to absorb water and nutrients. This increased access to resources accelerates tree growth and improves their resilience to stress, such as drought or disease.
Fostering sustainable communities through mycorestoration can be conducted through global partnerships that promote ecology within Ecovillage Design Education. The Global Ecovillage Network's presence in five continents and in over 8, 000 communities around the planet, helps the regenerative approach to community building and preservation of existing forests. By promoting sustainable land management practices and reducing our reliance on extractive industries, ecovillages can help prevent deforestation and protect the habitats of countless plant and animal species.
Benefits of Personality Tests
Can identifying one's personality type using the MBTI and other personality assessments really help? They may.
Better understand others
After taking a personality test and seeing our results, we can gain a better understanding of all the different perceptions and reactions that others might have to the same situation. . No personality type is "better" than any other — just different. Each perspective brings something new and interesting to the table.
Identify our likes and dislikes
Maybe we've always hated talking on the phone but never really understood why. . By using personality tests like the MBTI, we can learn more about where we lie on the extroversion/introversion and thinking/feeling continuum (连续性). This helps us better understand why we prefer certain things and dislike others.
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Learning more about our personality type can also help us discover new ways to approach challenges. Knowing what might work best for our personality type can give us new ideas on how to solve problems, deal with stress, cope with conflict, and manage our work habits.
Recognize our strengths and weaknesses
Knowing what we are good at can be important in a wide variety of situations, whether we are picking a college major or thinking about running for a seat on our local school board. For example, if we know that we are an ISTJ (introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging) on the MBTI, we might recognize that certain aspects of our personality might qualify as strengths in some situations and weaknesses in others. , it can sometimes trip us up in situations where we need to let other people take control.
A. Hold on to ideas about who we are
B. Know which situations are ideal for us
C. Here's an overview of the many benefits of personality tests
D. While they reveal truth that showcases different aspects of personality
E. While our organizational skills and carefulness can be a major strength in our work
F. This is important because we all have different ways of seeing and interacting with the world
G. Or perhaps we've always needed much time to think about a problem before making a decision
In my 30s, I decided to learn to ride a bike. When I was young, I had no one to teach me. My mom remarried after divorce when I was 6. I remembered I was 1 because I was the only kid over 6 who still relied on training wheels. Then my stepdad removed them, but in doing that, I lost interest and 2 in the activity. I was worried I'd fall off.
Not knowing how to ride didn't 3 me initially, until we moved to the suburbs when I was 12 years old, where bicycles were 4 . On 5 to the convenience store to buy candy with my friends, I was always the last to arrive, on foot.
In my early 30s, I remember feeling 6 as I watched young children learn to 7 on bikes. Among them were my neighbors, whom I would occasionally 8 . Then something changed. The fear within was still there, but something much stronger was 9 .
I decided to join a women's bike-riding workshop. There, I stood in an urban park, determined to overcome my 10 . Meeting women from diverse backgrounds, all seeking cycling skills for various reasons, strengthened my 11 . Before long, I was riding 12 .
13 the joy of riding, I bought my own bike, not just for getting around but to 14 lost time back. It wasn't simply a bike; it represented a(n) 15 I missed earlier. I completely engaged myself in the experience, enjoying the scenery and the breeze on my face.
A skywell or "tian jing" in Mandarin, is a typical feature of a traditional home in southern and eastern China. (expose) less to the outdoor environment, a skywell is different from a northern Chinese courtyard. Skywells are (relative) common in historic residences in large areas of southern and eastern China.
In today's rapidly urbanising China, fewer and fewer people live in skywell dwellings, a revival of interest in traditional Chinese architecture is leading some of historic buildings with skywells (restore) for modem times. Meanwhile, some architects are drawing (inspire) from skywells to help keep new buildings cooler, which is a method (combine) design and technology to cool a building without the use of power.
However, there are some (challenge) for bringing skywells into modern designs. The mechanisms of courtyards facilitating natural lighting, ventilation (通风) and rain collection are well known, but applying these principles (need) to be site-specific. Because traditional skywells had different shapes, sizes and features, which were highly dependent their natural surroundings. Adding skywells into modern buildings requires designers to be sensitive to their project's context and situation, making it difficult to apply them as universal solution.
"Number 7. Jobie Nymble, takes the lead. " Aquino cried the announcer. "Just one more hurdle (跨栏) and—"
Cheers erupted.
"Jobie Nymble from Riverside Middle School takes first place in the girls'100-meter hurdles!" The crowd went wild as Jobie's teammates shouted. "Way to go, Sweet Jobie?" they yelled.
"County championships, here we come, " spoke excitedly Jobie, patting her worn neon-green track spikes (钉鞋). They were bursting at the seams (接缝), but she didn't care. They were her lucky shoes and she loved them. "Next Saturday, we're taking home the gold, " Jobie whispered to her spikes, excitedly retying them.
"Don't forget, guys, " said Marisol, one of her teammates. "My birthday party is next Friday at Hidden Park. " "Beep. Party recorded in calendar, " joked Jobie in her best robot voice.
Next weekend couldn't come soon enough, Jobie brimmed with excitement all week long. At track practice, she leaped over those hurdles faster than she'd ever leaped before.
The day of Marisol's party Jobie put on her favorite outfit: her swishy blue shorts, an old track T-shirt from her dad, and her lucky spikes. "Perfect. " She smiled at herself in the mirror.
The party was in full swing when Jobie arrived at Hidden Park. She stopped by the track first, planning to do a couple of sprints (短靴). Even at that end of the park, music and the smell of grilled food filled the air.
"Sweet Jobie!" Two of Jobie's teammates rushed toward her, breathless and barefoot. "Come on, " they shouted. "You have to try the slide. Jobie's eyes darted toward the party area. " "Slide? What sli—" Suddenly, she saw it. The BIGGEST inflatable (充气的) slide she had ever seen was on the far side of the park. Without thinking twice, Jobie chucked (抛出) her spikes and ran toward the slide. Its ladder stretched to the sky, but she reached the top in no time. She plopped down, hurried to the edge, and closed her eyes as she let go. "Woo-hoo!" Jobie couldn't get enough. She conquered the slide again and again.
When it was finally time to go home, she reluctantly made her way back to the track where she'd left her shoes.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: As she eyed the track from a distance, panic set in.
Paragraph 2: Jobie slowly walked down to the starting line wearing her brand-new spikes.
