Coding(编码) apps and programming apps for kids are becoming increasingly popular. Here are some of the best apps for teaching kids to code.
Scratch
Scratch is by far the most popular coding app for kids, and it is now used in many schools all over the world. It is available for free on the web as well as for Android and iOS, which is why it is so popular. Created in 2003 by MIT students and staff, its coding language is designed for children aged 7 to 16.
The language employs visual blocks or bricks that can be dragged and dropped on a workspace to construct logical chains. As a result, the child will have a better understanding of the fundamental principles of coding.
Daisy the Dinosaur
Daisy the Dinosaur is a free iPad and iPhone programming app. What distinguishes it from the rest is that it is designed specifically for children aged 4 to 7. The app was developed by the same team that created the Hopscotch coding app for kids. If you've ever used that app, Daisy the Dinosaur has a similar user-friendly interface with limited features that is best for beginners.
Cargo-Bot
Cargo-Bot is a free coding app that is available for both Android and iOS devices. It is appropriate for children aged 10 and up. This app specialises in puzzle challenges involving a robotic arm that must be programmed to perform various tasks, most notably moving coloured boxes to create a specific design or pattern.
Kodable
Another relatively well-known coding app for kids is Kodable.' It is free for: both the iPhone and iPad, but there is no option for Android or the web. Kodable is appropriate for both younger children and older teenagers(from 8 years old and up). It is also remarkable for guiding users from a basic to a complex level of coding.
The approach is very game-like, with users able to select a character to guide them through the levels.
Climbing, I once thought, was a very manly activity, but as I found my way into this activity, I came to see that something quite different happens on the rock.
Like wild swimming, rock climbing involves you into the landscape. On the rock, I am fully focused. Eyes pay close attention, ears are alert, and hands move across the surface. Unlike walking, where I could happily wander about absent-mindedly, in climbing, attentive observation is essential.
As an arts student studying English literature, I discovered a new type of reading from outdoor climbing. Going out on to the crags (悬崖), I saw how you could learn to read the rocks and develop a vocabulary of physical movements. Good climbers knew how to adjust their bodies on to the stone. Watching them, I wanted to possess that skillful "language".
My progress happened when I worked for the Caingorms National Park Authority.Guiding my explorations into this strange new landscape was Nan Shepherd, a lady too. Unlike the goal-directed mindset of many mountaineers, she is not concerned with peaks or personal achievement. Shepherd sees the mountain as a total environment and she celebrates the Caingorms as a place alive with plants, rocks, animals and elements. Through her generous spirit and my own curiosity, I saw that rock climbing need not be a process of testing oneself against anything. Rather, the intensity of focus could develop a person into another way of being.
Spending so much time in high and st ony places has transformed my view on the world and our place in it. I have come into physical contact with processes that go way beyond the everyday. Working with gravity, geology (地质学), rhythms of weather and deep time, I gain an actual relationship with the earth. This bond lies at the heart of my passion for rock climbing. I return to the rocks, because this is where I feel in contact with our land.
The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the early 16th century, it has captivated audiences for centuries with its mysterious smile and masterful technique.
The painting is housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and attracts millions of visitors each year. However, the Mona Lisa's history is not without controversy. There have been numerous attempts to steal or deface the painting, and its conservation has been a subject of great concern.
Leonardo da Vinci's use of sfumato, a technique that blends colors and tones seamlessly, gives the painting a soft and hazy appearance. The sitter's expression, which seems to change depending on the viewer's angle and mood, adds to the intrigue of the work.
"A moth (飞蛾) to a flame" is often used to indicate an inescapable attraction, yet it is a strange example of animal behavior that continues to confuse people today. Scientists have raised a number of theories over the years to explain why. One holds that insects flying at night are following their nature to fly toward the brightest spot in their field of vision, which they mistake for the sky. Another suggests that insects are trying to warm themselves with the heat produced by the light. The most popular theory, though, is that insects are confusing lights with the moon or other celestial bodies (天体) that they normally use to navigate (导航).
To find out the real reason, the team carried out a first set of experiments in an insect flight area. The researchers used eight high-speed infrared (红外线) cameras equipped with motion-capture technologies to track 30 insects from three moth and two dragonfly species. They also flew lab-raised insects from six different insect orders that were too small for motion-capture technology, including fruit flies and honeybees, to make sure different insects all showed similar responses to light. Working with co-author Pablo Allen of the Council on International Educational Exchange in Monteverde, Costa Rica, the researchers put heavy cameras, lights and tripods in two field sites to gather behavioral data from insects in the wild.
The team was able to confirm that insects were not beelining to the light but rather circling it as they tilted (倾斜) in an attempt to turn their backs toward it. This behavior, known as a "dorsal light response", normally helps insects to remain in an unchanging path of flight that is properly lined to the horizon (地平线). Artificial light that arrives from a point source causes them to fly in unpredictable patterns as they try to turn their backs to what they are mistaking for the sky.
Now research might have finally solved the mystery mentioned first: artificial light confuses insects' ability to turn themselves to the horizon, confusing their sense of what is up and down and causing them to fly in circles.
Who can imagine life today without an Automated Teller Machine（ATM）? They are available in considerable numbers throughout the world.
The first ATM was the brainchild of an enterprising Turkish-American inventor Luther George Simjian. When the idea of an automated banking machine struck him, he registered 20 patents before any bank agreed to give it a trial run. It is easy to assume that the inventor of such a popular machine was laughing all the way to the bank. Within six months of its operation in New York in 1939, the device was removed due to lack of customer acceptance.
It was not until 1967, nearly 30 years later, that Barclays Bank, in a careful launch, rolled out a self-service machine in London, England, which proved successful. The first cash machine relied on customers' use of prepaid tokens（代币）to get envelopes with a fixed amount of cash inside.
The banks' principle was seemingly customer service. But it would be foolish to minimize the many advantages that cash machines provided to the banks themselves. By the late 1970s, the highest fixed cost for the average large bank was its branches. The greatest variable cost and loss to profits were its staff. Ban k accounts swiftly recognized that self-service operations could reduce bank branch staff cost by70 percent.
Experts quickly determined that public acceptance of ATMs counted on convenience, simplicity, speed, security and trust. For maximum efficiency, ATMs had to be located near public transport or in a shopping mall, not at a branch. The busier and more crowded the location, obviously, the better. Now, roughly 75percent of all cash provided by banks to their customers comes from cash machines..
Public acceptance of deposits（存款）by machine was significantly slower than customers' usage of ATMs for withdrawals. In general, it seems that customers sometimes still prefer and trust an over-the-counter transaction（交易）for deposits.
A．Location, in particular, was a key factor.
B．His cash machine, however, didn't prove durable.
C．The device was relatively primitive, at least by today's standards.
D．However, cash machines posed some interesting, unanswered questions.
E．An interesting factor was the issue of bio-statistics for customer identification.
F．Devices originally dismissed by the public are now recognized as essential institutions.
G．Soon afterwards, many other banks became admittedly champions of the cash machine.
Have you ever heard of and seen Canadian geese? Do you know that they 1 fresh grass and seeds?
Canadian geese have a good 2 for their politeness. They always bow down to you whenever you walk by. However, I have recently found that they can sometimes be 3 to their peers, especially on occasions when they quarrel for food——yes, these 4 gentlemen do quarrel, just for something to eat
Yesterday I witnessed two Canadian Geese arguing 5 for a clump(草丛) of beautiful fresh grass. The clump was 6 right in the middle of them, while the two were shouting noisily, stretching their necks as long as they could to look aggressively at each other. It's 7 to witness the "impolite" side of Canadian geese. Hence, I couldn't help 8 my morning walk, standing still to watch these "gentlemen" quarreling. Interestingly, after a short while, a truck roared past their feast, disturbing their 9 conversation. The two geese were equally 10 by the massive "monster", thus giving up their conversation.
Would they start quarreling again? I stood still, 11 the ridiculous question and waited. Beyond my expectation, right after the truck's passing by, the two geese immediately lost their 12 for quarreling as if they had forgotten all about what had happened. Even the two turned around and left the 13 in opposite directions as if nothing had happened. They left only me there, imagining what might have happened without the 14 .
They got along harmoniously again. Sometimes it's not that bad to be 15 .
A visually-challenged man from Beijing recently hiked (徒步) 40 days to Xi'an, as a first step (journey) the Belt and Road route (路线) by foot.
On the 1,100 kilometer journey, the man Cao Shengkang, lost his eyesight at the age of eight in a car accident, crossed 40 cities and counties in three province. Inspired by the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (hold) in Beijing, Cao decided to cover the route by hiking as a tribute (致敬) to the ancient Silk Road. friend of his, Wu Fan, volunteered to be his companion during the trip.
Cao and Wu also collected garbage along the road, in order to promote environmental (protect). Cao believes this will make the hiking trip even more (meaning). The two of them collected more than 1,000 plastic bottles along the 40-day journey.
In the last five years. Cao (walk) through 34 countries in six continents, and in 2016, he reached the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa's (high) mountain.
Now, Cao has started the second part of his dream to walk along the Belt and Road route. He flew 4, 700 kilometers Xi'an to Kashgar on Sept. 20, (plan) to hike back to Xi'an in five months.
1. 表示理解和鼓励；
2. 给出建议及理由。
注意：
1. 词数80左右；
2. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Mike，
Yours,
Li Hua
It was the day of the big cross-country run. Students from seven different primary schools in and around the small town were warming up and walking the route(路线)through thick evergreen forest.
I looked around and finally spotted David, who was standing by himself off to the side by a fence. He was small for ten years old. His usual big toothy smile was absent today. I walked over and asked him why he wasn't with the other children. He hesitated and then said he had decided not to run.
What was wrong? He had worked so hard for this event!
I quickly searched the crowd for the school's coach and asked him what had happened. "I was afraid that kids from other schools would laugh at him," he explained uncomfortably. "I gave him the choice to run or not, and let him decide."
I bit back my frustration(懊恼). I knew the coach meant well—he thought he was doing the right thing. After making sure that David could run if he wanted, I turned to find him coming towards me, his small body rocking from side to side as he swung his feet forward.
David had a brain disease which prevented him from walking or running like other children, but at school his classmates thought of him as a regular kid. He always participated to the best of his ability in whatever they were doing. That was why none of the children thought it unusual that David had decided to join the cross-country team. It just took him longer—that's all. David had not missed a single practice, and although he always finished his run long after the other children, he did always finish. As a special education teacher at the school, I was familiar with the challenges David faced and was proud of his strong determination.
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.
We sat down next to each other, but David wouldn't look at me.
I watched as David moved up to the starting line with the other runners.
