As a capital city full of art and history, London is an important political centre and a huge financial marketplace. Whatever you think about London, visiting as a tourist is very different from living there. Each part of London has its own character. Some parts are richer than others, or more industrial, or have better housing.

    Let's start with the centre, the “Square Mile”. This is the oldest part of London. In the past, it was where all financial business was done. Not many people live here, but 300,000 people work here every day.

    Moving west, we come to the West End. This busy shopping and entertainment district is bursting with things to do. Take a walk down Oxford Street, and you will see big department stores like Selfridges and Harrods. Rents here are very high; a one-bedroom apartment may cost around 1,000 pounds a week. Further away is West London. This area is more residential(住宅的)and very fashionable.

    The East End contains the Port of London, which historically is where many immigrants first arrived. Waves of French, Belgians, Jews, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have all lived here. This makes the culture of this area very various. London won the bid to hold the Olympics in 2012, so many Londoners hope that housing, education and employment for many people in this area will improve.

    It is difficult to be general about London. The city is made up of a " collection of villages”, each area with its own character and community. Put them all together, and you have London, an international capital.

    Language learning apps are very popular now and offer opportunities to learn vocabulary and practice grammar. But there has been a discussion about just how effective such apps can be.

    Among the most popular apps are Duolingo and Busuu. A previous research found positive results on the use of them. But it mainly concentrated on studies with learners who had signed up to language courses and these apps worked as an after-class support, so the results were not always reliable. A recent study of 4,095 Busuu users has been carried out aimed to find out if users can actually learn a language with an app.

    Busuu provides learning materials for 12 different languages. It offers special model where some content is available for free while some content is not. We find that its users are an even mix of men and women. More than half consider themselves to be at the beginner level as there is a decrease in users as their language levels go up. Most people use the app because of personal interest, or because they want to study or live abroad. Female users tend to use it less often but for longer periods of time than male users.

    Getting any feedback on Busuu depends on whether your answer is correct or not. While it is helpful, this is not the sort of feedback language teachers prefer, as it does not explain why the answer is right or wrong. In spite of this, feedback in the app is very highly rated.

    More than 92% of respondents state that the app has met their expectations and 86% rate the app as very good or good. In fact, more than 80% of the users surveyed strongly agree that using the app has helped them improve their knowledge of the language they are learning.

    Besides, language learning apps also create an environment where mistakes are only known to the users, and this can address the performance anxiety that many learners suffer from when asked to speak a foreign language. So language teachers should encourage their students to use them to do the grammar work, leaving precious class time for more language communication.

    Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in the United Kingdom, and enjoy amazing historic English attractions. Please notice that every tour starts and ends in London. Have a tour with visiting Britain.

Stonehenge Direct Tour

    Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in England and in the world: Stonehenge.

    Duration: 1 day

    Price: Adults ￡29.99, Children ￡28.99

Stonehenge and Bath Tour

    Enjoy a late breakfast before heading to the Stonehenge site and end your day with an original visit to the Roman Baths.

    Duration: 10 hours (departure 10:30 a. m., return 8:30 p. m.)

    Price: Adults ￡64, Children ￡60

Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle Tour

    Explore three of England's most popular sites to visit: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths.

    Duration: 1 day (return 8:30 p. m.)

    Price: Adults ￡64.80, Children ￡61.20

Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath Tour

    Come and feel the warmth of Bath, see the pleasant village of Lacock, and solve the mystery of Stonehenge.

    Duration: 1 day (return 6 p.m.)

    Price: Adults ￡85, Children ￡78

Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour

    Choose Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour and enjoy ancient mysticism, royal history and illustrious knowledge.

    Duration: 1 day

    Price: Adults ￡72, Children ￡68

Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford Tour

    Take a tour to make the most of the English historic attractions: the Stonehenge site, Bath and Stratford, the birthplace of playwright William Shakespeare.

    Duration: 1 day (return 8 p. m.)

    Price:Adults ￡79, Children ￡68

    Laughter is a kind of universal body language that is shared by people of all nationalities, skin colors, cultures and traditions. But did you know that the ability to tell real laughter apart from fake (假的) laughter also varies among cultures?

    Greg Bryant, a professor of communication at the University of California, published a study in late July. In the study, 884 people from 21 countries were asked to listen to random recordings of laughter. Some of the recordings were made up of laughs from the bottom of the heart, while others were made by people who were asked to laugh on command.

    The study showed that people around the world have the ability to pick out real laughter, although their abilities vary from country to country. Residents of the Samoan Islands, were particularly good at it, correctly identifying real laughter 56 percent of the time. According to Bryant, people from smaller, less industrialized nations “are more accurate in identifying a natural smile” because they rely heavily on emotional engagement in order to predict others' behavior and create stronger social relationships.

    But how do people from different cultures detect natural laughter so easily? And what characters does real laughter have? As Professor Jessica Wolf of the University of California told the Association for Psychological Science, in real laughter, we produce qualities, such as higher pitch (音调) and volume, as well as faster bursts of no clear sounds.

    By contrast, fake laughter will "sound like speech". According to Science Daily, fake laughter is controlled by the same brain system that controls the lips and tongue. Bryant further explained that this system has active ability, saying "with this speech system, you can make a lot of different noises, including crying, laughter or scream. That's where fake laughter comes from".

    So that? s something to think about: next time one of your friends laughs at something you say, will you be able to tell if it's real or fake?

Elon Musk is a symbol of passion, hard work and success. A person may work hard in his life, but when hard work goes along with passion and a new idea, then something is created that astonishes the world. As the founder of big companies like PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk is a guide and inspiration for the youth around the world. 

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was the eldest of three children. His father Errol Musk, a British-born South African, was an engineer. Musk spent his childhood in South Africa and at the age of 9, he got his first personal computer. This got Elon interested in programming and he started to learn on his own. At the age of 12, he made his first computer game, Blaster, which earned him $500 when he sold the source code to a magazine. 

When he was 17, he decided to leave home and had wanted to move to the United States after graduating from a secondary school in Pretoria. However, he was unable to move to the United States. In 1989, Elon Musk moved to Canada, where his mother's relatives lived. After obtaining Canadian citizenship, Musk went to Montreal. Due to a lack of money, he found a low-paying job. At the age of 19, he entered Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, studying there for two years. Finally, in 1992, his dream came true—he moved to the United States. 

As a teenager, Musk struggled with depression. But then he realized that the most important thing was presenting himself with the right questions. The day he started doing this, everything started to get easier. 

Musk thought that a human being had to expand the limits of his consciousness—to ask the right questions and get answers to them; thus he asked the best question of all: what will have the greatest impact on the future of humans? Musk found that these things were the Internet and space exploration. 

The life of Elon Musk is inspiring. He found success on the Internet, without much formal learning. By reading books and using his willpower and dedication, he reached a level of knowledge that is difficult to imagine. He did not give up until he achieved his dreams. Elon Musk truly stands out among other billionaires because of his leadership abilities, positive attitude, ability to know when to take risks, and belief in futuristic technologies.

Today, what we have, is an always-in-your-pocket, 24/7 news cycle. When you open a news app, you'll notice a brief moment when the "old news" is still there. In a flash, the ancient history of a few hours ago is swept away for the next "breaking news". {#blank#}1{#/blank#} It's endless, but you had better keep up. 

Researchers introduce this world to the phrase, "noise bottleneck". A noise bottleneck is where we are overwhelmed with so much information or noise that our cognitive （认知的） abilities can't keep up. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Thus, while our attention can watch hours. of videos, our long-term learning processes can't. 

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} We watch TV holding our phones, and we listen to music while shopping. However, the human brain might have structural limitation rooted in the cognitive architecture which causes the slowing down that occurs when two tasks are performed at the same time. 

In short, your brain is not as good as you think it is. You are a human being who can only take in so much a day. Understanding the noise bottleneck allows us to fix it. So, here are three tips to get you going:

Clear your content-set up a new account on social media and follow only accounts or people that you think are really valuable. 

Single-task-you don't need to rid the phone but do rid the distractions. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Say, "I will only read this magazine after dinner. Multitasking is for show; single-tasking is for pros. 

Accept your limits-you'll never read all the news. Accept you can only choose two or three and embrace that fact. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} You're getting more out of those few than that "super-productive" person on social media who says they read five books a week. After all, it's better to have a little remembered than a lot forgotten. 

A. Give yourself a time limit or restriction if it helps. 

B. Don't beat yourself up that you're being unproductive. 

C. Every second, you are presented with new information. 

D. Breaking through the noise bottleneck is a legendary idea. 

E. The matter is made worse by our modern addiction to multitasking. 

F. Multitasking has dramatically changed the way we use information. 

G. Our brains have limited resources, spread across numerous functions.