A. The benefits of visiting museums

B. Educational functions

C. Places for collections of objects

D. The history of museums

E. Precious chance to see famous masterpieces

F. Ways to improve their collections

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Museums are places where collections of objects are preserved and put on show. The objects may be anything found in nature made by man. There are museums devoted to art, science, history, industry and technology.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} But museums are no longer just storehouse for collections. Today nearly all museums, large or small, carry on educational programs. Museums offer guided tours, lectures, films, music recitals, art lessons, and other attractions. They organize field trips and clubs. They publish guides to help visitors to gain a better understanding of the collections.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} All museums share a common aim —— to attract visitors and help them to understand and enjoy the collections. Museums are always on the watch for new additions to their collections. Works of art are bought from art dealers and private collectors. Museums also accept gifts, but the large museums no longer accept everything that is offered to them. They accept only objects of collections that meet their high standards.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Museums often arrange loan exhibitions of important works from private owners, art dealers and other museums. In this way a famous masterpiece may be viewed by people who otherwise might never have the chance to see it. For example, in 1963 the Metropolitan Museums of Art in New York city exhibited one of the world's most famous ladies —— Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. The government of France had lent the painting to the United States. Attendance at the Metropolitan reached an all-time high during the month Mona Lisa was shown there.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} What is to be gained from visiting museums? Museum exhibits can teach us about the world in which we live —— the materials it is made of, the trees and plants that cover it, and the animals that have lived on it since its beginning. We can learn about the activities of man —— his history and development as well as his accomplishments in arts and crafts. Most people see a great work of art for the first time in a museum. We cannot all be explorers or collectors in other lands. But in a museum we can see for ourselves the objects that have been gathered from every part of the world.

It's a popular belief that a fish's memory lasts for only seven seconds. It may seem sad to think that they don't remember what they've eaten or where they've been, and they don't recognize you or any of their friends—every moment in their life would be like seeing the world for the first time.

    But don't be so quick to feel sorry for them. A new study has found that fish have a much better memory than we used to think. In fact, certain species of fish can even remember events from as long as 12 days ago.

    In the study, researchers from MacEwan University in Canada trained a kind of fish called African cichlids to go to a certain area of their tank to get food. They then waited for 12 days before putting them back in the tank again.

Researchers used computer software to monitor the fish's movements. They found that after such a long break the fish still went to the same place where they first got food. This suggested that they could remember their past experiences.

    In fact, scientists had been thinking for a long time that African cichlids might have a good memory. An earlier study showed that they behaved aggressively in front of certain fish, perhaps because they remembered their past “fights”. But until the latest findings, there was no clear evidence.

    Just as a good memory can make our lives easier, it also plays an important part when a fish is trying to survive in the wild.

    “If fish are able to remember that a certain area contains safe food, they will be able to go back to that area without putting their lives at risks,” lead researcher Trevor Hamilton told Live Science.

    For a long time, fish were placed far below chimpanzees, dolphins and mice on the list of smart animals. But this study has given scientists a new understanding of their intelligence.

    As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

    In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

    In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder(文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location(位置)better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory”.

    According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize large amounts of information so that they are able to find it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

    Americans with small families own a small car or a large one. If both parents are working, they usually have two cars. When the family is large, one of the cars is sold and they will buy a van (住房汽车).

    A small car can hold four persons and a large car can hold six persons but it is very crowded. A van hold seven persons easily, so a family with three children could ask their grandparents to go on a holiday travel. They could all travel together.

    Mr. Hagen and his wife had a third child last year. This made them sell their second car and buy a van. In the van, the sixth and seventh seat are used to put other things, for a family of five must carry many suitcases when they travel. When they arrive at their grandparents' home, the suitcases are removed from the two seats which can then carry the grandparents.

    Americans call vans motor homes. A motor home is always used for holidays. When a family are traveling to the mountains or to the seaside, they can live in their motor home for a few days or weeks. All the members of a big family can enjoy a happier life when they are traveling together. That is why motor homes have become very popular. In America there are many parks for motor homes.

    It is one of the oldest magic tricks in the book—a magician locks a woman in a box, with her head and feet sticking out from either end, and saws (锯) it in half. But when she finally jumps out of the box, the woman is unharmed.

    This trick was introduced nearly a century ago. It has been around for some time, but it never goes wrong. Why is it so successful? The answer is simple: the human mind is easily fooled.

    Our brain processes the world around us based on information that sensory organs, including the eyes, pick up. For instance, when we see a cow or a horse standing behind a tree, we automatically “fill in” the part of the animal's body that is hidden from our sight. “So the brain is taking this kind of very sparse (匮乏的) information about the world and it's generating this rich world by filling in information,” Stephen Macknik, a scientist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona, US, told Science magazine.

    But since our brains are filling in the gaps, sometimes they get it wrong. They tend to be driven by our previous experiences and we expect things to go as they have in the past even if sometimes they do not.

    This tendency explains magicians' success in fooling people with well-known coin tricks. For example, when you see a magician throw a coin up and down in one hand and then fake a coin thrown to the other hand, you would naturally believe that the coin is in the other hand.

Apart from the information gaps, magicians also use the “blind spots” theory when doing their shows.

    The most well-known experiment demonstrating this theory is called the “invisible gorilla (大猩猩)”, in which volunteers watch a video of two basketball teams. They are asked to count how many times the teams wearing white shirts pass the ball. In the meantime, a person dressed as a gorilla walks onto the court. But shockingly, half of the viewers don't notice the gorilla, even when they appear to be looking directly at it.

    Magicians employ this tactic (招数), what they call “misdirection”, in almost every one of their acts. They direct our attention somewhere else using comedy and music, which can make us miss stuff during the performance.

Each day, 10-year-old Seth asked his mom for more and more lunch money. Yet he seemed skinnier than ever and came home from school hungry. It turned out that Seth was handing his lunch money to fifth grader, who was threatening to beat him up if he didn't pay.

Most kids have been made fun of by a brother or a friend at some point. And it's not usually harmful when done in a playful and friendly way, and both kids find it funny. But when teasing becomes hurtful, unkind, and constant, it crosses the line into bullying and needs to be stopped.

Bullying is intentional torment(折磨)in physical or psychological ways. It can range from hitting, name-calling and threats to blackmailing(勒索)money and possessions. Some kids bully others by deliberately separating them and spreading rumours about them. Others use social media or electronic messaging to make fun of others or hurt their feelings.

It's important to take bullying seriously and not just brush it off as something that kids have to tolerate. The effects can be serious and affect kids' sense of safety and self-worth. In severe cases, bullying has contributed to tragedies, such as suicides and school shootings.

Kids bully for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they pick on kids because they need a victim—someone who seems emotionally or physically weaker, or just acts or appears different in some way—to feel more important, popular, or in control. Although some bullies are bigger or stronger than their victims, that's not always the case.

Sometimes kids bully others because that's the way they've been treated. They may think their behavior is normal because they come from families or other settings where everyone regularly gets angry and shouts or calls each other names.

Unless your child tells you about bullying—or has visible injuries—it can be difficult to figure out if its happening.