Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

    This novel tells the story of Shawn McDaniel,a 14-year-old boy with brain disease.He is highly intelligent,yet unable to move his muscles anti communicate.Through his first-person description,he remains positive about his life, even when people treat him like his brain is damaged.This short novel forces young readers to think about the assumptions they make about people with disabilities,and also addresses euthanasia（安乐死）and quality of life as relevant social problems.

     Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

     Frank McCourt's New York Times bestselling memoir（回忆录）tells the story of his life growing up as an extremely poor child in Ireland and how he overcame those circumstances.He wrote the story to inspire young readers to make the most of what they have,and call on them to continue trying and overcome any difficulties they may face.

    The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch & Jeffrey Zazlow

    In 2006,when he was only 45 years old,Randy Pausch suffered from cancer and learned he had only three to six months to live.Inspired by a professor's inspirational lecture,Pausch co-authored a book named The Last Lecture with Jeffrey Zazlow within a few short months.In spite of his disease,the book,is surprisingly encouraging.It encourages young readers to focus on what's truly important in life.

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

    This story has become a classic clue to its honest look at the everyday lives of teenagers.Through the eyes of the 15-year-old writer,Charlie,the novel details the daily trails that many teenagers face,but it also deals with social problems like drug abuse.It also focuses on the roles that friendship,family and love play in helping us get through difficult times.

    Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.

    Children and adults learn new languages in different ways．For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand，are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults seldom get the chance to practice as much as young children do.

    Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel pressured to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    Research has shown that children who learn a new language when they are very young will not be likely to have a “foreign” accent when speaking a different language. Some scientists also believe that it can take up to 10,000 hours of study to master a new language. This can be difficult for adults to achieve, but young children can accumulate(积累) those hours over several years as they grow up.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see multiple languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset (思维模式) helps them learn a new language without feeling like they're doing something unusual or “too hard”.

    So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It's never too late to learn a new language. If you're older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you're a young child, though, now is the time to step out and learn a new language!

    The month of March was a milestone for supporters of renewable energy in the U.S. For the first time, wind and solar power accounted for more than 10% of the country's electricity—up from less than 1% at the turn of the century. And total wind and solar power-plant capacity(发电量) is expected to grow more than 30% over the course of this year and next, according to the Energy Information Administration.

    Such forecasts have led many scientists and policymakers to think that moving a large part of the nation's power supply to renewable sources—as cities from Miami Beach to Salt Lake City have promised to do—may not be as far-fetched as once thought. But like any debate, there are dissenters, including those inside the federal government. Their argument is that the nation demands an uninterrupted supply of electricity and cannot count on sun, wind and natural gas to provide it. “You need solid hydrocarbons(固体碳氢化合物) on-site for rising peak demand,” Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt said on Fox Business in May, referring to the importance of coal as a power source.

    Many experts say the government's concern fails to account for how the power grid(电网) has improved in recent decades. Utility companies(公共事业公司) have developed innovative ways to move electricity from place to place to account for variation in weather. Battery technology can store power for use when renewable sources cannot operate, meaning solar power can be used on days when the sun doesn't shine. And the nation's vast supply of natural gas can be turned into usable energy with the flick of a switch.

    “I don't think 5 or 10 years ago I'd be comfortable telling you we could not sacrifice reliability when we're going to have 35% of our energy come from wind,” said Ben Fowke, CEO of the utility company Xcel Energy, at a recent conference. “I'm telling you, I'm very comfortable with that today.”

    Indeed, many parts of the country are already close to that reality. In some regions, like Iowa and Kansas, renewable energy supplies more than 25% of the electricity. The market has shifted so far in favor of natural gas and renewable energy that even the most concerted federal effort is unlikely to stop its growth. Any attempt to slow the growth of wind and solar will face strong pushback. “If anyone wants to do away with it,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told Yahoo News of the federal government's potential cuts to wind energy, “he'll do it over my dead body.”

    But the federal government could slow the acceleration—and with billions of dollars in private and public investments at risk, the pace of change matters. Decisions made today will shape the future of the nation's energy grid for decades to come.

    Shakespeare's Birthplace and Exhibition of Shakespeare's World

Welcome to the world-famous house where William Shakespeare was born in l564 and where he grew up .The property (房产) remained in the ownership of Shakespeare's family until 1806 .The House has welcomed visitors travelling from all over the world for over 250 years.

    Enter through the Visitors' Centre and see the highly-praised exhibition Shakespeare's World，a lively and full introduction to the life and work of Shakespeare.

    Stand in the rooms where Shakespeare grew up.

    Discover examples of furniture and needlework from

    Shakespeare's period.

    Enjoy the traditional English garden, planted with trees and flower mentioned in the poet's works.

    The Birthplace is within easy walking distance of all the car parks shown on the map; nearest is Windsor Street (3 minutes' Walk).

    The House may present difficulties but the Visitors' Centre, its exhibition, and the garden are accessible (可进入的)to wheelchair users.

    The Shakespeare Coffee House (opposite the Birthplace).

    I did some research and examined how British English and American English changed between the 1930s and the 2000s. Take spelling, for example towards the 1960s it looked like the UK was going in the direction of not using the "u" in "colour" and writing "centre" as "center". But since then, the British have become more confident in some of their own spellings. In the 2000s, the UK used an American spelling choice about 11% of the time while Americans use a British one about 10% of the time. There is also no need to worry too much about American words, such as "vacation", "liquor" and "lawmaker" entering British English. There are a few examples of this kind of vocabulary change but they are mostly uncommon words and are not likely to change British English too much. The British are still using "mum" rather than "mom" and "petrol" rather than "gas".

    But when we start thinking of language more in terms of style than vocabulary or spelling, a different picture appears. Some of the bigger trends (趋势) in American English are moving towards a freer use of language. American sentences are usually one word shorter in 2006 than they were in 1931.

    Americans also use a lot more apostrophes (撇号) in their writing than they used to, which has the effect of turning the two words "do not" into the single "don't". "The hand of the king" becomes the shorter "The king's hand".

    However, in all these ways Brits are changing too—and in the same way as Americans. They're just about 30 years behind the trend that Americans seem to be leading.

    So this raises a question, is British English actively following American English or is this something that is simply a natural trend in language use? Perhaps the British would have gone in that direction even if America had been discovered? I'd like to agree with the second idea but because of the fact that British people learn plenty of American language through different ways, I think the first is more correct.

Crocodiles today look very similar to ones from 200 million years ago. There are also very few species alive today—just 25. Other animals such as lizards (蜥蜴) and birds have achieved a diversity of many thousands of species in the same amount of time or less.

Prehistory also saw types of crocodile we don't see today, including giants as big as dinosaurs, plant-eaters, fast runners and snake-like forms that lived in the sea. The rate of their evolution is generally slow, but occasionally they evolve more quickly because the environment has changed. In particular, their evolution speeds up when the climate is warmer, and their body size increases.

The body size of crocodiles is important because it interacts with how fast animals grow, how much food they need, how big their populations are and how likely they are to become extinct. The limited diversity of crocodiles and their apparent lack of evolution is a result of a slow evolutionary rate. It seems the crocodiles arrived at a body plan that was very efficient and perfect enough that they didn't need to change it in order to survive. This perfection could be one explanation why crocodiles survived Cretaceous period (白垩纪), in which the dinosaurs died out.

Crocodiles generally develop better in warm conditions because they cannot control their body temperature and require warmth from the environment. The climate during the age of dinosaurs was warmer than it is today, and that may explain why there were many more varieties of crocodiles than we see now. Being able to draw energy from the sun means they do not need to eat as much as a warm-blooded animal like a bird or a mammal (哺乳动物).