Lots of people stress out about talking in front of the class or getting laughed at if they make a mistake in front of an audience. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}The “stress hormones" that your body produces at times like these can actually help you focus.

    But when worry and stress about performing get to be too much, these hormones give people that “red alert(紧急状态)” feeling—the one that causes you to feel cold or sweaty, or get butterflies in your stomach. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Be prepared. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Rehearse(排练) as much as you can and practice in front of others at every opportunity. Most of all, think positively. Tell yourself “I'll be OK" or “I can do this" even if you are not 100% sure of it

    Look after yourself. Before big performances it's easy to let taking care of yourself slip as you spend too much time on rehearsals and practice. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Exercise can also help you feel good, and along with sleep and nutrition, is an excellent way of keeping those stress hormones from getting out of control.

    Find out what the experts do. You can find books, DVDs, and online information about how to give your best when you perform, depending on what type of performance you're preparing for. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Or ask the cast of your school play or your drama or music teacher how they beat stage fright. And if your parents or grandparents ever performed, they may have their own secrets to share.

    Skating backwards on ice is a bit difficult but once you master the basis, there's nothing like it. Follow the steps given below and you will be able to skate backwards in no time.

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    The first thing that you need to do is, stand straight. If you feel that you are falling backwards, then just put your chin up and slightly bend your knees. Don't worry; this happens to all.

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    The most important step while learning how to skate backwards, is having enough confidence in yourself and in what you are doing. How can you achieve this? By practice, Just practice rolling backwards down a gentle slope every single day or just by pushing off from a wall or something of that sort.

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    Confident now? Great! Now the next step is to maintain your speed．While rolling in a straight line with one skate, with the other try sculling(滑浆), that is, keep pushing yourself backwards with an outwards stroke(滑动)．Now bring the skate which you were using to scull, and then again, repeat the same process．Make sure that you put most of your weight on the skate which is moving straight and not the one with which you are sculling．Now, try the same thing using the other foot．Again keep doing this till you are confident enough．

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    Once you are confident that you can scull with either foot, the next thing that you have to do is increase your speed．Try some of your own tricks now．Scull with either foot or with both at the same time．

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    While you keep one foot straight, keep sculling with the other．You can do that simultaneously with both feet．Concentrate on what you are doing but don't get so involved that you don't see where you are going．If you are not watching your back, you might just bang against something or someone．

A. Find Another to Practise with You

B. Increase Your Speed Now

C. Gain Your Courage

D. Stand Straight

E. Maintain Speed

F. Scull and Be Aware

G. Confidence is What You Need

    Traveling is a very enjoyable experience as it provides an opportunity to see new things.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}The following article discusses the advantages of traveling.

    Traveling gives you the opportunity to disconnect from your regular life. People all have crazy schedules, work and a family to take care of, and traveling alone or with some friends can give you distance and perhaps even make you realize how important these people are to you.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Another great benefit is the relaxation you get.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}When you come back you feel energetic and you are happy to be back to your daily routine.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}They will create a bond that nothing can erase no matter what happens to the friendship. You can create photo albums and when you feel nostalgic (怀旧的) you can experience the trips again by looking at your pictures.

    It's never been this cheap to travel. With increasing oil prices the cheap travel era might be coming to an end.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}With the Internet and all the new technology, you can plan your trip exactly the way you want it. You can choose your budget, the duration of the trip and what you want to do.

A. It's nice to enjoy a stress-free time.

B. As the saying goes, you never know what you have until you lose it.

C. When traveling with friends or family it creates memories of a lifetime.

D. Going on a trip means that you are most likely going to spend time outside.

E. Discovering different values and ways to get by in life is really interesting.

F. However, there are still many budget airlines fighting for your dollar right now.

G. There are many benefits other than enjoying yourself that can be realized when you travel.

    Nowhere To Hide: What Machines Can Tell From Your Face

    The human face is a remarkable piece of work.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} So is the face's ability to send emotional signals, whether through the unconscious shame or the trick of a false smile. People spend much of their waking lives, in the office and the courtroom as well as the bar and the bedroom, reading faces, for signs of attraction, hostility, trust and deceit. They also spend plenty of time trying to hide their feelings, intentions or nature.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In America facial recognition is used by churches to track worshippers' attendance; in Britain, by retailers to spot past shoplifters. This year Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game. In China it confirms the identities of ride-hailing drivers, permits tourists to enter attractions and lets people pay for things with a smile. Apple's new iPhone is expected to use it to unlock the homescreen

    Set against human skills, such applications might seem enhancive. Some breakthroughs, such as flight or the internet, obviously transform human abilities. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Although faces are peculiar to individuals, they are also public, so technology does not, at first sight, intrude on something that is private. And yet the ability to record, store and analyse images of faces cheaply, quickly and on a vast scale promises one day to bring about fundamental changes to notions of privacy, fairness and trust.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Masking true feelings helps fix the wheels of daily life. If your partner can spot every prohibited yawn, and your boss every hint of annoyance, marriages and working relationships will be more truthful, but less harmonious. The basis of social interactions might change, too, from a set of commitments founded on trust to calculations of risk and reward derived from the information a computer attaches to someone's face. Relationships might become more reasonable, but also transactional.

A. However, facial recognition seems merely to encode them.

B. Research show that artificial intelligence can reconstruct the facial structures of people.

C. Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use.

D. Technology is rapidly catching up with the human ability to read faces.

E. Continuous facial recording that paints computerized data onto the real world might change the texture of social interactions.

F. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is crucial to the formation of complex societies.

    The Silk Road was a historical network of trade routes that connected China and the Mediterranean Sea, allowing cultural and economic interaction between the East and the West. Begun in the 2nd Century B C, the Silk Road carried goods, ideas, and even illness for thousands of miles between great civilizations for more than a thousand years. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} It was the creation of Germany's Ferdinand von Richthofen, who traveled to China several times in the second half of the 19th Century.

    China's powerful Han Dynasty began expanding its trade routes towards the West in the years around 100 B.C. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Some shipments made it through to Europe and to northern and eastern Africa, through the port of Alexandria.

    As its name suggests, the Silk Road was home to large amount of silk, which made its way from China to the Mediterranean and, to Rome. It wasn't only silk, however, that was carried along the Silk Road  {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Chinese traders brought delicate porcelain plates and thin but durable paper money. Romans brought delicately carved pottery (陶器）and jewelry to China.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Merchants carried shipments from major center, and then others carried the foods farther on the route. Many merchants traveled in groups, called carvans (商队). Many carvans and individual merchants traveled with bodyguards because theft along the routes was not uncommon.

    Several cities along the Silk Road became major trading centers. Some of the more famous of these were Alexandria, Karakorum, Antioch, Constantinople, and Persepolis. Local taxes placed on goods traveling along the route were quite common. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. The name, however, is a modem idea.

B. Diseases also spread along the Silk Road.

C. It sent silk and other goods to other civilizations.

D. Merchants would prepare some supplies in advance.

E. Goods did not travel with the same person all along the route.

F. As a result, many goods traveled only part of the way due to the high cost

G. Many other things made their way from the East to the West, or from the West to the East.