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.

    Scotland has long been characterized as a land of romance. It contains ruins of many ancient castles and abbeys，and there is an attractive beauty in its mountains，long deep valleys，and ribbon lakes.Each year those things attract a great number of tourists.

    Numerous islands line the coast.In the north are two large groups，the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands.Close to the west coast are the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups，and the islands of Arran and Bute.

    The land may be divided into three regions: the Highlands in the north，the Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands.

    The Highlands are wild and picturesque(如画的)． A long valley called Glenmore crosses the Highlands from southwest to northeast.

    In the south of the Highlands are the Grampian Mountains，highest in the British Isles. Ben Nevis，the highest peak，rises to 1,243 meters.Ben Lomond rises from the shore of Loch Lomond，Scotland's largest freshwater lake.

    The Central Lowlands run from southwest to northeast and the greatest length is nearly 145 kilometers.The soil here is fertile，and there are four coalfields underlying the area.In the east is Edinburgh，Scotland's historic capital city，and in the west is Glasgow. Almost 90 percent of Scotland's population live in the Lowlands.

    In the Southern Uplands, the hills are generally less than 600 meters high. Their rounded or flat tops are often capped with dark peat(泥炭). Along the slopes are plants like grass and heather(石南花).

    In 1943, when I was 4, my parents moved from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to Fairbanks, Alaska, where adventure was never very far away.

    We arrived in the summer, just in time to enjoy the midnight sun. All that sunlight was fantastic for Mum's vegetable garden. Working in the garden at midnight tended to throw her timing off, so she didn't care much about my bedtime.

    Dad was a Railway Express agent and Mum was his clerk. That left me in a mess. I usually managed to find some trouble to get into. Once I had a little fire going in the dirt basement of a hotel. I had tried to light a barrel(桶) of paint but couldn't really get a good fire going. The smoke got pretty bad, though, and when I made my exit, a crowd and the police were there to greet me. The policemen took my matches and drove me home.

    Mum and Dad were occupied in the garden and Dad told the police to keep me, and they did! I had a tour of the prison before Mum rescued me. I hadn't turned 5 yet.

    As I entered kindergarten, the serious cold began to set in. Would it surprise you to know that I soon left part of my tongue on a metal handrail at school?

    As for Leonhard Seppala, famous as a dog sledder(驾雪橇者), I think I knew him well because I was taken for a ride with his white dog team one Sunday. At the time I didn't realize what a superstar he was, but I do remember the ride well. I was wrapped(包裹) heavily and well sheltered from the freezing and blowing weather.

    In 1950, we moved back to Coeur d'Alene, but we got one more Alaskan adventure when Leonhard invited us eight years later by paying a visit to Idaho to attend a gathering of former neighbors of Alaska.

    Angad Rekhi, a graduate student and an assistant professor of electrical engineering, has developed a wake-up receiver. This wake-up receiver has many potential applications, particularly in designing the next generation of net worked devices, including so called "smart" devices that can communicate directly with one another without human intervention (介入).

    Once attached to a device, a wake-up receiver listens for a unique ultrasonic（超声波）pattern that tells it when to turn the device on. It needs only a very small amount of power to maintain this constant listening, so it still saves energy overall while extending the battery life of the larger device. A well-designed wake-up receiver also allows the device to be turned on from a significant distance.

    Given the increased interest in networked devices, researchers and industry organizations are starting to define what features and techniques will become standard. Regardless of whether this ultrasound wake-up receiver is among these standard designs, it is likely wake-up receivers of some kind will be combined into commercial applications soon.

    By comparison, the ultrasound wake-up receiver requires a battery but has much greater range than the wirelessly powered devices, while still maintaining a long lifetime due to extremely low power draw. These two technologies-wireless power and wake-up receivers-would likely serve different purposes but both indicate at a turning point in devices that make up the Internet of Things.

    "In light of a long-promised future where interconnected, autonomous, widespread and unremarkable technologies make life easier, the networked devices available now, like video doorbells and app-enabled lights, seem like rather slight advances." the researchers said. They believe technologies like theirs could help cross the gap between the Internet of Things as we know it and the Internet of Things at its best-whatever that may be.

    What do you think of your Chinese? If you think your Chinese is good enough, you can take part in the competition named Chinese Characters Dictation Competition(中国汉字听写大会).

    Today teenagers are using more and more smart phones. They spend too much time in shopping, chatting, playing games and so on. Many of them cannot using smart phones to help with their study. Overuse of smart phones will make students too lazy to think and write. Some of them even forget how to write Chinese characters by hand. Teachers and parents are very worried about it.

    In order to draw people's attention to the problems above, in 2013 CCTV held the first Chinese Characters Dictation Competition. About 200 students from 32 teams took part in it. They stood on the stage to write down Chinese characters by dictation. Lu Jialei, a 14-year-old girl from Zhejiang, got first place.

    Since then, the competition has been popular among teenagers. Many people are interested in this kind of competition, too. They like to write down the characters while the competitors(参赛者)are writing them.

    Can you be the next winner?

One of the tallest wooden buildings in Europe, a 98m timber mixture skyscraper, is to rise in Berlin.

The 29-storey WoHo Tower, to be designed by a firm of Norwegian architects, is intended to be a "light-house project" for low-carbon construction, towering over Potsdamer Platz and the Landwehr Canal.

Its core, including lifts and a staircase, is to be built around a steel-reinforced concrete structure but the rest of the building, including flats, offices, cafes and a kindergarten, will be fashioned down wooden beams and panels.

"As Norwegians, we are used to working a lot with timber," Nicolai Riise, CEO of the Mad Architects' Practice said.

"The thing about timber is that it demonstrates sustainability from top to bottom. The carbon footprint is close to zero and it's a fantastic material to build with. If you look at this in a broader way, it's one of the ways we are going to be able to beat the climate crisis."

Wooden skyscrapers, once regarded as an unprofitable pipe dream, have become a realistic prospect with the coming of cross-laminated building techniques and more flexible planning laws. Because these structures' parts are fit with care, they can be far lighter than their concrete equivalents and are thought to be relatively resistant to fire. A cubic meter of wood can also take an estimated ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Larger wooden structures are planned elsewhere. London is examining blueprints for the 300-meter Oakwood Tower. A project in Tokyo could rise to 350m.