A beautiful and very successful actress (女演员) was the star for a new musical show. Her home was in the countryside, but she did not want to go back there every night, so she bought an expensive house in the centre of the city, got some beautiful furniture and got a man to paint the rooms in new colours.

    It was very difficult to get tickets for her show, because everybody wanted to see it. So she decided to give the painter two of the best seats. She hoped that this would make him work better for her. He took the tickets without saying anything, and she heard no more about them until the end of the month, when she got the painter's bill (帐单). At the bottom of it were these words: “ Four hours watching Miss Hall sing and dance : 3 pounds,” with this note: “ After 5 p.m. I get 15 shillings (先令) an hour instead of 10 shillings.”

Word of the Day Writing Competition

    Days are getting colder, and everyone is slowly backing to the warm comfort of their homes. It's the best opportunity to make good use of the quietness and peace of the season by taking pen and paper(or a computer) out to write.

OxfordWords of Oxford University Press(OUP) is calling all aspiring(有抱负的) authors out there to take part in our writing competition. What we're looking for are imaginative(富有想象力的) short stories—not more than 500 words—that include every Word of the Day (WOTD) from November.

    Each entry will be carefully considered by the OxfordWords team before deciding on a winner. The best storyteller will be given a year's fee to OxfordDictionaries.com, as well as ￡50 worth of OUP books, and have his or her piece published on that website.

    Before you get started, please make sure you're read our terms and conditions. Entries can be submitted(递交) through the entry form, or posted into the comment section. Closing date for the competition is 5th January 2015.

    And finally, for inspiration, have a look at the charming short story that gives us the idea for this competition, written by a fellow Oxford Dictionaries team member, and including all thirty one Words of the Day from October.

    Find out more about our Word of the Day service and sign up to receive the words via email, or on Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    It's 5:00 in the morning when the alarm(闹钟)rings in my ears. I roll out of bed and walk blindly through the dark into the bathroom. I turn on the light and put on my glasses. The house is still as I walk downstairs while my husband and three kids sleep peacefully. Usually I go for a long run, but today I choose my favorite exercise DVD, Insanity. Sweat pours down my face and into my eyes. My heart races as I force my body to finish each movement. As I near the end of the exercise, I feel extremely tired, but a smile is on my face. It's not a smile because the DVD is over, but a smile of success from pushing my body to its extreme limit.

    Some people enjoy shopping, smoking, food, work, or even chocolate. But I need exercise to get through each day. Some shake heads when they see me run through the town. Others get hurt when I refuse to try just one bite of their grandmother's chocolate cake. They raise their eyebrows, surprised by my ＂no thank you＂, or by my choice to have a salad. Over the years, I have learned it's okay to just say ＂no＂. I shouldn't feel sorry for refusing food that I don't want to eat.

    So what drives me to roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m.? What gives me the reason to just say no to ice cream? Commitment. A commitment to change my life with a way that reduces daily anxiety, increases self-confidence and energy, extends life and above all improves my body shape. This is the point where a smile appears on my face as I look at myself in the mirror or try on my favorite pair of jeans that now fit just right. It's through commitment and sweat that I can make a difference within myself inside and out.

    You can't always predict a heavy rain or remember your umbrella. But designer Mikhail Belyaev doesn't think that forgetting to check the weather forecast before heading out should result in you getting wet. That's why he created Lampbrella, a lamp post with its own rain-sensing umbrella.

    The designer says he came up with the idea after watching people get wet on streets in Russia. “Once, I was driving on a central Saint Petersburg street and saw the street lamps lighting up people trying to hide from the rain. I thought it would be appropriate to have a canopy(伞蓬) built into a street lamp,” he said.

    The Lampbrella is a standard-looking street lamp fitted with an umbrella canopy. It has a built-in electric motor which can open or close the umbrella on demand Sensors(传感器) then ensure that the umbrella offers pedestrians shelter whenever it starts raining.

    In addition to the rain sensor, there's also a 360°motion sensor on the fiberglass street lamp which detects whether anyone is using the Lampbrella. After three minutes of not being used the canopy is closed.

    According to the designer, the Lampbrella would move at a relatively low speed, so as not to cause harm to the pedestrians. Besides, it would be grounded to protect from possible lightning strike. Each Lampbrella would offer enough shelter for several people. Being installed(安装) at 2 metres off the ground, it would only be a danger for the tallest of pedestrians.

    While there are no plans to take the Lampbrella into production, Belyaev says he recently introduced his creation to one Moscow Department, and insists his creation could be installed on any street where a lot of people walk but there are no canopies to provide shelter.

    Animals, including insects, do not have a language like ours. They do not talk to each other in words and sentences. But if we watch them, we can see that they do have ways of communicating with each other.

    Can you see the rabbits' tail? When rabbits see this white tail moving up and down, they run too. The rabbit has reminded them of potential dangers without making a sound. It has given them a signal.

    Many other animals use this kind of language. When a cobra(眼镜蛇) is angry, it raises its hood(兜帽) and makes itself look fierce. This warns other animals. When a bee has found some food, it goes back to its home. It cannot tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does a little dance in the air. This tells the bees where the food is.

    Some animals say things by making sound. A dog barks, for example, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs(猫的呜呜声) when pleased. Some birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning. Sometimes we human beings speak in the same way. We make sounds like “Oh” or “Ah!” when we are frightened or pleased or when we drop something on our toes.

    But we have something that no animals have a large number of words which have the meanings of things, actions, feelings or ideas. We are able to give each other all kinds of different information in words and sentences, which no other animals can do. No other animals have so wonderful a language as we have.

Human rubbish can be a cockatoo's (凤头鹦鹉) treasure. In Sydney, the birds have learned how to open dustbins and throw rubbish around in the streets as they hunt for leftovers. People are now fighting back.

When cockatoos learn how to open dustbin lids (盖子), people change their behavior, using things like bricks to weigh down lids, to protect their trash from being thrown about. That's usually a low-level protection and then the cockatoos figure out how to defeat that. That's when people strengthen their efforts, and the cycle continues.

Tricks such as attempting to scare the parrots off with rubber snakes don't work very well. Nor does blocking access with heavy objects such as bricks; cockatoos use force to push them off. Hanging weights from the front of the lid or placing items such as sneakers and sticks through a bin's back handles work better. Researchers didn't see any birds get inside bins with these higher levels of protection.

The findings suggest an arms race, but the missing piece is how the birds will respond as people try new ways of blocking bins. Some survey responses suggest that the parrots are learning.

Cockatoos may stay away from strategies that take too long to beat. Bricks, for instance, are easy to quickly push off a bin; breaking sticks placed through the bin's back handle could take more time. Perhaps if enough people in a neighborhood adopt a highly effective method, Clark. a behavioral ecologist says, the cockatoos may not find it worth it to stop by.