Before you begin studying English, ask yourself one question: “ {#blank#}1{#/blank#} ” Is it because you want to, or because someone else wants you to? Like every decision in life, studying English must be something you want to do. Here are some tips to help you learn English well.

●Set goals.

    If you know why you want to study, setting goals is easy. For example, maybe you want to travel to an English-speaking country. Great! {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Perhaps you have already known many useful phrases, but you want to improve your listening skills and pronunciation. Whatever your goals are, you should write them down,

●{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    How long do you need to study to achieve your goals? This answer is different for every student. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If you work 40 hours per week，don't plan on spending another {#blank#}5{#/blank#} hours a week studying English. Start off slow, but study regularly. Use material that is challenging, but not too difficult. Find out what works for you. After you have studied for a few weeks, adjust your study schedule accordingly.

●Make a commitment.

    Learning English requires a lot of motivation. Nobody is going to take your attendance when you aren't in class. If you are sure that you are ready to begin studying, make a commitment.

●Have fun learning English.

    If you aren't having fun learning English, you're not studying the right way! You can be a serious student who has fun at the same time. Make up your own reward program to give yourself encouragement to stay on a task.

A. Make an arrangement.

B. Why do I want to study English?

C. Your goal might be to learn “Survival English”.

D. The important thing is to be realistic and reliable.

E. What is the most effective way of learning English?

F. The things we do best in life are what we enjoy doing.

G. Make every moment of your English learning meaningful.

    On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication that severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun bad been out. The first alert my husband,Jimmy,67,and I,65,got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the presidential primary debate I had been watching to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.

    No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. The wind began to roar through the house, most likely through blown-out windows and the door to our garage. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor, because the cupboard down there is underneath a brick staircase.

    I didn't know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place.

    As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like crushed ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch crashed into the door frame. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have hit us.

    By the time I reached the cupboard, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the cupboard floor, but he couldn't get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy's arm and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees were full of glass, but at that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.

    All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over, Jimmy said he'd go outside to check. "No,"I said. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me."

    Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.

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。

    Imagine one day, the water taps in your house stop running. You have to buy water from shops. And still there isn't enough for everyone. Your mother has to save the family's shower water to do other things. Would you be able to stand that kind of life?

    Probably not. But that's what kids in Yemen are experiencing. Experts said Yemen is going to be the first country in the world to run out of water. According to a report, the capital, Sanaa, will run out of drinking water as early as 2025.

    Because of the shortage, the government often cuts the water supply. Hannan, 18-year-old from Lahej, told the Times: “In a good week, we'll have a water supply all week. But then the following week there will be water only for a day or two.”

    Hannan said only rich people have enough water to use. They can buy water from the shops or from the water truck. Private companies own the trucks. They travel around the city every day to sell water-at very high prices.

    “A lot of people can't afford it,” she said. The average person in Yemen uses 100 to 200 cubic meters of water per year. That is far below the international water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters.

    The government is thinking of making use of seawater. But it will cost a lot and it may not happen soon enough to help the people of Yemen.

    Staying up late is a potential battle between parents and kids. But the solution could be as simple as changing your meal time.

    Researchers at the University of Surrey, UK, found that delaying (延迟) meals could help change one of the internal (内部的) body clocks. Besides a “master” clock in the brain, there are clocks in other parts of the body. They are usually synchronized (同步的) according to factors including light.

    During the study, researchers tested 10 participants to study the effect of changing meal times on their body clocks. The participants were given three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the first stage, participants received breakfast 30 minutes after waking. Lunch and dinner followed, after 5-hour intervals (间隔). In the second stage, each meal was delayed by 5 hours. Right after each stage, blood and fat samples (样本) were collected.

    Results showed that later meal times greatly influenced blood sugar levels. A 5-hour delay in meal times caused a 5-hour delay in the internal blood sugar rhythms (规律性变化).

    The discovery showed that meal times are in line with (与……一致) the body clock that controls blood sugar levels.

    This is a small study but the researchers believed the findings could help jet lag (飞行时差反应) sufferers and night-shift (夜班的) workers.

    In a study by the University of Surrey in 2013, researchers explored what happened when a person's body was changed from a normal pattern to that of a night-shift worker's.

    After people work through the night, over 97 percent of the body's rhythmic genes are disrupted (扰乱).

    These findings explain why we feel so bad following a long flight, or after working at night, according to Simon Archer, one of the study's researchers.

    “It's like living in a house. There's a clock in every room in the house and in all of those rooms those clocks are now disrupted, which of course leads to chaos (混乱) in the household,” fellow researcher Derk-Jan Dijk told the BBC.

    Changing meal times didn't affect the “master” body clock – the one controlling when we get sleepy – but it can reset the body clock that controls blood sugar levels.

    This wouldn't necessarily cure jet lag completely, but it might reduce the negative effects.

    A study published earlier this year suggested that just a weekend camping trip could be enough to reset our body clocks. And now this latest research shows regular food schedules could play a key part too.

    From the health point of view we are living in a wonderful age. A large number of once fatal illnesses can now be cured by modern drugs and surgery. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the unbelievable killing of people on the roads. Man is opposite to the motor-car! It is a never-ending battle which man is losing. Thousands of people are killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen.

    It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering-wheel(方向盘), his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man's worst character. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a steering-wheel. They are rude, ill-mannered and aggressive. All their hidden frustrations and disappointments seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving.

    The surprising thing is that society smiles on the motorist and seems to forgive the behavior. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities and towns are made ugly by huge car parks.

    It is high time a world law were created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are not strict and even the strictest are not strict enough. A law which was universally accepted could only have a beneficial effect on the accident rate. Here are a few examples of some things that might be done. The driving test should be made to a fixed standard and far more difficult than it is; all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so; the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21; all vehicles should be put through strict annual tests for safety. Present drinking and driving laws (where they exist) should be made much stricter. Driving speed should be limited on all roads. These measures may sound rather severe. But surely nothing should be considered difficult if it results in reducing the annual toll of human life. After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars.

    Samuel Osmond is a 19­year­old boy student from Cornwall, England. He never studied the piano. However, he can play very difficult musical pieces by musicians such as Chopin and Beethoven just a few minutes after he hears them. He learns a piece of music by listening to it in parts. Then he thinks about the notes in his head. Two years ago, he played his first piece Moonlight Sonata (奏鸣曲) by Beethoven. He surprised everyone around him.

    Amazed that he remembered this long and difficult piece of music and played it perfectly, his teachers say Samuel is unbelievable. They say his ability is very rare, but Samuel doesn't even realize that what he can do is special. Samuel wanted to become a lawyer as it was the wish of his parents, but music teachers told him he should study music instead. Now, he studied law and music.

    Samuel can't understand why everyone is so surprised. "I grew up with music. My mother played the piano and my father played the guitar. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to start playing the piano, without being able to read music and without having any lessons. It comes easily to me—I hear the notes and can bear them in mind—each and every note." says Samuel.

    Recently, Samuel performed a piece during a special event at his college. The piece had more than a thousand notes. The audience was impressed by his amazing performance. He is now learning a piece that is so difficult that many professional pianists can't play it. Samuel says confidently, "It's all about super memory—I guess I have that gift."

    However, Samuel's ability to remember things doesn't stop with music. His family says that even when he was a young boy, Samuel heard someone read a story, and then he could retell the story word for word.

    Samuel is still only a teenager. He doesn't know what he wants to do in the future. For now, he is just happy to play beautiful music and continue his studies.