A plant is a living thing. It uses its many parts to grow from a small seed to a large plant. Each part helps the plant stay healthy. Plants also need sunlight to grow. They get light from the sun and minerals from the soil. These things help the plant stay alive and grow.

    Can plants eat people? Probably not, but there are many plants that eat meat. Some of them are big. And they can eat small animals. One famous meat-eating plant is the Venus flytrap(捕蝇草).

    The Venus flytrap is a very strange plant. It grows in dry parts of the United States. Its leaves are like the pages of a book. They can open and close very quickly. Inside the leaves, there are three small hairs. If a fly touches one of the hairs, the leaf closes quickly. The fly cannot get out. In about half an hour, the leaf presses the fly until it is dead. Then, the plant covers the fly. Slowly, the plant eats the fly.

    Why do plants do it? Most plants get what they need from the sun, the air, and the ground. In some places, the ground is very poor. It doesn't have all these important things, especially nitrogen(氮). Animal meat has a lot of nitrogen, so some plants eat meat to get what they need. Let's hope that some of the bigger plants don't get the same idea!

    A dog can't speak any words, but it can "talk". It has feelings just as you do.

    Sometime it may feel angry or afraid. Watch a dog closely, and you can find out how it feels. You can see what it is trying to tell you. When you are afraid, you may look down. When a dog is afraid, it may run away. When you are angry with other people, you stare at them. An angry dog also stares. Sometimes the hair along its back stands up.

    Do you feel guilty(有罪) when you do something you shouldn't do? Dogs can feel guilty, too. Sometimes when l come home, my dog gives me a guilty look. Then I know he did something wrong. Dogs need love and care. Some dogs are very unhappy when they are alone for a long time. Some dogs even snap(撕咬）if they don't get enough care.

    You may have a dog or you may know a dog. Take care of it well if you want to have fun with it. Take it for a walk. Don't make it do too many things. Try not to punish it again and again for doing the same thing. Always remember, a dog has needs and feelings just as you do. Talk to a dog, and it will talk to you.

    The biggest influence that technology has on family time is the change of it. People used to spend more time with their family members before. Nowadays, with children (and the parents, too) spending more time texting, watching movies and television, playing video games, and listening to music, when will the family find time to bond (培养感情) and create lasting memories together?

    Far too often we don't pay more attention to making time for members of our own family. By the end of a long day at work or school, members of the family want to relax. And now that technology use is widespread across the country, normally our "relaxing" is also known as spending time on smart phones.

    Not only is the amount of family time affected (影响) by technology, but also the quality. Technology can affect the quality in different ways. For example, family members can be distracted (使分心) by their phones while trying to play a board game together, which wouldn't  have happened if the phone didn't exist in the first place.

    If "family time" means everyone sitting in the same room while playing online, what value is there? Personal interaction is key to time well spent with loved ones. Families don't even need to have something to do while together. If they simply ask each other how their day is and play a simple game together, family bonds will get better.

    When technology becomes a focus, quality(有质量的) time for families goes down, which in turn affects everyone's life. Lack of family interaction causes the family's unity to weaken, and each of the family will be influenced in different ways. Children are more likely to develop unhealthy habits when they fail to interact with their parents. Meanwhile, parents who put work before family or pay less attention to their children's growth are more likely to face bad parent-child relationship. 67 percent of American teens say they want to spend more time with their parents, which is rather sad. Therefore, this passage is meant to show how technology has negatively influenced families.