Royal Engineers Museum

Events

    Students learn their lessons in class. In class, teachers teach them. Students sit in the classroom listening to the teacher. Is this the only way for students to learn? Of course not. There is another way to learn. That is, students can teach themselves. For example, if you cannot remember anything when you are doing your homework, you can look through（浏览） your book to find the answer. This is a way to teach yourself. And it's not a difficult thing. We can do it at any place and at any time.

    How to teach yourself? The first thing you must do is to read. Read something interesting. The second is that you must ask yourself questions. Many clever students often do this. The questions are about something you don't understand or you want to know more about. You can write down these questions. The third is to answer the questions yourself by thinking hard, by reading the texts or other books, and sometimes by asking other people. These are the ways of teaching yourself. And if you do these things for a long time, you can succeed（成功）in your study.

Chongyang Festival {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (celebrate) on the ninth day of the ninth month on the traditional Chinese calendar, and it is also known as Double Ninth Festival.

In Chinese culture, the number nine is thought to be yang. The ninth day of the ninth month is a double yang day and "double"{#blank#}2{#/blank#} (mean) Chong in Chinese, so it got the name Chongyang Festival. The ninth month also heralds（预示）the coming of winter, so it is a time when the living need warm clothes, and some people make the festival a time for {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (provide) special clothes for their ancestors（祖先）.

During the festival, people usually {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (climb) mountains, wear the zhuyu plant, drink chrysanthemum (菊花) wine, and eat Chongyang cake. Cake in Chinese is pronounced "gao" meaning high, so people consider climbing a high mountain to be the same as eating cake. Also, people think they {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (do) better than before after eating the cake.

Double Ninth Festival is also Seniors' Day— a day to care for the elder people and to let them {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (enjoy) themselves. On the day, many communities organize retired people to go out {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (climb) mountains.

    Many students think that learning a new language is very difficult. But if your brain (大脑) is only the same size as a bird's, you will know how difficult it is to learn English. That is what some birds can do.

Many birds can copy (模仿) the sounds of language. A type of African parrot is very good at doing this. This kind of parrot has grey feathers and people say they are clever.

Every December in London, the National Cage and Aviary Bird Show tries to find the best "talking" bird in the world. One bird named Prudle stood out (突出) among the " talking birds"  by winning this prize every year from 1965 to 1977. In 1958, somebody took Prudle from his nest in Uganda, and then sold it to a woman named Iris Frost. She then took care of him at her home in Seaford, England. Before he died in 1994, aged 35, Prudle knew almost 800 words in English. Prudle was also the oldest bird in the world that lived in a cage.

Another parrot named Puck was tested in 1993. It turned out that Puck knew even more words than Prudle. Puck knew more than 1,700 English words. In the 2003 Guinness Book of World Records, Puck was listed as knowing more words than any other bird in the world.

① A survey(调查) has shown that lots of people can't sleep well. Sometimes you feel tired when you wake up. You may have a headache and you feel like you could sleep for another three hours. Many things around us cause sleeplessness. Here are a few changes you can make to improve your sleep.

②Go to bed and get up at the same time. You may share the same bedroom with your sister or brother. You both must go to bed regularly(规律地) so that you don't trouble each other.

③Clean up your bedroom. A study from a university in Zhengzhou found that people with clean bedrooms usually sleep better than those with dirty and untidy rooms.

④ Get more house plants. Studies show that house plants help with reducing (减轻)stress. Also, plants such as lavender(薰衣草) and gardenias(栀子花) have smells that may help some people relax and sleep better.

⑤ Make your room dark. When light hits your eyes, it tell you not to fall asleep. In fact, we need darkness especially in the evening. So if you want your body to know that it's time to rest, turn off the lights about an hour before bedtime or wear eye masks. Your phone and your TV should also be thought of. You may also use the dark curtaıns(窗帘) to keep any outside light from going into your bedroom.

⑥Lower your bedroom temperature. The body becomes cooler at night, so lowering the temperature before bedtime can help you relax and fall asleep more quickly. The NationalSleep Foundation in a country says your bedroom should be about 16 ℃ to 19℃ for a good night's sleep.