“We leave at dawn and head out overland by jeep towards Base One. We will get as far as we can before proceeding on foot,” Mark explained. The others sat and listened. Sarah, particularly, as a “casualty of events”, wouldn't have known what to say or suggest even if she'd been asked. But Harry had a lot to say.

    “We'll never make it,” he protested(抗议). “We'll still be crossing the desert when they catch up with us. They'll know where we're heading for and they seem to know every move we make or are going to make.”

    Mark said nothing, but spread his hands out as if to say “Well, what do we do then?” “We wouldn't be in this mess now,” Harry went on, almost ignoring Mark's gesture, “if we hadn't stopped to rescue Sarah.”( He glanced at her briefly.) “But since we did, we must get on—but not across the desert. There is the sand, and deep ravines (沟壑) which are almost invisible until you're right on them and then the heat. You have to be used to going out there, and none of us is. This is no ‘morning at leisure' on some pleasant holiday, you know! If we went north instead and made for the river,…"

    He broke off and looked around at the others, feeling somehow that his argument was pointless. No one said anything.

    “Good,” said Mark, look around with authority, and returned to checking their stores.

    A beautiful sunrise was about to burst over the horizon as the jeep headed out towards Base One.

    My parents knew their wealth: each other, their six children, and their faith. They tried to live simple lives so that they could have time for what was most important.

    They didn't busy themselves buying a bigger house, because that would mean working harder to pay the monthly mortgage(按揭贷款), working overtime or taking a second job. Who would go running with me then? Who would read stories to me?

    They didn't burden themselves with buying an expensive car because that would mean worrying about installment(分期付款) bills. Besides, walking to the shopping centre every Saturday afternoon with me gave my dad his needed exercise, and made me feel so special.

    One of my heart's delights was seeing Dad and Mom in their bedroom at night, after our nightly family prayer. The lights were turned off, and I'd see the figure of my father seated on his old chair and Mom standing behind him, gently massaging his shoulders. I'd hear them talk about what happened during their day. Even as a child, I sensed their quiet pleasure in being together.

    My question today: Could they have done this rich practice each night and nourished(滋润) their marriage if they had been busy paying for expensive clothes for themselves or their kids, or if they had been worrying about monthly bills for new hi-tech equipment? I don't think so. And I've made a choice: I don't want that of life either.

    "How are you" is a nice question. It's a friendly way that people in the United States greet each other. But "How are you?" is also a very unusual question. It's a question that often doesn't have an answer. The person who asks "How are you?" hopes to hear the answer "Fine.", even if the person's friend isn't fine. The reason is that "How are you?" isn't really a question and "Fine." isn't really an answer. They are simply other way of saying "Hello!" or "Hi!".

    Sometimes, people also don't say exactly what they mean. For example, when someone asks, "Do you agree?", the other person might be thinking, "No, I disagree. I think you're wrong…"But it isn't very polite to disagree strongly, so the other person might say "I'm not sure…". It's a nice way to say that you don't agree with someone.

    People also don't say exactly what they are thinking when they finish talking with other people. For example, many talks over the phone finish when one person says "I've to go now." Often, the person who wants to hang up gives an excuse," Someone is at the door." "Something is burning on the stove." The excuses might be real, or it might not. Perhaps the person who wants to hang up simply doesn't want to talk any more, but it isn't polite to say that. The excuse is more polite, and it doesn't hurt the other person.

    When they are greeting each other, talking about an idea, or finishing a talk, people often don't say exactly what they are thinking. It's an important way that people try to be nice to each other, and it's also a part of the game of language.

    Breakdancing is set to make its debut(首次亮相) as an Olympic sport at Paris2024, Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris organizing committee, said on February 21". Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing which have already been added to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, have been invited to return in Paris.

    Estanguet said the choices responded to a need to make the Olympics "more urban" and “more artistic". "We have chosen to present the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with the four sports because they are creative, appealing to youth and completely in line with our vision. They reflect perfectly Paris 2024's identity.”

    Breakdancing is an example of a sport "which can be played anywhere and anytime in urban and other environments." It appeared at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in the form of head-to-head "battles". In competitive breakdancing, "breakers face off in "battles" against each other, either as individuals or teams. Breakdancers use- a mix of physical and artistic skills combining elements from gymnastics or acrobatics(杂技).

    The IOC had announced that the number of competitors at Paris 2024 would be restricted to 10,500, which limited the opportunity to add sports. But the organizers said the inclusion would not necessitate the construction of permanent facilities and would involve just 248 competitors, including 32 breakdancers. The surfing events are likely to be held in established surf center such as Biarritz or Lacanau in southwest France.

    The inclusion still needs to be rubberstamped by the IOC, which is expected to decide on which sports to add in Paris after next year's Tokyo Games.

    In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."

    The city planner decided to build an underground drainage （排水） system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.

    An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12feet.

    This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?

    That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10jackscrews.At Pullman's signal each man tured his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening.

    Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.

A new study of fifth and sixth graders in Germany examined the relation between classmates' gender stereotypes (性别刻板印象) and individual students' reading outcomes to explain how these stereotypes contribute to the gender gap in reading.

"It's a cycle of sorts," explains Francesca Muntoni, a researcher at the University of Hamburg, who leads the study. "Reading is first thought as a female advantage." It stresses that girls are born to have an advantage in reading, which in turn greatly affects boys by causing them to devalue their actual reading ability. So finally, it damages their reading motivation (积极性)."

The study has proven that boys are less motivated to read and hold weaker reading-related beliefs about their own skills if they hold the strong stereotype mentioned above. And accordingly, they perform poorly in the reading test. The effect of classmates' stereotypes is seen over and above the effect of individual stereotypes. The study found fewer individual positive effects and no effects of classmates, stereotyping on reading-related outcomes for girls.

The researchers say although their study provides evidence of lasting negative effects of stereotypical beliefs in a classroom context, they need more experimental findings on the subject. They also note that students' gender stereotypes were measured by self-reports, which might limit their accuracy. Finally, they point out that their study did not settle how gender stereotypes were formed.

"To solve socially the determined gender inequality in reading and help create classroom contexts that discourage students from acting on their stereotypical beliefs, teacher and parents may consider educating boys and girls in ways that change stereotypical behaviors. And thus students can become aware of their gender stereotypes to counteract their effects on other students' outcomes and to create a gender-fair learning environment," says Jan Retelsdorf, professor of the University of Hamburg, who co-authored the study.