The word“day” has two meanings. When we talk about the number of days in a year,  we are using “day” to mean 24 hours. But when we talk about day and night,  we are using“day” to mean the time between sunrise and sunset. Since the earth looks like a ball,  the sun can shine on only half of it at a time. Always one half of the earth is having day and the other half night. A place is moved from day into night and from night into day over and over by the spinning（旋转）of the earth. At the equator（赤道）day and night are sometimes the same length（长度）. They are each twelve hours long. The sun rises at 6 o'clock in the morning and sets at 6 o'clock in the evening. For six months the North Pole is tilted（倾斜）toward the sun. In those months the Northern Hemisphere（半球）gets more hours of sunlight than the Southern Hemisphere. Days are longer than nights. South of the equator nights are longer than days. For the other six months the North Pole is tilted away from the sun. Then the Southern Hemisphere gets more sunlight. Days are longer than nights. North of the equator nights are longer than days. Winter is the season of long nights. Summer is the season of long days.

Bill is a student in Jiangdu Sunshine Secondary school. Last week he joined the two-day tour between Hong Kong and Macao with his parents.

    In America, drivers' education is part of the regular high school curriculum. Every student in his or her second year of high school is required to take a class in driver's education. However, unlike other courses, it is not given during the regular school year. Instead it is a summer course.

    The course is divided into two parts: class time for learning laws and rules and driving time to practice driving. Class time is not unlike any other class. The students study the basic traffic laws from a text to pass the written driving test that is given to anyone who wants to get a driver's license.

    Driving time is a chance for the students to get behind the wheel and practice starting. Each student is required to drive a total of six hours. The students are divided into groups of four. The students and the instructor go out driving for two hours each time. So each student gets half an hour driving time per outing.

    Drivers Ed cars are unlike other cars in which they have two sets of brakes(刹车), one on the driver's side and one on the other side where the instructor sits. So if the student driver should run into difficulties, the instructor can take over. The car also has another special feature. On the top of the car is a sign that reads: STUDENT DRIVER. That lets nearby drivers know that they should use extra caution because the student driver is a beginning driver, not very experienced.

    After the student has passed the driver's education course and reached the suitable age to drive (this age differs in every state but in most cases the person must be 16 years old), they can go to a the state office to take their driver's test, which is made up of an eye examination, a written test, and a road test. The person must pass all the three tests in order to be given a driver's license.

“Chicken” idioms（习语）

    The word “chicken” is used in so many English idioms. Do you know the following?

    Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

    The expression“Don't count your chickens before they hatch”means “Don't expect that all your eggs, which have been laid, will hatch. “Hatch” is a verb, meaning the baby chicken breaks open the shell of the egg and comes out successfully. So the expression mainly means “Don't depend on things working out just as you want them to.” this saying appears in the story The Milkmaid and Her Pail in Aesop's Fables.

    A chicken-and-egg situation

    In history, philosophers（哲学家）and scientists have met this dilemma（困境）: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Aristotle thought that both the bird and the egg must have always been there. However, more recently, scientists such as Stephen Hawking have argued that the egg came before the chicken. In common speech, the term “a chicken-and-egg situation” means a situation where it is impossible to say which of two things appeared first and which caused the other one.

    Don't be such a chicken

    There seems to be an idea in English, somehow, that a chicken is a scared bird. Maybe that's not fair as most birds will probably fly away from you if you go towards them. But “Don't be such a chicken” means “Don't be so scared and get a bit more courage.” So if your friend fear to do something, you can say to him or her, “Don't be such a chicken. Just have a try!”

    These days, more and more students in the UK are taking a "gap year" between their graduation from school and their university studies. This means they can take a year off to do something else, before they start their studies.

For most students, spending time in foreign countries is the favorite activity — and Australia is the favorite place to go.

    Many parents, teachers and business people agree that travelling can teach important values.

    "After a year of travelling, I felt I'd grown up. I had learnt the importance of relationships with people, on all kinds of levels."

There are many companies around the world that welcome these students on their projects—helping people in poorer countries, or even in your home country. Although you don't get paid for your work, this kind of work can teach important skills—decision making and finding answers to problems, for example—that will help many students in a job one day.

    Finally, getting some knowledge and experience in an area you hope to study or work in one day will always be very useful.

    If several university graduates are applying for the same job, gar year work experience allows you to say,

    "I've already had some experience of this kind of work." And that can get your job.