House Sitting

    In many countries of the world people do what is called house sitting. It means that if owners of the house are going away, they want someone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets while they are away.

    In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home.

    There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You need to be good with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have.

    Some house sitting jobs are just for a few days or a couple of weeks while the house owners have a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of  the important things to get is references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to possible house sitting jobs and they know you will do a good job.

A. I have done house sitting many times.

B. Thousands of people do this all the time.

C. It is also possible to do house sitting in other countries.

D. Generally you have many opportunities to get a house sitting job.

E. You must take a little care over what your description says about you.

F. This is an international house sitting service for all city and country areas.

G. You must have a good car, so you can travel to different parts of the country.

    Primary schools could be told to remove some traditional subject-based lessons and replace them with “personal development” classes to encourage children to improve their social and practical skill. Parents, teachers and pupils, who took part in the investigation carried out for the biggest ever official review of the primary curriculum, argued that the number of subjects taught to very young people should be reduced.

    The review, being conducted by the government's school's director Sir Jim Rose, will consider how to redesign the primary school day to handle concerns that too many pupils leave primary school unable to read, write and do maths at the level expected of them. It will also address criticisms that pupils are expected to study so many subjects there is little time for creative learning.

    The 60 focus groups brought together 1,500 parents, pupils and school staff and is expected to heavily influence the thinking of the Rose review, which the government is promising to back. Instead of a broad range of subjects, pupils should study in-depth literacy and maths lessons alongside a more creative curriculum that encourages pupils to develop personal, learning and thinking skills, they say. Such lessons might include “healthy lifestyles, sex and relationships education, drugs and alcohol education”.

    “Child and personal development as priorities have been shamefully neglected in recent years in the rush to hit targets in the basics.” John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said, “The worst thing would be to evaluate child development through the current high stakes testing system. That would weaken the capacity of teachers to meet children's unique needs.”

    However, the shadow schools minister, Nick Gibb, said, “If lessons on lifestyle are given the same status as traditional subjects, it is the most disadvantaged children who will be worst affected.” “Children are not able to personally develop and succeed in the future if they don't have a grasp of basic subjects such as maths and English early on in primary school. Removing high requirement from the primary curriculum would increase the inequality gap between less well-off pupils and the rest.” Nick added. A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said, “This is a summary of stake holder's view, not the views of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority or the DCSF, and has been submitted to Sir Jim Rose's review as evidence to consider.”

    In America, parents tend to encourage their children to develop their potential(潜能)to the fullest extent. Fathers and mothers frequently teach their children both ambition and the confidence necessary to work toward their goals. American parents are always active in concentrating on what their kids can do, not what they can't. As a result, millions of American boys and girls grow up hoping to become actors and athletes, diplomats and doctors. Many of them even want to become president.

    American parents often encourage their children to become involved in extra activities of all types at school, such as student government, sports and music. They believe that only through taking part in these activities can their children become mature young adults.

    As we all know, schoolwork is important. But parents should realize that the social skills their children learn form natural conversations with each other are as important as schoolwork and the skills they will need in the future work. What's more important in their work is that their children should have a sound knowledge of physics or the ability to communicate effectively.

    As a rule, Chinese parents don't educate their children about the same kind of ambition and confidence as Americans do, nor do they encourage the same level of participation in extra activities. Children are typically advised to study hard and pass exams. They have to spend a lot of time in doing much schoolwork every day. It is a great waste of time to do so.

    Now more and more Chinese parents have recognized that they should pay attention to developing the potential of their children. I hope that leaders in Chinese educational circles should take some measures to develop the potential of their children. I am very confident about it.

    No one is sure how many Americans belong to reading groups called book clubs. Yet{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (publisher) and bookstores report that more and more people throughout the United States are joining{#blank#}2{#/blank#} (they).

    Most of the clubs work the same way. Members read the same book at the same time. Then they meet to talk about the book. Members may be friends or people{#blank#}3{#/blank#} live near each other. Some Americans belong to reading groups on{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Internet. These groups include people around the world who communicate about books they read. They send electronic mails instead of gathering{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (discuss) books.

    Most reading groups study books by{#blank#}6{#/blank#} (variety) writers. However, some groups read the work of a single writer,{#blank#}7{#/blank#} (usual) one that has been famous for a while. Other groups may{#blank#}8{#/blank#} (name) for an important person in the work of the writer,{#blank#}9{#/blank#} a Sherlock Holmes Club. Members of these book clubs often are experts about their{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (choose) reading materials. One member of a Holmes reading group, for example, can identify almost every person in every Sherlock Holmes story.

    In the fight to conserve tropical rainforests, here's a tool you don't often hear about orange peels. Specifically, 12,000 tons of them, dumped (倾倒) on the land. “You don't usually associate waste treatment with biodiversity benefits, something that's good for the environment.

    Tim Treuer is an ecologist at Princeton University, and he's talking about a unique conservation story. It started in the early 1990s, when an orange juice producer called Del Oro set up a company near the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica, a region that contains several national parks and a wildlife protection zone.

    Del Oro needed somewhere to dump the orange peels, and the company also owned forested land next to the parkland that it had no intention of growing crops on. So a deal was struck: if Del Oro donated its forested land, it could dump orange peel waste on degraded(退化的) land within the conservation area. Then a thousand dump trucks' worth of orange peels were lying on the land in 1998. “And within about six months the orange peels had been turned from orange peels into this thick black rich soil.”

    “I couldn't even find the site the first time I saw it.” He couldn't find it because, over 16 years, the orange peel waste had sent the land on a journey to become a vine-choked jungle, with three times the diversity of tree species of the neighboring control plot, richer soil and a much thicker covering. In other words, the experiment was a success. The results appear in the journal Restoration Ecology.

    Treuer says perhaps this lesson could be applied elsewhere. “It's a shame that we live in a world with nutrient-limited degraded ecosystems and also nutrient-rich waste streams. We'd like to see those things come together a little bit. That's not license for any agricultural company to just start dumping their waste products on protected areas, but it does mean that land managers, people involved with industrial-scale agricultural operations should start thinking about ways to do thoughtful experimentation to see if in their particular system they can have similar win-win-win results.”

    If you're a design enthusiast, you're sure to feel dizzy over these jaw-dropping pools.

    Sky Park Infinity Pool, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

    Located on the Sky Park above Singapore's most famous hotel, Marina Bay Sands this is the world's largest rooftop pool. Offering amazing views of the city's skyline, the pool is at least three times the length of an Olympic swimming pool. As visitors swim toward the edge, they face an illusion that they'll float into the sky-line. It's quite a heart-beaten rush!

    The Red Pool, The Library Koh Samui. Thailand

    This blood-red pool is perhaps one of the most special hotel pools on the list. Set against the backdrop of Koh Samui's Chaweng Beach, the fascinating colour isn't the result of using artificial dye. Rather, the mosaic tiles(马赛克瓷砖) of orange, yellow and red make the brilliant sight that is set among trees and an open-air library.

    San Alfonso del Mar Resort Pool. Region de valparaiso, Chile

    The world's largest outdoor swimming pool gets its water directly from the sea. The pool uses a computer-controlled pump and filtration system. Located at Chile's San Alfonso del Mar Resort, this huge man-made pool is larger than 20 Olympic-size pools and holds approximately 250 million litres of water. It also holds the Guinness World Record for being the world's deepest (115 feet)pool.

    Y-40 Deep Joy, Hotel Millepini Terme in Montegrotto Terme, Italy

    The deepest hotel swimming pool in the world will make you feel like you're jumping into the sea! The Y-40 Deep Joy is a round-shaped pool that reaches a depth of an impressive 130 feet. The pool, which has special caves， ledges(壁架) and underwater viewing glass, was designed by well-known- architect Emanuele Boaretto. It's meant for leisure dives, dive training and photo shoots.