All of us know the old saying “Practice make perfect.” It tells us unless we want to realize our aim, we should practise and one day we will make it. It's easy to understand. Once I wanted to learn swimming. At first I found difficult to control my body. I just sank into the water. I feel very frightened. Then I watched others who were good at them and asked them the key to succeed. I went to the swimming pool every day, learned from them and practiced. A day, when my friend pushed me into the swimming pool, I sudden found that I could swim. How exciting I was! Now I can swim much more better than before.

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    Tips for making small talk

    Some people are not good at small talk.Making small talk doesn't have to be either awkward or boring.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Have some conversation starters ready.

    When you are sharing the same experience with someone,it's easy to start a conversation.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}If you are at a party and a song comes on that you like or that reminds you of something,you can talk about that.

    Ask open-ended（开放式的）questions.

    These types of questions require more thought and more than a simple one-word answer.If you ask questions that need more details to answer,the conversation will go on longer.If you are at a summer pool party,don't ask people if they like summer.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Become a student.

    Nobody knows everything.So,as someone is answering one of your open-ended questions,they raise something about which you know nothing.So,tell them!{#blank#}4{#/blank#}They feel good about sharing their knowledge and you get to learn something.It's a win-win situation.

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    Some people do not like their jobs or maybe they don't want to talk about them.So,instead of asking,“What do you do for a living?”ask something like,“So,what have you been doing these days?”or “So,what have you been up to?”One general question can contribute to an opportunity to share something you have in common.Ask people about their families,their passions,their ambitions or even their fears.However,balance these questions with comments about yourself.Asking too many questions may make people feel they are in an interview rather man in a conversation.

A.Don't ask,“So,what do you do?”

B.This lets the other person become the teacher.

C.By doing do,you can show that you are a modest person.

D.Here are some tips to improve your small-talking ability.

E.Instead,ask them what they like or dislike about summer.

F.It can be a lot of fun if you practice doing it,again and again.

G.You simply notice and comment on what's going on around you.

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    Home can be a great place for children to study. It's important to provide a workspace of their own where they can read books or just write a letter to their friends.

    Location (位置)

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Kitchen and dining room are not so well suited for regular study，since books and pens get in the way of the day­to­day uses of those areas. Set up a place where a child can settle in and leave papers and pens at hand without having to clear everything away each night. For a child that likes being alone，set aside a corner of his bedroom，but keep it separate from things like games，music and other hobbies not related to studying.

    Keeping Things in Order

    Parents should encourage their child to spread out，but to leave it neat and orderly when he isn't using his workspace. Ownership is very important for self­respect{#blank#}3{#/blank#}The workplace should be personal，but not another part of the playroom.

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    Encourage the whole family to help build a supportive environment that children need for success in school. Give them a good example of how to deal with problems，how to manage time and get things done in the right way. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Study will be more enjoyable and effective when supported by the whole family.

A．Attitude Is Everything

B．Bring Organization into Your Home

C．Here are several ways to choose a location.

D．Building a Good Home Learning Environment

E．Hold a can-do attitude and your child will follow your example.

F．Setting up a space in a common area of your home can be a good idea for children.

G．A child who learns to organize his space will carry organization into every corner of his life.

Not all English is the same

    To many learners of English, it's easy to think that all native speakers have no trouble communicating with one another.

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    Well, it turns out that being a native English speaker from one country doesn't mean that you're able to perfectly understand a native English speaker from another country, and vice versa (反之亦然)

    Take the UK and the US for example.

    As a Briton, I grew up hearing American accents alongside British ones – on TV shows, movies and in songs.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} and how they would eat “cookies” instead of “biscuits”.  And it took me a while to figure out that the “trunk” (n. 后备箱) of a car is what us Britons call its “boot”.

    The confusion didn't stop at just vocabulary –{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, when talking about shopping malls, Americans pronounce it “mawl” instead of “mal”. And for some reason that's hard for Britons to understand, Americans remove the “H” sound from “herb”, pronouncing it “erb”.

    These small differences may not change much in a day-to-day conversation between a Briton and an American.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Recently, for example, an American friend told me that she liked my pants. “You can see them?” I asked, shocked. Pants means “underpants” to most British people, which explains my horror.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} In the US, for example, a “bum” is a homeless person, while the same word in the UK is used to describe one's backside（n.臀部）.

    And, more amusingly, “trump” was only ever really used as a verb in the UK – meaning “to pass gas” – until the US' current president came into the spotlight.

But as long as you can speak one version of English, it's easy enough to understand any other – and any confusion just makes your day more interesting.

A. English is changing as it spreads around the world.

B. After all, English is English, isn't it?

C. I soon noticed how Americans would put “gas” in their cars instead of “petrol” .

D. However, confusion can still happen every now and then.

E. There are different words that mean the difficult thing.

F. Some words can even be offensive (adj.无礼的) without you realizing it.

G. I discovered that many words are even pronounced differently.

Is Cash Becoming Outdated?

    When he rolls into a gas station to fill his tank, Barkhad Dahir doesn't get out of his car. He pushes a few buttons on his cellphone and within seconds he has paid for the fuel. With the same quick pushes on his phone, he pays for virtually everything he needs: groceries at the supermarket, a few oranges from a market stall, or a cup of sweet milky tea from a café. Mr. Dahir boasts, "Even lying in bed, you can be paying your bills."

    Electronic payments offer consumers convenience, provide revenue for banks, credit card companies and payment processors, and offer merchants improved cash flow and convenience. "I don't even carry money any more," says Adan Abokor, a democracy activist. "I haven't seen cash for a long time. Almost every merchant, even hawker (小贩) on the street, accepts payment by cellphone. There's no waiting for it and no counting of cash."

    The system is impressively simple and secure. Purchases are made by dialing a three-digit number, entering a four-digit PIN, and then entering the retailer's payment number and the amount of money. Both customers and merchants receive text messages to confirm the payment.

    Clearing up cash payments has several advantages as well. The printing and handling of money is expensive. Cash payments can be anonymous and hard to track criminal activities to be conducted in secret. Many governments favor reducing cash dealings in order to better monitor and understand the activities of their citizens. The Swedish government has been discussing the removing of cash since 2010.

    However, some people doubt what members of a cashless society do when the power goes off. Do they choose to barter (物物交换) and rob? Do they sit at home and wait? What happens to people who rely on their cellphones to process money dealings when cell service and the Internet are interrupted? A world affected by terrorism and increasingly violent weather may not yet be ready to abandon currency. "Ironically, the day after the largest bank in Norway, DNB, proposed ending all cash dealings, I went to my local grocery store and when I tried to pay by phone, I was told that I needed to go to the ATM to get cash because the system was broken." said an interviewee.

    Other people fear that electronic payments may create security and fraud risks and enable dealings to be tracked and reported. Privacy, security and convenience are all important factors in the adoption of electronic payment technology. New technologies which balance and address these factors may enable people to remove cash.