World leaders from nearly 200 countries have signed an important historic agreement to fight global climate change. The agreement came after two weeks of talks between the leaders at the 21st Conference in Paris, France.

    As part of the Paris agreement, countries said they would cut down on pollution However, according to the terms of the deal, countries that don't do this will not be punished, or fined. Instead，the document is meant to show that governments around the world take climate change seriously and are willing to work together to fight global warming.

    World leaders have met many times to discuss climate change. But, the 21st Conference of Parties, or COP21, which began on November 30 in Paris, was the first time they agreed on a global, legal pact (协定).

    Before the conference, each nation was asked to create plans on how to reach the shared goal. The pact that was signed allows countries to decide the best way to cut down their gas pollution. No matter how they decide to go green, each country must report honestly on all of their efforts. Every five years, nations must look at the work they've done and submit new plans on how they will improve over the next five years.

    In the pact, the countries pledge（承诺）to limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted（排放） by human activity to the levels that trees，soil and oceans can absorb naturally. It urges countries to spend trillions of dollars on creating new energy sources, like solar and wind power. It also requires countries to raise at least $ 100 billion each year to help developing countries.

    However, critics of the pact say it is not detailed enough, and doesn't include specifics about how the plan will be enforced and how improvements will be measured. The pact does include one large, specific goal: how countries will aim to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.60℉(20℃) by 2100.

    Nonetheless，the agreement is considered by many world leaders to be a major victory. The U. N. has been working more than two decades to convince governments to work together to reduce man-made emissions.

    “History will remember this day,” U. N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said. “The Paris agreement on climate change is a monumental success for the planet and its people.”

    Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave £ 12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children's playground.

    As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson said that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. "I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening." He told the newspaperman, thinking of evening glass of whisky.

    The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and has a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.

    Elephants are able to know the difference between a man and a woman, and can tell an adult (成年人) from a child—all from the sound of a human voice. This is according to a study in which researchers played voice recordings to wild African elephants.

    The animals showed more fear when they heard the voices of adult Masai men. Usually Masai people hunt elephants, and this suggests that animals have grown to listen for and avoid them.

    Prof. Karen McComb and Dr Graeme Shannon from the University of Sussex led the study. They explained that in former research they had used similar experiments to show that elephants could tell—from the sound of a lion—whether the animal was a female (雌性) or a more dangerous male (雄性).

    Prof  McComb wanted to find out if the animals used their very sharp sense of hearing to recognize danger from humans.

    The scientists recorded Masai men, women and children saying, in their own language, "Look, look over there, a group of elephants are coming." They also recorded Kamba men saying this phrase.

    Masai people often come across elephants, which can result in violent (暴力的) hunting. Kamba people, however, mainly feed on agriculture, which does not generally bring them into violent touch with the animals.

    When the team played recordings of these different voices through a hidden speaker, they found that elephant family groups showed more fear in response to the voice of a Masai man, than to a Kamba man's voice. And the adult male Masai voices caused far more violent response than the voices of women or boys.

    We've all had cases where we've waited just a bit too long to pay an electric bill or speeding ticket. But one man, from California by reasonable assumption, who goes by "Dave", recently took procrastination (拖延) one step further, by paying a parking ticket almost a half-century after it was given.

    In December 2018, the Minersville Police Department in Pennsylvania received a letter in the mail. Whoever wrote the letter decided it was best to keep his name somewhat unknown, so he put the return address as "Wayward Road, Anytown California" under the name "Feeling guilty".

    When the officers opened the envelope, they found a brief letter, along with a $5 bill, and a parking ticket dating all the way back to 1974. The note read, "Dear PD, I've been carrying this ticket around for 40 plus years always intending to pay. Forgive me if I don't give you my info. With respect, Dave."

    Even though the initial parking ticket was only for $2, "Dave" must have felt awfully guilty because he left 150 percent, or $3, in interest.

    Michael Combs, the Police Chief of the Minersville Police Department, stated in an interview that the same ticket would cost about $20 if it were given today. Combs went on to share that the original ticket from 1974 was given to a vehicle that had an Ohio license plate.

    Because there was no system for tracking tickets given to out-of-state cars back then, "Dave" could have gotten away with never paying the $2 fine. But apparently, guilt got the best of him, and he decided to finally cough up the money more than 40 years past its due date.

    When you visit America, you will see the word Motel on signs and notice boards. It is made up of "motor" and "hotel" and it is really a hotel for people who arrive by car (however, you don't need a car to stay at one). You have to pay when you arrive for your room, which usually has a bath. Meals are not provided, but there will certainly be a cafeteria (自助餐馆). Americans eat a lot of salads and sandwiches. Along the main roads there are a lot of motels. Each tries to offer more than next. Some provide television in every bedroom; others have swimming pools; and so on. Motels are especially useful when you are in the country, far from a town or city. You will also find them in the big National Parks.

    In these great National Parks, you may meet guests you don't expect to see. An American friend told me a little story. In the middle of a moonless night she heard strange noises outside her motel window in the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Thinking it might be a thief, she jumped out of bed, opened the door and crept towards a dark shadow. As she got close, she saw the thief. She was dreadfully frightened: it wasn't a human thief ­ it was a big black bear. The bear was turning over some empty tins with its paw, looking for tasty bits of food. My friend decided to leave that particular thief alone!

    There are also, of course, places called "rooming houses", where they receive lodgers (房客). You will see such signs as Tourists or Rooms Rent, and you could try one of these. A word of warning ­ looking for a room in New York during the tourist season is like looking for gold on the moon!

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, has come back from university to find that his father, the old king, is dead. His mother has married his father's brother, Claudius, who is now king of Denmark. Hamlet is shocked that his mother has married so soon after his father's death, and angry that she has married Claudius.

Soon, a ghost (幽灵) is seen walking on the castle walls. The ghost looks like Hamlet's father, the dead king. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he is told that it is the ghost of his father. "I am your father's spirit," the ghost tells Hamlet. It tells him that Hamlet's father did not die naturally, but was murdered by his brother Claudius. As the king slept, Claudius put poison into his ear, causing the king a painful death. The ghost tells Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius for murdering his father.

Hamlet can't believe his mother would marry the man who murdered her husband. He becomes depressed, and he thinks about killing himself: "To be or not to be, that is the question. " Hamlet decides to pretend he is mad while he tries to find out if King Claudius really killed his father. Claudius soon notices that Hamlet is acting strangely, so he asks Polonius, his adviser, to discover if it is true…