You walk into the classroom, look at that white piece of paper in front of you and are told you've got an hour and a half to do it. That can make anyone nervous, but here is the guide to stay calm.

    Get a good night's sleep the night before the test, and eat a healthy breakfast next day. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} If you're too tired, you won't remember what you learnt the night before.

    Get to class a little earlier. If you get there early, you'll make sure to get your favorite seat. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Breathe. Before the test, breathe in through your nose deeply and slowly. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Repeat this several times. If you experience a sudden panic during the test, perform the exercise again.

    Skip questions if necessary. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If you come across a difficult question, skip the question and move on. You can come back to it at the end of the test if you have time, and later questions may help you get the answer(s) to the one(s) you skipped.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Don't panic if you notice other students writing very quickly or handing in their tests early. Tell yourself it's just a test. Really, it is. No matter what happens, everything will be OK.

    Below is a selection from a popular science book.

    If blood is red, why are veins（静脉） blue?

    Actually, veins are not blue at all. They are more of a clear, yellowish color. Although blood looks red when it's outside the body, when it's sitting in the vein near the surface of the skin, it's more of a dark reddish purple color. At the right depth, these blood-filled veins reflect less red light than the surrounding skin, making them look blue by comparison.

    Which works harder, you heart or your brain?

    That kind of depends on whether you're busy thinking or busy exercising. Your heart works up to three times harder during exercise, and shifts enough blood over a lifetime to fill a supertanker. But in the long run, your brain probably tips it, because even when you're sitting still your brain is using twice as much energy as your heart, and it takes four to five times as much blood to feed it.

    Why do teeth fall out, and why don't they grow back in grown-ups?

    Baby (or “milk”) teeth do not last long; they fall out to make bigger room for bigger, stronger adult teeth later on. Adult teeth fall our when they become damaged, decayed and infected by bacteria. Once this second set of teeth has grown in, you're done. When they're gone, they are gone. This is because nature figures you're set for life, and what controls regrowth of your teeth switches off.

    Do old people shrink as they age?

Yes and no. Many people do get shorter as they age. But, when they do, it isn't because they're shrinking all over. They lose height as their spine（脊柱） becomes shorter and more curved due to disuse and the effect of gravity(重力). Many (but not all) men and women do lose height as they get older. Men lose and average of 3-4 cm in height as they age, while women may lose 5 cm or more. If you live to be 200 years old, would you keep shrinking till you were, like 60 cm tall, like a little boy again? No, because old people don't really shrink! It is not that they are growing backwards —- their legs, arms and backbones getting shorter. When they do get shorter, it's because the spine has shortened a little. Or, more often, become more bent and curved.

    Why does spinning make you dizzy（眩晕的）?

    Because your brain gets confused between what you're seeing and what you're feeling. The brain senses that you're spinning using special gravity-and-motion-sensing organs in your inner ear, which work together with your eyes to keep your vision balance stable. But when you suddenly stop spinning the system goes out of control, and your brain thinks you'removing while you're not.

    Where do feelings and emotions come from?

Mostly from an ancient part of the brain called the limbic system. All mammals have this brain area —- from mice to dogs, cats, and humans. So all mammals feel basic emotions like fear, pain and pleasure. But since human feelings also involve other, newer bits of the brain, we feel more complex emotions than any other animal on this planet.

    If exercise wears you out, how can it be good for you?

    Because our bodies adapt to everything we do to them. And as far as your body is concerned, it's “use it, or lose it”! It's not that exercise makes you healthy, it's more that a lack of exercise leaves your body weak and easily affected by disease

    You have never seen him,but they're with you every time you fly.They record where you are going,how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally.Their ability to withstand（经受得住）almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a magic book.They're known as the black box.

    When planes fall from the sky,as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30,2009,the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong.So when a French submarine（潜水艇）detected the device's homing signal five days later,the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

    In 1958,Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction.That was the first mode for a black box,which became a requirement on all U.S.commercial flights by 1960.Early models often failed to withstand crashes,however,so in 1965 the device（装置）was completely redesigned and moved to the back of the plane-the area least affected bu impact-from its original position in the landing wells（起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes,which were never actually black,be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

    Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder,which tracks pilots' conversations,and a flight-data recorder,which monitors fuel levels,engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments.Placed in an insulated ( 隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel,the boxes can withstand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉.When in deep water,they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft.Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447,which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009,are in water nearly that deep,but statistics say they're still likely to turn up.In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years,only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.

                                                                                              The National Gallery

    Description:

    The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13^th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance.

    Layout:

    The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.

    The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.

    The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.

    The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.

    Opening Hours:

    The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.

    Getting There:

    Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).

    The Nobel Prize Winners in Literature

    Rabindranath Tagore(1913)

    Prize motivation: because of his deep sensitive, fresh and beautiful poetry, with perfect skills, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words，part of the literature of the West.

    William Faulkner (1949)

    Prize motivation: for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel.

    Ernest Miller Hemingway(1954)

    Prize motivation：for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea.

    John Steinbeck (1962)

    Prize motivation: for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining sympathetic humour and keen social perception.

    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill(1953)

    Prize motivation：for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for his brilliant speech skills in defending noble human values.

    Claude Simon (1985)

    Prize motivation: he in his novel combines the poet's and the painter's creativeness with a deepened awareness of time in the description of the human condition.

    Mo Yan (2012)

    Prize motivation：he, with dreamlike realism，combines folk tales，history and the contemporary.

    Bob Dylan (2016)

    Prize motivation：for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

The Art Institute of Chicago

    Visiting time

    The museum is open daily 10:30 am-5:00 pm. The museum and its shops are closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day.

    Highlights of the Art Institute

    American Art

    Discover how artists have expressed the many aspects of the American experience through the rich variety of this collection. This tour might include the works of artists like Paul Revere, Winslow Homer, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

    Impressionism: Monet, Degas, Renoir and More

    Learn about the color and excitement of late 19th-century life as you view one of the most admired collections of French Impressionism in the world.

    Hidden Histories

    Hear stories about artists and their artworks that may be overlooked or under-appreciated for one reason or another  These could be very small or out-of-the-way works.

    For families with children

    With free admission for kids under 14 and Chicago teens under 18, the Art Institute is the perfect place for a creative outing with the whole family.

    Visit the Family Room in the Ryan Education Center, and introduce your children to the museum's collections with a variety of activities. Assemble (组装)puzzles based on masterpieces in the museum, build architectural wonders with colorful blocks, and learn about art through stories and games. Food is available at an on-site cafe. (Outside food is not allowed to be brought in.)