Americans think much about time. From children they learn to value(珍惜) time. As children they are taught to be on time to go to school, to work and to do everything. When they are having a good time, they say that time flies. When a person is dying(垂死的) , they say he is living on borrowed time.

    Time is money. Time is knowledge(知识). Time is everything in America. A working American has to work hard for eight hours a day or forty hours a week. This is the working time. In his spare(空闲的) time, he also works hard for more money. Even on Saturday or Sunday he also works hard as usual. In the street you can not see that a man walks slowly. They walk very fast. In fact, they are running. They love time because time can bring them money and a lot of things. But sometimes they also hate time, because they feel that they have become servants(仆人) of the clock.

    Stonehenge is one of the oldest places made by man. It took about 700 years to build the oldest part of it is now believed to be 4,800 years old. It is located in the south of England near a small town called Amesbury in an area which has many other ancient monuments.

    Stonehenge consists of several circles. Some of them are made of stone, one is a ditch(沟渠)and one consists of 56 holes in the ground called “Aubrey holes”. Because many of the stones have fallen over or have been moved, it is difficult to see the full shape. The outside circle of stones once had 30 enormous (巨大的) stones, each weighing about 25 tons. On top of them used to be 30 more weighing 7 tons each, so that they made a circle of huge arches (拱形).Inside this was a horseshoe shape of five even bigger arches in which each of the upright (直立的) stones weighed 45 tones. Inside this was a bluestone circle of 60 stones, then a bluestone horseshoe of 19 stones. Finally in the middle was an enormous stone called the altar (祭坛) stones. The bluestone came from some mountains in Wales, 385 kilometers away, and even the other stones came a distance of at least 50 kilometers. Carrying the 80 stones to form the main circles probably took several thousand men several years.

    Nobody knows why it was built. It may have been a kind of church; it may have been a meeting place for the people who lived near. Some people say that it was a means of predicting the position of the sun, the moon and the stars. It has also been discovered that Stonehenge is located on some mysterious (神秘的)lines called “ley lines ” that seem to join together ancient buildings and places in England.

阅读短文，根据短文内容回答问题。

    Joy always rides her bike to school. It's four miles to school and it takes her about fifteen minutes. Joy likes riding to school. She says it's good for her health.

    Edward usually goes to school by bus. He likes talking with his friends on the bus. It's about ten minutes' journey (旅程) to school by bus.

    Mary's home is near the school. She usually walks to school. It's about five minutes' walk. Mary says she likes taking walks after meal.

The face—down generation（一代）

    If you were born in the 2000s, you are called the oh—ohs. The 21st century. That would make you young, creative, connected, world—wide, and no doubt smart. Maybe good—looking, too. Right? But what do other people think about your generation?

    Some adults worry that you're more interested in the screen in front of you than the world around you. They think of you as the "face—down generation" because you use your phone so much. They wonder how you will deal with school, friends, and family.

    Other adults worry that today's youth are spoilt(溺爱)and don't want to face the challenges of adult life. Many children born in the 1990s and 2000s were raised by "helicopter parents". They were always there to guide and help their children with a busy program filled with homework and after—school activities such as dancing, drawing, or sports. With parents who do everything for them, today's youth seem to prefer to live like teenagers even when they are in their 20s or 30s.

    Does the face—down generation need a heads—up? Well, probably not. The fact .is that many of today's teenagers are better educated and more creative than past generations. They seem to be willing to become leaders. More young people than ever volunteer to help their communities. There are also brave young people such as Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for pushing girls' rights to go to school.

    So if you're one of the oh—ohs, there's reason to be hopeful about the future. Things are looking up for the face—down generation. Chances are that you do great and laugh out loud.

    I'm forty now. I left school twenty-two years ago. Here's my list of five things I hope to share with you teenagers at school.

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    I always wanted to be the best, and one way of feeling good about myself was to see how much better I was than others. There was only one problem with this. When I saw they were better than me, I felt terrible. Now I compare me with myself. I ask myself if I do things as well as I could.

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    How much time do you spend worrying about the future? I used to worry a lot. Now I know most things you fear will usually never happen. They're just monsters in your own mind. Even if they happen, they will often not be as bad as you expected. In six months, you probably won't remember most of the things you worry about now.

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    When I was young, I often failed to start things I expected to do because I thought they'd taken too long to finish. I always wanted to write a book, for example. But when I thought it might take me more than a year, I lost my enthusiasm(热情). It seemed such a long time. Now I know a year is nothing, if I'd started that book when I was 16, I might have written 10 more by now. I'm upset with myself for not even trying.

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    As a young child you try many new things. If you fail, you try again and again until you learn. But at school you are usually encouraged to do things right. Then you stop trying new things in case you get them wrong. You are losing chances to challenge yourselves. I always remind myself: I had fallen off the bike many times before I learned to ride it.

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    I hated losing when I was younger. Of course, it's nice to win sometimes and to be the best at something. But we can't all be winners all the time. Learning to lose is one of life's most important lessons. If you try your hardest, then you should never be angry with yourself.

The top﹣selling album（唱片），Songs of the Humpback Whale，was made public in 1970. This collection of nature recordings changed the way many people thought about whales，and it helped save thousands of wha les. 

The album might never have been made without a sound engineer named Frank Watlington. In the 1960s，Watlington was making underwater recordings when he noticed some strange，deep sounds. He realized they were coming from whales. Watlington played the recordings for a pair of scientists named Roger Payne and Katy Payne. When they listened，they fell in love with these beautiful voices at once. 

Katy Payne studied music as well as animals，and she was greatly surprised by how the whales communicated using sounds like an opera singer. She also noticed another interesting fact：the sounds had clear patterns. According to scientists，an animal sound with a repeating pattern is called a song. Some scientists even compared these singing animals to musicians. 

The Paynes thought that other people should also hear the beauty of the whales' songs. So Roger made the recordings into an album. The time when the album came out，whales were often caught，killed and traded for money. Some kinds were even in danger of dying out. Most people had never thought that whales could communicate through songs. But after hearing the album，they began to think differently. 

The album led people to take action to save whales. Musicians began using whale songs in their music，and whales were included in movies and television shows. In 1982，a ban to stop deep﹣sea whaling was made. Before it，in the 1950s and 1960s，more than fifty thousand whales per year were killed. After it，the number went down below two thousand. 

It might seem impossible that just one album could help save the lives of so many whales. But this album told people secrets about whales that had long been hidden under the sea. It allowed whales to finally share their songs with the human world.