Lack of motivation drags people down in their language learning and high motivation pulls them up. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Reward yourself after each hour of concentrated study.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} After each hour reward yourself in whatever way is most appealing. Here are some common 5-minute rewards. A cup of coffee, a quick phone call, a short bike ride, 5 minutes of TV sport, walking the dog, etc.

    Remove distractions.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Listening to songs in the foreign language while you have a food break could make you feel still on target while stopping the distraction of hunger.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Some of the ideas students report for keeping themselves motivated go beyond just the language. Here are two ideas. I try to cook Spanish food. To feed interest in the country, I look at posters, pictures, articles, books.

Look for motivation in the wider world

    Keep your interest alive by watching movies, and taking time to have contact with native speakers. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} You can provide conversation in Chinese for overseas students, and in exchange they spend an hour another day talking their language with you. If you combine this with lunch then it doesn't even take extra time.

    Michael' s birthday was coming soon, so he asked his dad for a bicycle so that he wouldn't have to walk to school anymore. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Michael got a book instead but he did not complain ( 抱怨 ).

    One bright and sunny day while Michael was walking past a bookstore on his way to school, he saw a big boy on a bike . The bike was too small for the boy. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    The boy was a student in Michael' s school . Michael recognized him. The boy's name was William. His leg seemed to have broken. Michael picked up William' s bike which was not damaged and rode to the nearby hospital to get help. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Michael rode William' s bike to school so he would not be late for class.

    After school , Michael quickly rode the bicycle to William' s house with a book for him. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} But he had to put some medicine on his leg and stay in bed for some time.

    To Michael' s surprise, William was getting a new bike for his birthday in two months so he let Michael have his old bike . Michael was overjoyed（喜出望外).

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. Michael visited William every day until Williams 's leg was better.

A.  Luckily, William was not seriously hurt.

B.  Michael found it interesting and couldn't help laughing.

C.  From then on, Michael and William became good friends

D.  William gave his new bike to Michael to show his thanks.

E.  However, Michael' s dad had lost his job and did not have much money.

F.  As the boy was turning around a corner , the bike crashed into a tree.

G. A few minutes later, an ambulance (救护车)came and took William to the hospital .

    In many businesses, computers have largely replaced paperwork, because they are fast, and do not make mistakes. And they are honest. Many banks say that their business is “untouched by human hands” and therefore safe. But they have no thought that the growing number of computer crimes (犯罪) show they can be used to steal.

    Computer criminals (罪犯) don't use guns. And even if they are caught, it is hard to punish them because there is often no proof. A computer cannot remember who used it. It simply does what it is told. The head teller(出纳主管) at a New York City bank used a computer to steal more than one and a half billion dollars in just four years. No one noticed this because he moved the money from one account (账户) to another. Each time a customer whose money he had stolen questioned the balance in his account, the teller said it was a computer mistake, then replaced the missing money from someone else's account. This man was caught at last.

    Some workers use the computer's power to punish their bosses they consider unfair. Recently, a large company fired its computer record assistant for reasons that were connected with her personal life rather than her job. She was given thirty days notice. In those thirty days, she stole all the company's computerized records.

    Most computer criminals have been common workers. Now police wonder if this is “the tip of iceberg”. As one official says, “I have the feeling that there is more crime out there than we are catching. What we are seeing now is all so poorly done. I wonder what the real experts are doing—the ones who really know a computer works.”

How to read more and learn more

    These days, more and more Chinese people enjoy sending and receiving messages on the phone. It can help them to get the latest news and communicate with friends. But I think I should read more books besides the textbooks, the more, the better. It can broaden my mind and improve my language skills. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here are some tips for you.

    Clear your purpose for reading.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Most people read for two main reasons, pleasure or knowledge. Clearing about your reading purpose can not only help you choose the books you really need to read, but also remind you why reading the book is important to you, so you will keep reading and complete the book faster.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    No matter what you arc reading, it is important to enjoy what you read. Your friends you the books they love, but those books might not necessarily be the ones you enjoy.

    Give up books that you don't enjoy.

    You may have chosen books that you are interested in, and they are right purpose. But while you are reading them, there may still be some books that you don't enjoy reading. Whenever you realize that you aren't enjoying the book you are reading, give it up.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Set a reading goal.

    It is interesting that I read the books borrowed from libraries faster than than those I bought. The reason is the books I bought don't have a due date! I don't need to return those books. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Before you read each book, ask yourself what time you need to complete this book by.

A. Remember reading shouldn't be a chore.

B. Read the books borrowed from others.

C. Read only what you are interested in.

D. Of course, it also can help me to get good grades.

E. We need to get the latest news and communicate with friends.

F. Having a reading goal helps you work out how much reading you need to do in a week or even a day.

G. Before you start reading, ask yourself why you are reading this book.

    The Olympic Games are well known and always receive the world's attention, but there has been another little-known Olympic event in the UK for hundreds of years. And it's an event which some say helped start the Olympic movement in this country. The Cotswold Olimpicks take place every year on a Friday in spring. They are held in a village in England known as the Cotswold. It isn't clear when the first event took place but some say it was as early as 1612.

    The Cotswold Olimpicks were the idea of a lawyer called Robert Dover but no one knows exactly why he organized the games. Some people say he wanted to encourage people to support their king and country. Another explanation is that Dover was keen (渴望的) to bring people together, in particular the rich and poor from the local community. Whatever the reason, the yearly games quickly became popular. People competed in familiar activities such as horse-racing, running, jumping, and wrestling; famous people of the time attended it and poets wrote about the celebrations. It is even said that Shakespeare mentioned the Cotswold Olimpicks in The Merry Wives of Windsor, though the play may have been written some time before the first games.

    As the Cotswold Olimpicks grew in popularity, a group of people known as the Puritans(清教徒) started to object to them for religious reasons, saying they encouraged bad behaviour. The games came to an end at the start of the English Civil War but in 1660 they were re-introduced. Over time they became more and more popular and there are records of 30, 000 people attending in one year. However, the games also attracted people who were more interested in the celebrations than the sporting events. Finally, they came to an end once again in 1852. However, this was not the end of the Cotswold Olimpicks. They were re-introduced again in 1966 and have since been recognized by the British Olympic Committee. Out of respect to their history, the modem games are watched over by a man dressed as Sir Robert Dover, riding on horseback and accompanied by a representative of King James I. Unlike the real Olympic Games, the Cotswold Olimpicks has only about two hours and they are followed by celebrations in the village.

What makes preschoolers eat their vegetables? Raise their hand? Wait their turn? "Because I say so" is a comment that parents often repeat. But when it comes to getting kids to behave, a recent study by Duke University researchers suggests that the voice of adult authority isn't the only thing that matters. Around age three, fitting in with the group starts to count big too.

To understand what cause preschoolers to fall    in    line, the researchers conducted a test in a lab, where they invited 3.5-year-olds to help set up for a pretend tea party. Each of the 104 children was given a blue sticker (贴纸) to wear at the start of the study, and told that the people with that color sticker were part of the same team. Next the researchers watched as the children decided among different kinds of teas, snacks, cups and plates for the tea party, first on their own and then after listening to the choices of other team members.

Sometimes the other team members considered their choice as a matter of personal preference ("For my tea party today, I feel like using this snack.") Other times they presented it as a need shared by the whole group. ("For our tea parties today, we always use this kind of snack.")

After listening to the choices of others, most of the time the children stuck with their first choice. In other words, children who had said they felt like using, say, the cookie finally picked the cookie no matter what the other person said they were using. But 23% of the time the children changed their choice to accept someone else's. And when they did, they were more likely to go along with the other person when a choice was presented as a group need rather than just a personal preference. The finding held up even when the other person was another child, not an adult.