Sarah Hutchins has won a prize from Amazon.com in a competition for young inventors. She invented “camoculars”! Now what are “camoculars”?  Camoculars are binoculars(双筒望远镜) and a camera combined. Amazon.com, a web company, organized a competition for young inventors. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Sarah was at a concert when she thought of her invention. “I was sitting a long way from the stage and I was watching the band through my binoculars. While I was watching, I thought,' {#blank#}2{#/blank#} 'Then I got an idea. Why not have binoculars with a camera inside them?”

    When she got home, she took some plastic binoculars and a cheap camera and put them together. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} So Sarah sent her idea to Amazon.com and two months later, she got a surprise. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} They didn't give her the top prize in the competition, but she won $1,000 and a trip to New York.

    People are already asking Sarah what she is going to invent next. “I don't know,” says Sarah. “If you just sit there and think, you won't invent anything, because you get ideas at strange moments. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Sarah likes music very much.

B. I'd love to be able to take a picture of this!

C. Amazon.com phoned to say that she was a winner.

D. I have always dreamed of travelling around New York.

E. The only thing you can do is keep your eyes and ears open!

F. Her sister was watching her and told her about the competition.

G. Sarah was one of thousands of young people who took part in this competition.

    Having bad feeling about world? “Cheer up.” says science writer Matt Ridley. “The world has never been a better place to live in, and it will keep on getting better both for humans and for nature.”{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

1 ) {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    It is reported that there are more than ten billion different products for sale in London alone. Even allowing for the many people who still live in poverty, our own generation has access to more nutritious food, more convenient transport, bigger houses, and better cars. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} This will continue as long as we use these things to make other things. The more we specialize and exchange, the better off we'll be.

2)Brilliant advances

    One reason we are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer lived and freer than ever before is that the four most basic human needs—food, clothing, fuel and shelter—have grown a lot cheaper. Take one example. In 1800 a candle providing one hour's light cost six hours' work. In the 1880s the same light from an oil lamp took 15 minutes' work to pay for. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Today it's half second.

3 )Let's not kill ourselves for climate change

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} A child that dies from indoor smoke in a village, where the use of fossil-fuel (化石燃料) electricity is forbidden by well-meaning members of green political movements trying to save the world, is just as great a tragedy as a child that dies in a flood caused by climate change. If climate change proves to be mild, but cutting carbon causes real pain, we may well find that we have stopped a nose-bleed by putting a tourniquet (止血带) around our necks.

A. Ridley calls himself a rational optimist—rational, because he's carefully weighed the evidence.

B. Overreaction to climate change could prove just as damaging to human welfare as climate change itself.

C. Shopping fuels invention.

D. And, of course, we earn more pounds and dollars than any who lived before us.

E. In 1950 it was eight seconds.

F. It's high time that we took immediate action to fight climate change.

G. Here's how he explains his views.

    You will experience a lot of changes through your teenage years. The changes may seem difficult. They may seem to happen quickly. Don't panic! {#blank#}1{#/blank#} You are a young adult now!

    With more duty, you will find more freedom to make your own choices. This is a time to be well informed about making choices. In this way you can make healthy balanced decisions. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}You may already know your career path or you may have no idea at all what you want to do. Both situations are fine! Work hard and the right chance will present itself to you.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} You will probably want to be independent. But try not to shut your family out of your life. You should learn to think of others even though you are old enough to look after yourself. It is also perfectly natural at this time for you to spend more time with your friends than your family. Choose your friends wisely. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    This period is a part of the life cycle. These are some people who will be with you throughout life's journey. There will be some people with whom you part and go separate ways. Leaving school can be hard. The reality is that you may not even see all of your classmates again.

    You are a young adult. It is your life. No one can live it for you. The choices that you make from now on will be your choices. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Life is for living. Enjoy your life wisely!

A. They will help shape the future.

B. You will deal with them successfully!

C. You may appreciate friendship in your own life.

D. So making the right choices will be important to you.

E. A true friend will stand by you no matter what happens.

F. Young adulthood means greater freedom and more choices

G. Your family has been with you since you came into this world.

House Sitting

    In many countries of the world people do what is called house sitting. It means that if owners of the house are going away, they want someone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets while they are away.

    In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home. There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You need to be good with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have.

    Some house sitting Jobs are just for a few days or a couple of weeks while the house owner have a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of the important things to get are references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to prospective house sitting Jobs and they know you will do a good job.

A. I have done house sitting many times.

B. Thousands of people do this all the time.

C. It is also possible to do house sitting in other countries.

D. Generally you have many opportunities to get a house sitting job.

E. You must take a little care over what your description says about you.

F. This is an international house sitting service for all city and country areas.

G. You must have a good car, so you can travel to different parts of the country.

    With the summer holiday just around the comer, it seems like everybody is busy planning their vacations. Here are some lips that can help you enjoy your holiday without emptying your pocket:

    Travel off-season

    Go to your desired destination while the demand is low and take advantage of huge discounts. During the peak season, the hotel and flight prices increase quickly, and you'll likely spend more of your vacation time standing in line due to the rush of tourists.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Eat like a local

    Why eat at big chain restaurants when you can experience something new?{#blank#}2{#/blank#}During your family trip, try new food where the locals eat. This will not just save money, but also provide you with a new and different experience. For smaller meals and snacks, avoid restaurants and try street food or other takeout.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Websites can help you find discount hotel rooms. Look for places that do not charge extra for children if they use the existing bedding. Stay with the locals. If you and your family are going to 8tay for a longer period，renting a small apartment is a good choice.

    Choose local transportation

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Instead, take buses, railways or subways, which are always cheaper. If you are planning to stay for a while, you can consider renting a car. Hiring a car is much easier than carrying your bags everywhere if you are moving around a lot.

    Don't hesitate to bargain

    Tourist-heavy places are known for overcharging for just about everything. Clothes, travel goodies, souvenirs, etc. are very expensive at these places.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Bargain hard to get the best price.

A. Save on hotels.

B. Surf the Internet while traveling.

C. So it's best to find out when the off-season starts.

D. Therefore, avoid buying anything there.

E. Planning your meals is another way to reduce your travel costs.

F. For this reason, you shouldn't feel ashamed to ask for bargains.

G. As a tourist, avoid taking taxis whenever possible, since they are expensive.

    Why Do We Forget Things?

    When it comes to having perfect memories, it is apparent that we humans must have had some faults in our blueprints(蓝图)! Why don't we remember everything that we want to remember? It makes us feel upset and get discouraged. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} However, it's true that we are all forgetful.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} These are stored in what we call our "long-term memory". What about before age three? Sigmund Freud, a doctor of Vienna, discovered the fact that we forget most of our early childhood. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} They have different opinions. A very good theory, born from the results of experimentation with babies, is that absence of language ability at the time of an event stopped us from describing it to others.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Experts say that you can keep about seven things in your memory at once for up to three days. During that time, you may forget something in order to put something else in its place, or you put it into long-term memory. What goes into short-term memory are things you've learned about recently, in the past day or two. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} For example, you may have met your favorite star last week, and this week you can tell all the details to a friend. A simple example to explain your short-term memory is to look at a list of twenty words for a minute or two. You will discover that you cannot remember more than about seven of them and that they are the ones in the beginning and at the end of the list because your mind has judged them to be more important than those in the middle.

A. Scientists now know that it may take longer to remember things for the old.

B. However, it is widely recognized that short-term memory can be improved.

C. Sometimes, it even causes us to lose self-respect or others to think less of us.

D. Psychologists have been studying what causes this forgetfulness since Freud's time.

E. Most of us have vivid memories of our lives from about age three to our present ages.

F. Only if something really unusual happens does it stay in your short-term memory for longer.

G. The other type of memory, the "short-term memory", is what we are usually referring to when we say, "I forgot."