This brief book is aimed at high school students, but speaks to anyone learning at any stage of life.

    Its formal, serious style closely matches its content, a school-masterly book on schooling. The author, W. H. Armstrong, starts with the basics: reading and writing. In his opinion, reading doesn't just mean recognizing each word on the page; it means taking in the information, digesting it and incorporating it into oneself just as one digests a sandwich and makes it a part of himself. The goal is to bring the information back to life, not just to treat it as dead facts on paper from dead trees. Reading and writing cannot be completely separated from each other; in fact, the aim of reading is to express the information you have got from the text. I've seen it again and again: some one who can't express an idea after reading a text is just as ineffective as someone who hasn't read it at all.

    Only a third of the book remains after that discussion, which Armstrong devotes to specific tips for studying languages, math, science and history. He generally handles these topics thoroughly and equally, except for some weakness in the science and math sections and a bit too much passion (激情) regarding history to his students, that was a hundred times more than my history teachers ever got across. To my disappointment, in this part of the book he ignores the arts. As a matter of fact, they demand all the concentration and study that math and science do, though the study differs slightly in kind. Although it's commonly believed that the arts can only be naturally acquired, actually, learning the arts is no more natural than learning French or mathematics.

    My other comment is that the text aged. The first edition apparently dates to the 1960s—none of the references(参考文献) seem newer than the late 1950s. As a result, the discussion misses the entire computer age.

    These are small points, though, and don't affect the main discussion. I recommend it to any student and any teacher, including the self-taught student.

    Miss Parker taught physics in a New York school. Last month she explained to one of her classes about sound ,and she decided to test them to see how successful she had been in her explanation. She said to them, “Now I have a brother in Los Angeles. If I was calling him on the phone and at the same time you were 75 feet away, listening to me from across the street, which of you would hear what I said earlier, my brother or you and for what reason?”

    Tom at once answered, “Your brother. Because electricity travels faster than sound waves.”“That's every good,” Miss Parker answered; but then one of the girls raised her hand, and Miss Parker said.“Yes, Kate.”

    “I disagree,” Kate said.“Your brother would hear you earlier because when it's 11 o'clock here it's only 8 o'clock in Los Angeles.”

News Review

    APEC Blue   People in Beijing got the saying after the APEC meeting in Beijing. It refers to(指) the clear blue sky during the meeting. To get such a blue sky, many factories in Beijing and nearby cities stopped work, and the number of cars on the road was cut.

    A Warning Ticket   A 24-year-old woman in Nanjing was given a warning ticket for eating food on the subway. Eating is not allowed on Nanjing subway. Up to now, 2,698 people have been punished (惩罚) because of their eating, smoking or selling goods on the subway.

    A Teacher-free Exam   Recently, students at Ningbo Huamao Foreign Language School in Zhejiang took their mid-term exam –a teacher-free exam. After handing out the exam papers, the teachers left the classroom, leaving the students to take the exam without being watched. They only came back to collect the papers at the end.

    A Tomato Fight   Do you want a tomato shower? Come to the “tomato fight” in Spain! Once every year, people in the town of Bunol throw tomatoes at each other. Don't worry. It's not a real fight. People do this only for fun.

    Have you ever been to a music festival? Well if you live in the UK, the answer is probably yes. The number of festivals has grown greatly over the last few years and now there are around 200 every summer. So let's look at the history of four famous festivals.

    The Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary (当代的) performing arts held most years in Somerset, in the south-west of England. There are a rock and pop stage, a jazz stage, the Avalon stage, a theatre comedy stage, a cinema tent, a dance tent and a circus (马戏团). The festival started in1970and about 120, 000 people go to it every summer.

    The Reading Festival is truly world-class with rock and pop bands (乐队) appearing from all over the world, particularly (尤其) the USA. About 80, 000 music fans go to Reading every August Bank Holiday. The festival first came to its present site on the banks of the River Thames in Reading in 1971, when it moved from Plumpton in Sussex. It is still on the same site over 47 years later!

    WOMAD stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance and was the idea of rock musician Peter Gabriel to promote (宣传) world music. The WOMAD Festival started in 1982 and takes place in July at Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and you can see different bands and musicians from all over the world. The festival welcomes over 26, 000 visitors each year.

    The one-day Monsters of Rock Festival at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes was first held in 1980 and gave visitors the chance to hear the very best of hard rock and heavy metal. There were no festivals between 1996 and 2003 as a result of changing musical fashions, but now it has returned and grown into a two-day festival with a campsite for the 30, 000 people who go there in summer days.

    Discover Nature Schools programs

    Becoming Bears (Kindergarten-2 grade)

    By becoming baby bears children learn from their "parent" to survive the seasons. Kids will find safety in the spring and learn kinds of food bears eat during the summer, and then create a cave for winter hibernation(冬眠). After learning the skills needed to survive, students will go out of the cave as an independent black bear able to care for themselves. (1.5-2 hours)

    Whose Clues? (3-5 grade)

    Kids will discover how plants and animals use their special structures to survive. Through outdoor study of plants and animals, kids will recognize their special structures and learn how they enable species to eat, avoid their enemies and survive. Using what they have learned, kids will choose one species and tell how they survive in their living places. (3-4 hours)

    Winged Wonders (3-5 grade)

Birds add color and sound to our world and play an important ecological (生态的) role. Students will learn the basics of birds, understand the role birds play in food chains and go bird watching using field guides and telescopes. Students will do hands-on activities. Students will use tools to build bird feeders, allowing them to attract birds at home.(3-4 hours)

Exploring Your Watershed (6-8 grade)

    We all depend on clean water. Examining how our actions shape the waterways around us. Go on a hike to see first-hand some of the challenging water quality problems in a city. Students will test the water quality to determine the health of an ecosystem.

    Each program is taught for a class with at least 10 students.

    All programs include plenty of time outdoors. So please prepare proper clothing, sunscreen and insect killers for children.

    To take part in a program, please email dcprograms@mdc.mo.gov.

Uggs(雪地靴) are certainly ugly, or at least inelegant. The shapeless boots, pulled on in a hurry, can make anyone look like a slob(懒惰的人), which has made them the target of disrespect. It hasn't been hard to find someone strongly condemning them." Ugg boot s are no sexy," The Independent declared in 2003," unless you' re Mrs. Bigfoot on a lo ne mission across Antarctic to find Mr. Bigfoot. When wearing the boots, a writer of The Gloss complained," There's nothing to indicate that you don't have square, horrible shoeboxes in place of human feet." In 2015, one coffee shop on Brick Lane in east London ever banned ugg- wearers.

And yet, over the years, plenty of strange and unattractive shoes have met with the approval of the fashion establishment. The problem with ugg' s wasn't that they were ugly; it's that they were common.

But a funny thing happened on the way to fashion's tomb: the universal ugg has not gone anywhere. Uggs have quietly stayed here since their best time. Once you start paying attention, you' ll be shocked to discover how many people are still wearing them. They are worn by mothers in town and in the country, by teenagers on Saturday shopping trip and by people in fashion.

Perhaps the secret of uggs's unstoppable success is that, if there is a dividing line between public appeal and private style, it might be a pair of cozy boots. They are certainly comfortable, soft and warm, as if your feet were in the hugging of someone who really loves you. At$150a pair, they are neither cheap nor entirely out of range. They are casual and indulgent(纵容的).

Somehow uggs, the boots that so many people hate, have managed to challenge the cruel logic of the fashion cycle and carry on whether you approve of them or not.