People can be addicted to different things, e.g. alcohol, drugs, certain foods, or even television. People who have such an addiction are compulsive, i.e they have a very powerful psychological need that they feel they must satisfy. According to psychologists, many people are compulsive spenders; they feel that they must spend money. This compulsion, like most others, is irrational-impossible to explain reasonably. For compulsive spenders who buy on credit, charge accounts are even more exciting than money. In other words, compulsive spenders feel that with credit, they can do anything. Their pleasure in spending enormous amounts is actually greater than the pleasures that they get from the things they buy.

    There is even a special psychology of bargain hunting. To save money, of course, most people look for sales, low prices, and discounts. Compulsive bargain hunters, however, often buy things that they don't need just because they are cheap. They want to believe that they are helping their budgets, but they are really playing an exciting game: when they can buy something for less than other people, they feel that they are winning. Most people, experts claim, have two reasons for their behavior: a good reason for the things that they do and the real reason.

    It is not only scientists, of course, who understand the psychology of spending habits, but also business people. Stores, companies and advertisers use psychology to increase business: they consider people's need for love, power, or influence, their basic values, their beliefs and opinions, and so on in their advertising and sales methods.

    Psychologists often use a method called “behavior therapy” to help individuals solve their personal problems. In the same was, they can help people who feel that they have problems with money.

    This March is a busy month in Shanghai．There's a lot to do．Here are the highlights.

Live Music — Late Night Jazz

    Enjoy real American jazz from Herbie Davis, the famous trumpet player．He's coming with his new 7-piece band, Herbie's Heroes ． Herbie is known to play well into the early hours, so don't expect to get much sleep．This is Herbie's third visit to Shanghai．The first two were sold out, so get your tickets quickly.

PLACE: The Jazz Club DATES: 15—23 March

PRICE: ￥80,120        TIME: 10:00p.m．till late!

TEL: 6466—8736

Scottish dancing

    Take your partners and get ready to dance till you drop． Scottish dancing is fun and easy to learn．Instructors will demonstrate the dances．The live band, Gordon Stroppie and the Weefrees, are also excellent.

PLACE: Jack Stein's            DATES: every Monday

PRICE: Y60 including one drink TIME: 7:00 —0:00 p.m.

TEL: 6402-1877

Exhibitions — Shanghai Museum

    There are 120,000 pieces on show here．You can see the whole of Chinese history under one roof．It's always interesting to visit, but doubly(加倍地) so at the moment with the Egyptian Tombs exhibition．There are lots of mummies and more gold than you've ever seen before．Let us know if you see a mummy move!

PLACE: Shanghai Museum    PRICE: ￥30 (￥15 for students)

TEL: 6888-6888             DATES: daily

TIME: Monday — Friday 9:00a.m．— 5:00p.m., Weekends 9:00a.m. — 9:00p.m.

Dining — Sushi chef in town

    Sushi(寿司) is getting really big in Shanghai．In Japan, it's become an art form．The most famous Sushi "artist" is Yuki Kamura．She's also one of the few female chefs in Japan．She'll be at Sushi Scene all of this month.

PLACE: Sushi Scene in the Shanghai Hotel      DATES: all month

PRICE: ￥200         TIME: lunch time

TEL: 6690-3211

For a full listing of events, see our website.

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    Home can be a great place for children to study. It's important to provide a workspace of their own where they can read books or just write a letter to their friends.

Location(位置)

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Kitchen and dining room are not so well suited for regular study, since books and pens get in the way of the day-to-day uses of those areas. Set up a place where a child can settle in and leave papers and pens at band without having to clear everything away each night. For a child that likes being alone, set aside a corner of his bedroom, but keep it separate from things like games, music and other hobbies not related to studying.

Keeping Things in Order

    Parents should encourage their child to spread out, but to leave it neat and orderly when he isn't using his workspace. Ownership is very important for self-respect{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. The workplace should be personal, but not another part of the playroom.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Encourage the whole family to help build a supportive environment that children need for success in school. Give them a good example of how to deal with problems, how to manage time and get things done in the right way.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Study will be more enjoyable and effective when supported by the whole family.

A. Attitude Is Everything

B. Bring Organization into Your Home

C. Here are several ways to choose a location

D. Building a Good Home Learning Environment

E. Hold a can-do attitude and your child will follow your example

F. Setting up a space in a common area of your home can be a good idea for children

G. A child who learns to organize his spare will carry organization into every corner of his life

    If you're a fan of smart technology, you may have had some sleepless nights lately.

    That's because Alexa, the artificial intelligence (AI) behind US company Amazon's Echo smart speakers, has been "letting out an automatic, creepy (令人毛骨悚然的) cackle," for no apparent reason, according to BBC News.

    Many social media users shared their stories of Alexa scaring them with the seemingly unprompted laugh.

    "Every time Alexa laughs, an angel dies," Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk joked on social media.

    On March 7, Amazon released an update that fixed the problem, saying that the laugh was triggered (引发) by Echo devices mistakenly thinking that users had said the command "Alexa, laugh".

    However, what should have been a funny story raised the ongoing topic of man versus machine.

    With the rise of artificial and robotic technology, "Digital machines have started to demonstrate (展示) broad abilities in pattern recognition, complex communication, and other fields that used to only belong to human," wrote Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in their book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. They believe that AI will "do more and more, and our lives will get better".

    However, ever since the earliest days of AI, there have been concerns that some day, software will take over the world, leaving the fate of humans unknown.

    "With artificial intelligence we are summoning (召唤) the demon ," Musk told students during a meeting at MIT in 2014. "If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful."

    Many scientists have shared the same concern. The late British physicist Stephen Hawking said at a technology conference in Portugal in November that "computers can, in theory, imitate human intelligence, and exceed it… AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization." If creators are to safely control AI, however, Hawking suggested that they "employ best practice and effective management".

    "I am an optimist and I believe that we can create AI for the good of the world," he said at the conference. "We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management, and prepare for its consequences well in advance."

Homework

    Do arithmetic problems 15 through 25. State the different forms of the verbs on page 50 of your French workbook. Read pages 12 through 20 of the Shakespeare play, and don't forget to fill in the missing chemical symbols on the worksheet.

    Sound like a list of your homework for the next few nights－or maybe even just for tonight? {#blank#}1{#/blank#} It's your teachers' way of evaluating how much you understand what's going on in class. And it helps strengthen important concepts.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} It's inviting to start with the easy things to get them out of the way. However, you'll have the most energy and focus when you begin, so it's best to use this mental power on the subjects that are most challenging. Later, when you're more tired, you can focus on the simpler things. If you get stuck on a problem, try to figure it out as well as you can－but don't spend too much time on it because this can mess up your homework schedule for the rest of the night. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}But don't pick someone whom you'll be up all night chatting with, or you'll never get it done!

    Most people's attention spans aren't very long, so take some breaks while doing your homework. Sitting for too long without relaxing will make you less productive than if you stop every so often. Taking a 15-minute break every hour is a good idea for most people. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Once your homework is done, you can check over it if you have extra time. Be sure to put it safely away in your backpack－there's nothing worse than having a completed assignment that you can't find the next morning or that gets ruined by a careless brother or sister. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Now you're free to hang out.

A. Homework is a major part of going to school.

B. Luckily, you can do a few things to do less homework.

C. When you start your homework, deal with the hardest tasks first.

D. But if you're really concentrating, wait until it's a good time to stop.

E. If you need to, ask an adult for help or call or email a classmate for advice.

F. And no teacher still believes that "chewed by the dog" line－even when it's true!

G. In conclusion, no one is expected to stay long, and people have very different learning styles.

    Global warming is the process of earth's atmosphere heating up. Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of earth's atmosphere has gone up 1 Fahrenheit. The weather has not changed exactly the same way in every area of the planet. But scientists think that the rise in average temperature is already affecting the earth, s climate.

    Many scientists now believe that global warming is caused by cutting down trees, producing more trash, and polluting the environment are some of the reasons that the temperature has gone up. Many scientists believe that the biggest causes of global warming are new human technologies that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

    The greenhouse effect is not new. Certain gases in the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane, prevent heat energy from escaping back into space. In the past, the climate didn't change much because nature produced just the right amount of greenhouse gases to deal with it.

    Today, most scientists are pretty sure that the rising temperature can't be blamed on nature. Ever since the industrial revolution in the 1700s, humans have relied on machines for daily life. And many of those machines give off a lot of greenhouse gases. An increase in the release of greenhouse gases from human activities is throwing nature off balance.

    The climate is a very complicated thing, but many scientists agree that the rising atmospheric temperature has already damaged the environment. Sheets of ice, called glaciers, are melting in Antarctica and other parts of the globe. As glaciers break off and melt into the oceans, they are adding warm water to the oceans and causing the sea level to rise.

    Over the past last 100 years, the sea level has risen 6-8 inches around the world. That means land along the coasts is beginning to disappear under water. Bigger and warmer oceans are also adding to other weather problems caused by pollution in the atmosphere. Some places have received more rain, others have had bigger storms and a few areas in the world have experienced unusual droughts.