We are not suggesting that you can reach a permanent state called “happiness” and remain there. But there are many ways to turn the path of anxiety, anger, and sadness into a state of happiness. Here are four ideas to get you started. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

● Laugh out loud

    Just expecting a happy, funny event can raise levels of pleasure-causing hormones (荷尔蒙) and lower production of stress hormones. Researchers at the University of California tested 16 men who all agreed they thought a certain videotape was funny. Half were told three days in advance they would watch it. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} When they actually watched the video, their levels of stress hormones dropped greatly, while their levels of pleasure-causing hormones rose 27 percent.

● Do one thing at a time

    Edward Suarez, professor of medical psychology at Duck, found that people who do several things at the same time are more likely to have high blood pressure. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Instead of talking on the phone while cleaning the kitchen, sit down in a comfortable chair and turn your entire attention over to the conversation.

●{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Although relationships help take away stress, sometimes you need time to recharge and reflect on your own. Take yourself out to lunch or to a movie, or simply spend an afternoon reading at home, or looking through books in a bookstore.

● Practice mindfulness

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Instead of worrying about your check-up tomorrow while having dinner with your family, focus on the here and now — food, the company, and the conversation.

A. Spend time alone.

B. Focus on the present.

C. Take care of the soul.

D. Take that finding seriously.

E. Choose the ones that work for you.

F. They started experiencing biological changes right away.

G. Find a quiet place near your house and make it your secret place to escape.

Can zoos ever be animal-friendly?

    The topic of our last class discussion was “How can zoos provide animals with a good life?” Everyone believed it was impossible for zoos to give animals a caring environment. Our teacher suggested that visiting a modern zoo might give us a new point of view.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} In our discussion, many people said that zoos were full of smelly cages with unhappy animals living in. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, however, was set in an attractive, open environment. Trees and flowers had been planted around the park. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    At school, some people accused（指责）zoos of exploiting（剥削）animals for money but at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, as I see it, nothing could be further from the truth. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Before I visited Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, I wasn't sure about the rights and wrongs of zoos. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I feel that, although zoos can't provide the freedom of the wild, they can be animal-friendly by giving animals a safe and caring environment. As long as they do this well, to my mind they make a good contribution（贡献）to animal health. They also play an important part in educating us about wildlife. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    On the bus back to school, we all agreed that what we liked most was the zoo's environment and we would recommend（推荐）it for next year's group.

A. It is difficult for the zoo to raise animals.

B. More and more animals enjoy their wild homes.

C. I think lots of my friends changed their minds, too.

D. Most of the money is used to improve conditions at the zoo.

E. I went to the zoo and was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

F. In my opinion, the animals, rather than seeming upset, were pleased.

G. It was difficult to say how a zoo could really make up for animals' loss of freedom.

    China has been the birthplace of many of the world's greatest inventions. It was, for example, the first country to produce paper money. Before the invention of paper money and coins, people used many different kinds of things for buying and selling. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} This exchange of goods and services for other goods and services is called bartering（物物交换）.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In 1200 BC, people in China began to use shells as money. Usually the shells used as money were very small. This made it easier for people to carry money over long distances, and allowed for trade to develop between different parts of the country.

    In the years which followed this invention, many other countries around the world began to do the same. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    The next development was in 1000 BC, when China started making bronze and copper shells. It wasn't long before the Chinese made round coins out of metal. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} By 500 BC, metal coins had begun to appear in countries like Persia and Greece, and later in the Roman Empire.

    About 1000 years later, leather was used as money in China, and in 806 AD, the first paper banknotes were produced by the Chinese people. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. As time went by, trade between countries increased.

B. People also began collecting foreign coins as souvenirs.

C. They also used tiny shells as money for buying and selling.

D. It was still many years before paper money appeared in Europe.

E. However, as economies developed, such exchanges became impractical.

F. During that time, for example, buying a chicken might cost several potatoes.

G. The very first coins often had holes in them so that people could tie them together.

    Plastic sludge(污泥)and garbage is a disaster for the world's oceans. A film crew traveled the globe to document the rubbish. And Julie Andersen of the Plastic Oceans Foundation says what we see is just the tip of the problem. “Half of the waste actually sinks to the bottom, and that remains on the surface actually breaks down. ”

    The filmmakers found rubbish in ocean gyres, the circulating currents that trap large concentrations of pollution in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacifc Oceans, home of what some have plastic. What we found was a plastic smog that spread throughout all the water. And in some parts of the oceans, scientists have found more plastic than plant. ”

    The pieces of the plastic garbage infect the food chain, sometimes visibly, and more so at the microscopic level, where the plastic particles interact with other pollutants. “There are heavy metals, medicines, industrial waste in the sea, while it acts like magnets(磁铁). These poisonous substances absorb on the plastic, and then when seafood absorbs the plastics, those poisonous substances enter the fatty tissues. ”To be consumed by other sea life and by people at last.

    China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are the worst plastic polluters. The United States, although a leader in recycling, is one of the world's 20 since it produces and consumes so much plastic. There are efforts around the world to address the problem, including at this newly opened recycling center in Lebanon(黎巴嫩). But Andersen says there is more that people can do. “Cut back on single-use plastics, straws, plastic cups, plastic water bottles, plastic bags and find alternatives like reusable materials.” She says healthy oceans are essential to our survival.

    How to become a better reader?

    Language and literacy(读写能力) are among mankind's greatest inventions. Evolving and even dying over the course of human history, languages are a reflection of our cultural and societal attitudes. Most humans acquire language in early childhood and speak fluently when they are about three years old, but our continued relationship with language gives shape and meaning to our lives. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    ⒈Take it slow

    Many readers feel that they read too slowly, especially compared with others but the truth is that the faster you read, the less likely you are to comprehend fully what you're reading. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Reading is a lifelong process; learning to read closely and slowly will help you become faster over time without missing anything.

    ⒉{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    When humans first began reading written words, it was unusual to read in silence. Though general inappropriate for commuters or for late-night adventurers, reading out loud is one of the best ways to improve your reading ability. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If so, you will begin to read more accurately and with better vocal expression. Try listening to the author reading their own work-you'll be surprised to find how clearly it comes through on the page.

    ⒊Write

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} How and what you read affects how and what you write, and the best readers often make the best writers. But while much can be learned from close, repeated readings, there are many secretive pleasures to language that can only be experienced through the practice of writing.

A. Read aloud.

B. Get into the rhythm of the authors voice.

C. Here are 3 ways to become a better reader.

D. Writing and reading go hand -in-hand.

E. Try writing every day for a month; you will never read the same again.

F. The ability to read is important to form an identity and express one's feelings.

G. In that case, do not hesitate to re-read the passage.

    Every festival has its own meaning. Labor Day, for example, celebrates the value of hard work. Thanksgiving is about showing thanks to people around you. And Valentines' Day is a time when you express love to your loved ones, But somehow it now seems that all festivals we just about one thing-shopping. And that can be a big problem.

    "In a way, over -consumption(过度消费) is the mother of all our environmental problems" Kalle Lasn once told CNN. Lasn is the organizer of Buy Nothing Day, a day set up in Canada in 1992 to fight against unhealthy spending habits, and has now become an international event. It's hel on the day, which is known as Black Fridny -a famous shopping day in the US and Canada. You can see the irony(讽刺)here.

    Even though the idea of Buy Nothing Day was brought up 26 years ago, we seem to need it now more than ever, It's just as Lasn said, all the different kinds of pollution in our lives today bad air quality, the reduction of forest area, endangered animal species, and plastic bags found in the ocean-seem to be the same cause: over-consumption.

     The latest example is the Singles' Day shopping craze of Nov 11, which saw a new sales record, But as Nie Li, a campaigner at Greenpeace, told Reuters. "Record-setting over-consumption means record-setting waste." And it was reported that last year the Singles' Day packages left more than 160,000 tons of waste, including plastic and cardboard. The Collins dictionary has also just named "single-use" its Word of the Year, pointing out the problem that there're too many things we tow out after only using them once.

    So, Buy Nothing Day might only be here for one day a year, but it's not just to remind us to the a break from shopping on that day, but to change our lifestyle completely, focusing on fun "with people we care about" rather than wasting money on useless things.