Our brains work in complex and strange ways.There are some people who can calculate the day of the week for any given date in 40,000 years,but who cannot add two plus two.Others can perform complex classical piano pieces after hearing them once,but they cannot read or write.

    Dr.J.Langdon Down first described this condition in 1887.He called these people idiot savants.An idiot savant is a person who has significant mental impairment（损伤）,such as in autism（孤独症，自闭症）or retardation.At the same time,the person also exhibits some extraordinary skills,which are unusual for most people.The skills of the savant may vary from being exceptionally gifted in music or in mathematics,or having a photographic memory.

    One of the first descriptions of a human who could calculate quickly was written in 1789 by Dr.Benjamin Rush, an American doctor.His patient,Thomas Fuller,was brought to Virginia as a slave in 1724.It took Thomas only 90 seconds to work out that a man who has lived 70 years,17 days,and 12 hours has lived 2,210,500,800 seconds. Despite this ability,he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write.

    Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s.Blind Tom had a vocabulary of only 100 words,but he played 5,000 musical pieces beautifully.

    In the excellent movie Rain Man,made in 1988 and available on video cassette,Dustin Hoffman plays an idiot savant who amazes his brother played by Tom Cruise,with his ability to perform complex calculations very rapidly.

    Today we more clearly recognize that the idiot savant is special because of brain impairment.Yet not all brain impairment leads to savant skills.Some studies have shown that people who have purposeful interruption of the left side of the brain can develop idiot savant skills.However few people wish to participate in such experiments.There are many excellent reasons for not undergoing unnecessary experimentation on one's brain.The term idiot savant is outdated and inappropriate.Virtually all savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots.

    The Bristol International Balloon Festival is a world-class hot air ballooning festival and is recognized as one of the UK's top five outdoor events. Founded in 1978, the Festival has become a symbol for Bristol, the same as Brunel's famous Suspension Bridge.

    Held in the rolling hills of Ashton Court on the edge of Bristol, the Festival is hugely popular and completely free, attracting around half a million people from across the country and beyond. This year, for the first time, visitors will get to see how a hot air balloon is made. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the world's largest hot air balloon producer, Cameron Balloons, will take on the challenge of constructing a passenger-carrying balloon, on site, in about four days.

    Other events to look forward to at the Bristol International Balloon Festival include daredevil stunts(冒险特技表演) from the Red Arrows, over 250 trade stalls, local and international food stalls, and a funfair(露天游艺集市). Here's what's on in detail:

    Thursday 11th August:

    12 pm Gates Open and Trade Village open

    6 pm Special Shapes Ascent — a number of hot air balloons will take to the sky

    9:30 pm Nightglow and Firework Finale — 30 or more balloons will glow in time to music

    10:30 pm Gates Close

    Friday 12th August:

    6 am Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    9 am Trade and Entertainment Village open

    12 pm Arena(竞技) Entertainment and Tethered Balloons

    6 pm Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    Saturday 13th August:

    6 am Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    9 am Trade and Entertainment Village open

    12 pm Arena Entertainment and Tethered Balloons

    6 pm Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    9:30 pm Nightglow and Firework Finale

    10:30 pm Gates Close

    Sunday 14th August:

    6 am Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    9 am Trade and Entertainment Village open

    12 pm Arena Entertainment and Tethered Balloons

    6 pm Hot Air Balloon Mass Ascent

    The quick action of Nick helped five people escape a fire on Hope Road. Nick said he usually left his house about 5:30 a.m. to do morning exercises, but that day he decided to stay at home to get his daughter ready for school. As he looked at his neighbor's house, he realized that it was on fire. “I saw smoke and flames and ran over and started beating on the side of the house shouting, 'Your house is on fire! Your house is on fire!'” Nick remembered it was at about 9 a.m. that the firefighters put out the fire.

    Beverly Penny and her husband, Clark, along with their younger daughters, were sleeping in the living room, next to the kitchen, when they heard Nick beating on the walls. She opened the bedroom door and black smoke came in. She managed to get her kids out. Her dog tried to hide under the bed, but Penny caught it by the leg and threw it out of the door. However, chickens in one of the rooms weren't so lucky.

    Firefighters got the call at about 7:05 a.m. “When we arrived with our fire trucks, there were heavy flames outside on the house,” Jerry said. He called Nick a hero, saying that without his quick responses(回应) the result could have been much worse. “The firefighters were fast,” Nick said. “They arrived here within about three minutes.”

    “They did a great job, and I can't thank them enough,” Penny said, then looked at what remained in the house and shook her head as tears rolled down in her eyes. “Everything I have is gone. Luckily nobody was hurt in the fire.” She said the fire could have been caused by an electrical problem. “We've been having problems with mice, so that we could have had something to do with it,” she added.

    As a capital city full of art and history, London is an important political centre and a huge financial marketplace. Whatever you think about London, visiting as a tourist is very different from living there. Each part of London has its own character. Some parts are richer than others, or more industrial, or have better housing.

    Let's start with the centre, the “Square Mile”. This is the oldest part of London. In the past, it was where all financial business was done. Not many people live here, but 300,000 people work here every day.

    Moving west, we come to the West End. This busy shopping and entertainment district is bursting with things to do. Take a walk down Oxford Street, and you will see big department stores like Selfridges and Harrods. Rents here are very high; a one-bedroom apartment may cost around 1,000 pounds a week. Further away is West London. This area is more residential(住宅的)and very fashionable.

    The East End contains the Port of London, which historically is where many immigrants first arrived. Waves of French, Belgians, Jews, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have all lived here. This makes the culture of this area very various. London won the bid to hold the Olympics in 2012, so many Londoners hope that housing, education and employment for many people in this area will improve.

    It is difficult to be general about London. The city is made up of a " collection of villages”, each area with its own character and community. Put them all together, and you have London, an international capital.

    Tim Ma's parents came to the United States from Taiwan in the 1970s. They opened a restaurant. It was not a success. They found success in America, however, in computers and engineering. In part because of their own experiences, Ma's parents hoped he would study to become an engineer or doctor. They wanted financial security for their child.

    Growing up, Ma considered many professions—writer, fireman, even president. But he had a sense early on… I didn't want to be an engineer. However, Ma did well in math and science classes in high school and he ended up choosing to study electrical engineering in college.

    Several engineering jobs later, though, Ma had a change of heart. He wanted to leave the engineering world behind and enter the restaurant business. It was in his blood. After all, his parents had owned a Chinese restaurant in Arkansas. His uncle also owned one in New York.

    His parents, Ma says, could not understand why he would want to leave such a good job to open a restaurant. They had worked long hours but their own restaurant still failed. They kept asking. Why?

    But Ma remained certain. He was going to do things differently than his parents. He was able to learn from their one major mistake as restaurant owners—they knew very little about the art of cooking. So, at age 30, Ma left engineering and returned to school—cooking school.

    Ma soon learned that he enjoyed cooking. In 2009, Ma opened his first restaurant in Virginia. It is called Maple Avenue. At Maple Avenue, Ma cooked, cleaned the ovens, fixed equipment and paid bills. He worked long hours, seven days a week. His long hours paid off. Ma opened his fourth restaurant last year, Kyirisan in Washington, D.C.

    Kyirisan's success is due to the creative menu and food, Ma says. But mostly it just comes from completely hard work. I think in this country you can create your own success, just by working hard. Not because you're smarter than anybody, not because you're more creative than anybody, just by working hard. And I think that's why a lot of people end up coming to America.

    When Shakespeare was twenty-one, he went to London, a very interesting place, to try his fortune.

    There was the famous London Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral, and palaces and markets and long streets full of shops.

    Then, too, there were the daily crowds where could be seen people from all over the world. Knights, scholars and the highwayman (拦路强盗）or thieves, who had been infamous for their clever robberies, passed by each other.

    Here, also, were noblemen dressed in gold, from Italy and Spain and France; slaves from Spanish America, sea captains and ministers, soldiers and servants—all held by chances or interests within the gray walls which circled London, and whose gates gave welcome to as strange a crowd as could be found in the world.

    Into this curious crowd came Shakespeare, quick to see and eager to learn. And before long all these strange sights were as familiar to him as the faces of his own town's residents. Each one told its story to him so plainly that, as before he had learned the secrets of the fields and woods, so now he learned men and men's interests that make up the great world.

    And he learned these lessons so well that when he came to write his plays, he made such use of them as no writer ever made before or since; for it is the use of this knowledge of the world, combined with his own genius, that makes Shakespeare the greatest dramatist that has ever lived.