From time to time, we all get a bit down. Maybe we are feeling bad because we're not doing well with our goals. There are many reasons for feeling down, but I'm not able to discuss all of them. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Make a list. Sometimes we are sad simply because we are troubled by all the things we have to do. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Make a list of the most pressing things you have to do. Thus you're getting things under control. You can see, right in front of you, what you need to do, and that can pick up your mood.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} You've made a list, and you still feel puzzled? Well, get started on the first thing you need to do. Once you get into action, you'll feel better. And once you start doing something, you will feel much better than lying around feeling sorry for yourself.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I like Brown Eyed Girl, the Kinks, the Ramones, or an upbeat Beatles tune. You might have your own brand of feel-good music. Whatever it is, let yourself move to the beat. It may just be what the doctor ordered.

    Talk about it. Get a best friend, family member or coworker you can talk to. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} It can also help you work out the reasons you're feeling down.

    Directions: Read the following passage. Answer the questions according to the information given in the passage.

    Kids and Ponds

    Years ago there was a group of kids who would hang around at some local ponds in the woods near their houses in Warwick, Rhode Island. In summer they caught frogs and fish. When winter arrived they couldn't wait to go skating. Time passed, and the ponds became the only open space for the kids to enjoy themselves in that neighborhood.

    One day. a thirteen-year-old boy from this group of kids read in the local newspaper that a developer wanted to fill in the ponds and build over a hundred small houses called condominiums. So the boy went door to door and gathered more than two hundred signatures (签名）to stop the development A group of citizens met and decided to support him.

    At the meeting of the town planning board (委员会)，the boy was quite nervous at first and spoke very softly. But when he saw the faces of his friends and neighbors in the crowd and thought about what was happening to their favorite ponds，his voice grew louder. He told the town officials that they should speak for the citizens. He also insisted that they should leave enough space for children. A few days later，the developer stopped his plan.

    Nine years later, when that teen was a senior in college, he was informed that the developer was back with his proposal to build condominiums. Now twenty-two years old, he was studying wetlands ecology. He again appeared before the town planning board. This time as an expert witness, he used environmental protection laws to explain restrictions on development in and around wetlands and the knowledge of wetlands ecology to help improve the development. Finally some condominiums were built, but less than half the number the developer wanted. The ponds where those kids used to hang around were protected by a strip of natural land，and are still there today.

    Born in 1949, Diana Nyad took an early interest in swimming as a sport and was a Florida State High School swimming champion. Like many young athletes, she had Olympic dreams, but a serious illness kept her from competing in the Games. The disappointment didn't stop her from going forward. Instead, she became interested in marathon swimming. A brilliant athlete, she was well-conditioned for spending long periods of time in the water. As a long-distance swimmer, she would compete against herself and the obstacles presented by distance, danger, cold, and exhaustion.

    For ten years Nyad devoted herself to becoming one of the world's best long-distance swimmers. In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women's record for the course. In 1972 she set another record by swimming 102.5 miles from an island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. Then she broke a third record when swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.

    Nyad attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba in 1978. Though the span of water is less than 100 miles wide, it is rough and dangerous. After battling the water for two days, she had to give for the sake of her own health and safety. Even so, she impressed the world with her courage and strong desire to succeed. For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reading Cuba. That is how she defined success. It did not matter that her swim came up short; she believed she had touched the other shore.

When Nyad ended her career as a swimmer, she continued to try new things—travelling the world as a reporter, writing books and giving public speeches about her life. Diana Nyad works to inspire others, just as she did when she swam the waters of the world.

    As our family are getting ready for the annual holiday of Thanksgiving, which is probably the most important holiday in the U.S because it's celebrated by people of all faiths. I think back to a cold November day more than twenty years ago. It was a day when my husband and I, married just about three months, got stuck on I -89 in Vermont when our car broke down.

    We had just visited my husband's parents in Vermont, and with a huge turkey they gave us slowly thawing (解冻）in the trunk of our old car, we were heading back to our apartment in Boston to celebrate our first Thanksgiving together. Our car broke down half an hour after we got on the highway. And it was raining. Back to then, not everyone had a cell phone, and in those days if you broke down along a lonely stretch of a highway far from the nearest emergency call box in cold November rain, it wasn't fun.

    Fortutiously for us, a van with a bunch of people coming back from a ski trip stopped andasked if we needed help. They gave us a ride to the nearest gas station, from where we could phone my father-in-law and asked him for help. My father-in-law arranged for :he car to be towed (拖引), and drove us all the way to Boston that day.

    So as we sit down to dinner and think of all the things we can be thankful for tonight, I want to say “thank you” to the strangers on I -89 some twenty years ago for giving a young couple a ride when their car with a frozen turkey in the trunk broke down.

    Never underestimate the difference you can make to the lives of others by one small act of kindness. Step forward, reach out and help. This week, reach to someone that might need a lift.

    The bald eagle has been an official symbol (象征) of the United States for more than 200 years. Now it will share the stage with another American animal—the bison. Last spring, this huge, hairy animal became the country's national symbol.

    Bison, also known as buffalo, are the biggest land animals in North America. They have played a big role in American history.

    Long ago, millions of bison traveled across the U. S. Many lived in the grasslands of the Great Plains. For hundreds of years, American Indians in that area needed bison meat for food. They used the skins to make clothing and houses, and the bones to make tools.

    Later, many settlers moved to the Great Plains to set up farms and towns. They hunted bison in large numbers. By 1900, bison had almost died out. Only about 1,000 bison were left. Since then, people have worked hard to save the bison. Today, there are more than 400, 000 bison in the U. S. They live in protected areas and all over the nation. Their comeback is seen as a great success.

    To recognize the bison's importance in U. S. history, wildlife groups and American Indian groups asked U. S. lawmakers to make the animal a national symbol. Lawmakers passed a bill, or plan for a law, to do that. The President then signed the bill into law.

    U. S. Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota was one lawmaker who pushed to get the law passed. “The bison is an amazing animal,” he told Scholastic News. “It's a great symbol for a great country.”

    When you're sitting at your computer, do you work all day without a break? Or do you allow yourself to become distracted (分心）now and again ... to open a few extra tabs, check social media, read a bit of news, keep up with the latest fashion trends, and maybe catch up on some celebrity gossip.

    Stop! You're 'cyberloafing'. This word is a combination of cyber which means 'related to computers', and 'loafing', which means ' relaxing in a lazy way ' .We do it, and we do it a lot. A study from the University of Texas suggests we are guilty of this form of procrastination (拖延）for 14% of our working day. On a Friday afternoon, I expect it's more than that.

    I'll admit to losing myself in cyberloafing. In fact, I've already done it in the course of writing this story. Okay, more than once. It can damage your productivity and even your career because according to the University of Texas research, each time a worker gets distracted by the Internet, it takes an average of 23 minutes to get back to work.

    More than that, cyberloafing has a dark side, according to a report published in The Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. It argues that cyberloafing is connected to several negative personality qualities. People who cyberloaf are more likely to be selfish and tricky.

    Why do we do it? For some, it's most likely an escape from what they're supposed to be doing. Others might get a feeling of satisfaction from finding a great deal online.

    When you have the whole world of the Internet at your fingertips, it's hard to resist.

    How do we solve this problem? If you can truly ask yourself why you are cyberloafing, then that can help identify the base problem. And if that sounds like too much hard work, you could just switch off the Internet for a couple of hours!

    So, in the meantime, let me just close those extra tabs.