“Cool” is a word with many meanings, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} As the world change, the word has many different meanings.
“Cool” can be used to express feelings of interest in almost anything. When you see a famous car on the street, maybe you will say, “It's cool.” {#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can use “cool” instead of many words. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} A teacher asked her students to write about the waterfall(瀑布) they had visited.On one student's paper was just one sentence,“ It's so cool.”{#blank#}4{#/blank#} But the story also shows a scarcity(缺乏) of words. Without “cool”, some people have no words to show the same meaning. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} I can. And I think they are also very cool.

    The Chinese are very generous with money when it comes to educating their children. Some parents send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia, regardless(不管) of how much this costs.  Many also want their children to take after-school activities where they either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is, so parents often spend a great deal of money on education. Even poor parents buy a computer for their son or daughter.

    However, what most parents fail to see is that the best education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents should know their children's different skills.  They will usually be good in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today's children lack(缺乏) confidence.

    The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take tests and how to study well. They are not teaching them the most important skills that can be helpful to their growth. These skills can also build their confidence.

    Parents can help achieve this by teaching their children practical skills like cooking, sewing and other housework.

    Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking needs patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job successfully. The result, a well-cooked dinner, will give a child a lot of satisfaction and confidence.

    An old machine, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child as a toy may make him curious. If he spends hours looking at it, and trying to mend it, your child might become an engineer when he grows up. It is better to do such than teach a child to read a book. These activities can teach them  to think, and to use their minds.

    How Chinese parents should {#blank#}1{#/blank#} their children

    Look around when you're on a subway. What is the most popular time-killing (消磨时间的) activity? In China, most people play on their smart phone. While in other countries, people often enjoy reading.

    On average (平均), each Chinese person read less than eight books in 2018, according to a recent survey from the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication. But Chinese people ①/spend/________ an average of 26 minutes on WeChat Reading every day.

    ②在许多西方国家，人们在任何时间都会阅读。Even backpackers (背包客) enjoy reading books when they are having a break at the beach or relaxing from a hike. Reading books builds a bridge ③/ bɪˈtwiːn/________ our lives and the unknown world.

    Many hotels abroad also offer book-exchanges for visitors. Simply drop off your finished books and take those ones that other people left behind.

    In most US middle schools, teachers give students a reading list every few weeks. ④Most books are easy to read, so students won't lose their confidence of reading.

    Good reading habits lead you to a lifelong love of books. In order to encourage people to read more. China is planning to foster (培养) the habits of reading in its law, Although this has both good and bad sides, ⑤________.

The seed vault(种子地窖)

    A lot of countries need different kinds of seeds so that they can plant them again. There is an important reason for this, Sometimes plants can't grow in a country because of bad weather or disease, so farmers need new seeds.

    You can keep seeds in a" seed vault". It's a place at a special temperature. The seeds don't grow, but they can live for a long time. Norway has the biggest seed vault in the world ﹣the Svalbard Global Seed Vault﹣and it has seeds from a lot of different countries.

    The vault is on the island of Spitsbergen. The island is about one thousand kilometers from the North Pole. It's a very cold place so it's good for seeds. Above the ground, the doorway is small, but inside, the building is huge. You walk down a long corridor (走廊), which is one hundred and thirty meters inside a mountain. At the end of it, there are three large areas with seeds.

    There are about half a million kinds of seeds inside the vault. For example, there are kinds of seeds for rice from Asia and Africa, 32 kinds of seeds for potatoes from Ireland and seeds for different tomatoes from the USA.

    The seed vault has space for a lot more seeds. You can put about 2.2 billion(十亿)seeds inside. The seeds can live here for thousands of years because of the cold temperature of ﹣18℃. So in the future, humans can grow any seed they want. In other words, the seed vault is the difference between life and death.