Tips on how to save money

    It's important for you teenagers to know how to save money. You know that the money you save can be for rainy days and be used to pay through your college education. If you think it's a difficult task and don't know how to do it, please do as the following.

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    My dad always tells me that if one doesn't respect money, it will never respect you. Hence, it's important that you keep a record of your daily expenses. Make it a habit to write down all that you have spent. And when you find out the total expenses at the end of the month, you will realize what you have spent more money in doing.  {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Open a savings account.

    Opening a savings account is a better way to save money. You can set a goal; say (for example), the money is for a new notebook or for college, and then save, until you have enough money to buy a notebook or until you go to college. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Do not carry much cash.

    Do you have the habit of not leaving a store without buying anything? The only way to stop that is carrying less money around with you. Go to the store with the minimum amount of money, which will not even help you buy a drink. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Save the changes.

    Save the changes that you get back. If you have gone to a shop to buy something and get back some changes, then do not spend them.  {#blank#}5{#/blank#}And you'll be surprised at the huge amount of money after days.

    Follow these tips above, and thus you can save a lot of money. And surely, they'll help you to be more responsible in your life.

    Study Links Video Game Use to Problems in School

    A new study warns that too much time spent playing computer games could affect a child's performance at school.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} They show that too many hours spent playing games can reduce students changes of success in school.

    More than 600 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 took part in research project.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} It is said to be the first ever long-term study of information technology on school test results in Northern Ireland.

    The study found that teenagers who played computer games less than once a week were more successful in school than those who played them twice a day or more. 41% of the students who used gaming devices two or more times a day received passing grades on school exams{#blank#}3{#/blank#}.

    The study found that social media use did not affect school performance. Celine McStravick is the director of the National Children's Bureau Northern Ireland (NCBNI). She says “{#blank#}4{#/blank#}— I think that's more because social media is part of every child's life. It's the way they communicate. It's the way they keep in touch with their friends.”

    Many parents say their children are becoming increasingly dependent on computer games. Some have compared gaming to a drug addiction.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} It suggested that computer games can cause children to stay awake late at night. Less sleep makes children tired and unable to pay attention in school the next day.

A. However, the study did not explore addiction.

B. The new games are much different from older ones.

C. The study showed no connection between social media and test results.

D. It took place over a period of three years from 2013 to 2015.

E. Thai compared with 77% of those who rarely played the games.

F. Drug addiction does great harm to their health and performance at school.

G. Britain's National Children's Bureau Northern Ireland reported the results of the study.

    Television is everywhere around us. Yet it is great for learning English. The pictures make it easier to understand than radio and because you can see who's talking, and get a better idea of what people mean. Just watch their ＂body language＂! Watch programs that you find enjoyable and entertaining. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Here's the English-at-home.com guide to learning as much as possible while watching English television:

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Learning English should be fun — not something that you have to force yourself to do. If you have a passion for football, watch matches or the sports news.

    Keep a notebook near to your television. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} This is especially useful. You can look for programs with subtitles in your own language.

    Try to watch English television regularly. Even if you can only watch 15 minutes a day, you'll be amazed how much you learn.

    Don't worry if you don't understand everything. English television is normally aimed at native English speakers. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If the programs that you're watching are full of unknown words, just concentrate on understanding the general meaning.

    Keep a note of television programs and presenters that you find easy to understand and try to watch them regularly. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Soon you will impress your friends with your English skills.

A. Don't watch the programs too easy for you.

B. Programs often include many difficult words.

C. Better watch programs that you find interesting.

D. English learning has little to do with watching TV.

E. Whatever you watch will help you improve your English.

F. Doing this will increase your confidence in learning English.

G. You can take down any new words or expressions that you hear.

Happiness begins from appreciation

    If you are feeling that life just cannot be any worse for you, it can be challenging to think positive. When stressed, depressed, upset or otherwise in a negative state of mind because you are aware that misfortune keeps occurring, it is important to shift those negative thoughts to something positive. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    It is often very hard to think positive when so many things are negative, but be sure that someone, somewhere is worse off than you. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} If you start with one small, positive thing and appreciate it during the course of your day, you will begin to move into a more positive situation and people will start showing up in your life. With appreciation, you will find that over time, you will change your outlook and choose to be happy, regardless of the events around you. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Begin and end each day with a “Thank you for this wonderful, glorious day!”

    When you see the rise of gas prices, say “I am so glad to have a vehicle in which to get around.”

    When your boss is too hard on you, say “I am grateful for my job as I know that many don't have one.”

    If you are having health problems, be grateful for what does work: “I really do appreciate it that my eyes see, my ears hear, my mouth tastes, my legs walk, my arms lift and my mind thinks and everything else works.”

    Write down what you're grateful for each day. In moments when you're feeling really down, read loud what you wrote previously. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If you practice this regularly, you will find your list getting longer and longer.

    The key is to move yourself into a positive thought and keep it there long enough to make it a moment of appreciation. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. This will certainly help uplift your spirits.

B. If not, you will only attract more misfortune.

C. It is of great importance to learn to be grateful.

D. The more you appreciate, the happier you'll be.

E. If you have made some achievements in your career.

F. Here are a few common examples for you to practice.

G. You can choose to think differently by beginning with the smallest of steps.

    This time of year, thousands of college applicants wait for e­notices and auspiciously(吉利地) sized envelopes from schools, under terrible pressure from their parents, friends, teachers, and themselves. As to this, I offer some advice, which comes not only from a bit of experience, but also a bit of research: just cool out and continue, okay?

    Many parents and students think there is a world of difference between the lifelong outcomes of an A­minus student who gets into, say. Princeton, and an A­minus student who applies to Princeton but "only" gets into some less selective school, like Penn State or the University of Wisconsin. They assume that a decision made by faceless Ivy League admissions officers, to some extent, will mark the difference between success and failure in life.

    There are two important things to say about this stress. First, to put the anxiety into context, the kids applying to these schools are already doing quite well. Seventy percent of 29­-year-­olds don't have a bachelor's degree, and the majority of BAs are earned at non­selective schools that accept a majority of their applicants. Many of the applicants have already won life's lottery.

    But if that doesn't ease the nerves of the 40,000 people waiting on Stanford or Penn, here is a more encouraging conclusion from economics. For most applicants, it doesn't matter if they don't get into their top choice, according to a paper by Stacy Dale, a mathematician at Mathematica Policy Research, and Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University. They tracked two groups of students——­one that attended college in the 1970s and the other in the early 1990s. They wanted to know：Did students attending the most elite colleges earn more in their 30s. 40s. and 50s than students with similar SAT scores, who were rejected by elite colleges? The short answer was no. Or, in the author's language, the difference between the students who went to super­selective schools and the students with similar SAT scores rejected by those schools and went to less selective institutions was "indistinguishable from zero."

    What does that mean? It means that, for many students, "who you are" is more important than where you go. It's hard to show that highly selective colleges add much earning power, even with their distinguished professors and professional networks. In addition, the decision of admissions officers isn't as important as the sum of the decisions, habits, and relationships students have built up to this point in their young life.

    For the elite colleges themselves, the Dale­Krueger paper had additional, fascinating findings. It's found that the most selective schools do make an extraordinary difference in life earning for minority students from less-­educated families who are more likely to rely on colleges to provide the training and job networks with great influence. Getting into Princeton if your parents went to Princeton? Fine, although not a game­changer.  But getting into Princeton if your parents both left community college after a year? That could be game­changing. Whatever the results, it's more important to choose a university that is suited to the college applicants.