The National Gallery

Description：

    The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance.

Layout：

    The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling．

    The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.

    The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer．

    The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.

Opening Hours：

    The Gallery is open every day from 10 am. to 6 pm. (Fridays 10 am. to 9 pm.) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.

Getting There：

    Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).

    A new study shows students who write notes by hand during lectures perform better on exams than those who use laptops(笔记本电脑)．

    Students are increasingly using laptops for note­taking because of speed and legibility(清晰度)．But the research has found laptop users are less able to remember and apply the concepts they have been taught.

    Researchers performed experiments that aimed to find out whether using a laptop increased the tendency to make notes “mindlessly” by taking down word for word what the professors said.

    In the first experiment，students were given either a laptop or pen and paper. They listened to the same lectures and were told to use their usual note­taking skills. Thirty minutes after the talk，they were examined on their ability to remember facts and on how well they understood concepts.

    The researchers found that laptop users took twice as many notes as those who wrote by hand. However，the typists performed worse at remembering and applying the concepts. Both groups scored similarly when it came to memorizing facts.

    The researchers' report said，“While more notes are beneficial，if the notes are taken mindlessly，as is more likely the case on a laptop，the benefit disappears.”

    In another experiment aimed at testing long­term memory，students took notes as before but were tested a week after the lecture. This time，the students who wrote notes by hand performed significantly better on the exam.

    These two experiments suggest that handwritten notes are not only better for immediate learning and understanding，but that they also lead to superior revision in the future.

    The word advertising refers to any kind of public announcement that brings products and services to the attention of people. Throughout history, advertising has been an effective way to promote(促进)the trading and selling of goods. In the Middle Ages, merchants employed "town criers" to read public messages aloud to promote their goods. When printing was invented in the fifteenth century, pages of advertisements(ads)could be printed easily and were either hung in public places or put in books.

    By the end of the seventeenth century, when newspapers were beginning to be read by more people, printed materials became an important way to promote products and services. The London Gazette was the first newspaper to set aside a place just for advertising. This was so successful that by the end of the century several companies started businesses for the purpose of making newspaper ads for merchants.

    Advertising spread quickly throughout the eighteenth century. Ad writers were starting to pay more attention to the design of the ad text. Everything, from clothes to drinks, was promoted with clever methods such as repetition of the firm's name or product, words organized in eyecatching patterns, the use of pretty pictures and expressions easy to remember.

    Near the end of the nineteenth century, companies that were devoted to the production of ads came to be known as "advertising agencies(广告商)．"The agencies developed new ways to get people to think of themselves as members of a group. Throughout the twentieth century, advertising agencies promoted consumerism(消费主义)as a way of life, spreading the belief that people could be happy only if they bought the "right" products.

    "Iris scan (虹膜扫描), please," the bank's computer voice tells you . You step up and the computer reads your eye, comparing it to the stored file it has of your iris. The images had better match—otherwise you won't be able to get your money.

    Iris scanning and other technologies, such as fingerprint and voice scanning, have appeared in many science fiction movies in the past. Today, these advanced technologies are part of the real world. They are common at work, the bank, the airport, and your local prison. The iris scan, fingerprint scan, and voice scan are all examples of biometrics( 生物测定学) a fast developing area of automatic personal identification technology . Basically, biometrics uses various ways to verify a person's identity, based on the individual's unique characteristics, including fingerprints, voices, irises, body heat patterns, facial images, handprints, signatures and so on.

    Biometrics identification systems have a number of advantages over password systems. The primary advantage is that an individual has to be physically present in order to be identified. Another important advantage is that there are no passwords to remember, forget, lose or steal.

    The voice scan is the simplest and most affordable form of biometrics. It only requires a computer, a microphone and the correct software. The software records a subject's voice and then compares it to a stored voice sample for identification purposes.

    For additional safety, fingerprint and handprint scans can also be employed. Fingerprint scans take the image of a fingerprint and compare it to a stored file of prints. Handprint scans identify the unique features of a hand.

    Iris scans currently give the highest level of accuracy among all the available biometrics systems. Another technology, full facial scans, is currently in use at border crossings and airports. Facial scanning equipment can actually track and identify moving faces within a crowd.

    The potential of biometrics is exciting and encouraging. With continued development, testing, and application, current technologies will become even more effective in the future. Soon, the days of password and car keys will be gone. Just don't leave home without your fingerprints!

    The idea of progress started to flower in the 17th century. At that time, many wise thinkers believed that man liberated（解放） by reason would rise to greater heights of achievement. The many expressions of human nature would be the engines of progress: language, business, science, and moral sensibility （道德感）. Unfortunately, most of those engines have failed to bring the desired human progress.

    The modern age has belonged to material progress and its main source has been science. Science gives people huge power to change the world. But can people be trusted to use it always for good? Think of biotechnology and information technology. And it is not just that scientific progress does not deliver the emotional good. People also fear that mankind is failing to manage science properly. The forests are disappearing; the ice is melting; privacy is leaking; life is becoming a depressing march in an ugly world.

    The point is not that science is harmful, but that scientific progress needs to be mapped tidily onto human progress. That relies on moral sensibility in its widest sense. This liberal force offers hope for a better future. The very idea of moral sensibility probably sounds out-of-date. Bur researchers find that people desire a sense of moral purpose which would give life dignity （尊严）. People want to determine how the world works, not always to be determined by it. Moral sensibility is why people will suffer from their beliefs, and why acts of noble self﹣sacrifice are so powerful.

    It is admitted that our moral ideals will never be realized completely. But sometimes, however imperfectly, we can make progress. Human dignity requires the love of ideals for their own sake, but nothing requires that the love be returned.

Human progress is neither guaranteed nor hopeless. Instead, it is up to us.

    It was a cold winter. The wind blew all night and the snow was blinding. When morning came, my three children and I got up and made our way to the windows. As we looked out of the window, we saw that the henhouse was gone. Our three hens had been blown away by the cold wind.

    I looked at the emptiness outside. Then I saw all three chickens sitting around the edge of a white bucket. I couldn't believe my eyes! How was this violent wind not blowing them into the field beyond？I quickly pulled on long snow pants and heavy winter coat, wrapped a scarf around my neck and stuck my feet into large boots.

    I shouted at the wind as it blew. I was alone, struggling in the snow. They stared out the window into the vast white sea of snow, peering at any sign of movement. Outside I heard the sound of my boots as I walked against the wind.

    As the snow circled around me, I steadily made my way to the soft cluck-cluck-cluck sound my hens always made. When I reached them, I saw that their little feet were holding on to the edge of the bucket, heads bent forward and away from the wind. I gently lifted each hen and put it carefully into the warm inside. Then I began the freezing walk back to the small shed directly behind our house. One by one I laid my chickens on the cold floor, and they began to cluck softly.

    As I shut the shed doors, my eyes went directly to the window where my children were watching. They jumped up and down cheering, and so did I! I wasn't some dragon slayer(屠龙者) from a fairy tale. I was simply a mom, but the look on my children's faces told me that they thought I was a hero mom.