Some Most Common Senior Year Mistakes

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}You'd better find out how to avoid these common mistakes. Finding a balance between having fun and studying for your courses is a great way to start preparing for college, since you will be called upon to do this during your college years.

    Here we've listed some top mistakes students make so that you can make sure you don't make them.

    Skipping Classes

    Skipping classes could mean missing valuable information for the coming tests.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} As is known to all, information you'll need for your major in your college program may be covered during a high school lecture you miss.

    Forgetting to Study

    When you feel less motivated to study, remind yourself that every good grade gets you closer to finding a college that offers a great program in the major you want. Keep your eyes on the prize!

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} To stay on top of your assignments, calculate how long you think something will take you, and then double it. That way you'll have ample time to get your work done.

    Daydreaming about Your Future Too Much

    Your mind now might be wandering, thinking around about degrees, majors, possible careers, study abroad and many other things. These are all exciting future possibilities, but don't forget the here and now.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Failing to Use Available Resources

    Teachers know about fall the challenges you're facing.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}This help can be in the form of extra office hours, a review of topics covered, study guides, sample exams, or other tools to help you improve your grade. Take advantage of them.

A. Start preparing for college

B. Mismanaging Your Time

C. Your senior year of high school is a busy time

D. And don't forget to think ahead to university classes

E. Almost every high school senior makes some mistakes.

F. Spending too much time daydreaming could seriously limit those future plans You

G. And many of them are nice enough to offer extra help.

    Like many people, the start of the day maybe isn't your favourite time. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Try at least one of these tomorrow.

    Stretch（伸展）every part of your body for 15 minutes.

    Try this before you open your eyes. Lift your arm and begin by stretching each finger, then your hand, then your wrist, then your arm. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Then your toes, feet, ankles and legs. In this way, you upped the flow of blood through your body, providing more oxygen to all parts of your body.

    Set your alarm 10 minutes earlier.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} You can begin your day by lying in bed, slowly waking up, mentally ticking off the decisions you made in advance about what you're going to wear, what you are going to do.

    Brush your tongue for 2-3 minutes.

    There's no better way to rid you of bad morning breath and begin your day fresh and clean. After all, more than 300 types of bacteria stay in your mouth every night. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Avoid any decisions.

    For truly relaxing mornings, reduce the number of choices and decisions you make to zero. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Really, there's no need to vary your breakfast, timetable or clothes to wear every morning.

A. Repeat with the other arm.

B. You can change your living habits.

C. Make your decisions the night before.

D. These few minutes in bed are all yours.

E. Quick brush can't make them all disappear.

F. Here are some healthy habits you can learn without much efforts.

G. In this way, you don't have to jump out of bed and rush through your morning.

Meat-free Mondays

    In the United Kingdom, vegetarianism (素食主义) is becoming very popular, with around 3 million people in the UK vegetarian.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}However, here in France, I often struggle to find a meat-and-fish-free choice on a menu, which can make eating in restaurants a bit of a challenge.

    People are often curious why I choose to limit my diet in the way I do. There are many reasons why people may choose to be vegetarian. Many people give up meat or fish simply because they do not enjoy the taste. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} They believe it has a bad effect on the environment or it is bad for health. Furthermore, many people are vegetarians to avoid wasting food. In addition, some religious beliefs forbid eating certain meats. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}However, although sometimes vegetarian food requires a little more creativity, it is very easy to enjoy a healthy and balanced diet as a vegetarian especially when meat substitutes (替代品) are becoming much easier to get.

    Meat-free Mondays is a campaign (运动) to encourage every family to eat just one main meal a week which does not contain meat or fish. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}This is a great challenge for anyone who would like to try out some vegetarian cooking and is a wonderful way to contribute to slowing down climate change.

A.   Young kids prefer meat and fish than vegetables.

B.   Some feel that killing animals for meat is wrong.

C.   Vegetarian food can be delicious and easy to prepare.

D.  The city where I grew up is known as the „vegetarian capital' of the UK.

E.   Overall, vegetarians usually have different reasons for choosing their lifestyle.

F.   The purpose of the campaign is to protect the environment and to improve health.

G.  A common misunderstanding about vegetarian food is that it is not tasty or healthy.

Not all English is the same

    To many learners of English, it's easy to think that all native speakers have no trouble communicating with one another.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Well, it turns out that being a native English speaker from one country doesn't mean that you're able to perfectly understand a native English speaker from another country, and vice versa (反之亦然)

    Take the UK and the US for example.

    As a Briton, I grew up hearing American accents alongside British ones – on TV shows, movies and in songs.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} and how they would eat “cookies” instead of “biscuits”.  And it took me a while to figure out that the “trunk” (n. 后备箱) of a car is what us Britons call its “boot”.

    The confusion didn't stop at just vocabulary –{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, when talking about shopping malls, Americans pronounce it “mawl” instead of “mal”. And for some reason that's hard for Britons to understand, Americans remove the “H” sound from “herb”, pronouncing it “erb”.

    These small differences may not change much in a day-to-day conversation between a Briton and an American.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Recently, for example, an American friend told me that she liked my pants. “You can see them?” I asked, shocked. Pants means “underpants” to most British people, which explains my horror.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} In the US, for example, a “bum” is a homeless person, while the same word in the UK is used to describe one's backside（n.臀部）.

    And, more amusingly, “trump” was only ever really used as a verb in the UK – meaning “to pass gas” – until the US' current president came into the spotlight.

But as long as you can speak one version of English, it's easy enough to understand any other – and any confusion just makes your day more interesting.

A. English is changing as it spreads around the world.

B. After all, English is English, isn't it?

C. I soon noticed how Americans would put “gas” in their cars instead of “petrol” .

D. However, confusion can still happen every now and then.

E. There are different words that mean the difficult thing.

F. Some words can even be offensive (adj.无礼的) without you realizing it.

G. I discovered that many words are even pronounced differently.

    Most people actually do not know how to do basic first aid on mild burns. It is normally taken for granted since most people think that soaking (浸泡) the burn with water is the way to go.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Once the burn appears, you will surely feel much pain on the actual burned skin. Technically, this is the time to stay calm.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Finding a source of running water is recommended. However, if there is none, any source will do. If there is running water, simply place the burned area under it and allow it to soak the water for about 5 to 10 minutes.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}If you have access to ice or a cold compress（冷敷布）, you can use that as well. You can place the ice or cold compress on the affected area and leave it there about 15 to 30 minutes. The ice will numb the pain and will also stop more injury on the skin.

    After soaking in water or cooling the area with ice, remove from the water source and allow the moisture to dry naturally. You may also consider patting it down dry with a towel or napkin, however, this could damage the burnt skin even more.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    As soon as the area dries up completely, get a bandage or a strip of cloth.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}This will protect that area from infection caused by outside dirt and dust getting into the open burn.

A. Call a doctor may as well help in most burn cases.

B. The thing is that treating a mild burn goes more than just soaking the affected part in water.

C. It is best to dry it naturally instead.

D. Wrap it around the burn to cover the open area of skin.

E. The truth is that soaking is the last thing to do to deal with mild burn.

F. The first thing you will need to do will be to find a clean water source.

G. This will relieve some of the pain, cool down the skin, and stop additional burning.

When I was a student, I didn't like to do housework. I thought that I was a little child and what I needed is to study hard to get good grades. So I didn't do any 1 at home.

One day, my mother 2 back home from work. She found that I had made a mess in the house. My books and clothes were everywhere. She was annoyed (恼火) and said to me 3 , "From now on, you must do some housework every day!" Hearing my mother's 4 , I felt unhappy. But I still did as she said.

Doing housework was more difficult than I had expected. I began to understand that life was not 5 for my parents. They had to do a lot of housework when they came back home 6 work. So I tidied my room and 7 my clothes. And I helped my 8 cook meals in the evening. My parents praised 9 for my changes.

Now I realize that doing housework can not only help my parents 10 also help me to learn many basic life skills.