I had to knock on the taxi to get his attention. Finally, the driver, a man about 60, looked up from behind the wheel and apologized, “I'm sorry, but I was reading a letter.” He sounded as if he had a cold or a cough.

    Since I was in no hurry, I told him to finish his letter. He shook his head, explaining that he had already read it several times and almost knew it by heart. Curious, I asked whether it was from a child or maybe a grandchild. “This isn't family,” he replied. “though he might just as well have been a regular member of the family. Old Ed and I grew up together.”

    They were always friends. But since he moved away from the neighborhood 30 years ago, it'd generally just been postcards at Christmas time between them. A couple of weeks ago, Ed died. “I should have kept in touch.” He repeated this, more to himself than to me. To comfort him, I said sometimes we just didn't seem to find the time. “But we used to find the time,” he said. “Take a look.” He handed the letter over to me.

    The first sentence “I've been meaning to write for some time, but I've always delayed it.” reminded me of myself. It went on to say that he often thought about the good times they had had together. When I read the part where it said “Your friendship really means a lot to me, more than I can say because I'm not good at saying things like that”, I found myself nodding in agreement.

    We had gone several kilometers and were almost at my hotel, so I read the last paragraph: “So I thought you'd like to know that I was thinking of you.” And it was ended with “Your Old Friend, Tom.”

    “I thought your friend's name was Ed,” I said.

    “I'm Tom,” he explained. “It's a letter I wrote to Ed before I knew he'd died. I never put it in the mailbox. I guess I should have written it sooner.” His face was pale as he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.

    When I got to my hotel room I didn't unpack right away. I had to write a letter and post it.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    When the dog named Judy spotted the first sheep in her life, she did what comes naturally. The four-year-old dog set off racing after the sheep across several fields and, being a city animal, lost both her sheep and her sense of direction. Then she ran along the edge of cliff( 悬崖) and fell 100 feet, bouncing off a rock into the sea.

    Her owner Mike Holden panicked and celled the coastguard of Cornwall, who turned up in seconds. Six volunteers slid down the cliff with the help of a rope but gave up all hope of finding her alive after a 90-minute search.

    Three days later, a hurricane hit the coast near Cornwall. Mr. Holden returned home from his holiday upset and convinced his pet was dead. He comforted himself with the thought she had died in the most beautiful part of the country.

    For the next two weeks, the Holdens were heartbroken. Then, one day, the phone rang and Steve Tregear, the coastguard of Cornwall, asked Holder if he would like his dog bark.

    A birdwatcher, armed with a telescope, found the pet sitting desperately on a rock. While he sounded the alarm, a student from Leeds climbed down the cliff to collect Judy.

    The dog had initially been knocked unconscious(失去知觉的)but had survived by drinking water from a fresh scream at the base of the cliff. She may have fed on the body of a sheep which had also fallen over the edge. “The dog was very thin and hungry,” Steve Tregear said, “It was a very dog. She survived because of a plentiful supply of fresh water,” he added.

    It was, as Mr. Holden admitted, “a minor miracle(奇迹)”.

    The American state of Colorado is considering a ban on smartphones for children younger than 13.

    A Denver-based doctor - and father - is leading the effort. Tim Farnum is the founder of a group called ‘Parents Against Underage Smartphones.' His proposal would ban sales of smartphones to children under the age of 13. It would also ban sales to anyone who wishes to buy such a device for anyone younger than 13. The measure would also require sellers of smartphones to provide proof to the state government that they have asked buyers if the phone is for anyone under 13.

    The measure now needs about 300,000 signatures in order to appear on Colorado's statewide ballot (投票权)next year. If it makes the ballot and is approved by voters, Colorado would become the first state to have such a ban.

    Tim Farnum said he decided to push for the measure after watching his own children struggle with the mental effects of always having a smartphone around. "They would get the phones and lock themselves in the room and change who they were," he told The Coloradoan newspaper.

    State Senator John Kefalas, a Democrat, said he understands the reasoning behind the proposed law. However, he told The Coloradoan that a child's smartphone usage is a "family matter" and not something the government should decide. "Ultimately, this comes down to parenting,” he said, “making sure their kids are not putting themselves at risk.”

    Last year, the AAP (the American Academy of Pediatrics) released guidelines for media use by children. The group advised parents to limit time spent watching videos to no more than one hour a day of high-quality programming until age 6. After that, it said, parents should set reasonable time limits for their children and make sure electronic devices do not take time away from sleep or exercise.

    Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.

    Children and adults learn new languages in different ways．For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand，are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults seldom get the chance to practice as much as young children do.

    Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel pressured to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    Research has shown that children who learn a new language when they are very young will not be likely to have a “foreign” accent when speaking a different language. Some scientists also believe that it can take up to 10,000 hours of study to master a new language. This can be difficult for adults to achieve, but young children can accumulate(积累) those hours over several years as they grow up.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see multiple languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset (思维模式) helps them learn a new language without feeling like they're doing something unusual or “too hard”.

    So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It's never too late to learn a new language. If you're older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you're a young child, though, now is the time to step out and learn a new language!

    Alice Moore is a teenager entrepreneur(创业者), who in May 2015 set up her business AilieCandy. By the time she was 13, her company was worth millions of dollars with the invention of a super-sweet treat that could save kids' teeth, instead of destroying them.

    It all began when Moore visited a bank with her dad. On the outing, she was offered a candy bar. However, her dad reminded her that sugary treats were bad for her teeth. But Moore was sick of missing out on candies. So she desired to get round the warning, "Why can't I make a healthy candy that's good for my teeth so that my parents can't say no to it?" With that in mind, Moore asked her dad if she could start her own candy company. He recommended that she do some research and talk to dentists about what a healthier candy would contain.

    With her dad's permission, she spent the next two years researching online and conducting trials to get a recipe that was both tasty and tooth-friendly. She also approached dentists to learn more about teeth cleaning. Consequently, she succeeded in making a kind of candy only using natural sweeteners, which can reduce oral bacteria.

    Moore then used her savings to get her business off the ground. Afterwards, she and her father secured their first business meeting with a supermarket owner, who finally agreed to sell Moore's product—CanCandy.

    As CanCandy's success grows, so does Moore's credibility as a young entrepreneur. Moore is enthusiastic about the candy she created, and she's also positive about what the future might bring. She hopes that every kid can have a clean mouth and a broad smile.

    Meanwhile, with her parents' help, Moore is generally able to live a normal teenage life. Although she founded her company early on in life, she wasn't driven primarily by profit. Moore wants to use her unique talent to help others find their smiles. She donates 10% of AilicCandy's profits to Big Smiles. With her talent and determination, it appears that the sky could be the limit for Alice Moore.

    I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals for two elderly women in my community. Both had died "full of years", as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence(吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.

    At the first home, the son of the deceased(过世的)woman said to me, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It's my fault that she died." At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, "If only I hadn't insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It's my fault that she's dead."

    You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course—keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

    There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.

    The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.

    A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to his tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.