May the first is an important date in the college admission process in the United States. This is the last day for high school seniors to accept or reject offers of admission in the fall. But according to a recent report, there is a great change. Acceptance rates at the top colleges this year were lower than ever. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} 

      These days, college applicants are applying to more colleges because online and common applications make the process easier. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} On the other hand, deciding students for top colleges to accept can be difficult because it takes much time. Students may not like being put on waiting lists．Also, common colleges work more to getthe students they accept to accept them. Some colleges hold visiting days that offer a chance to attend classes and stay overnight. Some universities send gifts. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

      For many families, the most important thing colleges can do is show them the money, especially this year; the weak economymakes parents nervous. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} The recent problems that spread from thehousing market to credit markets have even affected student's loans．Solately, top schools have to spare lots of money to increase their financial aidfor students.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}The Education Department expects the number of highschool graduates to start to go down. This will happen as the last of thechildren of the baby boom generation finish high school. Thenumber is not expected to start rising again until 2016.

A．Besides, top colleges are facing changesin the population.

B．What contributes to it?

C．But a mistake can be costly if ithappens.

D．But top colleges ignore them．.

E．They have international students whoknow English.

F．It can mean several acceptances tochoose from.

G．They cannot afford college as planned.

    Planning a visit to the UK? Here we help with ways to cut your costs.

    AVOID BIG EVENTS  Big sporting events, concerts and exhibitions can increase the cost of accommodation and make it harder to find a room. A standard double room at the Thistle Brighton on the final Friday of the Brighton Comedy Festival (19 Oct.) cost £169.15 at Booking.com. A week later, the same room cost £118.15.

    If you can be flexible and want to know dates to avoid—or you're looking for a big event to pass your time—check out sites such as Whatsonwhen.com, which allow you to search for events in the UK by city, date and category.

    STAYAWAY FROM THE STATION If traveling to your destination by train, you may want to find a good base close to the station, but you could end up paying more for the sake of convenience at the start of your holiday.

    Don't be too choosy about the part of town you stay in. Booking two months in advance, the cheapest room at Travelodge's Central Euston hotel in London for Saturday 22 September was £95.95. A room just a tube journey away at its Covent Garden hotel was £75.75. And at Farringdon, a double room cost just £62.95.

    LOOK AFTER YOURSELF Really central hotels in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Cardiff can cost a fortune, especially at weekends and during big events. As an alternative consider checking into a self-catering flat with its own kitchen. Often these flats are hidden away on the top floors of city centre buildings. A great example is the historic O'Neill Flat on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, available for £420 for five days in late September, with room for four adults.

    GET ON A BIKE London's ‘Boris bikes' have attracted the most attention, but other cities also have similar programmes that let you rent a bicycle and explore at your own pace, saving you on public transport or car parking costs.

    Among the smaller cities with their own programmes are Newcastle (casual members pay around £1.50 for two hours) and Cardiff (free for up to 30 minutes, or £5 per day).  (358 words)

    Shoppers in the UK are spending less money on toilet paper to save money, research has shown.

    Penny saving UK consumers choose cheaper products from discounters such as Aldi and Lidi rather than expensive alternatives.

    This has wiped 6% off the value of the soft tissue paper market in the UK. It has reduced from £1.19 billion in 2011 to £1.12 billion in 2015, according to a new report from market research company Mintel. Furthermore, the future of the market looks far from positive, with sales expected to fall further to £1.11 billion in 2016.

    In the last year alone, despite an increase in the UK population and a rise in the number of households, sales of toilet paper fell by 2%, with the average household reducing their toilet roll spending from £43 in 2014 to £41 in 2015.

Overall, almost three in five people say they try to limit their usage of paper – including facial tissue and kitchen roll    to save money. “Strength, softness and thickness remain the leading signs of toilet paper quality, with just a small part of consumers preferring more expensive alternatives, such as those with flower patterns or perfume,” said analyst Jack Duckett. “These extra features are considered unnecessary by the majority of shoppers, which probably reflects how these types of products are typically more expensive than regular toilet paper, even when on special offer.”

    While consumers are spending less on toilet paper, they remain particular about it when it comes to paper quality. One in 10 buyers rank toilet rolls made from recycled paper among their top considerations, clearly showing how overall the environment is much less of a consideration for shoppers than product quality. In a challenge for makers, 81% of paper product users said they would consider buying recycled toilet tissue if it were comparable in quality to standard paper.

    The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max's internals are nearly the same: With each, you get a 12 megapixel camera, better-sounding speakers and the ability to pack two SIM cards into one device for international travelers or people who have to turn between a device for work and one for personal use.

    The phones come with Apple's new A12 bionic chip, which helps make Face ID and games load faster. Apple played up the speed of these new phones during its product announcement, and they are fast. But so were the models before them.

    Both models feature beautiful OLED screens that make watching videos, especially on the XS Max, totally surprising.

    Battery life is also improved on both devices. Apple (AAPL) says you can spare about 30 minutes longer on the XS compared to last year's X, and 90 minutes longer on the Max. It's not a game changer, but we'll take any extra minutes we can get.

    There is one major difference between the iPhone XS and XS Max: size. The Max is unquestionably big, but it's technically the same size as the iPhone 8 Plus. The edge-to-edge screen creates the illusion（幻想）the device itself is 21% larger than its predecessor, but it'll fit in your hands just as easily (or not) as older Plus models.

    But it's hard to shake the feeling that the device is big just to be big. Unlike the Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy Note or the iPad, the XS Max doesn't support many features tailored for bigger screens, such as another row of apps or a side-by-side display that lets you use two apps at once. It's a missed opportunity.

    The real star of the new models is the camera. A new feature called Smart HDR shoots a four-frame object taken at different exposures and settings and mixes them together to create more detailed shots — similar to an existing feature on the Google Pixel 2.

    But the likely fan favorite feature is a change to the iPhone's Portrait Mode that lets you change the depth of a photo after you take it, allowing you to have more creative control. For example, you can snap a shot of a friend on a beach and change the background for an artsy feel. If you decide later you want to see more of the ocean, you can change the background via the edit button.

    It's an impressive feature, but the results also depend on your photo skills and the lighting. When it's good, it's really good. When it's not, you'll still get a good-looking picture. The Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S9 offer a similar feature, too.

    The XS and XS Max come with headphones, but unlike last year, you won't find an adapter included in the box. This means you'll need to spend $9 more if you want to use an old pair of headphones. It's Apple's way of saying it's finally time to get over the fact there's no longer a headphone jack.

    According to a team of researchers, an animal's ability to perceive(感知)time is linked to their pace of life.

    "Our results lend support to the importance of time perception in animals where the ability to perceive time in a very short time may be the difference between life and death for fast moving creatures." commented lead author Kevin Healy from Trinity College Dublin.

    The study was done with a variety of animals using phenomenon based on the maximum speed of flashes of light an individual can see before the light source is seen as constant. Dogs, for example, have eyes with a refresh rate higher than humans.

    One example of this phenomenon at work, the authors say, is the housefly and its ability to avoid being hit. The research showed flies "observe motion in a shorter time than our own eyes can achieve, "which allows them to avoid being hit.

    Professor Graeme Ruxton of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who worked jointly on the research project, said in a statement, "Having eyes that send updates to the brain at much higher frequencies than our eyes do is of no value if the brain cannot process that information equally quickly. Thus, this work highlights the impressive abilities of even the smallest animal brains. Flies might not be deep thinkers, but they can make good decisions very quickly."

    In comparison, the tiger beetle(虎甲虫)runs faster than its eyes can keep up, basically becoming blind, which requires it to stop periodically to re-evaluate its prey's(猎物)position.

    Our results suggest that time perception offers an as yet unstudied dimension along which animals can specialize and there is considerable range to study this system in more detail.

Earthworms don't move fast. But humans can accelerate the worms' spread. Fishermen often use invasive(蔓延性的) earthworms to catch fish. Many have introduced invasive earthworms to rivers, streams and lakes previously unexposed to these animals. Gardeners who use earthworms to make their soil rich may unknowingly introduce invasive ones. The worms even give rides in the mud on wheels, potted plants and road materials shipped around the nation.

But they're not everywhere yet. In the Great Lakes region, "20 percent of the land is earthworm-free," says Cindy Hale, a research biologist. Of the remaining 80 percent of land, half of the land has fewer than two earthworm species-meaning there isn't yet too much impact on the ecosystem, she explains. For these regions, she says, now is the time to take action. According to Hale, educating the public, especially fishermen, is one approach to stopping the spread of invasive earthworms. Identifying which lands are currently earthworm-free is another.

Ryan Huefimeier, a program coordinator for Great Lakes Wom Watch, has been working on a model that will help create large maps of areas with minimal(最小的) or no damage from earthworms. Ultimately, landowners can use it to identify earthworm activity on their property. once identified, lands with minimal or no earthworm damage should be protected.

But scientists suspect that once invasive earthworms arrive they can't be removed. And even if all could be, affected forests might never return to the way they were. "It's very much a story of learning to live with them," concludes Lee Frelich of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology.

Forest ecologists have called earthworms "ecosystem engineers" because they can change or create habitats that otherwise would not be present. Whether this is a good thing depends on the situation.

"What the earthworms do and how we value it is what really matters." said Hale. "In one place-farm fields or gardens-we really like European earthworms and what they do, so we consider them good. In native hardwood forests, we really don't like what they do-so we consider them bad. You really have to understand how an organism(微生物) affects an ecosystem. Things aren't black and white."