A new study warns that about thirty percent of the world's people may not have enough water by the year 2025.

    A private American organization called Population Action International did the new study. It says more than 335 million people lack enough water now. The people live in 28 countries. Most of the countries are in Africa or the Middle East.

    P-A-I researcher Robert Engelman says by the year 2025, about 3,000 million people may lack water. At least 18 more countries are expected to have severe water problems. The demand for water keeps increasing. Yet the amount of water on the earth stays the same.

    Mr. Engelman says the population in countries that lack water is growing faster than in other parts of the world. He says population growth in these countries will continue to increase.

    The report says lack of water in the future may result in several problems. It may increase health problems. Lack of water often means drinking water is not safe. Mr Engelman says there are problems all over the world because of diseases, such as cholera, which are carried in water. Lack of water may also result in more international conflict. Countries may have to compete for water in the future. Some countries now get sixty percent of their fresh water from other countries. This is true of Egypt, the Netherlands, Cambodia, Syria, Sudan, and Iraq. And the report says lack of water would affect the ability of developing to improve their economies. This is because new industries often need a large amount of water when they are beginning.

    The Population Action International study gives several solutions to the water problem. One way, it says, is to find ways to use water for more than one purpose. Another way is to teach people to be careful not to waste water. A third way is to use less water of agriculture.

    The report also says long-term solutions to the water problem must include controls on population growth. It says countries cannot provide clean water unless they slow population growth by limiting the number of children people have.

    What should you think about in trying to find your career（职业）? You are probably better at some school subjects than others. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} A boy who is good at mathematics can use that in an engineering career. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} So it is important to do well at school. On the other hand, you may not have any specially strong or weak subjects but your records show a general satisfactory standard. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Knowledge of history is not required for most jobs but if history is one of your good subjects you will have learned to remember facts and details. This is an ability that can be useful in many jobs.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} If nothing else, you may have learned how to get to work on time, to follow instructions and to get on with older workers. Just as important, you may become interested in a particular industry or career you see from the inside in a part-time job.

    Facing your weak points is also part of knowing yourself. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Your school record, for instance, may not be too good, yet it is an important part of your background. You should not be apologetic about it but instead recognize that you will have a chance of a fresh start at work.

A. It is better to face any weaknesses than to pretend they do not exist.

B. A girl who spells well and likes English may be good at office work.

C. He may do well in his future work.

D. Although not all subjects can be used directly in a job, they may have indirect value.

E. Your school must have taught you the skills.

F. These may show strengths (优势) that you can use in your work.

G. If you have had a part-time job on Saturday or in the summer, think what you gained from it.

    China is facing a reading crisis（危机）, with more than 50% of people surveyed believing they don't spend enough time reading and only 20% satisfied with their reading time, China Daily said.

    According to Xu Shengguo, head of the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, the country's reading rate last year was 78.6%, which means that percentage of people read books, periodicals or newspapers or were involved in online reading, while 21.4% read nothing at all.

    The Academy launched an annual survey on the reading quantity of Chinese people in 2005 and found that each read 4.5 to 4.7 books on average per year between 2005 and 2014. Last year, Chinese people read only 4.56 books, compared with 12 in France, 11 in South Korea, 9 in Japan and about 7 in the United States. In addition, more the 40% of Chinese people read less than one book throughout the year outside of textbooks.

    A training meeting on reading supported by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television was held in Beijing last week. It was the first meeting for the Leading Reader project, a training series for teachers, officials, college students and bookstore owners to promote(促进，提升) nationwide reading. It will be held on weekends during September and October.

    In addition to factors such as the large population base in China and imbalance of regional economic development, the shortage of public libraries is widespread. Reading parties in the community are in need of greater promotion. If we want to promote the nationwide reading rate, we have to encourage more grassroots reading programs.

    Studying abroad will shape you in various ways. You will learn things you never would have if you had stayed home. When you are young and unattached, you should travel. Besides, you just might save a large sum of money. College is expensive in the United States. It's cheap or free in other countries even for foreigners, so why not get out of here and come back smarter?

    More and more American students are currently studying at German colleges. That number has increased 20% over the last three years. Living costs are about $7,000 a year, which is even lower than in other European countries. Germany encourages international students. They create a multicultural landscape that benefits German students as well. According to a new report, Germany is home to six of the world's 100 best universities. These schools offer around 900 degrees completely in English and many German students speak the language.

    You could be part of Finland's excellent education system. The Finns charge no tuition and offer a number of courses purely in English. They would be happy for you to add flavor to their school scene. Cost of living there is high. Be prepared for frosty winters that far north, but you will get that sweet midnight sun in the summer.

    Many other European nations offer cheap or free college for foreign students, but if South America is more your thing, try Brazil. Most of the education will take place in Portuguese, so if that is in your plan you can study near beautiful beaches and jungles. The University of Sao Paulo and the State University of Campinas are both highly ranked internationally. Your money will go a long way there, too.

    Many of the lessons you will learn will be outside the classroom. Living on the economy in a foreign country will keep you on your toes. You will learn new customs, how to bargain, stay safe, budget and become more flexible with people. There is no better way to learn a language than by immersing yourself in it. At first, it will be the toughest thing you have ever done. Eventually, it will become second nature.

    How does an ecosystem（生态系统）work? What makes the populations of different species the way they are? Why are there so many flies and so few wolves? To find an answer, scientists have built mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.

    With such models, scientists have found out some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator（掠食动物）always eats huge numbers of a single prey（猎物）, the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction（灭绝）of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving one another to extinction.

Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species—including species they did not directly attack.

    And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for top predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.

    Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, scientists says because once ecosystems pass their tipping point（临界点）, it is remarkably difficult for them to return.

    Video producer and musician Justin Scholar enjoyed his fantastic moment weeks ago when he spotted his latest work playing on a huge electronic screen at New York's Times Square.

    "It's sort of the American dream to see your name up inlights,'' says the 25-year-old New Jersey native. “I'd never really cared about my name being that big, but going to New York and seeing the big screens, you always wonder if your work is going to make it up there.

    The video that helps Scholar fulfill his "American dream" was shot and produced in China, where Scholar is living and working as a media company owner. Scholar took his first Chinese class in high school seven years ago and made his first trip to Shanghai in 2015 through a study-abroad program when he was a student in New York University. The film and TV major changed his focus from technical art to traditional arts during his study in Shanghai, spending most of the time learning ink-and-wash painting, calligraphy and the guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. He also fell in love with the city, where he ate a lot of authentic xiaolongbao, or steamed meat buns, and felt safe walking on the streets at 3 am.

    Shanghai impresses Scholar as an efficient, modern city calling for greater business prosperity with foreign participation, so he returned two years later, when his career at home was already booming after making commercials for big names such as Coca-Cola and Jaguar.

    Thanks to a combination of luck and talent, he achieved the goal soon with a Chinese friend as his business partner, and the company has already produced some 15 videos for pop icons, fashionistas, and art museums in merely six months. The video that plays at Times Square, a tourism promotionalfilm for southwest China's Chongqing city, is the company's first project contracted(签合同) by a local government in China.