The weather is getting hotter and you'll be getting thirstier playing basketball or riding home from school. A cold drink may be just the thing. But be careful what you pour down your throat. Something that looks cool may not be good for your health.

    There are plenty of so-called energy drinks on the market. Most of them have an attractive colour and cool name. Their nutrition list also contains various things from vitamins to ginseng. Sounds great!

    But after a careful check you may find that most energy drinks contain high levels of caffeine. These drinks are typically aimed at young people, students, busy people and sports players.

    Makers sometimes say their drinks make you better at sports and can keep you awake. But be careful not to drink too much.

    Caffeine raises your heartbeat. Because of this, the International Olympic Committee has limited their use. The amount of caffeine in most energy drinks is at least as high as in a strong cup of coffee or strong tea.

    Research by Australian scientists has found that many teenagers are affected by caffeine. The results of their survey show that 27 percent of boys aged 8-12 take in more caffeine than their parents.

    There are potential health risks linked to energy drinks. Just one can of energy drink can make you nervous, have difficulty sleeping and can even cause heart attacks.

    Teenagers should be discouraged from consuming drinks with a lot of caffeine in them, an expert from the Australia Nutrition Foundation said.

    Many people trying to sell homes find that an increase in home prices has turned the market in their favor. But sellers can still get the short end of the deal if they aren't careful. Here are a few tips for you:

    Don't test your luck. Of course you think anyone who moves into your lovely home should be willing to pay top dollars, especially if you've recently invested in some improvements. But listing a home at a price that's too high above the market price could turn away some buyers.

    Buyers noticing that the home still hasn't sold may begin to assume there's something wrong with the house and use that as a reasonable excuse for offering a lower price. And if a home hasn't received any offers after two weeks, it might be time to reset the price.

    A price that's too low can bring about an undesired outcome. Listing your home at or slightly below the market price can have the effect of drawing in a large group of buyers and increase the chances that a home will receive multiple offers. But setting the price too low comes with several risks. One possibility is that buyers will get skeptical of the home that is listed for $ 15,000 to $ 20,000 less than similar homes in the area, especially if it's not properly marketed. Once again, people might assume there is something wrong with the home and may not bother to look at it.

    Spy on the competition. Going to other people's open houses can give you a better sense of how your home compares to others on the market. Check out the decoration in their kitchens, the size of their backyards and use the information to figure out where your home should fit in the range of the price. But don't set your pricing just on what you see elsewhere.

阅读理解

    Although computers used to be large, expensive and difficult to use, they have been made smaller, cheaper and easier to use. As a result, more people have been buying computers for their homes and businesses. They are used to record information and make difficult things easy.

    Let's look at some of the many ways computers may affect(影响) your life.

    Want to get the best treatment at hospitals? Your doctors at hospitals have been greatly helped by computers to get information about patients. It is possible for doctors from different hospitals to read the records of patients, discuss them and make decisions on the best treatment. It would, at one time, take them hours and days to do so.

    Want to talk to your friends both at home and abroad? Then it's necessary to connect your computer to the Internet and set up your own e-mail letter box. You can then collect and send mails in seconds. It will be a waste of time and money to post your letters.

    Want to get advice from Michael Jordan on how to play basketball like a NBA super star? Now it is possible to find out what it is on the Internet.

    But if you think you have entered the information age because you have the chance to use the Internet, you are wrong. The reason is quite a simple one: over 98 percent of the information on the Internet is in English. The information on-line won't be helpful to you unless you can use English freely.

    We now think that chocolate is sweet, but once it was bitter. We think of it as a candy, but once it was a medicine. Today, chocolate can be a hot drink, a frozen dessert, or just a snack. Sometimes it's an ingredient（构成部分）in the main course of a meal. Mexicans make a hot chocolate sauce called Mole and pour it over chicken. The Mexicans also eat chocolate with spices like chili peppers.

    Chocolate is a product of the tropical cacao tree. The beans taste so bitter that even the monkeys say "Ugh!" and run away. Workers must first dry and then roast the beans. This removes the bitter taste.

    The word "chocolate" comes from a Mayan word. The Mayas were an ancient people who once lived in Mexico. They valued the cacao tree. Some used the beans for money, while others crushed them to make a drink.

    When the Spaniards came to Mexico in the sixteenth century, they started drinking cacao, too. Because the drink was strong and bitter, they thought it was a medicine. No one had the idea of adding sugar. The Spaniards took some beans back to Europe and opened cafes. Wealthy people drank cacao and said it was good for the digestion.

    In the 1800s, the owner of a chocolate factory in England discovered that sugar removed the bitter taste of cacao. It quickly became a cheap and popular drink. Soon afterwards, a factory made the first solid block of sweetened chocolate. Later on, another factory mixed milk and chocolate together. People liked the taste of milk chocolate even better.

    Besides the chocolate candy bar, one of the most popular American snacks is the chocolate chip cookie. Favorite desserts are the chocolate cream pie and, of course, an ice cream sundae with hot fudge sauce.

    A recent documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has caused a stir in China and in the UK.

    The documentary, titled Are Our Kids Tough Enough? focuses on five Chinese teachers who are sent to teach 50 UK teens at a school in Hampshire.

    The teachers instruct the students for a month. The pupils are then tested, and the results are compared to the ones of those who have continued in the regular UK education system. The idea is to see if the Chinese method improves academic performance.

    The Chinese teachers use their own teaching methods but receive strong resistance from the students. A clip from the documentary online shows some problems, with Chinese teachers calling their students lazy and lacking in discipline, while the students say the high pressure and harsh teachers are driving them crazy.

    This has aroused a new debate in both China and the UK, with some arguing the teenagers need more regulation and discipline. Others say Chinese methods encourage rote learning (死记硬背) instead of independent thinking. For instance, Chinese language teachers should do more than pass on knowledge about words and characters. They should inspire students, helping them feel the sentiment from Chinese literature. This is a higher level of teaching.

    Yang Dongping, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, says, "The Chinese teaching methods are designed to strictly train the majority. Foreign teaching methods, however, are more natural and relaxing, and designed to inspire students' interest in learning. Education methods are based on culture. That is why a successful education method in one place may not work that well when simply 'transplanted' into another place."

    Yang Dongping says, "The documentary does reflect some problems rooted in traditional Chinese teaching methods. Nobel prize winner, Yang Zhenning, gave a very fair comment on this issue. He said the Chinese-style education method works for most ordinary qualified students effectively, helping them reach high standards. However, it may weaken the training for high-potential outstanding students."

    In a win for literary fiction amid declining sales, Sally Rooney's novel Normal People has been named Waterstones book of the year in 2018.

    Rooney's second novel, which follows two young people falling in love in Ireland, has sold 41, 000 copies in hardback in the UK since it was released in August-five times the hardback sales of her 2017 debut, Conversations With Friends. At 27, Rooney is now the youngest winner of the award, which is given by the UK's biggest bookshop chain, Waterstones.

    Normal People received almost universal applause upon its release. Longlisted for the Man Booker prize, the book won novel of the year at the An Post Irish book awards in November of 2018 and has also been shortlisted for the Costa novel of the year, announced in January of 2019.

    The reader response to Normal People had been astonishing. As well as the universal praise, it has been a huge word- of-mouth (口头的) hit. There're customers returning to buy multiple copies as gifts. Normal People strengthened Sally Rooney's reputation as the voice of her generation and one of the most exciting novelists around today. Its success is a testament to the health of literary fiction and indicates that there is still significant appetite for excellent storytelling.

    The award, established in 2012, tends to go to books that are already bestsellers near Christmas. It has previously been won by the late American author John Williams's Stoner, the cookbook Polpo by Russell Norman, and last year's choice, Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage.

    James Daunt, Waterstones' managing director, said Rooney's win was a sign of the healthy state of literary fiction, which has seen sales decrease over the last decade. "We are delighted to name it our book of the year," he said.