How can I fight laziness?

    Lazy people will never amount to anything in life. However, laziness can be defeated once a few changes have been made in your mind.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Many people lack sleep constantly, since they stay up too late and get up too early to prepare for work. These people have little motivation once they arrive home. Laziness works hand in hand with a lack of motivation and a tendency to put off things. By adjusting your sleep schedule to provide a few more hours of meaningful rest, you can fight laziness throughout the day.

    Another way to fight laziness is to change your mind from passive to active. Some people treat their lives as if they were pushed from task to task. Others take a more protective approach, viewing each task as a challenge they must overcome alone. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Some people fight laziness by removing the temptations(诱惑) that surround them. A television in the living room may provide entertainment, but watching too much TV often contributes to laziness. Create a reward system for yourself, just as parents do for a child to promote responsibility. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Spouses(配偶) and children may all have different energy levels, but laziness can be spread if not dealt with immediately. To fight household laziness, lead by example. Be the first to collect and wash dishes after a meal. Others in the home may eventually follow your example and perform their own task. It is difficult to practice laziness when you are surrounded by motivated people.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} enough exercise and a balanced diet can help you to develop a healthy lifestyle, thus enabling you to have more energy and help lift your spirits.

    What makes one person more intelligent than another? What makes one person a genius, like the brilliant Albert Einstein, and another person a fool? Are people born intelligent or stupid, or is intelligence the result of where and how you live?{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    We know, however, that just being born with a good mind is not enough. In some ways, the mind is like a leg or an arm muscle.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Mental exercise is particularly important for young children. Many child psychologists think that parents should play with their children more often and give them problems to think about. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}38．__ If, on the other hand, children are left alone a great deal with nothing to do, they are more likely to become dull and unintelligent.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} According to some psychologists, if parents are always telling a child that he or she is a fool or an idiot, then the child is more likely to keep doing silly and foolish things. So it is probably better for parents to say very positive things to their children, such as “That was a very clever thing you did.” or “{#blank#}5{#/blank#}”.

A. A healthy body contributes to one's intelligence.

B. Parents should also be careful about what they say to young children.

C. What people want to express is like this.

D. The children are then more likely to grow up bright and intelligent.

E. It needs exercise.

F. You are such a smart child.

G. These are very old questions and the answers to them are still not clear.

You must have written your research paper, your personal essay, your book review—-whatever your school class requires. You think you have provided good information in the needed number of words.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    But is it really done? Many teachers and professional writers believe that writing is revision.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

Revision of writing is a necessary skill for students. The classroom is a good place to practice patience, concentration and listening. There are rewards with spending time with your thoughts and really taking time to compose your ideas in an orderly and reasonable way. You should put away your paper after you have written a first version, or draft. Wait several hours, maybe overnight, before working on it more.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Not only are you refreshed, but you're looking at things through different eyes. That's what revision literally means—to see again through different eyes.

Following a four-step process may help you with your paper. The first step in the process is invention. It includes forming many questions about your subject. It is called “question-storming”.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Then comes the revision period. Take your time to read what you've written, to think about it, and maybe to re-shape it based on what you see now, as a kind of new person looking at it with a reader's eyeglasses rather than a writer's. The fourth step is called “publication”.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}In a sense, anytime you turn it over to another person, that's publication.

    Probably, the process takes away some of the tension of writing. And worry about the quality of your writing often disappears when you share that writing.

    Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March, 1853—29 July, 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. He is considered one of the greatest artists with great influence on the greatest artists with great influence on the 20th-century art.

    Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief period as a teacher, he became a missionary (传教士) in a very poor mining region. He did not begin his career as an artist until 1880; however, during the last ten years of his life, he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawing and sketched (素描). He worked only with somber colours until he met Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Van Gogh used their bright colours and style of painting in a uniquely recognizable style. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, when he was suffering from serious mental illness.

    In 1890, at the age of 37, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, with Theo, his brother and his best friend, at his side, who reported his last words as “The sadness will last forever”. It would not take long before his fame grew higher and higher.

    Van Gogh's mother threw away quite a number of his paintings. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia. Several paintings by van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On March 30, 1987 van Gogh's painting Irises was sold for a record of $ 53.9 million at Southby's, New York. On May 15, 1990 his Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $ 83.5 million at Christie's, thus setting a new price record.

Learning a second language

    Some people learn a second language easily. Other people have trouble learning a new language. How can you help yourself learn a new language, such as English? There are several ways to make learning English a little easier and more interesting.

    The first step is to feel confident about learning English. If you believe that you can learn, you will learn. Be patient. You don't have to understand everything all at once. It is natural to make mistakes when you learn something new. We can learn from our mistakes.

    The second step is to practise your English. For example, write in a diary every day. You will get used to writing in English, and you will feel comfortable expressing your ideas in English. After several weeks, you will see that your writing is improving. Besides, you must speak English every day. You can practise with your classmates after class. You will all make mistakes, but gradually you will become comfortable communicating in English.

    The third step is to keep a record of your language learning. You can write this in your diary. After each class, think about what you did. Did you answer a question correctly? Did you understand anything the teacher explained? Perhaps the lesson was difficult, but you tried to understand it. Write these achievements (成就) in your diary.

    You must be active in learning English and believe that you can do it. It is important to practise every day and make a record of your achievements. You will enjoy learning English, and you will have more confidence in yourself.

    I've come back to check on a baby. Just after dusk I'm in a car down a muddy road in the rain, past rows of shackled(戴镣的) elephants, their trunks swinging. I was here five hours before， when the sun was high and hot and tourists were on elephants' backs.

    Walking now, I can barely see the path in the glow of my phone's flashlight. When the wooden fence post stops me short, I point my light down and follow a current of rainwater across the concrete floor until it washes up against three large, gray feet. A fourth foot twisted above the surface, tied tightly by a short chain and choked by ring of metal spikes(尖刺) When the elephant tires and puts her foot down， the spikes press deeper into her ankle.

    Meena is four years and two months old, still a child as elephants go. Khammon Kongkhaw, her caretaker, told me earlier that Meena wears the spiked chain because she tends to kick. Kongkhaw has been responsible for Meena here at Maetaman Elephant Adventure, near Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, since she was 11 months old. He said he keeps her on the spiked chain only during the day and takes it off at night. But it's night now.

    I ask Jin Laoshen, the Maetaman worker accompany in me on this nighttime visit, why her chain is still on. He says he doesn't know.

    Mactaman is one of many animal attractions in and around tourist-crowded Chiang Mai. Meena's life is set to follow the same track as many of the roughly 3, 800 captive(被捕获的) elephants in Thailand. When Meena is too old or sick to give rides-maybe at 55, maybe at 75she'll die. If she's lucky, she'll get a few years of retirement. She'll spend most of her life on a chain.