Tips for Cooking on a Tight Schedule

    From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don't cook more often: ability, money and time. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Money is a topic I'll save for another day. So today I want to give you some wisdom about how to make the most of the time you spend in the kitchen. Here are three tips for great cooking on a tight schedule:

    1）. Think ahead. The moments when I think cooking is a pain are when I'm already hungry and there's nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week. When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already? {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    2）. Make your time worth it. When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on. Are you making one loaf of bread? {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It takes around the same amount of time to make more of something. So save yourself the effort for a future meal.

    3）.  {#blank#}4{#/blank#} This may surprise you, but one of the best tools for making cooking worth your time is experimentation. It gives you the chance to hit upon new ideas and recipes that can work well with your appetite and schedule. The more you learn and the more you try, the more ability you have to take control of your food and your schedule.

    Hopefully that gives a good start. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} And don't let a busy schedule discourage you from making some great changes in the way you eat and live!

    Volunteering at a nursing home is an often overlooked volunteer area and yet one of the most needed. Statistics show that only 50 percent of nursing home residents have no close relatives and 46 percent have no living children. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}However, the self gratification and relationships you will receive is too unusual to be replaced.

    Make a list of nursing homes you are able to volunteer at on a regular basis. When doing this, use any resources from family members, friends, or even use an online search engine to find nursing homes. When choosing your home, also keep in mind your schedule; make sure that you can be fully committed to any obligations that the nursing home may give you. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Before calling, choose your times wisely, anytime between 9am-11am and 2pm-5pm would be a good option. By avoiding meal times or later at night, you'll have a better chance for getting information and finding people who are free to talk with you.

    Ask for an application form. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}This step is also where your applicant process begins. They will hand you all necessary applicant information. Most nursing homes will conduct interviews, do background checks, and may even have you receive vaccines and take drug tests.

    Become a "volunteer in training" at the nursing home. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Because of the wide variety of possible areas, you may experience variations in your training length and the content may vary.

A. Expect to attend training if your application is approved.

B. Call or visit the top three of your chosen nursing home options.

C. Volunteering at a nursing home can be a really wonderful experience.

D. From your list, choose the top three that cater to what you are looking for.

E. You will be taken into training depending on the area you are assigned to train in.

F. The process of becoming a volunteer at a nursing home can often be a little too long.

G. The activity director or volunteer coordinator will handle all of your information from here.

Effective Time Management Tips from Students

    College years are something that many people remember mostly, like parties, meeting life-long friends and romantic adventures. Between those fun things, students have to find time for their actual studying. Many of them do it so skillfully that their professors wouldn't even guess that they partied all night. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here are some effective time management tips that can be used outside of college.

    Use technologies

    Many modern students can support the fact that technologies make studying easier and faster {#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can save time on solving different problems as there are now many apps for that. Using technologies for work is also a must if you want to improve your productivity.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    As you know, students have a strict class schedule. It helps them organize their days and be ready for each class. Having a schedule for work and life is also a good thing. If your day is planned by hours, it is easier to get every task done fast and effectively.

    Learn something new all the time

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}They know that the more knowledge they possess, the easier it can be for them to get out of different situations. You need to be hungry for knowledge. Many people who graduate from college think that they've learned all the secrets of the universe and have nothing more to study. However, you still need to give some work to your brain. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Have a schedule

B. Learn a lot of things

C. Smart students complete their tasks faster.

D. Thus, you will do your work slower and waste a lot of time.

E. Read books and learn new skills, which will make you smarter and more productive.

F. You needn't always waste time to go to a library when you can find everything online.

G. How do they manage to complete plenty of homework and still find the time to have fun?

How to Protect Yourself from Hackers Online

    An increase in cyber-attacks (网络攻击) makes the Internet seem like a scary place these days. How can individuals protect or make it more difficult for hackers to access their information? Here are several tips that can help you protect against cyber-attacks:

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Hard passwords include upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. They should be at least eight characters in length. They should also not spell out words easy for hackers to find, like your pet's name or the name of a family member.

    Change your password regularly

    A very common mistake made by users is to create one hard password, but then never change it. Remembering a long list of complicated passwords can be difficult. But no password is unbreakable. Hackers are better able to hack multiple accounts if those accounts all have the same password. A password management service, like Dashlane or PasswordBox, can help you keep track of hard passwords. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Clear your browser (浏览器) history

    This goes for all the devices you use in a day – your home computer, your work computer, or your friend's iPad. Internet browsers like Firefox or Chrome keep track of where you've been and what you've done online. They keep records of every site you visited. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It is very easy for anyone who sees that information to steal a detailed record of your online activities.

    Do not use free Wi-Fi

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Often, a user does not need a password to connect to these wireless networks. These services might be useful, but they're also an easy way for hackers to access everything on your device.

    Use anti-virus protection

    There are many anti-virus services available for users. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Some anti-virus services are even free. They are a great way to have a professional help keeping users one step ahead of hackers.

A. Be careful while using thumb drive.

B. These services permit users to easily store and secure their passwords.

C. Make your password harder to hack.

D. They can offer many different types of computer protection.

E. An increasing number of public places now offer free wireless access to the Internet.

F. Information about what you sent from or saved on your computer can be kept for days or weeks.

G. Unless you really need it, it is best not to use it.

    Imagine that you are in a remote village somewhere with no medical clinic.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Once the doctors get to you, they examine you and take blood samples, but they won't be able to help you until they take the samples back to the hospital to find out what is wrong.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Thanks to engineer Andy Ozcan, many people may never be in this situation. He has invented an app that turns your mobile phone into a diagnostic (诊断的) tool.

    Ozcan's invention is important because it is very accurate and easy to use. In many remote places, even if doctors have microscopes and other instruments to help them make diagnoses, there may still be other problems. Many doctors, for example, don't have enough training to correctly interpret what they see.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}With Ozcan's mobile phone app, health workers can take a special photo of a blood sample and send it to a central computer at a hospital. The computer will then automatically interpret the photo and send a diagnosis back in a few minutes.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}His technology only requires a mobile phone and an Internet connection. As more than four billion people already have cell phones, the cost of establishing the diagnostic system is fairly low.

By inventing a medical tool that uses existing technology—mobile phones—Ozcan has developed a medical tool that is both practical and economical. Therefore, it can be effectively almost anywhere.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. As a result, they may diagnose illnesses incorrectly.

B. People are trying to reduce the cost of this new medical tool.

C. This tool has become much more popular all around the world.

D. Another reason that Ozcan's invention is important is that it is inexpensive.

E. You become very sick and must wait days until a mobile medical unit arrives to help.

F. Ozcan's simple, cost-effective tool might just save millions of lives around the world.

G. Even though you may only have a simple infection, you might die because of the delay.

    We all have to make decisions all the time, and we have an abundance of choices, ranging from tiny issues to vital ones. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} That means the skill of good decision-making counts a lot. If you would like to improve your skill of decision making, here are four suggestions for you.

    Don't expect to have it all.

    Decisions force us to close the door on other possibilities. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} And there will be paths not taken, careers not chosen, to name a few. You can imagine some "what if" situations if you must, but do not let them take up too much space in your brain.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    It's often good to think through your decisions. But don't overdo it. Research can reach a point where returns begin to reduce, which makes it confusing more than clarifying. Many good decisions can be made based as much on intuition (直觉) as on careful assessment of endless data.

    Don't delay making decisions.

    Yes, there is a time to put off making a decision. Perhaps you need more information. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Or it's likely that you wait for a less stressful time. Just don't wait so long that the decision is made by your own indecisiveness.

    Don't be hard on yourself.

    You decide to go on a voyage. You choose an expensive liner. Everything should work out just right. Only you didn't expect a bug that ran around on the ship, making you and your family sick for five days. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} But please remember it is unavoidable sometimes.