If you think your vocabulary is weak, a little effort every day over six to nine months can go a long way in improving it. Here are some tips for increasing your vocabulary.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. You may be comfortable reading a particular part of the newspaper but make an effort to read different articles on every page. The editorial (社论的) page is highly recommended not only for vocabulary but also for structuring and presenting thoughts.

    Make it a habit to read a new book every week. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. You can consider becoming a member of the local library. Make a list of new words and look up their meanings in the dictionary.

    Watch English movies and television shows. It's an interesting way to enrich your vocabulary. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}.

    Use vocabulary cards. Vocabulary cards are used by students who are trying to learn many words in a short time. You can make your own cards by writing the word on one side and the meaning on the other side of a piece of paper. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.

    Use the Internet. The Internet is an unlimited resource for reading material.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. You will come across plenty of material to read. The Internet will also introduce you to new words. Be sure to look them up in a dictionary.

    Everyone knows that the Frenchmen are romantic, the Italians are fashionable and the Germans are serious. Are these just stereotypes or is there really such a thing as national character? And if there is, can it affect how a nation succeed or fail?

    At least one group of people is certain that it can. A recent survey of the top 500 entrepreneurs (企业家) in the UK found that 70% felt that their efforts were not appreciated by the British public. Britain is hostile (敌意的) to success, they said. It has a culture of jealousy(嫉妒). {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Jealousy is sometimes known as the “green – eyed monster” and the UK is its home.

    Scientists at War wich University in the UK recently tested this idea. They gathered a group of people together and gave each an imaginary amount of money.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Those given a little were given the chance to destroy the large amount of money given to others – but at the cost of losing their own. Two thirds of the people tested agreed to do this.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} . But there is also opposite evidence. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently reported that the UK is now the world's fourth largest economy. That is not bad for people who are supposed to hate success. People in the UK also work longer hours than anyone else in Europe. So the British people are not lazy, either.

    “It is not really success that the British dislike,” says Carey Cooper, a professor of management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. “It's people using their success in a way that seems proud or unfair or which separates them from their roots.”

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} They set out to do things in their way. They work long hours. By their own efforts they become millionaires. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}It hardly seems worth following their example. If they were more friendly, people would like them more. And more people want to be like them.

A. This seems to prove that the entrepreneurs were right to complain.

B. The one who owns most money in the end is the winner.

C. As a result, the survey said, entrepreneurs were “unloved, unwanted and misunderstood.”

D. It is not true that British people are born jealous of others' success.

E. Some were given a little, others a great deal.

F. But instead of being happy they complain that nobody loves them.

G. Perhaps it is the entrepreneurs who are the problem.

    As our family are getting ready for the annual holiday of Thanksgiving, which is probably the most important holiday in the U.S because it's celebrated by people of all faiths. I think back to a cold November day more than twenty years ago. It was a day when my husband and I, married just about three months, got stuck on I -89 in Vermont when our car broke down.

    We had just visited my husband's parents in Vermont, and with a huge turkey they gave us slowly thawing (解冻）in the trunk of our old car, we were heading back to our apartment in Boston to celebrate our first Thanksgiving together. Our car broke down half an hour after we got on the highway. And it was raining. Back to then, not everyone had a cell phone, and in those days if you broke down along a lonely stretch of a highway far from the nearest emergency call box in cold November rain, it wasn't fun.

    Fortutiously for us, a van with a bunch of people coming back from a ski trip stopped andasked if we needed help. They gave us a ride to the nearest gas station, from where we could phone my father-in-law and asked him for help. My father-in-law arranged for :he car to be towed (拖引), and drove us all the way to Boston that day.

    So as we sit down to dinner and think of all the things we can be thankful for tonight, I want to say “thank you” to the strangers on I -89 some twenty years ago for giving a young couple a ride when their car with a frozen turkey in the trunk broke down.

    Never underestimate the difference you can make to the lives of others by one small act of kindness. Step forward, reach out and help. This week, reach to someone that might need a lift.

Cold weather is good for you

    With winter approaching, people begin to complain about cold weather. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} There's plenty to love about cold weather. And there's plenty of evidence that cooler temperatures can be part of a healthy life.

    First, cooler temperatures can help you lose weight. It can also help you sleep better.  You might feel uncomfortable at first if you cool your bedroom down. But if you, for example, switch your bedroom temperature from 72 down to 62 degrees gradually over a few weeks, your body will adjust. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    I have long kept my winter house temperature at 62 degrees. How did I find that number7 Well, I experimented on myself about eight years ago. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} I started at 66 and turned it down one degree every few days until 60. I found when the temperature was colder than 62, I couldn't focus. But 62 was perfect. Another benefit for me was that it also kept me clear-headed while working at home.

    Interestingly, science also says 62 degrees is the magic number for brainwork. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} It said 62 degrees was the temperature at which the schoolboy subjects of the study functioned perfect. And while we're speaking of work and school, other research shows that people study better when the weather outside is "bad".

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} But according to a Harvard Health Letter from 2010, proper cold temperatures could be good for skin because it trains blood vessels in the skin to be responsive. So, rosy cheeks! There's no reason to be afraid of winter weather. Hug it and you, too, can enjoy the season.

A. I recently read a 1972 study.

B. And you'll save money on energy costs as well.

C. Many people like to use cold water to wash their face.

D. At that time, I worked at home and liked warm temperature.

E. Most of us think cold weather leads to dry skin and wrinkling.

F. The reason was that I hated spending money on heating bills.

G. But if you're active and healthy, it doesn't have to be a negative thing.

    Studies show that human beings and cats have been living together for about 9,500 years.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Dogs are domesticated, meaning they have been trained to do what people want them to do.

    As cat owners know well, cats do not obey humans in the same way dogs do.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    As a result, many people have come to think that maybe cats simply do not understand human language. A report in the scientific journal Nature shows that cats understand human beings well enough to recognize their own names.

    The report describes a series of experiments with house cats in Japan. These tests involved having people say four words that were similar to a cat's name.

    Each word had the same number of syllables as the name and some of the some sounds. The cats seemed to lose interest after the speaker said a few of the words. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    The cats moved their ears or turned their head when they heard their names. They also moved their feet gr bogies very little-not a surprising result. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} These animals reacted just as much to their own names.

    The researchers thought this was because visitors may give food to the cat or rub its back when it responds. Another finding was that a cat will react when a person who is not its owner says its name.

    "I think many cat owners feel that cats know their names, or the word "food".{#blank#}5{#/blank#}says Saito, who is a cat owner.The researchers hope that the findings from their study will help both cats and people.

A.Then the person said the cat's name.

B.In fact, some scientists claim that cats have trained us to take care of them.

C.They added that perhaps cats can learn words to warn them of dangerous things or places.

D.Dogs have lived with humans longer than cats.

E.The study was carried out by four researchers: Atsuko Saito, Yuki Ito, and Toshikazu Hasegawa and Kazutaka Shinozuka of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Saitama.

F.But until now, there was no scientific evidence to back that up.

G.In another part of the experiment, people said the names of the cats staying in a cat cafe

    Whether they're for a teenager or not, all great stories have certain elements: they have interesting characters we enjoy reading about; they show these characters in a world we can recognize and understand.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The main character faces a problem, usually quite a serious one. The thing that most draws us to reading the story is the way the character deals with the problem—whether the character gets the better of it, or it gets the better of the character.

    Characters in a book for young adults are generally young adults themselves. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} On the one hand, they're not children anymore. They're growing up and want to stretch their wings. On the other hand, they're not yet adults. They can't do certain things, as they're not yet able to do them or because the world tells them that they can't.

    To make things even more complicated, almost all young adults feel at some point that the whole growing－up process is happening too quickly. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    This year, TEENS has selected seven of the ten books, nominated (提名) for the US 2017 National Book Awards in the categories of Young People's Literature.

    Some stories are specifically written for teenagers or young adults, meaning that their authors are very sensitive to the "in－between" nature of teenage life. They're about problems that appear for young people because of tensions between them and their parents and teachers, their siblings (兄弟姐妹)，or wider society. Often, these problems are presented very seriously by writers. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    At the same time, fiction isn't supposed to be just about the challenges people face in life, but also about how people overcome those problems. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} They discover something about themselves that they never knew before, and which enables them to succeed. And the solution that they find opens the future up to them, setting them on the path to adulthood.

A. They want to hold back a little and remain a child a little longer.

B. But that's what young adults want in fiction; to be taken seriously.

C. When closing a good book, we feel we've learned something about ourselves.

D. These are stories that someone of any age could pick up and enjoy.

E. And they are in a challenging period of life.

F. But most importantly, great stories have a central drama.

G. To some degree, challenges bring out the best in characters.