Word of the Day Writing Competition

    Days are getting colder, and everyone is slowly backing to the warm comfort of their homes. It's the best opportunity to make good use of the quietness and peace of the season by taking pen and paper(or a computer) out to write.

OxfordWords of Oxford University Press(OUP) is calling all aspiring(有抱负的) authors out there to take part in our writing competition. What we're looking for are imaginative(富有想象力的) short stories—not more than 500 words—that include every Word of the Day (WOTD) from November.

    Each entry will be carefully considered by the OxfordWords team before deciding on a winner. The best storyteller will be given a year's fee to OxfordDictionaries.com, as well as ￡50 worth of OUP books, and have his or her piece published on that website.

    Before you get started, please make sure you're read our terms and conditions. Entries can be submitted(递交) through the entry form, or posted into the comment section. Closing date for the competition is 5th January 2015.

    And finally, for inspiration, have a look at the charming short story that gives us the idea for this competition, written by a fellow Oxford Dictionaries team member, and including all thirty one Words of the Day from October.

    Find out more about our Word of the Day service and sign up to receive the words via email, or on Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Last year I ruined (毁) my summer vacation by bringing along a modem convenience that was too convenient for my own good: the iPad. Instead of looking at nature, I checked my email. Instead of paddling a small boat, I followed my Twitter feed (推特简讯). Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading four newspapers each morning. I was behaving as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation but my head wasn't.

    So this year I made up my mind to try something different: withdrawal (退出) from the Internet. I knew it wouldn't be easy, since Fm bad at self-control. But I was determined. I started by giving the iPad to my wife.

    The cellphone signal (信号) at our house was worse than in the past, making my attempts at cheating an experience in frustration (沮丧). I was trapped, forced to go through with my plan. Largely cut off from email, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites, I had few ways to connect to the world except for radio and how much radio can one listen to, really? I had to do what I had planned to all along: read books.

    This experience has had a happy ending. With determination and the strong support of my wife, I won in my vacation struggle against the Internet, realizing finally that it was I, not the iPad, that was the problem. I knew I had won when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “I don't need it,” I said.

    However, as we return to post-vacation life, a harder test begins: Can I continue when Fm back at work? There are times when the need to know what's being said right now is great. And I have no intention (愿望) of giving up my convenience completely. But I hope to resist (抵抗) the temptation (诱惑) to check my email every five minutes, which leads to checking my Twitter feed and a website or two.

    I think a vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive. Here I hope this one worked.

    Generations of children grew up reading comic(漫画) books secretly, hiding out from parents and teachers who saw them as a waste of time and a risk to young minds. Comics are now gaining a new respectability at school. That is thanks to an increasingly popular and creative programme, often aimed at struggling readers, that encourages children to plot, write and draw comic books, in many cases using themes from their own lives.

    The Comic Book Project was started in 2001 by Michael Bitz at an elementary school in Queens. Since its creation, the programme, which is mainly conducted after school, has spread to more than 850 schools across the country. It has gotten a big push from the craze(狂热) among adolescents for comic book clubs and for Manga, a widly popular variety of comic originating in Japan.

    The point is not to drop a comic book on a child's desk and say “read this”. Rather, the workshops give groups of students the opportunity to collaborate(合著) on often complex stories and charac-ters that they then revise, publish and share with others in their communities.

    Teachers are finding it easier to teach writing, grammar and punctuation with material that students are fully invested in(投入). And it turns out that comic books have other built-in advantages. The pairing of visual and written plotlines that they rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers. No one is suggesting that comic books should substitute for traditional books or for standard reading and composition lessons. Teachers who would once have dismissed comics out of hand are learning to exploit(利用) a style that clearly has a powerful hold on young minds. They are using what works.

    Patients with light or moderate depression can be successfully treated by swimming with dolphins, researchers said on Saturday.

    The study was carried out in Honduras, including patients who were thought by the doctors with light of moderate depression coming from the United States and Honduras.

    For two weeks, half of the group swam and snorkeled (潜泳) with dolphins for an hour a day. At the same time the other half group carried out the same type of water activities, but with the absence of dolphins. Researchers want to find out the influence of water and the natural setting.

    All the study volunteers didn't continue to take any drugs or psychotherapy ( 心理治疗) at least for weeks before the start of the study and did not take any drugs during the study, said the researchers from the division of clinical Psychiatry at t e the University of Leicester Medical School.

    By the end of the study, those people who swam with the dolphins had a greater average reduction in their depressive symptoms than those who did not.

    The researchers noted that the study supports the theory of biophilia, which thinks that human health and well-being depends partly on the human connection with the natural world. The findings appeared in the issue of the British Medical Journal.

    Coming from the Greek, biophilia means “love of life”, and it has been developed by biologists to reflect the humans' natural tendency to connect with nature and animals, leading to interactions and positive emotions that result in psychological treatment.

    This is not a diet. It's a simple way to lose weight. You don't have to give up the food you love or join a gym. You just follow some habits thin people have. Keep them, and you'll become thin.

    Wake-up When you wake up in the morning, sit up slowly without using your hands. With legs straight out, lean forward(前俯) until you feel sore(酸痛的) in your back. It will use up 10 calories.

    Start with soup Order a clear soup, and have it before the main food. In this way, you'll feel fuller, so you'll eat less when the main food comes.

    An apple or more a day Apples are full of fiber(纤维) and water, so your stomach will want less. Studies show that people who eat at least three apples or pears a day may lose weight.

    Talk it up Every time you use the cell phone, stand up and walk around. Heavy people sit on average two and a half hours more each day than thin people. This skill is very important as standing up and walking around will burn up 50 or more calories.

    Use these skills, and you will have a big weight loss.

A Non-Credit Courses The Pre-College Program offers non-credit courses. Students will experience college-level courses even by some of our college's leading experts and will receive written feedback(反馈) on their work at the end of the course. Pre-College students will also receive a grade of satisfactory/ unsatisfactory and a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.

All non-credit courses start from 9:00 a. m.—11:30 a. m. daily and may-have additional requirements in the afternoons or evenings.

Course 1: Case Studies in Neuroscience

●June 11— July 2

●Leah Roesch

Using student-centered, active-learning methods and real-world examples, this course is designed to provide a fuller understanding of how the human brain works.

Course 2: Psychology of Creativity

●June 15—— June 28

●Marshall Duke

Why are certain people so creative? Is it genetic (遗传的), or a result of childhood experience? Are they different from everyone else? This popular psychology course highlights the different theories of creativity.

Course 3: Creative Storytelling

●June21—— July 3

●Edith Freni

This college-level course in creative storytelling functions as an introduction to a variety of storytelling techniques that appear in different forms of creative writing, such as short fiction and playwriting.

Course 4: Sports Economics

●July 19—— August 1

●Christina DePasquale

In this course we will analyze many interesting aspects of the sports industry: sports leagues, ticket pricing, salary negotiations(协商 ), discrimination(歧视), and NCAA policies to name a few.