Hi, my name is Mei Shan. I study in a high school now. It seems that my life has changed a lot in the past few years. For example, I used to be short but now I am tall. I used to have long hair, but now I have short hair because I have no time to take care of it. I used to be afraid of the sea because I didn't know how to swim, but now I am a good swimmer in our school. As for eating, I used to have meat and eggs but now I like eating more vegetables.

  When I was young, I didn't use to read any books, but now I often read some storybooks. When I was in primary school, I used to play ping-pong with my friends after school, but now I have to go home right now and do my homework. I didn't like math and I used to be terrified of tests, but now I like all the subjects and never mind any tests. In the past, I used to have time to chat with my friends online, but now I am too busy to do it. How I miss my old days!

    Every year, wildfires(野火) destroy much forest land. homes are broken down, and thousands of people die. smokejumpers are stop helping to stop this.

    Smokejumpers are a special kind of firefight. they jump from planes into areas that difficult to reach by car or on foot. they race to put out fires as fast as they can.

    At a fire site, Smokejumpers first examine the land and decide how to fight the fire. their main goal is to stop fire from spreading. using basic tools such as shovels and axes, smokejumpers clear land of burnable material like plants and other dry material. they carry water with them too, but not much.

    Although most smokejumpers are men, more women are joining. Most important are your weight and height. Smokejumpers in the U.S. for example ,must be 54 to 91 kilograms, so they don't get hurt when they land, or get blown by strong winds.

    Smokejumpers must be able to live in the wilderness. in Russia ,many smokejumpers know how to find food in the forest and even make simple furniture from trees.

    They work is dangerous, the hours are long. But for these firefighters, smokejumpers isn't just a job. They love being able to jump out of planes, fight fires, and live in the forest. As 28-year-old Russian smokejumpers Alexi Tishin says,“This is the best job for the strong and brave.”

A

Linda's Phone Book

根据材料内容判断正误。

    Wang Xiaohong is 7 years old. Her parents gave her an iPad as a present for her birthday. She was very excited and played with the ipad every day. A month later, her eyesight decreased(下降)to 300 degrees. Thin is serious for such a young girl Many children in China are facing the same problem tablet(平板电脑)and ipad using is bringing problems to their eyesight. The problem is so common that newspapers even call the iPad the " No. I killer of children's eyesight".

    "There are about 30 shortsighted(近视的)children coming every day, " said Hu Dali, an eye doctor at Guiyang Aier Eye Hospital " Half of those children have poor eyesight because they have played with phones and iPads for too long."

    Doctors and scientists say children's eyesight is not yet fully developed and their eyes get tired more easily. The screen of an ipad uses a very bright LED backlight. If children look at an iPad screen too much, their eyes do not have time to rest. This will make their eyesight worse over time.

    Doctors advise that users should hold their iPads between 40-60 centimeters away from them. The brightness of the screen should be comfortable for children. Children had better use iPads for less than one hour every day.

    Joining a short-term research program in China has not only allowed Pakistani agricultural scientist Sayyar Khan to push forward with his academic studies, but also given him a chance to see a country he had heard so much about.

    Khan is now doing a one-year research program at the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences. The program is sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and many young talented scientists who come from collaborating countries, such as Pakistan, are given opportunities to work in China.

    Although this is his first visit to China Khan says he is well-informed of the long friendship between China and Pakistan. He is impressed most by the cooperation (合作) in education between China and Pakistan. especially since the start-up of the Belt and Road Initiative ("一带一路"建设) in 2013.

    "Many students from my university and my city have visited China and completed their higher education here." he says, adding that he has met with many of them.

    "I hear news about China on television and read about it in print media, so I know of the rapid development of China in recent decades."

    Khan says the Belt and Road Initiative will have a very positive effect on the world.

    "I hope that I can stay in China to participate in such cooperation projects." he says. Khan says life in Beijing is much easier than he'd expected, thanks to the convenient(便利的)public transportation and restaurants offering food for Muslims(穆斯林). This encouraged him to bring his family to live with him a couple of months ago.

    He says that language is the only challenge for them so far. However, he finds no problem talking with his Chinese colleagues, many of whom speak good English. He also enjoys the relaxing working environment and has a very good relationship with his co-workers.

A different kind of alarm clock

    When Matty Sallin, 24, was studying art and technology at New York University, he got an interesting task for the final exam：Create something for the ordinary family. He decided to create an alarm clock.

    "To get up in time, many people have to use an alarm clock every morning. But the sound of the clock is extremely noisy and unpleasant." he says. So before he started to design the new clock, he asked different people what they'd like to wake up to in the morning. A lot of them said, "The smell of bacon(培根)."

    So Sallin and his two classmates invented a new kind of alarm clock: a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon to wake people up. He explains, "There's no danger of burning, because I built it carefully, It uses special light bulbs(灯泡) instead of a fire for cooking and turns off automatically after ten minutes. "Just a few easy steps are required to set the "alarm".

    "What you do is to put a few pieces of bacon meat inside the box the night before, then you set the alarm," says Sallin. "If you set the alarm for 8：00, it will turn on at 7:50 and slow cook for ten minutes under the bulbs. Then the bulbs turn off and a fan blows the smell out through the nose of the pig."

    "So the pleasant smell of bacon will wake you up. There will be no more noisy alarms," says Sallin. "Then you can open the door on the side and pull the bacon out and eat it."

    When Sallin was a kid, he spent a lot of time making drawings of inventions. "I wanted to make a lift in my back yard and a special tree house," he says. "But I never really thought I'd become an inventor！"

    Sallin got an A for his alarm clock and went on to invent other things-but people continue to email him every day asking where they can buy his alarm clack. If he decides to produce and sell his special alarm clock, maybe he can build a successful business out of it.