Our room was on the second floor but you could still hear the roar of the ocean and see the stars at night. I used to take long walks along the water. The food in town was wonderful and the people were very friendly. The area was very quiet and peaceful, and fairly deserted.

    The last evening of our vacation, however, we all heard strange footsteps following closely behind us as we were walking up to our room in the holiday centre. We turned around and noticed a fairly young man moving very rapidly across the beach and getting closer to us. He was tall and wore a baseball cap. We couldn't see his face and he was approaching us very rapidly. The man's actions made my dad very nervous. Dad warned us that we'd better try to make it to our hotel room as quickly as possible. I didn't like my dad's voice; I could hear fear in it. It was late and we were all alone. We didn't have any cell phones on us. I never saw Dad as worried as he was then and I knew that something was terribly wrong. The sense of fear started to overwhelm Mom and me. We had had such a good time in town. Now, the night was rapidly turning into a dangerous situation.

    We could hear the man's footsteps getting closer. Dad's face was almost pale. The so-called intruder (侵入者) had moved nearer and nearer when all of a sudden, the nearby vending (自动贩卖) machine started going crazy and spitting out cans of soda! The noise actually scared the intruder and he ran out of sight. My parents were shaking, but we all turned around to see who had put money into the vending machine downstairs, and actually saved us, but no one was around at all. Not a soul.

    It's one vacation I will never forget.

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。

   The Healthy Habits Survey(调查)shows that only about one third of American seniors have correct habits. Here are some findings and expert advice.
1．How many times did you brush your teeth yesterday?
·Finding：A full 33% of seniors brush their teeth only once a day.
·Step：Remove the 300 types of bacteria in your mouth each morning with a battery－operated toothbrush. Brush gently for 2 minutes, at least twice a day.
2．How many times did you wash your hands or bathe yesterday?
·Finding：Seniors, on average, bathe fewer than 3 days a week. And nearly 30%wash their hands only 4 times a day—half of the number doctors recommend.
·Step：We touch our faces around 3,000 times a day－often inviting germs(病菌)to enter our mouth, nose, and eyes.Use toilet paper to avoid touching the door handle. And, most important, wash your hands often with hot running water and soap for 20 seconds.
3．How often do you think about fighting germs?
·Finding：Seniors are not fighting germs as well as they should.
·Step：Be aware of germs. Do you know it is not your toilet but your kitchen sponge(海绵)that can carry more germs than anything else? To kill these germs, keep your sponge in the microwave for 10 seconds.

    In 1978, I was 18 and was working as a nurse in a small town about 270 km away from Sydney, Australia. I was looking forward to having five days off from duty. Unfortunately, the only one train a day back to my home in Sydney had already left. So I thought I'd hitch a ride (搭便车).

    I waited by the side of the highway for three hours but no one stopped for me. Finally, a man walked over and introduced himself as Gordon. He said that although he couldn't give me a lift, I should come back to his house for lunch. He noticed me standing for hours in the November heat and thought I must be hungry. I was doubtful as a young girl but he assured （使…放心）me I was safe, and he also offered to help me find a lift home afterwards. When we arrived at his house, he made us sandwiches. After lunch, he helped me find a lift home.

Twenty-five years later, in 2003, while I was driving to a nearby town one day, I saw an elderly man standing in the glaring heat, trying to hitch a ride. I thought it was another chance to repay someone for the favour I'd been given decades earlier. I pulled over and picked him up. I made him comfortable on the back seat and offered him some water.

    After a few moments of small talk, the man said to me, “You haven't changed a bit, even your red hair is still the same.”

    I couldn't remember where I'd met him. He then told me he was the man who had given me lunch and helped me find a lift all those years ago. It was Gordon.

    I grew up poor. We had little money, but plenty of love and attention. I understood that no matter how poor a person was, he could still afford a dream. My dream was athletics.

    By the time I was sixteen, I was good at baseball and football. My high-school coach was Ollie Jarvis. He not only believed in me, but taught me the difference between having a dream and showing conviction(信念).

    One summer a friend recommended me for a summer job. This meant a chance for money in my pocket — cash for dates with girls, certainly, money for a new bike and new clothes, and the start of savings for a house for my mother.

Then I realized I would have to give up summer baseball to handle the work schedule, and that meant I would have to tell Coach Jarvis I wouldn't be playing. I was dreading(害怕) this, but my mother said, "If you make your bed, you have to lie in it."

When I told Coach Jarvis, he was as mad as I expected him to be. "Your playing days are limited. You can't afford to waste them," he said.

    I stood before him with my head hanging, trying to think of the words that would explain to him why I dreamed of buying my mom a house.

"How much are you going to make at this job, son?" he demanded.

"Three twenty-five an hour," I replied.

"Well," he asked, "is $3.25 an hour the price of a dream?"

    That question laid bare for me the difference between wanting something right now and having a goal. I devoted myself to sports that summer, and within the year I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates to play rookie-league ball, and offered a $20,000 contract. I signed with the Denver Broncos in 1984 for $1.7 million, and bought my mother the house of my dream.

The COVID -19 pandemic has changed life as we knew it just a few weeks ago. Millions of people worldwide are now under required or voluntary lockdowns. All public attractions, including museums and aquariums, are closed, and the usually crowded streets of popular tourist destinations are empty. An unexpected silver lining during these challenging times for humans is that many animals are finally getting a chance to leave their normal habitats and move about freely.

The first animals to take advantage of human absence were Annie and Edward, two penguins who live at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. A video released on March 15, 2020, showed the couple eagerly duckwalking around, exploring the aquarium's various exhibits. The video, which instantly became popular, inspired other institutions to share short videos of their four-legged creatures playing as well.

The Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio joined the fun trend on March 16, 2020, with a "Home Safari" live-stream series-the first staring its adorable baby panda, Fiona. "Let us help make your children's hiatus from school fun and educational," zoo officials announced. "Join us for a Home Safari Online Live each weekday at 3 pm, where we will highlight one of our amazing animals and include an activity you can do from home.

Meanwhile, the San Diego Safari Park has kept their webcams (网络摄像头) rolling, allowing fans to enjoy lovable animals without leaving home. Animals in the wild are also lively as humans stay indoors. The absence of cruise ships is bringing large numbers of dolphins to a port in Cagliari, while groups of wild turkeys are happily walking on the streets of Oakland.

Though the animals indeed appear to be having a good time, the heartwarming videos and images shared on social media, are also bringing much -needed cheer to millions of humans worldwide. Stay strong and healthy! We are all in this together!

Once upon a time, science fiction was just a style among other styles. There were crime stories, there were horror stories, there was literary fiction, and there was science fiction. But today science themes dominate these other styles. It's difficult to think of much modern crime, horror or "serious" fiction that doesn't involve science.

And its not just books. With every second movie and computer game having a sci-fi element, science fiction seems to have controlled our entire entertainment culture. It's clear that if we want to define science fiction, we should relate it to the role that science plays in our lives.

Although some experts have claimed to be able to trace sci-fi back to ancient times, it is more reasonable to find it in initial form in the 19^th century, when industrial societies arose. One of the features that set industrial societies apart from other kinds was the increasing part that science played in everyday life. Factories with vast machines turned out huge quantities of goods, which were transported by trains, motor vehicles and ships all over the world. Cities were built on the back of technology, with electricity in homes and hospitals helping everyone to lead healthier, more convenient lives. All of these changes had great effects not only on people's real lives, but on their imaginative ones.

Writers began to describe these changing physical and mental landscapes, eventually giving science fiction a large and devoted fan base of especially young readers, who found that it spoke to their curiosity about the future that science would create.

But sci-fiction reflected fears about science more than it did hopes. These typical early science fiction novels might be a UK novel like H. G. Wells' The War of the worlds (1897). With great skill, Wells played upon the fears of technology by imagining Earth under threat by a civilization-that of men from Mars.

The science fiction of today expresses the impact of the computing revolution, robotics and our environmental challenges, while it is less concerned with "little green men from Mar" and other themes of past sci-fiction.

Given that science, technology and polities are always intertwined, contemporary science fiction often has a great deal to say about power. Many recent novels-like American Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (2008)-are concerned with government and security service "conspiracies (阴谋)" against the people, particularly as the revelations of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden sink in. This can give sci-fi writing a "skeptical (怀疑的)" feel.

This underlines one of the features that remains constant between the beginnings of the empire of science fiction and its state today.

As then, so now: We want to read about how fearful the future will be, not how it will be a paradise.