Old-fashioned carpooling (拼车) where a group of people take turns driving each other to work has always faced a resistance. In a study by ABC News, 84％of those who drive to work say that they still do it alone.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} For example, sometimes they simply cannot find anyone to share a ride with.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} NuRide, a company providing online carpooling service, offers daily travelers not just a web-based list of would-be carpoolers but also a way to arrange a trip online. Here's how it works: rider seekers enter the positions where their trip will begin and end, the time they want to leave and if they're willing to drive or just ride in someone else's car. The website's search engine then looks for matches and makes lists of the names of traveling companions, along with the car model and the exact time and place to meet for each trip.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Then they meet their car mates when it's time to go.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} They are required to provide the name of their employer and a work e-mail address. Both need to be checked before being listed on the website.

       So far, NuRide has arranged more man 50,000 rides on the website.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. NuRide users aren't riding with total strangers.

B. It has resulted in 1.4 million fewer miles driven.

C. They insisted that carpooling is just too inconvenient.

D. Now technology makes carpooling easier and more fun.

E. It is an environmentally friendly and economical way to travel.

F. Carpooling reduces travel cost, such as fuel cost and stress of driving.

G. People who want to share the ride can show their interest in joining in online.

    Eyesight plays a very important role in our daily life. Every waking moment, the eyes are working to see the world around us. Over forty percent of Americans worry about losing eyesight, but it's easy to include steps into our daily life to ensure healthy eyes. Here are five suggestions for a lifetime of healthy eyesight:

    Schedule yearly exams. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Experts advise parents to bring babies 6 to 12 months of age to the doctor for a careful check. The good news is that millions of children now can have yearly eye exams and following treatment, including eyeglasses.

    Protect against UV rays(紫外线). Long­term stay in the sun creates risk to your eyes. No matter what the season is, it's extremely important to wear sunglasses. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Give your eyes a break. Two­thirds of Americans spend up to seven hours a day using computers or other digital products. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Experts recommend that people practice the 20/20/20 rule: every 20 minutes, take a 20­second break and look at something 20 feet away.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} As part of a healthy diet, eat more fruits and vegetables each day. Vitamins(维生素) C and E help protect eyesight and promote eye health.

    Practice safe wear and care of contact lenses(隐形眼镜). Many Americans use contact lenses to improve their eyesight. While some follow the medical guidance for wearing contact lenses, many are breaking the rules and putting their eyesight at risk. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Otherwise, you may have problems such as red eyes, pain in the eyes, or a more serious condition.

A. Eat your greens.

B. Eye care should begin early in life.

C. They can properly protect your eyes.

D. Stay in good shape by taking more Vitamins.

E. Parents usually don't care about their own eyesight.

F. Always follow the doctor's advice for appropriate wear.

G. This frequent eye activity increases the risk for eye tiredness.

    Changes that will help you get more done than ever before

    Win tomorrow today. All it takes is setting aside five minutes every evening before you end your work to establish the one goal you will accomplish tomorrow. Sometimes, the hardest part of getting things done is deciding which thing to work on first. If this decision making has to happen first thing in the morning, it can create a block to progress, which is no way to start your day. By giving yourself a head start the night before, you're allowing your most productive work hours-in the morning—to be used to the fullest by not having to wonder about on choose what you'll work on first.

    Having a morning routine is one of the best things you've done for yourself. It not only helps you set your day up to be successful by gaining great power first in the morning, but it also allows you to guarantee that you are going to get a set number of things done right away. This way, no matter what your day brings, you should keep in mind that your health and nutrition are the most important. Your morning routine includes a workout, drinking water, meditation（冥想）, and ensuring you get the nutrients you need to perform at a high level all day.

    One of the common mistakes people make is to focus entirely on whatever task is next on their list and promise not to move or pause until it's done. Tasks will expand to the time assigned. Instead, try to be inspired from successful people and setting up timed periods for both focused work and breaks. Establishing sections where you have a set amount of focus time followed by a set amount of refresh time prevents you from being distracted（注意力不集中的）and helps you make great progress on the tasks and projects you're working on.

    Being extremely future-focused and ambitious is great, but if you're always moving from one task to another, you could be missing out on a big growth opportunity. In order to learn what's working and what's not working, you need to spend time reflecting. Set aside some time at least every 10 days to reflect on the good, the bad, and everything in between. When you can identify what's working, you'll know what to double down on. You'll also be able to identify the things that are holding you back from getting where you want to go, and to think out solutions for those struggles in order to remove them in the future.

    If you really want to get more done, you have to stop focusing on what you can't do, and start focusing on everything that's going right. Being grateful will not only increase your happiness factor, it will also make you more productive. When you have a positive attitude and take time out to recognize everything you have to be grateful for, you're able to focus on the many things you have accomplished, you're more likely to make progress and get more done.

    It is easy to miss amid the day-to-day headlines of global economic recession, but there is a less obvious kind of social upheaval（剧变）underway that is fast changing both the face of the planet and the way human beings live. That change is the rapid growth in urbanization. In 2008, for the first time in human history, more than half the world's population was living in towns and cities. And as a recently published paper shows, the process of urbanization will only accelerate in the decades to come—with an enormous impact on biodiversity and potentially on climate change.

    As Karen Seto, the lead author of the paper, points out, the wave of urbanization isn't just about the migration of people into urban environments, but about the environments themselves becoming bigger to provide enough room for all those people. The rapid expansion of urban areas will have a huge impact on biodiversity hotspots and on carbon emissions in those urban areas.

    Humans are the ultimate invasive species-when they move into new territory, they often displace the wildlife that was already living there. And as land is cleared for those new cities—especially in the dense tropical forests-carbon will be released into the atmosphere as well. It's true that as people in developing nations move from the countryside to the city, the shift may reduce the pressure on land, which could in turn be good for the environment. This is especially so in desperately poor countries, where residents in the countryside slash and burn forests each growing season to clear space for farming. But the real difference is that in developing nations, the move from rural areas to cities often leads to an accompanying increase in income—and that increase leads to an increase in the consumption of food and energy, which in turn causes a rise in carbon emissions. Getting enough to eat and enjoying the safety and comfort of living fully on the grid is certainly a good thing-but it does carry an environmental price.

    The urbanization wave can't be stopped—and it shouldn't be. But Seto's paper does underscore the importance of managing that transition. If we do it the right way, we can reduce urbanization's impacts on the environment “There's an enormous opportunity here, and a lot of pressure and responsibility to think about how we urbanize,” says Seto. “One thing that's clear is that we can't build cities the way we have over the last couple of hundred years. The scale of this transition won't allow that.” We're headed towards an urban planet no matter what, but whether it becomes heaven or hell is up to us.

How to Overcome Challenges in Your Life

    We all face tough and difficult challenges in life. To overcome challenges you need to have that "never quit" attitude in life. If you develop it, you'll overcome quite a bit.

    Motivate yourself. Say "YES, I CAN." The challenge should bring out the best of you in this situation. Slow it down, and think that process through.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} If you develop that mindset(心态), you'll get it done.

    Stay calm and cool­headed. Remain calm when you're facing serious troubles and problems in life. You have to recollect yourself, and calm down. You can't solve problems when you're panicking. Take a deep breath, relax, and slow it down. Think things through calmly.

    Let failure and fear fuel you in a positive way. Everyone fails at times. If you fail the first, second, or third time, don't give up.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Learn what made you fail and overcome these challenges. Simplify the challenge you're facing. Make the challenge easier than it is. Start by breaking it down into steps. As you get through each step, you develop more confidence and you believe you can get it done, and then you will overcome them.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} To overcome a challenge, you have to believe you can really do it. You have to find out all the ways you can use to overcome it, and put them to full use with all your effort. It's our own mental stability that's the difficult part. When you do it mentally, you'll actually be able to do it.

A. Stay positive and confident.

B. Most people will avoid any challenge, because they're scared of failing.

C. Develop that confidence in saying there's no way you're going to fail at this.

D. Pick yourself up, and learn from why you've failed, and move on in a positive direction.

    A fresh-faced batch of teenagers just began a new school year, but will they get the most out of it? In the mornings, many are forced to get to school much too early. And at night, screens are a temptation that's hard to resist. This double whammy (双重灾难) is a perfect lesson in sleep deprivation (剥夺).

    Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Medicine recommends for their age group. In most cases, insufficient sleep results in reduced attention, preventing students' progress and lowering grades. More alarmingly, sleep deprivation may lead to physical and emotional problems.

    It is important to understand why teenagers have a particularly hard time getting enough sleep, and what adults need to do to help. First, a reminder of the basic biology: Adolescents are no longer the morning larks of their younger years. They become rewired as night owls, staying awake later and then sleeping in. This is mostly driven by changes in the way the brain responds to light.

    New technology habits aren't helping. More teenagers now turn to activities involving screens at night. The growth in screen time is particularly problematic for sleep. The blue light emitted by LEDs, TVs, tablets and smartphones suppresses the body's secretion (分泌) of melatonin, the hormone that signals it's time to sleep. Overdosing on screens at night effectively tells the brain it's still daytime, delaying the body's cues to sleep even further.

    Parents should inform their kids of the time that can be spent on screens, and praise children who show signs of regulating their own media consumption. In the hour before bedtime, there should be a suspension on bright lights in the home, avoiding devices and harsh LED bulbs in kitchens and bathrooms.

    In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8: 30 a. m., a policy now backed by the American Medical Association and many other health organizations.

    Parents also need to join forces with community leaders, sleep scientists, health professionals and educators to put school start times on the local, then state agendas.

    Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve and there is a significant reduction in car accidents.