Autistic (患自闭症的) children may learn better from robots than from human beings, according to a study at a school in Birmingham.   Two robots like humans, Max and Ben, have been helping teach autistic children at Topcliffe Primary School since March last year. The school is the first in the UK to try the new way.Ian Lowe, the head teacher, said, “The robots have no feelings, so autistic children find that they are less terrible than their teachers.” He added, “They are really cute-looking. Autistic children are hard to communicate with adults and other children, but for some reasons they like these robots. Some children are not able to communicate with others. But they come into school and start to communicate through the robots.”

    The robots are knee-high and move like children. The school is using them to teach phonics (声学) and play cards or memory and imitation (模仿) games with children from five to ten.Dr Guldberg said, “We do many different activities with the robots acting as a model for the children's behavior. It is amazing to see how interested and concentrated the children can be when they are working with the robots. It can be very difficult to get autistic children to concentrate.” He added, “If you can meet the needs of autistic children, you can meet the needs of all children. And you know, when people feel safe and interested, they learn much better.”

    Noise pollution is doing much harm to our health now. Noise，in fact，is unwanted sound and is a kind of invisible (无形的) killer. More and more students enjoy listening to music very much. When they listen to MP3 players, they like to turn up the volume (音量). Some people love listening to loud music. Furthermore, while watching TV, they keep the volume up. But they haven't realized that the noise is weakening their hearing. In fact, the noise not only influences each member in the family, but also makes a difference to the comfort of neighbors.

    Noise pollution is a source of increasing misery (痛苦) to people in our society. If people are often disturbed by it, they may feel uncomfortable or upset. What's worse, the noise can make people mad sometimes. If a worker works in a printing factory for too long, his/her hearing loss is much faster than a common person working in a quieter environment. So everybody must pay more attention to noise pollution. Generally speaking，the following four types of noise should be watched out for：

    Noise in the street

    Construction site (建筑工地) noise

    Noise at work

    Transportation noise

    I think the local department (部门) should take measures to control the noise levels, but it's everybody's duty to keep a quiet environment.

①Reading is a good hobby for all kinds of reasons. 

②First, reading is fun. You can always keep yourself happy if you like reading. You will never feel bored or tired. 

③Second, you can read a book almost anywhere: in a car, on a plane, or even in the bathroom. All you need is a book. 

④Third, reading is useful. It's also a good reason. If you take reading as a hobby, you will get better and better at it. And you will read faster and find it easier to understand what you read. As your reading skills improve, you will probably find your schoolwork becomes much better. 

⑤Some people say that reading is out of date. This is not true. You can read books online by using computers or mobile apps. Good readers may become writers. They always have more things to write about. 

⑥Reading is a wonderful hobby. Why not start reading right now? 

Sally is an American girl. She studies in a{#blank#}1{#/blank#}in Beijing. She enjoys staying here and she likes Chinese food best. 

In fact, most Chinese food in America can be traced back to（追溯到）Guangdong. In the early 20th century, {#blank#}2{#/blank#}of Chinese came to America from Guangdong to look for jobs. They {#blank#}3{#/blank#}in some places like San Francisco. Of course, they brought {#blank#}4{#/blank#}dishes. But later they changed their dishes a lot to meet American tastes. 

When Sally goes home for holidays, her friends often ask her about Chinese food. She always tells them about mutton and carrot dumplings {#blank#}5{#/blank#}they are Sally's favorite food. She learned {#blank#}6{#/blank#} a Chinese friend. Now she would like to {#blank#}7{#/blank#}it with her American friends. First, cut up{#blank#}8{#/blank#}and carrots, and put them in a bowl. Then, add a little oil and salt to them and {#blank#}9{#/blank#} them. When the filling（馅料）is{#blank#}10{#/blank#}, put one spoon of the filling on a dumpling wrapper（饺子皮）and fold it over. Finally, boil（煮）them in a pot for a few minutes. Now you can enjoy some delicious dumplings! 

You may see some herons（鹭） in the park using bread or insects as a tool to catch fish. This is just one of the ways in which birds have changed their living habits because of humans' activities. Now, a new study has found that birds that are able to change their behaviors（行为） in this way are less likely to die out. These changes may include adding new food to their diet, developing new hunting skills, or living in a new environment.

Scientists studied reports of new behaviors among different kinds of birds around the world. The study includes more than 3,800 new behaviors among 8,600 kinds of birds. They discovered that the more new hunting skills the birds learn, the larger population they will have.

However, scientists also found that innovation（革新） can only protect birds from changes in their living place, but not from over-hunting or the danger from other animals. For example, some animals are very dangerous to some birds: snakes can eat little birds; some hungry mice steal birds' eggs. Above all, humans often mean the greatest danger to birds. They always take up too much space, cut down trees and even cause various kinds of pollution.

This shows that, unlike what is usually believed, the ability of innovation protects animals from some but not all of the rapid changes in the environment.

 Elephants are very special animals. They are very smart and have different emotions(情感), such as happiness and sadness. They can even cry. Elephants can learn many things, and in some countries, people let them carry heavy things.

 There are two kinds of elephants: African and Asian elephants. African elephants are usually larger and they can be 7,000 kilos or more. All elephants like eating different kinds of plants, such as grass, leaves and vegetables. They eat a lot-up to(多达)300 kilos a day. They can live for about 60 years.

 Unluckily, the number of wild elephants is going down. Many people kill(杀死) them mainly for their tusks-the long pointed(尖的) teeth. Now more and more people try to protect them.