Your mobile is now much more than just a communication device - more like a remote control for your life. You still call it a "mobile" from habit, but it is an organizer, entertainment device, payment device and security（安全） center, all developed and manufactured by engineers.

    What we do need is better mobiles and more intelligence. Because it knows your travel timetable it can check for problems on the roads or with the trains, giving you the best route into work. It can control your home, reprogramming the central heating if you need to get up earlier and keeping an eye on your home by connecting your mobile with the home security system. It is your payment system—you can pay for tickets for journeys or buy items in shops by placing the phone near a sensor(感应器). With an understanding of location, the mobile can also provide directions, or even tell you if your friends or family are nearby.

    Usually it will start work even before you wake. It will work with your home entertainment system while you sleep to find programmes that will interest you and download them as a podcast to watch on the train or in other spare moments. It will intelligently work out what to do with incoming phone calls and messages. Because it knows your diary it will also know, for example, to direct voice calls to voicemail when you are in a meeting, perhaps providing a discrete text summary of the caller and the nature of their call.

    With its understanding of almost all aspects of your life; many new services become possible. For example, a “Good Food” meal planning service could send daily suggestions for your evening meal based on learned preferences, previous selections made and the likely contents of your refrigerator.

    Ten years ago the mobile was purely a device for making voice calls. Now it is a camera, MP3 player, and texting device. This is only the start of an evolution that will turn it into our trusted and indispensable companion in life.

    Study Links Video Game Use to Problems in School

    A new study warns that too much time spent playing computer games could affect a child's performance at school.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} They show that too many hours spent playing games can reduce students changes of success in school.

    More than 600 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 took part in research project.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} It is said to be the first ever long-term study of information technology on school test results in Northern Ireland.

    The study found that teenagers who played computer games less than once a week were more successful in school than those who played them twice a day or more. 41% of the students who used gaming devices two or more times a day received passing grades on school exams{#blank#}3{#/blank#}.

    The study found that social media use did not affect school performance. Celine McStravick is the director of the National Children's Bureau Northern Ireland (NCBNI). She says “{#blank#}4{#/blank#}— I think that's more because social media is part of every child's life. It's the way they communicate. It's the way they keep in touch with their friends.”

    Many parents say their children are becoming increasingly dependent on computer games. Some have compared gaming to a drug addiction.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} It suggested that computer games can cause children to stay awake late at night. Less sleep makes children tired and unable to pay attention in school the next day.

A. However, the study did not explore addiction.

B. The new games are much different from older ones.

C. The study showed no connection between social media and test results.

D. It took place over a period of three years from 2013 to 2015.

E. Thai compared with 77% of those who rarely played the games.

F. Drug addiction does great harm to their health and performance at school.

G. Britain's National Children's Bureau Northern Ireland reported the results of the study.

    We all have to make decisions all the time, and we have an abundance of choices, ranging from tiny issues to vital ones. Unfortunately, people often find it hard to make decisions{#blank#}1{#/blank#} If you would like to improve your skill of decision making, here are four suggestions for you. Don't expect to have it all.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can't order every delicious dish on the menu. And there will be paths not taken, careers not chosen, to name a few. You can imagine some “what if' situations if you must, but do not let them take up too much space in your brain.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    It's often good to think through your decisions. But don't overdo it. Research can reach a point where returns begin to reduce, which makes it confusing more than clarifying. Many good decisions can be made based as much on intuition (直觉) as on careful assessment of endless data.

    Don't delay making decisions.

    Yes, there is a time to put off making a decision. Perhaps you need more information{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Or it's likely that you wait for a less stressful time. Just don't wait so long that the decision is made by your own indecisiveness.

    Don't be hard on yourself.

    You decide to go on a voyage. You choose an expensive liner. Everything should work out just right. Only you didn't expect a bug that ran around on the ship, making you and your family sick for five days{#blank#}5{#/blank#}But please remember it is unavoidable sometimes.

A. Don't spend too much time thinking.

B. It is an important source of information.

C. Don't count on emotion to make decisions.

D. Maybe you wish to consult with your advisor.

E. You may regret making such a stupid decision.

F. That means the skill of good decision-making counts a lot.

G. Decisions force us to close the door on other possibilities.

注意：每个空格只填1个单词。

Time for Americans to act on climate change

    The climate crisis is worsening at a rate that is becoming harder and harder to ignore. For more than two decades, scientific reports have made it clear that global warming is real, that humans cause it and that the consequences will be disastrous.

    The scientific community has become increasingly panicked over the past year. The latest assessment from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change painted a far more terrible picture than its previous analyses, and the long-awaited National Climate Assessment made clear that climate change represents a severe threat to human health as well as our economic security. Out of this panic came the treaty(条约)reached this past weekend by world leaders to keep the Paris climate agreement alive.

    Yet many Americans still don't regard the threat as a key priority for our government, and support President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris treaty. Campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies have convinced elected officials to look the other way. A certain amount of despair has resulted in widespread apathy(漠然).

    But there is another reason that has been discussed far less openly. While a growing number of people understand that climate change will have significant worldwide consequences, many Americans have an intuitive(直觉的)belief that their nation is more capable than others of adapting to a changed environment. Why? Because they have before.

    This historical success, however, resulted from the federal government taking science seriously, and making investments to urge revolution and innovation.

    But these innovations did not happen by themselves, or simply because of the United States' rich resources. They depended on consistent support from the leaders about the need to take action when faced with crises. This has been especially true in the environmental crisis.

    President Bill Clinton had a shockingly modest record of advancing climate security, particularly given that his vice president, Al Gore, had been one of the most outspoken environmentalists in Congress. By far Clinton's biggest accomplishment was assigning Gore to participate іn thе Куоtо Рrоtoсоl negotiations. Сlіntоn сhоѕе, hоwеvеr, tо аvоіd whаt ѕurеlу wоuld have been a terrible fight in the Senate to gain approval of the treaty. While this effort probably would have failed, it would have signaled to the American people how seriously the Democratic Party took climate change.

    Thus, the time has clearly arrived for progressive candidates to start campaigning on a platform built around the need for a sustainability revolution. Such a plan should include a carbon tax, well-funded clean energy research, evolved agricultural policies and smarter public transport. Given that Generation X and millennials(千禧一代)never bought into the fiction that the United States is immune to the dangers of global warming, the time is ripe to make climate security a crucial government responsibility. Only by doing so can we begin the long-overdue(拖延好久的)campaign to save the planet.

Time for Americans to act on climate change

    If there is one word to describe the progress made in the last 100 years, it's connectedness. From the telephone to the radio to the TV to the Internet, we have found ways to bring us all closer together, enabling，constant worldly access.

    I don't think I need to highlight the benefits of all this. But the downsides are also beginning to show. Beyond the current talk about privacy and data collection, there is perhaps an even more detrimental side-effect here: We now live in a world where we're connected to everything except ourselves. According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, and we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction and use the noise of the world to block out the discomfort of dealing with ourselves.

    However, we ignore the fact that never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely an anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.

    Fortunately, there is a solution. The only way to avoid being ruined by this is to face it. It's to let the boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self. That's when you'll hear yourself think, and learn to engage the parts of you that are masked by distraction.

    The beauty of this is that, once you cross that initial barrier, you realize that being alone isn't so bad. Boredom can provide its own stimulation.

    When you surround yourself with moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately familiar with your environment in a way that forced stimulation doesn't allow. The world becomes richer, the layers start to peel back, and you see things for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.

    You learn that there are things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface. Just because a quiet room doesn^'t scream with excitement like the idea of immersing yourself in a movie or a TV show doesn't mean there isn't depth to explore there.

    Sometimes, the direction that this solitude leads you in can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to introspection (内省)—your thoughts and your feelings, your doubts and your hopes—but in the long term, it's far more pleasant than running away from it all without even realizing what you are.

    Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us. That's ironic because it^'s more important than most of the ones they do.

    Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.

    "Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they're given after all. Choices can be hard."

    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2300 percent per year. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most start-ups don't and I wasn't sure what to expect. She told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I had been a garage inventor. I had always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people and a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him that I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park，listened carefully to me and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea，but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job." That logic made some sense to me，and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice，but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I would regret trying and failing. And I suspected that I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.

    After much consideration, I took the less secure path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.