England's highest main-line railway station is in serious trouble, deserted and unmanned since it was officially closed in 1970, Dent, located high in the hills of Yorkshire, wakes up on six summer weekends each year, when a special train unloads walkers, sightseers and people who simply want to catch a train from the highest station to its platforms.

    But even this limited being may soon be brought to an end. Dent station located on the Settel to Carlisle railway line, is said to be surrounded by the most beautiful scenery in the country. But no amount of scenic beauty can save the line because of the British Rail's money problems.

    It is now an open secret that British Rail sees no future for this railway line. Most of its trains disappeared some time ago. Bridges, built a century ago, are falling down. It is not alone. Half a dozen railway routes in the North of England are facing a similar threat. The problem is an old system and an almost total lack of cash to repair it. Bridges and tunnels are showing their ages, the wooden supports for the tracks are rotting（腐烂） and engines and coaches(车厢) are getting old.

    On main lines between large cities, the problem is not too bad. There lines still make a profit and cash can be found to keep them in good condition. But on the country branch line, the situation is different. As track wears out, it is not replaced. Instead speed limits are introduced, making the journey longer than necessary and discouraging travelers.

    If a bridge is dangerous, there is often only one thing for British Rail to do: go out and find money from another places. This is exactly what it did a few months ago when a bridge at Bridling station was threatening to fall down. Repairs were calculated at 200,000 pounds just for one bridge, so British Rail was pleased, and rather surprised when two local councils(理事会) offered half that amount of money.

    If you want to get the most out of the study of a language, you must also read for pleasure: novels, plays, travel books, and so on. And in reading books of this kind the important thing is to get on with reading; to try to grasp what the writer is going to tell you in the book as a whole. This is impossible if you stop and think over the meaning of every single word which happens to be unfamiliar. You can not enjoy a story if you stop half a dozen times on every page in order to look up words in the dictionary. You may even prevent yourself from understanding the story as a whole by doing this.

    When you are reading books of this kind, therefore, you will usually have to rely mainly on the context to help you. If you meet an unfamiliar word, do not let it take too much of your attention from the main thread(主线) of the story. In all probability you will meet the same word again a few pages later on in a slightly different context, and each time you see it that your understanding of it will become more exact.

    "Can't hold a candle to" is a popular expression. When there wasn't electricity, someone would have a servant light his way by holding a candle. The expression meant that the person who cannot hold a candle to you is not fit even to be your servant. Now，it means such a person cannot compare or compete.

    Another expression is "hold your tongue. "It means to be still and not talk. "Hold your tongue" is not something you would tell a friend. But a parent or teacher might use the expression to quiet a noisy child.

    "Hold out" is an expression one hears often in sports reports and labor news. It means to refuse to play or work. Professional football and baseball players "hold out" if their team refuses to pay them what they think they are worth.

    The expression "hold up" has several different meanings. One is a robbery. A man with a gun may say, "This is a hold up. Give me your money." Another meaning is to delay. A driver who was held up by heavy traffic might be late for work. Another meaning is for a story to be considered true after an investigation. A story can hold up if it is proved true.

    "Hold on" is another expression, which means wait or stop. As you leave for school, your brother may say, "Hold on，you forgot your book. " It is used to ask a telephone caller to wait and not hang up his telephone.

    Our final expression is "hold the line." That means to keep a problem or situation from getting worse—to hold steady. For example, the president may say he will "hold the line on taxes." He means therewill be no increase in taxes.

    College graduation eventually means taking much of your attention in your first job search. This process can be challenging, especially for those students who had second thoughts about their chosen major and intended career path — or those who majored in a field not directly connected to a specific career. If you are in one of these groups, fear not! Although your major, coursework, and academic performance are relevant to landing a job, they are not the only deciding factors on where you can work. So, just how important is your major to your job search?

    Some majors are tied directly to specific career fields. For example, if you wish to become a teacher, you will likely have needed to complete an education program and eventually sit for a licensing exam. Successfully completing a specific major is very important to landing a job in the matching field.

    Other majors, however, are closely related to career paths but don't necessarily require a degree in the area. For example, students who majored in finance or math, may also have the necessary skills to be hired as an accountant.

    Lastly, there are many industries, such as professional sales, education (non-teaching positions), insurance, and customer service management, which hire new graduates from several more majors, looking for more generalized (笼统的) requirements. They may simply want to know the student has completed his or her bachelor's degree, which proves students' college-level math and writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

    Hopefully, as a college student, you were able to do more than just attend classes. Your non-academic experiences can be very influential on your future career as well. If you worked or volunteered during college and if you enjoyed these activities, seek out related careers. You may qualify for a position regardless of your major.

    Although it often seems like your college major alone determines your career fate, this just isn't the case. It may influence it, but there are other factors that influence your career options as well. If you don't know what career choices you have, talk to your faculty or academic adviser. You may be surprised at what opportunities await!

    Being sociable looks like a good way to add years to your life. Relationships with family, friends, neighbours, even pets, will all do the trick, but the biggest longevity(长寿) boost seems to come from marriage or an equivalent relationship. The effect was first noted in 1858 by William Farr, who wrote that widows and widowers(鳏夫) were at a much higher risk of dying than their married peers. Studies since then suggest that marriage could add as much as seven years to a man's life and two to a woman's. The effect holds for all causes of death, whether illness, accident or self-harm.

    Even if the odds are stacked against you (the conditions are not favourable), marriage can more than compensate. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago has found that a married older man with heart disease can expect to live nearly four years longer than an unmarried man with a healthy heart. Likewise, a married man who smokes more than a pack a day is likely to live as long as a divorced man who doesn't smoke. There's a flip side, however, as partners are more likely to become ill or die in the couple of years following their spouse's death, and caring for a spouse with mental disorder can leave you with some of the same severe problems. Even so, the odds favour marriage. In a 30-year study of more than 10,000 people, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School describes how all kinds of social networks have similar effects.

    So how does it work? The effects are complex, affected by socio-economic factors, health-service provision, emotional support and other more physiological mechanisms(机制). For example, social contact can boost development of the brain and immune system, leading to better health and less chance of depression later in life. People in supportive relationships may handle stress better. Then there are the psychological benefits of a supportive partner.

    A life partner, children and good friends are all recommended if you aim to live to 100.The best social network is still being mapped out, but Christakis says: “People are interconnected, so their health is interconnected.”

    Kincaid looked at his watch: eight-seventeen. The truck started on the second try, and he backed out, shifted gears, and moved slowly down the alley under hazy sun. Through the streets of Bellingham he went, heading south on Washington 11, running along the coast of Puget Sound for a few miles, then following the highway as it swung east a little before meeting U.S Route 20.

    Turning into the sun, he began the long, winding drive through the Cascades. He liked this country and felt unpressed stopping now and then to make notes about interesting possibilities for future expeditions or to shoot what he called "memory snapshots." The purpose of these causal photographs was to remind him of places he might want to visit again and approach more seriously. In later afternoon he turned north at Spokane, picking up U.S. Route 2, which would take him halfway across the northern United States to Duluth, Minnesota.

    He wished for the thousandth time in his life that he had a dog, a golden retriever, maybe, for travels like this and to keep him company at home. But he was frequently away; overseas much of the time and it would not be fair to the animal. Still, he thought about it anyway. In a few years he would be getting too old for the hard fieldwork. "I must get a dog then." He said to himself.

    Drives like this always put him into a sentimental mood. The dog was part of it. Robert Kincaid was alone as it's possible to be—an only child, parents both dead, distant relatives who had lost track of him and he of them, no close friends.

    He thought about Marian. She had left him nine years ago after five years of marriage. He was fifty-two now, that would make her just under forty. Marian had dreams of becoming a musician, a folksinger. She knew all of the Weavers' songs and sang them pretty well in the coffeehouse of Seattle. When he was home in the old days, he drove her to the shows and sat in the audience while she sang.

    His long absences—two or three months sometimes—were hard on the marriage. He knew that. She was aware of what he did when they decided to get married, and both of them had a vague sense that it could all be handled somehow. It couldn't when he came from photographing a story in Iceland and she was gone. The note read, "Robert, it didn't work out. I left you the Harmony guitar. Stay in touch."

    He didn't stay in touch. Neither did she. He signed the divorce papers when they arrived a year later and caught a plane for Australia the next day. She had asked for nothing except her freedom.