How to Study Better

    If you want to study better, you should pay attention to learning methods, study skills and study habits. Developing them can help you learn better.

    Keep your study area tidy and organized. Papers, books, magazines, or pictures all over your work area may distract you from the work you have to do. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} If there are too many icons on your desktop, it is difficult for you to find what you need immediately.

    Maintain a quiet work area for yourself. Make sure your work area is free of distractions. There are too many distractions at home, such as a phone, music, TV, friends, or family members. Proper study space can usually be found in the public library, school library, or your bedroom. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} While learning, you need write, calculate and look up something. So it is very important and necessary to have all the necessary materials and tools that you need with you. In this way, you needn't be busy borrowing them.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} In addition to reading your textbook, it is helpful to read or view materials from other sources, such as newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and television programs. You can understand what you will learn in class better.

    Never forget to take notes carefully in class. Taking notes carefully can help to grasp the key parts. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} We can say that it is really a successful way to study.

    Well, parents, surprise! Lots of us are using Twitter and Facebook to thumb rides, and not just to school. It's awkward to be refused when you call a friend and ask for a ride. But with Twitter, you just look for other people heading the same way.

    It may sound risky, so many teens stay within their own social circles to find rides, and don't branch out beyond friends when asking on Twitter just like me, but to some young people, especially those taking longer trips, stranger danger is less of a concern.

    “I think the digital connection of young people is really important, because younger generations grew up sharing things on line, sharing files, photos, music, etc, so they've been very used to sharing,” said Juliet Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College.

    The sharing economy got big during the recession (经济衰退), allowing people to access more goods, services using technology and even to share costs. And that technology, for me, is what the car was for my mom, a gateway to more freedom, like what my friend Earl says, “The symbol of freedom isn't the car any more because there's technology out there connecting you to a car.”

    According to the researchers at the University of Michigan, 30 years ago, eight in ten American 18-year-olds had a driver's license compared to six in ten today. So it's not that surprising that on my 16th birthday I wasn't rushing to get a license but an iPhone.

“Driving, for young people, does mean they have to disconnect from their technology, and that's a negative. So if they could sit in the passage side and still be connected, that's going to be a plus.” Schor continued.

    To me, another plus is that ridesharing represents something, something much bigger than trying to save money. I see it as evidence that people still depend on each other. My generation shares their cars and apartments the way neighbors used to share cups of sugar. For the system to work, some of us still need our own cars. But until I get my own version of the silver Super Beetle, you can find me on Twitter.

    An interesting study posted on Facebook recently shows how men and women develop new interests as they mature(成熟).

    While women tend to take exercise seriously from the age of 34, men will wait until their 45th birthdays before working hard to get in shape. The average woman spends more time talking about sports, politics, career and money as she gets older.

Women's interest in books reaches its peak(顶峰) at the age of 22, while that of men does so when they are in their 50s.

    Men start to change their focus from the workplace to other things after age 30, while women do not do so until eight years later. Both, however, care most about fashion at age 16.

    The research used anonymous(匿名的) data donated by thousands of Facebook users, recording the statuses, 'likes' and 'interests' they had posted on their profiles.

It found the average woman talks about television most at 44, while men peak much younger, at age 31.

    Men are also most likely to see a film in a cinema at age 31, while women go out to see films most when they are only 19.

    Men are most interested in travel at 29, women at 27, while women talk most about food and drink at 35, and men at 38.

    And if you are middle aged, a safe topic for any audience is the weather, which is a key interest for many as they approach 60.

    Stephen Wolfram, the British scientist who carried out the research, says, “It's almost shocking how much this tells us about the changes of people's typical interests.

    “People talk less about video games as they get older, and more about politics.”

    Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library, a row of green hikes sits parked in a special stand. Each hike is designed with the logo "Nice Ride" the name of the city's bike-share program.

    Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow. To rent a bike, you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station. Members can rent one of 1, 200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city. People use the Nice Ridebikes to go to work, to go out on business, or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.

    The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving. Skyrocketing gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires, and hit the road.

    Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise, but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tailpipe.

    Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, and Melbourne, Australia. The largest program—with 70, 000 bikes—is in Wuhan, China.

    To make roads friendlier to non-motorists, the U. S. Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years. The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called greenways.

How to Appreciate Art

Unlocking the meaning behind a work of art is one of the many joys of viewing and collecting. But how do you appreciate art and actually interpret it?{#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

Look at the art

        {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, but it's more than quickly glancing at the art and drawing a conclusion. Before stepping back and taking the artwork in, take a moment to identify the artwork's basic qualities：

Is it a painting or sculpture?

Is the texture (质感) rough or smooth?

Does it appear chaotic (混乱的) or organized?

All of these are elements the artist chose when designing the artwork, so they need to be considered. 

Identify the art and artist

Knowing when or how the artwork was made reveals more information. Take for example the famous Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso, knowing Picasso composed the painting in response to the bombing of the town of Guernica during the Second World War leads to understanding its anti-war ideas. Even if the historical context of an artwork is not apparent, knowing the year of its creation offers an idea as to the broader events taking place at the time.         {#blank#}3{#/blank#}.

   {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.

Use what you observed in the first two steps to think about meanings the artwork could have. Many artists have specific meanings behind their art, but also encourage viewers to come up with their own understandings. In this way, there is no "right"answer that must be reached to unlock the painting's mysteries.

Discover your tastes

Just remember one important fact: You don't have to look at everything. For instance, if you dislike abstract art, skip the abstract. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}, so don't be afraid to stop and observe something outside of your tastes.

The next time you are admiring a work of art, keep these techniques in mind, and its meaning may unfold before your eyes.
 

A. Think about the meaning

B. Maintain your own opinions

C. Viewing the art seems like an obvious first step

D. However, keeping an open mind is always encouraged

E. Applying these techniques to every work of art you come across may seem confusing

F. Looking at and understanding art is all about taking the time to view, identify and think

G. In all cases, learning something about the artist undeniably adds to the appreciation of art

If you've ever seen elephant seals (象海豹) lying on a beach, you might think that they're always. sleeping. But in fact, they spend about seven months of the year in the ocean. So how do they sleep while they're in the ocean?

Even though elephant seals are large animals, they have to be careful in the ocean. Near the surface, some dangerous animals like sharks might attack(攻击)them. So elephant seals spend most of their time diving (下潜) deep underwater, looking for food.

To find out how they sleep in the deep, a scientist named Jessica Kendall-Bar created a special cap. She and her team put the caps on thirteen female young elephant seals. The caps recorded the elephant seals brain activities. They also collected information on the elephant seals' heart rates (心率), how their bodies were moving, and how deep they were.

The scientists learned that elephant seals sometimes sleep for a short time while they are diving. They only sleep for about 10 minutes at a time. As they begin to sleep, the elephant seals can control their bodies. But when they are deeply asleep, they simply begin to fall, spinning (快速旋转) in a circle "like a falling leaf". The elephant seals wake up in time to go up for more air. In shallower (较浅的) areas, the elephant seals sometimes wake upon the seafloor.

Using the information they collected from the cap-wearing elephant seals, the scientists created a computer program to study older records of elephant seal trips. The scientists found that elephant seals only sleep for about two hours a day when they're in the ocean. That means that the rest on land is very important for them. Back on land, they sleep for about 10. 8 hours a day.

The scientists hope that their work will help to protect the places where elephant seals sleep when. they're on land.