We are used to seeing plastic all around us. From bags and bottles to toys and toothbrushes, plastic things fill our homes, schools, and offices. But what happens to these things when we’ve finished with them?

In the United States, recycling centers receive tons of plastic every day. Experts say that does not stop plastic litter from polluting the sea. Plastic can end up in the ocean if the wind blows it there or if people litter. “The ocean is getting worse everywhere,” says Charles Moore, an expert.

In 1997,Mooretraveled fromHawaiito California by sea. On the journey, he discovered a huge “island (岛屿)” in the Pacific Ocean. The “island” was mostly made of plastic litter and it was twice the size of Texas. It became known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Moore has been watching the “island” ever since he found it. “It’s 100 times worse now than it was then,” he said.

All this plastic in the ocean puts sea animals at risk. Animals can become tangled (使缠结) in plastic. They can also take pieces of plastic for food by mistake. “The plastic makes them feel full, but they’re not getting any good from that,” says Jambeck, another expert. “They usually starve to death (饿死).”

The plastic problem doesn’t just appear in the Pacific. Each year, more and more plastic ends up in all of Earth’s oceans. “If we continue with business as usual”, says Jambeck. “the plastic in the sea will double by the year 2025.” But there are things we can do to stop it. Jambeck suggests choosing reusable things and picking products with less packaging. Moore says, “It’s the problem we should try our best to eliminate, for it’s everybody’s problem.”

 There are many kinds of food in the world. Scientists learn a lot about them. They say that there are some kinds of food people must eat every day. For example, people must eat some green and yellow vegetables. We shouldn’t eat too much meat. People also need to eat some fruits, bread and rice. Of course our bodies need some water and milk.

   Scientists say people in different countries and different places eat different kinds of food. They cook food in different ways. Different people eat at different times. In one place, people eat once or twice a day. But in another place, people eat three or four times. The scientists say when to eat and how many times to eat are not important. What we eat is the most important thing.

   Nowadays, the world faces two problems. People in some places, for example, in Africa, are not full. Many people are eating junk food. It’s bad for people’s health. So it’s our duty to make everyone full and make everyone healthy.

Do you get angry when your friends sing loudly while you are trying to work, or when your best friend does not wait for you after school?

If you do, you need to take control of your feelings and stop getting angry so easily. Getting angry with people can cause you to lose friends.

Gray Gerber, an American high school teacher, has written My Feelings Are Like Wild Animals to help you control your feelings. It tells teens how to stay cool when bad things happen to them.

The book says that getting angry only makes problems worse. It can never make them better. Getting angry is not a natural way to act, the book says. It is just a bad habit, like smoking.

The book says you can control your anger easily. All you have to do is tell yourself not to be angry. When a baby falls over, he only cries if people are watching him.

Like a baby, you should only get angry if you are sure it is the right thing to do. The book gives many tips(提示)to help you if you get angry easily. Here are our tips:

   (1)Keep a record. Every time you get angry, write down why you are angry.

   (2)Ask your friends to stop talking to you when you get angry. This will teach you not to be angry.

   (3)Do something different. When you get angry, walk away from the problem and go somewhere else. Try to laugh.

    Everyone likes living in a clean and comfortable environment. If the environment (环境) are bad, it will affect t(影响) our body, and make us not feel well. Sometimes we may be terribly ill. At that time we don’t want to work, and we have to stay in bed and rest at home. So the environment is very important to us.

      It’s germs (细菌) that makes us ill. There are germs everywhere, They are very small and you can’t find them with your own eyes, but you can see them with a microscope (显微镜). They are very small and there may be hundreds of them on a very small thing. Germs can always be found in dirty water. When we look at dirty water under the microscope, we shall see them in it. Germs can also be found in air and dust（灰尘）. If you cut your finger, some of the dust from the floor may go into it, and you will have much pain in it. Sometimes the germs will go into all of your body, and you will have pain everywhere.

      To keep us healthy, we should try to our best to make our environment become cleaner and tidier. This needs us to act together.

We asked thirty young people between 14 and 18 several questions. All the children had computers at home. The average (平均) time spent on a computer in a week was about 12 hours, with the highest about 32 hours, and the lowest only 5 hours. Most children said they usually used computers to play games. Fourteen children told us they did some word-processing (文字处理) at times. Eight people told us they kept addresses and phone numbers on their computers or used them as diaries. Only three people said they were learning to write computer programs and nobodyused databases (数据库). Only two of them said computers helped with their lessons. The diagram (表格) gives all the results one by one.

The results show that computer use is quite common among 14 to 18-year-old children. They also show quite clearly that computers are seen by most young people as little more than game machines. It means to us that, though computers are common (普遍) in the home of young people, they have not yet become popular in everyday life.

根据短文内容，选择正确答案。

Have you ever thought about how you answer a compliment (恭维)? I didn’t see the cultural differences of a compliment until I moved toBeijingfrom the US about four months ago.

From my personal experience, it’s usually polite to say thank you, smile, change the subject or give that person a compliment too. I found this is not usually the way people accept (接受) a compliment in China.

I’ve seen that Chinese are very humble (谦虚的) when receiving a compliment. In China, people might say a quick thank, disagree with the compliment or even belittle(轻视) themselves.

One example of this is speaking the Chinese or English language. I’m trying to learn Chinese, and I’m honestly not good. However, sometimes when I say a simple word like “thank you” in Chinese, people tell me my Chinese is so good! This seems very silly to me becausexiexieis usually the second phrase people learn.

We can’t remember clearly since when we started to take our mobiles(手机) to a dinner table. This happens a lot, especially when we eat out. Once a dish comes, instead of lifting our chopsticks, we take out our mobiles and click. Later, we post the photos onto Weibo or Wechat（微信）, waiting to be“liked”. Then we check our mobiles from time to time during the meal, to see whether we get“liked”or not. We just cannot leave our mobiles for only a meal.

Does that sound familiar to you? Do you do that often? If not, how do you feel when others do that when having dinner with you?

A recent study suggests that what we are used to doing is not so good. Spending time taking photos of food makes the food less pleasant. To test this, some researchers did an experiment. Some people were asked to take photos before they could enjoy food. As a result, it showed that the more photos they took ________________. So, why not stop taking photos and just enjoy the food in front of you?

Besides the scientific result, there are also some other bad influences of taking photos of food before meals. After posting the photos onto the Internet, one will not be able to control himself and check his mobile many times. “Does everyone like my photos? I hope a lot of people like them!” It seems that your mobile secretly calls your name all the time, even when you are with real people.

So, next time you go out to have dinner with your family or friends, how about not taking photos of food? Let the food be delicious as it is and share your life with people around you. Trust me, it will be a wonderful time.

Many teenagers feel that the most important people in their lives are their friends. They believe that their family members don’t know them as well as their friends do. In large families, it is quite often for brothers and sisters to fight with each other and then they can only go to their friends for ideas. It is very important for teenagers to have one good friend or a group of friends. Even when they are not with their friends, they usually spend a lot of time talking among themselves on the phone. This communication (交流) is very important in children’s growing up, because friends can discuss something. These things are difficult to say to their family members. However, parents often try to choose their children’s friends for them. Some parents often may even stop their children from meeting their friends. Do you think of the following questions? Who choose your friends? Do you choose your friends or your friends choose you? Have you got a good friend your parents don’t like? Your answers are welcome.

For most people, the word “fashion” means “clothes”. Actually, there are fashions in many fields, not only in clothes. There are fashions in holidays, restaurants, music, films and books. There are even fashions in school subjects, jobs and languages.

Fashions change as time goes by. If you look at pictures of people or things from the past, you will see that fashions change. People now are wearing different clothes from before. A house of 1990 is different from a new house of 2016. Music style changes a lot. Today fashions change more quickly. We have lots of ways to know fashions more quickly than in the past. Newspapers, radios, telephones and televisions send information from one country to another in a few hours.      

New fashions mean that people will buy new things. If you love the most fashionable things, you will spend a lot of money. In fact, you should choose what is the most suitable for you. That’s the right way.

Some people love going to museums, while others really hate it and would rather stay at home, enjoying their fav ourite TV shows. So museums are being seen as outdated (过时) and boring by today’s young people. I have just returned to the UK after travelling around the USA. While I was there, I visited lots of museums.  I must say, museums are educational, either to develop knowledge learned at school, or to improve knowledge of other cultures.

   In Chicago, we visited the world-famous Art Institute of Chicago. It was  full of paintings, drawings and sculptures by a large number of artists, such as Picasso, Monet, Matisse and Dali. There was a mixture of traditional and modern art.

   When we were in Washington D.C., we visited a few of the Smithsonian museums. These are all free to visitors, which is great if you just want to see a few things, and not spend all day inside. The Air and Space Museum was especially good: it had lots of planes on show, interesting information and also some interactive (互动) parts. We also went to the National U. S. Holocaust (纳粹大屠杀) Memorial Museum. Naturally, it was sad to read about the horrors which influenced so many people in World War II. However, it was also interesting to read the stories of those who survived the Holocaust, as well as those who helped others.

   Last but not least, I also found the 9/11 Memorial and Museum to be of great interest. This museum is for those who lost their lives, as well as their families, when the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked by terrorists (恐怖分子) in 2001. It tells you how the terrorists planned the attack and what happened as a result of their actions. Surviving pieces of the towers are shown in the museum. It was a truly meaningful visit, which made me value my own life that little bit more.

   I think museums play an important role in realizing historical importance for future people. Whatever your interests, there may be a museum for you. You can visit waxwork (蜡像)museums to see models of famous people (and get photos with the Queen!), science museums for an interactive visit and a little bit more! Best of all, if you’re ever in the UK, many of them are free!