The founder of Apple Steve Jobs was not only one of the fathers of the personal computing time, but also one of the giants of the information age. Here are some of his greatest contributions.

When the bell rings, every student takes out an iPad. The light from the screens makes their young faces pretty and lively. That’s what happens every day at my school in the US. We use iPads in class.

    I felt surprised and excited when I got an iPad the first day I arrived at the school. But it was not free. I spent about $100 to rent (租) it for three years.

    Every iPad at my school has a special learning system (系统) called Focus. Teachers put their teaching materials like textbooks and PPTs on it. When we have classes, we enter the system and download (下载) the materials with our iPads.

    It makes the classes interesting and efficient (高效的). For example, a few weeks ago, we learned about London in the UK. Our teacher made a video in which we saw many places of interest in London. We could not only watch the video, but also see the words at the same time. Because of the video, I know more about the city.

    We also do our homework with iPads. We can know how well we do our homework right after we submit (提交) our homework.

    However, there are still some bad points about learning with iPads. Some of my classmates play games or surf the Internet in class.

    I believe the key to use iPads well is to have good self-control (自制), isn’t it?

Because of smart technology, your hairbrush can be a little smarter. The Hair Coach is the world’s first smart hair care product. It is not just a hairbrush. It can do a lot more for you.

While you are brushing you hair with the Hair Coach, the sensors (传感器) in it know whether your hair is wet or day, whether you have split ends (发梢分叉) and how hard you are brushing. If you are brushing too hard, the handle will vibrate (振动) to let you know that you need to take it easy.

Like most smart products, the hairbrush sends all the information it has collected to a mobile app. On the app, you can keep track of (跟踪) your brushing behavior. It also gives you a hair quality (质量) score every day. You can know how well you have brushed your hair and get advice on how to improve.

Hair health is a big worry for many people. Some of them have hair loss and some have split ends. So helping them take better care of their hair is what the smart hairbrush is doing. With the Hair Coach, they can say goodbye to bad hair days.

  ① whether your hair is wet or dry         ② whether your hair has split ends

③ how often you go to the hairdresser     ④ how hard you are brushing your hair

Time management is the greatest challenge for me in high school. I have to take good care of my subjects, activities, social life and rest. I was often angry, with my family members just because I

didn't plan my time well. For example, I might shout at them for troubling me when I was working. And sometimes I might say something bad to them when I missed deadlines, even if it was actually my fault for cramming everything in (把所有的事情堆积起来) at the last minute.

    As time goes by, I realize that time management is very important in our everyday life. The best advice to deal with time management is "break it into bits". It's really important for you to learn how to break a big project into small, manageable tasks. Then you can work progressively and have a sense of achievement whenever you've done with a small part.

    Another piece of advice is to plan a timetable for yourself. It doesn't have to be the one that you follow completely. It's just there to serve as a guide. You can compare your actual timetable with the planned one to see how well you actually use your time. The final suggestion is to always set deadlines for yourself .

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The best way of learning a language is using it. The best way of learning English is talking in English as much as possible. Sometimes you’ll get your words mixed up(混合)and people will not understand you. Sometimes people will say things too quickly and you can‘t understand them. But if you keep your sense of humor(幽默感),you can always have a good laugh at the mistakes you make. Don’t be unhappy if people seem to be laughing at your mistakes. It‘s better for people to laugh at your mistakes than to be angry with you, because they don’t understand what you are saying. The most important thing for learning English is：“Don‘t be afraid of making mistakes because everyone makes mistakes.”

Are you a TV lover? Can you imagine living without TV? Well, you could give it a try.

    A group of Americans from TV-Turnoff Network(网络) have an idea. From April 19 to 25, they are asking children all over the world to turn off their TVs for one week. They hope children will find more interesting things to do. Maybe they can read some books, or learn to swim, or paint a picture. Since 1995, about 24 million people in America have taken part in TV-Turnoff Week.

    TV-Turnoff Network says watching TV too much can bring children big problems with school, health and family. They want kids to watch a lot less TV. What do you think?

    Bad for your studies

    American scientists did a study of 1,300 children. They watched the children for four years. They say that if children watch lots of TV, they don't do well in school.

    Bad for your health

    Studies show that when children watch lots of TV, they eat more unhealthy food. More children are getting overweight. Overweight children become will ill more easily. Watching too much TV is also bad for their eyes.

    Bad for family life

    About 40% of American families watch TV at dinner time. That means that they don't talk very much when they eat together.

    Also, too many violent(暴力的) things

    An American study says that before a child turns 18 years old, that child will see 200,000 violent things on TV. Some kids become violent in real life.

    If you want to learn more about this unusual week, you can go to this Website: www. tvturnoff, org.

①be overweight

②know more about the world

③be weak in study

④become violent in real life

Note-taking is a skill that can help you do well in all your schoolwork. It can make you confident when you are studying. But unluckily, most students don’t know how to take notes.

★Write down key facts. If your teacher writes notes on the blackboard, that’s great. You can copy them or write down the most important facts of all in class. Different teachers do things differently. For example, some teachers may focus on (关注) lots of dates and facts in class, but they only write the important ones on the blackboard. Other teachers may not write anything down, but they may say something important again and again.

★Ask. Don’t be afraid to ask your teacher to repeat what you miss. If your teacher speaks too fast and you can’t follow what he is saying, you can ask him after class.

★Compare. Comparing your notes with your classmates’ can be good for your learning. It can also help you and your classmates correct some mistakes.

★Organize(组织). Note-taking also needs organization. Keep notes for each subject in one notebook, so that you can find everything easily when a test comes.

★Good note-taking takes time. If you decide to recopy your notes every evening, you’ll surely have less time to watch TV. But you’ll save time in the coming test.

Everyone needs friends. There is an old saying: Friends are God’s way of looking after us. But how do you find real friendship and keep it?

The Care and keeping of Friends by American writer Sally Seamans tells young students some smart ways to find friends.

Sally says finding friendship is just like planting a tree. You plant the seed(种子) and look after it to make it grow.

First, you should choose a friend. What makes a good friend? It is not because a person has money or good looks. A good friend should be kind and patient（耐心）. For example, if you have a bad day, a good friend should listen to your complains( 抱怨) and do their best to help. To make a friend, you can’t be too shy. You should make each other happy and share your lives.

But things can’t always be happy. Even the best friends have fights（吵架）. What should you do when you have a fight with your friend? You have to talk to them. When there is no one around, have an honest （真诚的） talk. If he or she doesn’t want to talk, you could write a letter.Sally says there are three steps of being friends again: Tell him or her how you are feeling; say what your friend has done wrong, and say why you did this or that . The book also has advice on some small but important things like celebrating your friends’ success. Even if you haven’t had a real friend before, you will start to think of having one if you read this book. Because the book tells that friendship is the most important thing in your life.