D

    Scientists are trying to make the deserts into good land again. They want to bring water to the deserts，so people can live and grow food. They are learning a lot about the deserts. But more and more of the earth is becoming deserts all the time. Scientists may not be able to change the deserts. Scientists think that people make deserts. People are doing bad things to the earth.

    Some places on the earth don't get much rain. But they still don't become desert. This is because some green plants are growing there. Small green plants and grass are very helpful to dry places. Plants don't let the hot sun make the earth even drier. Plants don't let the wind blow the earth away. When a little bit of rain falls，the plants hold the water. Without the plants，the land can become a desert much more easily.

       Home to me means a sense of familiarity and nostalgia（怀旧）. It’s fun to come home. It looks the same. It smells the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you. Home is where we can remember pain, love and some other experiences: We parted here; My parents met here; I won three championships here.

       If I close my eyes, I can still have a clear picture in mind of my first home. I walk in the door and see a brown sofa surrounding a low glass-top wooden table. To the right of the living room is my first bedroom. It’s empty, but it’s where my earliest memories are.

       There is the dining room table where I celebrated birthdays and where I cried on Halloween---when I didn’t want to wear the skirt my mother made for me. I always liked standing on that table because it made me feel tall and strong. If I sit at this table, I can see my favorite room in the house, my parents’ room. It is simple: a brown wooden dresser lines the right side of the wall next to a television and a couple of photos of my grandparents on each side. Their bed is my safe zone. I can jump on it anytime---waking up my parents if I am scared or if I have an important announcement that cannot wait until the morning.

I’m lucky because I know my first home still exists. It exists in my mind and heart, on a physical property（住宅）on West 64th street on the western edge of Los Angeles. It is proof I lived, I grew, and I learned.

Sometimes when I feel lost, I lie down and shut my eyes, and I go home. I know it’s where I’ll find my family, my dogs, and my belongings. I purposely leave the window open at night because I know I’ll be blamed by Mom. But I don’t mind, because I want to hear her say my name, which reminds me I’m home.

B

A teacher decided to let her class play a game. She told each child to bring along a few potatoes in plastic bags. Each potato would be written a name of a person that the child hated, so the number of potatoes that a child would carry would depend on the number of people the child hated. When the day came, every child brought some potatoes. Some had two; some three and some up to five.

The teacher then told the children to carry the bags wherever they went, even to the toilet, for two weeks. As day after day passed, the children started to complain of the unpleasant smell of the rotten potatoes.

    Those children having five potatoes began to feel the weight of the bags. After two weeks, the children were happy to hear that the game was finally ended. The teacher asked, “How did you feel while carrying the potatoes with you for two weeks?” The children started complaining of the trouble that they had had.

Then the teacher told them the hidden meaning behind the game. She said, “This is exactly the situation when you carry your hatred(憎恨) for somebody inside your heart. The unpleasant smell of hatred will pollute your heart and you will carry an unnecessary burden with you wherever you go. If you can’t tolerate the smell of rotten potatoes for just two weeks, can you imagine what a burden it would be to have the hatred in your heart for your lifetime? So throw away any hatred from your heart. Forgiving others is the best attitude to take.”

You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.

   When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in  the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine detected the device's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

   In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

   Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated ( 隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000 ℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.

After a serious disease，Raghu Makwana lost his legs. He had to walk with the support of his hands. A long time back, Raghu and a few friends took a walk on the street with the inspiration to do a small act of kindness. One of his kind behaviors is the Tulsi Project. Whenever he learns of a family with some arguments or even violent abuse(辱骂), Raghu courageously walks in to spread good cheer and gifts them a tulsi plant. Most of these are complete strangers. Sometimes he’ll recite a prayer, sometimes he’ll share stories. To start 2011, When he lived out on the streets，he often felt deeply moved by others on the streets who had even less than him, and Raghu gave birth to such an idea, of course, which was also his first dream.

     He made a promise to himself that he would return to serve them one day, and that day had arrived for him. He put together a team of five everyday folks, (one of whom is blind), who would make small sacrifices in their own lives to support delivery of hand­-cooked meals for some of the absolutely neglected people on the streets. They appropriately named it “Tyaag Nu Tiffin”(Food of Sacrifice)．Every day at 12∶30 PM and at 7∶30 PM，Raghu starts off on his hand tricycle to deliver the food. It’s the same food he himself eats，but he won’t eat it until he has finished his round of offerings. In a recent feature in The Times of India，Raghu notes：“I’m not doing anything great. I’m not on a mission to change the world. God has been very kind to me in my struggle to survive. Now it is my turn to repay the kindness by helping other needy human beings.”

Though Malala Yousafzai is 17, she does not use Facebook or even a mobile phone so that she can’t lose focus on her studies. She spent her summer vacation flying to Nigeria to campaign for the release(释放) of girls caught by the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram, but also worrying about her grades, which recently took a worrisome dip. She confronted President Obama about American drone policy(无人机政策) in a meeting last year, but finds it difficult to make friends with her fellow students in Birmingham, England.

“I want to have fun, but I don’t quite know how,” she wrote in the edition of her autobiography for young readers.

On Friday, Ms. Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and she was called out of her chemistry class to hear the news.

Ms. Yousafzai began campaigning for girls’ education at the age of 11, three years before she was shot by the Taliban. The prize she received on Friday accepts what she has taken on, but also shows the expectations to her: Can she truly influence the culture of her home country of Pakistan, which she cannot even visit because of threats to her safety, and where many people see her as a tool of the West?

And in an interview last August, Ms. Yousafzai said that she rarely watches television and deleted the Candy Crush game from her iPad to prevent a growing addiction(成瘾). As a child in Pakistan, she had access to only a handful of books, she said, but one was a biography of Dr. King, giving her an early sense of what one activist could accomplish.

In a brief speech in Birmingham on Friday, she called the prize “an encouragement for me to go forward and believe in myself.”

B

Courtney was just 15 years old when she joined a team of space researchers．Those scientists landed NaSa’s robot，Spirit，on the planet Mars．But this was neither Courtney’s first nor her last adventure in space research．When she was in fifth grade，Courtney had already decided to spend her life“exploring the mysteries of the universe．”She checked out space books from her library，studied hard in math and science classes，and later，attended United States Space Camp in A labama．   

Then Courtney entered a contest to become part of the Student Astronaut program run by a group called the Planetary Society．After a lot of hard work，interviews，and months of waiting．Courtney found out that she was one of 16 students who made it—out of 500 entered．

Courtney and fellow student astronaut Rafael Morozowski，a 16-year-old from Brazil，were at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California with NASA scientists when Spirit reached Mars．

“The most exciting part of the thing occurred late at night on January3，2004，when we received signals indicating that Spirit had landed successfully, ”Courtney says．“I joined the rest of the scientists in jumping up and cheering．”

Courtney and Rafael spent seven nights working with and learning from the NASA scientists. (They worked at night because that was daying on Mars．)They studied the photographs that Spirit was sending to Earth of Gusev Crater on Mars．They spoke to television reporters at NASA press conferences and attended meetings in which the NASA team named the rocks and hills that Spirit was finding．

When Courtney was 17 years old，she went to work for NASA as a student intern at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland．With two NASA scientists，Courtney plans to study astrophysics or planetary science at Princeton University，then return to work at NASA．She encourages other kids and teens to follow their dreams of getting involved with space research．

A

Driving to the airport in the early morning, I felt excited. Although l was heading abroad for  my first time alone, I felt cheerful and enthusiastic. l was spending the summer in Paris While looking for more interesting things to do besides sleeping and eating ,I found programs for learning languages abroad, and jumped at the chance to study French in this city known for its art,  fashion. food, and culture. As I arrived at the airport where l would leave my family, I still felt only great happiness.  l excitedly made my way through security, leaving my loved ones behind
    My connecting flight was in Frankfurt. Germany, 14 hours from Denver. Sitting in a  crowded plane watching bad movies couldnˈt dampen my excitement.  When the woman next to  me asked me where l was going, I happily answered and was pleased to note a tone of jealousy in  her response
    But when I arrived in Frankfurt, fear and anxiety began to set in  Being in an enormous, busy building in a country where I could not speak the language was frightening, hut as I found  my way ,I gained confidence. When I boarded the second plane and discovered that the flight was less than an hour,1 was filled with excitement as I thought of how l would manage in a country with a  new language.
   When I stepped on the ground of Paris for the first time,1 was extremely happy and excited. I gathered my bags and joined the crowd of people waiting for friends and family.  I  quickly had my first experience trying to communicate in a language that I had only practiced in  school. As I left the airport,  I looked for familiar monuments I had read about,  but the landscape looked very ordinary
Then, with one sharp turn, the Eiffel Tower came into view, and l was finally in Paris

Once an old man rose early to read each morning. His grandson wanted to be just like his grandfather, so tried to emulate him every way he could.

    One day the grandson asked, “Grandpa, I try to read just like you do, but I don’t understand most of it, and I forget whatever I do understand immediately I close the book. So what good is it for me to read?”

    The grandfather, who was putting coal on the fire, said, “Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water.”

The boy did as told to, but the water leaked out before he could get the basket home.

The grandfather laughed, saying, “You’ll have to move a little faster.” This time he ran faster, but again the basket emptied. Out of breath, he decided it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket（桶）. But the grandfather said, “I want a basket of water instead of a bucket of water. You’re just not trying hard enough.”

The boy knew what he was trying to accomplish was impossible. However, he decided to show his grandfather a third time.

The boy dipped the basket into the river and ran as hard as he could. With the empty basket, he gasped（喘气说）, “See Grandpa? It’s useless!”

“So you think it useless?” the old man asked. “Then look at the basket.” To his surprise, the boy found it washed clean of the dirty coal stains and now clean inside and out.

“My child, that’s what happens when you read the book. You might not understand or remember everything, but the words will change you inside and out. That is the work of reading in our lives.”