When I asked my mother-in-law to choose which meals she'd like me to order from the home-delivery menu, she only chose the ones her husband would like. This goes way beyond politeness. She is actually feeling uncomfortable voicing what she wants. She developed the main symptom(症状) of Asker's Syndrome that one's unable to ask for what one wants.

It's not just older women who have this problem. Asker's Syndrome can strike the young. I have single friends who won't ask a man out on a date because they fear being considered “too forward”. My five-year-old daughter Violet is showing the early stages of Asker's Syndrome. She's learned that women don't ask, but rather drop hints. She'll say, “Remember last Sunday afternoon we went to the park？” rather than “Can we go to the park？”

Apart from women and girls' problematic relationship with appetite, food and dating, it's widely reported that women are less likely than men to ask for pay rises and promotions.

Instead, they withdraw, hoping that somebody else will decide they are worthy and make them promoted.

No doubt, many women develop Asker's Syndrome as a defensive measure because they've been labeled as pushy or rude for simply asking for what they want. But in the long term, choosing not to express our desires doesn't serve us well.

It's time to cure ourselves and our girls of Asker's Syndrome. I don't want to raise a future “mother” who denies her wish for food, power and success and anything else. So I now insist that my daughter ask for what she wants directly.

For women in our culture, asking is a skill that we need to learn and practice. And if we all do it, then women asking will become the norm rather than the exception.

某英语报社拟成立“微笑俱乐部”，现向全球征募会员，要求申请者提交一篇题为“I want to smile”的英语短文。请你以申请者的身份，根据以下提示用英语写一篇短文。 词数：120左右。

内容要点：

1.微笑的优点；

2.想对其微笑的人物（如：父母或朋友等）并给出理由；

3.对自己微笑的理由；

4.总结。

注意：文章写在方框内，超出边框的内容无效。

每到暑假,很多家长不惜重金,把上高中的子女送到国外参加国际游学项目。最近,某英语报社通过网上论坛举办了一场讨论,话题为“Should high school students be encouraged to have international study tours?”。你作为读者参与了此次讨论,请你根据此次讨论的结果用英语写一篇短文。

    内容包括:

    1．参加国际游学的好处;

    2．可能遇到的问题;

    3．你的看法。

    注意:

    1．词数100左右;

    2．可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯;

    3．短文开头已给出,不计入总次数;

It is increasingly popular for parents to send their kids to have international study tours recently.

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Mother's Day is coming up. Maybe your gift is wrapped and your dinner plans booked for mom, step-mom, grandmother---whoever the person is who fed, cared for, taught and loved you.

But there are other people who said their most special Mother's Day memories rarely dealt with beautifully wrapped objects, but rather, the ways people showed they cared.

 Mother's Day 2012 was the last one Jannet Walsh was able to celebrate with her mother, Margaret, who had a stroke (中风) in 2009.  In her last few years, Walsh always shot photos and videos of their visits together, and with Walsh's West Highland White Terrier, Andrew.

"My mother had a dog just like him, so I would tell her it was her dog, and she would hold onto his leash, even in bed up to the last few weeks before she passed away," Walsh said.

As Mother's Day approached, Walsh wanted a way to remember her mother and "best friend". She decided to build the memories she captured during those last few years into a video memorial-images of her mother with Andrew or quiet moments at her gravesite.

"I thought it good to tell the story with few words, just show my mother as she was happy, and loved till the end," Walsh said.

  Mother's Day was not a light-hearted subject for Wendy Bowers in the past. Her mom had walked out when she was 18, and Bowers had tried for years to become pregnant without success. She had almost convinced herself she wasn't meant to be a parent.

  But three years after she gave up on having a baby, Bowers discovered that she was pregnant. Six weeks earlier than expected, little Nathan arrived.

  That first year, Nathan, only 10 months old, was sick with a stomach bug. Bowers said she spent the day holding him between loads of laundry.  "I would not have been anywhere else in the world that day," she said. "I wouldn't trade that first Mother's Day for anything, and I'm pretty sure Mother's Day will always be a reminder to me of just how lucky I am to even be a mom. "

That people often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surroundings is a phenomenon known as the First-night, effect. If a person stays in the same room the following night they tend to sleep more soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University set out to investigate the origins of this effect.

Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved.

The puzzle was what benefit would be gained from it when performance might be affected the following day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators (捕食者). This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer look, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university’s Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Dr. Sasaki found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants’ brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night only, the left hemispheres (半球) of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did.

Curious if the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps (蜂鸣声) of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep and would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.

       After a year of examining many studies concerning whether homework is effective, NYC P.S. Elementary School decided that math worksheets and essay assignments were actually a waste of time. In February, Principal Jane Hsu sent a letter to parents stating that the Pre-K（学前班）through fifth grade students wouldn’t be give any traditional homework to encourage kids to free time for reading, playing outside, or doing activities they enjoy.

       “The negative effects of homework have been well established.” Hsu wrote in a note to parents.“They include, children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and family time and, sadly for many, loss of interest in learning.”

       Some parents, however, disagree with the policy change, believing that a lack of focus will cause children to fall behind. Homework has been part of education from the beginning, and has increased in amount in recent years.

       Hsu’s advice that children should read and spend time with their families has upset some parents to the point of considering pulling their children out of the school. This group feels that homework gives children a goal to work toward. Others feel so strongly about the importance of homework that have they have begun giving their own homework to their children.

       An Australian Childhood Foundation survey finds that 71% of Australian parents feel they don’t spend enough quality time with their children mainly because of the time spent running the household or the time spent helping with homework Education experts in Australia are saying that parents should stop helping. Doing so will give kids more independence, give parents more free time, and help reduce the number of arguments caused by homework in the family.

       While some research suggests that homework has little academic benefit for elementary students, other researches show homework can help kids develop independence, and confidence. It can also contribute to a sense of belonging or control over their lives. When parents try to help their children with homework, the assistance can take away that feeling and can also make working parents more tired.

One of the simplest and the most effective forms of communication involves nothing more than the movement of facial muscles. What am I talking about? Smiling! Everyone understands what a smile means, and everyone also understands what a frown means. In fact, these two basic facial expressions can be recognized across countries, across the world and across the globe, regardless of the language spoken or the culture lived in.

Hugs are so beautiful! When you give someone a hug or someone comes up and gives you a hug, this simple act of a hug can “speak” volumes about how much you care for the other person, how much love you want to share with the other person, how much you have missed the other person. This hug has so much to say, and yet there never has to be any words spoken.

And, who needs to say the words “yes” or “no” when a movement of the head says the same thing. These basic examples show just how powerful body language can be. Just knowing how to read and use body language effectively, makes it really easy to see why it is not always a bad thing to be lost for words.

Body language in the world of love is a very common thing and sometimes the only thing. And, most of the time, body language is the very first words “spoken” before any words are. The old saying is “love at first sight”, not “love at first word”. Across a crowded room, their eyes meet and linger, he winks at her, and she raises an eyebrow. The connection is made without any words needed. These displays of body language say it all. In fact, sometimes they can say more than words can.

Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.

   Some sports are resource-hungry. Golf, as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.

   There are many environment-friendly sports. Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You donˈt need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes; and you donˈt have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, sleep well and have better weight control.

Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be "green gyms". They are better replacements for traditional health clubs and modern sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, itˈs free.

I read somewhere that we spend a full third of our lives waiting. But where are we doing all of this waiting, and what does it mean to an impatient society like ours? To understand the issue, let’s take a look at three types of “waits”.

  The very purest form of waiting is the Watched-Pot Wait. It is without doubt the most annoying of all. Take filling up the kitchen sink(洗碗池) as an example. There is absolutely nothing you can do while this is going on but keep both eyes fixed on the sink until it’s full. During these waits, the brain slips away from the body and wanders about until the water runs over the edge of the counter and onto your socks. This kind of wait makes the waiter helpless and mindless.

  A cousin to the Watched-Pot Wait is the Forced Wait. This one requires a bit of discipline. Properly preparing packaged noodle soup requires a Forced Wait. Directions are very specific. “Bring three cups of water to boil, add mix, simmer three minutes, remove from heat, let stand five minutes.”I have my doubts that anyone has actually followed the procedures strictly. After all, Forced Waiting requires patience.

  Perhaps the most powerful type of waiting is the Lucky-Break Wait. This type of wait is unusual in that it is for the most part voluntary. Unlike the Forced Wait, which is also voluntary, waiting for your lucky break does not necessarily mean that it will happen.

  Turning one’s life into a waiting game requires faith and hope, and is strictly for the optimists among us. On the surface it seems as ridiculous as following the directions on soup mixes, but the Lucky-Break Wait well serves those who are willing to do it. As long as one doesn’t come to rely on it, wishing for a few good things to happen never hurts anybody.

  We certainly do spend a good deal of our time waiting. The next time you’re standing at the sink waiting for it to fill while cooking noodle soup that you’ll have to eat until a large bag of cash falls out of the sky, don’t be desperate. You’re probably just as busy as the next guy.