Putting a dinosaur skeleton together is not easy. The skeletons are usually very incomplete. Many dinosaur fossils are discovered badly damaged. Bones are often found crushed (压碎) or bent by the great weight of the dirt and rock above. Sometimes parts from different creatures are mixed together. This just adds to the confusion.

    Unfortunately, some scientists have not been careful enough in their descriptions of dinosaurs. They have told grand stories of how dinosaurs looked and behaved. All of these descriptions are based on guesswork — the imaginations of people who have never seen a living dinosaur. Some scientists have made complete pictures of dinosaurs based on just a single bone or tooth or leg. Such pictures are based on many guesses and very little facts. The scientists’ ideas often turn out to be wrong when more facts are discovered.

    Dinosaur fossils are not found with labels attached showing what the animals looked like. That is why no pictures of dinosaurs are exactly right. Every dinosaur painting is sure to contain at least some wrong information. No artist in the twentieth century ever saw the living, breathing animals — complete with skin, flesh, and color.

    For instance, imagine never having seen or heard of a peacock. One day you find the jumbled bones of it buried in the ground. You try to put the bones together to form a skeleton. And then you try to draw a picture of what the animal looked like when it was alive. But bones cannot tell the whole story. Even if you are a very good artist, it would be a miracle if you drew a true picture of a peacock just from the bones and your imagination.

It is a nightly dilemma in many household: A frustrated student hits a wall while doing homework, and parents are too tired or too busy to help.

Ordering a tutor is becoming as easy as grabbing a late-night snack for kids. With the rapid growth of companies offering online tutoring, many students can connect to an online tutor in less than a minute. All you need is a credit card. Such services can be especially helpful to students with tight budgets, tight time frames or those who live in remote areas. Prices, ranging from about $24 to $45 an hour, are cheaper than those many skilled tutors charge in a student’s home. Parents and students say the quick homework fix can ease stress and make evenings at home more peaceful.

All of a sudden, the world opens up to them. “The quality of online scholastic support can be uneven, and online tutors may not be the best for struggling students who need long-term help. Courses can be break down due to technical problems, and language barriers can cause problems on sites that rely on tutors from abroad,” says Michael Horn, executive director of education for the Clayton Christensen Institute. Whenever Peggy Bennett of Dallas tried to help her 13-year-old daughter, Chloe Friedman, with her eighth-grade physics and algebra homework, “we’d always end up bickering,” Ms Bennett did it differently, “It was a lose-lose situation.” Chloe says she was skeptical when her mom helped her sign up last month to Tutor.com, a New York City-bases provider of on-demand tutoring. But after she logged on one evening for some help with her algebra, a tutor, identified only by a first name and last initial, responded within a minute, Chloe says she was guided to figure out the answers, using text chat and an interactive “whiteboard” that displayed their writing and calculations on a shared screen. After hearing nothing but typing for about 10 minutes, Ms Bennett says she heard Chloe yell from the other room, “She told me I did a good job!” Ms Bennett adds, “That’s all that she needed.”

Most sites get the support from part-time or retired teachers, college professors or professionals with tutoring experience; most offer scheduled tutoring in addition to on-demand courses. The most common users are middles and high school students, and college students taking basic courses.

Yamini Naidu, President of the National School Public Relations Association, says “Students who come to courses with a list of questions or assignments to work on—and who spare some time to concentrate—benefit most. Text chats occasionally stop if students are distracted or start multitasking. Online tutors fill a huge gap that can never be filed by parents.”

Students decide to take a job while being in university because of two reasons, on the one hand，they need money; on the other hand，they want to experience something new and they want to see what working means. But is it good to take a job while you are a university student? There are both advantages and disadvantages if we were to answer this question. If we were to think about the advantages, we could mention the ones I have just discussed. Having a job at an early age helps us gain experience, which will be very useful to our later life. We may become financially independent and donˈt need to ask our parents for money each time we want to go downtown with our friends, or spend the holiday at the seaside or in the mountains.

However, students who take a job might have problems in spending enough time on their study. If they work during the day, they may have to be absent from their classes, and if they work at night they will feel tired the next day. They may choose to stay at home, resting. Whatˈs worse, some students may even get bored with study.

Well, this fact happens every now and then, but there are cases when well-prepared students take a part-time job but at the same time they make time for study, too. And they have good results. Their case is a good example to follow among the students who decide to work while being in university. Anyway, we need to keep in mind that study is the most important job for a student.

随着人们生活水平的提高，“广场舞大妈”们掀起了一场广场舞热潮，甚至把广场舞跳出了国门。请以广场舞为主题，完成一篇文章，内容包括：

1. 描述当前广场舞的现状

2. 分析这种现象产生的原因

3. 陈述利弊以及表明个人态度

参考词汇：广场舞：square dance 现象: phenomenon

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They say the average person makes 35，000 decisions a day．Yet in her new book，How Woman Decide，Therese Huston explores a widespread phenomenon that many women fail to notice．“There’s a huge double standard when it comes to how men and women are viewed as decision makers，”explains Therese，a psychologist from Seattle University．Therese decided to write the book after looking at her bookshelf：At one end，there were bestselling books about how to be a brilliant decision maker—all written by men and featuring interviews with men like athletes．At the other end were books aimed at women on gaining leadership skills and confidence．

    “Once those women are at the table，will their decisions be taken as seriously as men’s?”Therese wondered．“Men are respected as decision makers more than women，especially in the workplace，largely because there’s this cultural belief that women are unable to make smart choices at work．”

    So，Therese set out to pick apart the stereotypes(固有印象)to see what scientific research had found．“Scientific research shows that men and women struggle with decision-making equally．The only disadvantage I found was that during the teenage years-teenage girls are more indecisive than teenage boys．Otherwise，there’s little difference between the genders(性别)．”

    However，there are some differences．“Women are more collaborative(协作的)，”says Therese．“A female boss is more likely to ask the opinions of those around her when making a choice．Women ask for input，which helps make better decisions．However，this is often seen as a weakness rather than a strength．”

    Therese also found that during times of stress，men and women make different choices，and the outcomes are often better when women are involved．

    Study after study backs this view up．Neuroscientists Mara Mather and Nicole Lighthall from the University of Southern California studied the way men and women make decisions and found that in times of stress，they react very differently．

    During their study，which involved playing a virtual gambling(赌博)game，they found that when the females became stressed，they made smart decisions—quitting while they were ahead or taking safe bets．But when the men became stressed，they did the opposite，risking everything for a slim chance of a big win．

Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.

Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as ‘bracketing’. Bracketing includes the temporary (暂时的) giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices (偏见) and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.

Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don’t want to hear.

It wasn’t until toward the end of my doctor career that I found it really worked that one was being truly listened to. In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy (心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient’s sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.

Most of us spend our lives seeking the natural world. We go fishing, sit in the garden, have a picnic, live in the suburbs or go to the seaside. The most popular leisure activity in Britain is going for a walk. When joggers jog, they don’t run the streets. Every one of them tend to go to the park or the river.

But despite this, our children are growing up nature deprived (剽夺). I spent my boyhood climbing trees. These days, children are robbed of these ancient freedoms, due to problems like crime, traffic, the loss of the open spaces and strange new ideas about what is best for children, that is to say, things that can be bought, rather than things that can be found.

The truth is to be found elsewhere. A study in the US: families had moved to better housing and the children were assessed for ADHD—attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (多动症). Those whose accommodation had more natural views showed an improvement of 19%; those who had the same improvement in material surroundings but no nice view improved just 4% .

ADHD is one of the great problems of modern childhood. One study after another indicates that contact with nature gives huge benefits to ADHD children. However, we spend money on drugs rather than on green places.

The life of old people is measurably better when they have access to nature. The increasing concern for the growing population of old people is in quality rather than quantity of years. And study after study finds that a garden is the single most important thing in finding that quality. Even problems with crime and aggressive behavior are reduced when there is contact with the natural world.

We need the wild world. It is essential to our well-being, our health and our happiness.

Mass communication has been growing and affecting the way communities and people behave. At every stage of the development of communication, from the telegraph to the Internet, societies have had to adapt to its effects. But have the effects been more positive or negative?

The saying “knowledge is power” has been an excellent motivator for people to improve their lives, but today the massive amount of information available through the Internet doesn’t always seem to be helping people in the way we’d hoped. Rather than improving people’s lives and bringing us closer together, the information age is making us more divided and irresponsible.

Nevertheless, many people find comfort in their virtual (虚拟的) worlds and are happy to connect with real-life friends and online friends from the familiar surroundings of their living rooms. However, being able to reinvent themselves online and be whoever they want to be leads to the question of whether they are losing their identities by living in a virtual world. It’s not all bad news, however. Mass communication has helped change some attitudes for the better. Take our views on the environment for example, Internet campaigns by governments and other organizations have helped popularize the ideas of recycling, protecting wildlife and reducing pollution.

Modern electronic communication now influences every aspect of our lives ---- it is a powerful tool that has raised some concerns for society. However, it has also brought countless benefits to society. At the end of the day, it can be used both for good or evil, which largely relies on the morals and sense of responsibility of the individual or community involved. In short, it needs to be used with care.

Have you ever been tempted to cut a corner or to take the easiest route,though you know it may not necessarily be the best one?Or have you ever made a  (1)  because it was quick and simple,knowing that it might come back to bite you later?

I appreciate a parable（寓言）Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard told about the  (2)  of taking the easy route.It is story about a  (3)  duck.Though life was difficult  (4)  ,the beautiful creature  (5)  the boundless heavens and the endless stretches of wilderness.Soaring about treetops and towns,the duck was a symbol of freedom to its tame counterparts（相对物），who could not  (6)  .

One evening during fall migration,he  (7)  to enter a barnyard where a farmer was feeding his ducks.The beautiful creature ate the  (8)  the farmer sprinkled（撒）about and liked it so much that he stayed the night in a bed of  (9)  straw.He ate the duck’s corn again the next day.And the next.And the next…

When  (10)  came,he heard his old companions flying overhead and an almost forgotten longing deep  (11)  him awoke.The duck had reduced his instinct for freedom over the  (12)  winter.Now he longed to  (13)  his comrades in the sky,but he had grown fat and unable to fly.The wild duck had become a tame duck.The easy way through our problems,though  (14)  ,may not be the best way.Always remember.The only place you will find success before  (15)  is in the dictionary!It’s a always easier to borrow than to  (16)  ;easier to jump in now than to do the hard work of planning;easier to  (17)  than to do it right;easier to  (18)  the same than to make changes.

  (19)  you want to fly,you may have to pay a price.But  (20)  is worth it-at any cost!Are you ready to soar?

Thousands of taxi drivers in Shenyang, Liaoning province, reportedly blocked streets with their vehicles on Sunday in protest against unlicensed vehicles using taxi-hiring apps (打车软件) and apps-based car rental companies providing passenger services, including high-end cars. Although the drivers also complained about the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy by the government, their main complaint was the loss of business because of the rising number of Internet-based car services companies.

On Wednesday, news reports came that Beijing transport authorities will take measures to stop the illegal“taxi business” of private cars through the newly rising Internet apps, following the footsteps of Shenyang and Nanjing.

It is not yet clear how the Shenyang city government will handle the issue and whether it will declare the services offered by market leaders such as Didi Dache, a taxi-hiring app provider backed by Tencent Holdings, and Kuaidi Dache illegal. But Shanghai transport regulators have set a rule, by banning Didi Zhuanche, or car services offered by Didi Dache in December.

Such regulations will cause a setback to the car-hiring companies and investors that are waiting to cash in on the potentially booming business. Just last month, Didi Dache got $700 million in funding from global investors, including Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings, Russian investment company DST Global and Tencent. Besides, the market i s uncertain that Kuaidi Dache is about to finalize its latest round of funding after getting $800 million from global investors.

Regulatory uncertainties, however, could cast a shadow on the future of the Internet-based car-hiring services, which have become popular in most of China’s big cities. To be fair, these companies’business model is anything but bad. For example, Didi Zhuanche works side by side with established car rental companies to provide high-end car service mainly for business people through the Internet and mobile phone apps.

Every link in this business model chain has legal companies and services. Hence, it is hard to define it as illegal and ban it.