What will life in the future be like?

   Will it be much better than it is now? And what will we be able to do 10,20 or 30 years later? Letˈs just close our eyes and think !
     Genetic Engineering
    Genetic engineering will help us create the perfect human.  Babies will grow up to do slam dunks like Yao Ming or look like Cecilia Cheung. Also, we will be able to mix(杂交)  plants and animals !  But do you want your dog to be a tree?
     The Dead
          In the future, we will be able to bring the dead back to life.  Then each family can meet and talk with its dead family members. It will be like living with ghosts.
      On television people will see Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Confucius, Elvis Presley, and

Shakespeare talking with each other!
     Long-Iiving People
      Over the next 20 t0 50 years, it will become harder to tell the difference between human and machine. All body parts will be replaceable. We will then be able to make fake (假的) people.
       We will make a copy of ourselves, so we will appear to be alive long after we are dead.  A few decades later, people will find ways to transfer (转移)  their spirit (精神)  to the new body.
   Nanobots
      We will be able to build nanobots (纳米机器人) to travel through our body. Also, nanobots will be 
used when we are sick.
      For example, when we have a stomachache, we will swallow a very small robot and it will travel 
through our stomach, taking video of whatˈs happening there.  Then we can show the video to help the doctor diagnose (诊断)  our problem.
   Computers
     Computers help us remember, calculate, and enjoy ourselves. In the future, computers will be able to
show their feelings. They will be able to think better than the human mind.
     After television became popular, many people soon became couch potatoes. It is not surprising that
many people have become overweight; and things will get worse in the future !
      We will be more and more interested in computers and the Internet, spending more and more time in
front of computers and forget what our real needs are.  Many of us will become super couch potatoes 
and weight 250kg!

The time may soon come when we say goodbye to most of the world’s languages. Today humans

express themselves in over 6,000 different languages. But that is quickly changing. Many scientists say that over half of these languages will disappear within the next 50 years. After 100 years, the languages

used in the world will not be more than 20.

     Why? It is because people from different cultures live and work together much more often than before. This brings changes. The languages of the world’s main cultures are replacing the languages of the smaller cultures. Most international trade takes place in world languages such as English. People respect their own cultures and traditions, but when it comes to getting a job, knowing a world language is often necessary. It may mean the difference between success and failure.

    People in different cultures think it good for them to share a popular language. They can quickly share ideas and work together. Knowing the same language means easier communication and is a basis for trust.

     Is the death of a small local language such a terrible thing? The answer is maybe. Many cultures may have words for many useful things we know nothing about. If their languages die, their valuable wisdom may be lost forever. The future of the world’s language depends on our actions now. Will we protect endangered languages or allow them to quietly disappear?  

Time will have the last word.

In his book The Tipping Point Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell explains how a trend can take many forms. It can be a general change in social behavior, an idea or a fashion. However, why do some trends catch on and others not? What makes one particular brand of training shoe suddenly become the must-have product? How do people find out about trends and what makes people want to buy into them? Is it simply a question of keeping up with other people?

In his new work, Gladwell explores the moment when something becomes common and how products, ideas, messages and forms of behavior spread. He looks at the reasons why trends are similar in the way they develop to outbreaks of disease, or medical epidemics(流行病) .

Epidemics, like trends, start in a very small way, maybe from a single person with a virus, then spread very quickly until they take over the population and appear to be everywhere. Eventually, they will slow down gradually or die out suddenly. Gladwell shows how these changes happen not gradually but at one sudden moment.

Gladwell identifies three types of people who are influential in the development of these kinds of social epidemics:

Connectors are people in a community who have wide social circles. They know a lot of people and like to introduce people to each other. The people they know often come from a variety of social, cultural, professional and economic circles.

Mavens are people with a lot of knowledge or experts in a particular field. They wish to pass on their knowledge to others. Mavenscollect and gather information, so they are the first to pick up on new trends.

Salesmen are people with charisma. They have a “soft” influence over people rather than actual power. This means they are influential because people want to imitate them.

Overall, Gladwell’s book is a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the origins of trends. What’s more, he writes in a clear style so even the most difficult ideas are easy to understand.

Silence may be viewed by some cultural groups as extremely uncomfortable;  therefore attempts may be made to fill every gap(间隙) with conversation. Persons in other cultural groups value silence and view it as necessary for understanding a person's needs.

Many Native Americans value silence and feel it is a basic part of communicating among people, just as some traditional Chinese and Thai persons do. Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what maybe implied(暗示) is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing. In these cultures, silence is a call for reflection.

Other cultures may use silence in other ways, particularly when dealing with conflicts among people or in relationships of people with different amounts of power. For example, Russian, French, and Spanish persons may use silence to show agreement between parties about the topic udner discussion. However, Mexicans may use silence when instructions are given by a person in authority rather than be rude to that person by arguing with him or her. In still another use, persons in Asian cultures may view silence as a sign of respect, particularly to an elder or a person in authority.

Nurses and other care-geivers need to be aware of the possible meanings of silence when they come across the personal anxiety their patients may be expericencing. Nurses should recognize their own personal and cultural construction of silence so that a patient’s silence is not interrupted too early or allowed to go on unnecessarily. A nurse who understands the healing(治愈) value of silence can use this understanding to assist in the care of patients from their own and from other cultures.

Most of us don’ t know the reasons anymore but people today follow them because they are good fun.

Today the bride (新娘) carries flowers but long ago she carried strong-smelling grass. This was to frighten away the evil spirits and to cover the smell of people who do not wash often. People also used to believe that the bride brought good luck, so they would try to get something from her. Today, the bride will offer the guests some good luck by throwing the flowers to them after the wedding. It is said that if you catch the flowers, you will be the next one to get married. Of course, many of the single girls at a wedding try to catch the flowers.

In early times, the bridesmaids (伴娘) and the bride all wore similar dresses. This was to confuse the evil spirits. Now bridesmaids still wear similar dresses but the bride wears a different dress that is often white. Many brides wear veils (面纱) over their faces. This comes from a time when the young couple was not allowed to see each other before the wedding. The families were afraid that the bridegroom might not like the bride. So he was only allowed to lift her veil just before the wedding. By this time it was too late to refuse to marry her.

Brides often wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”. In earlier times, if the bride did’t do this, she felt she would be in danger from the evil spirits. Wearing “something old” represents the journey between being single and being married. “Something new” represents the change from being a child to being an adult. “Something borrowed” means if you borrow something from a happily married couple, it will bring you good luck. And “something blue” comes from a time when the edge of the bride’ s dress was blue which represented purity.

Like all big cities, Paris has a traffic problem: lots of cars, lots of traffic jams and lots of pollution from exhaust fumes (废气). So the city began a scheme (计划) to improve the situation.

Under the Velib scheme (‘Velib’ comes from vélo liberté, or ‘bicycle freedom’) people can take a bicycle, use it for as long as they want, and then leave it at the same or another bicycle station. The first half-hour on the bike is free, but if you don’t return it after 30 minutes, you have to pay. But it’s only −1 a day or −29 a year! The bicycles are heavy (25 kg), and they are all grey and have baskets. There are about 20,000 of them in the city, and around 1,450 bicycle stations. So there are a lot more Velib stations than the 298 subway stations!

Paris is not the first city to have a scheme like this. But not everybody thinks it’s a great idea. One Parisian said, “These bicycles are only for short journeys. If people want to travel across the city, they won’t use a bicycle — they’ll still use their cars.”

A city spokesman said, “The bicycle scheme won’t solve all our traffic problems, of course. But it might help reduce air pollution. Traffic, together with factory fumes, is a big problem. There aren’t any simple answers to traffic problems and pollution in cities. But unless we do something now, there will be more traffic jams and temperatures will continue to rise, so the problems in our environment will get worse. The bikes might help people to lead a healthier life, too.”

Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing thecompany closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle-named the Transiti– has two seats，four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and bums 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit（存款）to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don’t expect it to show up in too many driveways（汽车道）. It’s expected to cost $279,000.And it won’t help if you’re stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal（联邦的）safety standards.

Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those pilots of larger planes Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition（会飞的汽车）, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to

meet.

Sooner or later, most students are to take some form of English examinations. Often the more successful students are better prepared. However, sometimes students who do well have better test taking skills. These abilities really have nothing to do with understanding English better. They are skills that make taking the test easier, and therefore provide better results.

   Here are some very important—and often ignored—guidelines to taking a test successfully.

   Do not insist on completing each question before going to the next. This is extremely important. Remember one question may only be worth one point! You will become nervous when you fail to find out its answer, making you lose your concentration and leading to worse results. However, answering the questions you are sure you know results in your being more relaxed and feeling more confident.

   Go through the test a second time working out the answers to more difficult questions. Sometimes questions asked are answered in later questions asking for different things.

   Usually(but not always) a strong first impulse(冲动) means we know the answer and we don’t really have to think about it too much. Going back to think about it usually makes you unsure and often causes a mistake. This is very common, so be very careful!

If you don’t know the answer, write something. If you are answering a 4 possibility multiple choice question you will still have a 25% chance of being correct!

   Taking a test is as much for you as is for your teacher, so never cheat. If you cheat, you don’t help yourself in the long run.

The English test will be removed from China’s college entrance exam by 2020, according to the Ministry of Education.The national college entrance exam, known as the “Gaokao” has been used to evaluate Chinese students for three decades. The Ministry of Education has worked out a plan for reforming exams and enrollment. Tests will be held several times a year to allow students to choose when and how often they sit the exam so as to reduce study pressure and change China’s once-in-a-lifetime exam system.

The decision has aroused a heated discussion among Shanghai educators and parents who doubted the reform would reduce the burden of learning English or if the substitute test could reflect a student’s English skills and help students learn English better. Cai Jigang, a professor from Fudan University said, “The reform shows China is to give students more test-taking chances. But more chances might become more of a burden since Chinese students are likely to repeat the test until they get the highest score.”

“In my opinion, the reform doesn’t mean English is no longer important for Chinese students after it will be excluded from the unified college entrance exam,” said Yu Lizhong, chancellor of New York University Shanghai, “In a way, English is even more important than before since the test would only serve as reference, while every college and university, even every major, can have different requirements of a student’s English skills under a diverse evaluation system.”Yu said some students will have their study pressure reduced if the major they choose doesn’t need excellent English while others still need to study hard if they want to be among the best students.

The education ministry said the reform would not affect students attending the college entrance exam over the next three years. But parents with younger children are concerned. Zhang Hui, the mother of a fourth-grade girl at Pudong Zhuyuan Primary School, said English was her daughter’s strength, so canceling the English test would not favor her child.

1 学校上学、放学时间及开设的课程． 

2 学生的校内外活动． 

3 学校的环境及师生关系． 

注意：①词数100左右  ②可根据内容要点适当增加细节，以使行文连贯．

参考词汇：after-school activities课外活动；play sports做运动；kind and helpful和蔼乐于助人