选择知识点

    There are many fun, free activities that you can do as a family. All that is required is a bit of imagination and some time set aside for fun. And the best part is that these are the kind of memories a child will remember for a lifetime.

Family game night

Find out any of the games that are already around the house. Kids often get computer games for Christmas or birthdays, and would love to have a chance to play with their family. Or, make up some games of your own. “Charades” is a fun game to play that will challenge a child to use his/her imagination. Divide the family into teams and let each team come up with words that the other has to act out.

Family art time

       Pick some time for the family to sit down and come up with their own masterpiece. It doesn’t need to be just a drawing—take some old magazines sitting around the house, let the kids cut out pictures and paste them into their own books. Or, use items from nature. Let them use leaves, pine cones, twigs and whatever else they can find to create something from their imaginations.

Family Picnic

       Taking the family for a picnic is a great way for some fun that doesn’t cost any money. If the weather is nice, take them to a park or playground and let the kids have a day of playing. Or, if it is the middle of winter and a foot of snow is on the ground, set up a picnic in the living room.

Family Field Trip

       A family field trip doesn’t have to cost a lot. Ask a nearby farm if it would be alright to bring your kids out for a tour and to see some of the animals. Or take them to a park and make a hunt where they need to find certain items from nature. Ask a local business if you could bring the family for a tour to see how things work—you might be surprised at the number of people who would be excited to share what they do with others, and it could be an interesting lesson for the kids.

I ______ like to work at noon, so that I can finish my work sooner and go home earlier.

A

       If you wish to become a better reader, here are four important points to remember about rate, or speed, of reading:

1 Knowing why you are reading—what you are reading to find out—will often help you to know whether to read rapidly or slowly.

2 Some things should be read slowly throughout. Examples are directions for making or doing something, arithmetic problems, science and history books, which are full of important information. You must read such things slowly to remember each important step and understand each important idea.

3 Some things should be read rapidly throughout. Examples are simple stories meant for enjoyment, news, and letters from friends, items, or bits of news from local, or hometown, paper, telling what is happening to friends and neighbors.

4 In some of your readings, you must change your speed from fast to slow to fast, as you go along. You need to read certain pages rapidly and then slow down and do more careful readings when you come to important ideas which must be remembered.

C

Have you ever seen Jurassic park？ In this film, scientists use DNA kept for tens of millions of years to clone dinosaurs. They find trouble, however, when they realize that the cloned creatures are smarter and more dangerous than expected. That’s nothing more than a fiction.

But could we really clone endangered animals?

To date, the most successful attempt to do so was the cloning of a gaur (野牛), a rare ox-like animal from southeast Asia. Scientists used a cow to bring the cloned baby gaur, named Noah. Two days after birth, however, Noah died from a common bacterial infection. Other endangered species that may be cloned include the African bongo antelope, the Sumatran tiger, the cheetah (猎豹), and the giant panda.

Next, could we really clone extinct animals?

In theory? Yes. To do this, you need a well-kept source of DNA from extinct animals such as wool mammoth (毛象), Tasmanian tiger, or even dinosaur, and a closely related species, still living, which could serve as a surrogate mother.

In reality? Probably not. On the one hand, it’s not likely that extinct animals’ DNA could survive undamaged for such a long time. Cloning extinct animals as wool mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, or dinosaur is much more difficult due to the lack of properly well-preserved DNA. On the other hand, for example, a gaur can have a cow as a surrogate mother, definitely not a monkey. But what about an extinct animal as unique as the panda? What species could possibly serve as a surrogate mother?

Cloning presents many exciting possibilities. However, even if extinct animals are brought back, they could not survive in today’s world. Not only do most extinct animals have no habitat to live in, but the other plants and animals they depended on for food may be gone as well.