选择知识点

When Joan gave birth to the first boy in her family in three generations, she and her husband were overjoyed. So were her parents. Joan expected her elder sister, Sally, to be just as delighted as them. Joan had always admired Sally--the beauty and the star of the family--and felt happy about her achievements.

But since the babyˈs arrival, the sisters have become distant. Joan feels hurt for Sally seems completely uninterested in her baby. Sally, who has no children, claims that her younger sister "acts as if no one ever had a baby before."

Neither Sally nor Joan understands that the real cause of the current coldness is that their family roles have suddenly changed to the opposite. Finally Joan seems to be better than her elder sister--and Sally doesnˈt like it! Their distance may be temporary, but it shows that childhood competition donˈt fade easily as ages grow. It can remain powerful in relationships throughout life.

In a study of the University of Cincinnati, 65 men and women between ages 25 and 93 were asked how they felt about their brothers and sisters. Nearly 75 percent admitted having hidden competitive feelings. In a few cases, these emotions were so strong as to have affected their entire lives.

Many adult brothers and sisters are close, supportive--yet still tend to compete. Two brothers I know turn into killers when on opposite sides of a tennis net. Off the court, they are the best of friends. My own younger sister canˈt wait to tell me when Iˈve put on weight. However, sheˈs a terrible cook and that pleases me; I tease her when she comes to dinner. Happily, despite these small failings, we have been an important resource for each other.

In between the very competitive and the generally supportive children lie those who say that no friendship should survive. Some brothers and sisters stay at armˈs length, hut never give up competition completely. Why do these puzzling, unproductive, often painful relationships continue to exist?

Of all the things that will make life entirely happy, the greatest is the possession of friendship. One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives. Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.

On the first Sunday in August, it’s time to recognize your friends and their contribution to your life. The first Sunday in August was fixed as National Friendship Day by the U.S. Congress in 1935, and remains a tradition in many countries and cultures. In 1997, the United Nations named Winnie the Pooh as the world’s Ambassador of Friendship.

Obviously, there are several friendship holidays, all of which fall on fixed dates.

National Friendship Day is on the first Sunday in August

Women’s Friendship Day is on the third Sunday in September

International Friendship Month is February

Old Friends, New Friends Week is the third week of May

People show their appreciation for friendship in various ways. Some expressions may be practical ones, such as flowers, particularly the pink friendship roses, cookies, chocolates, souvenirs from their vacations, a tape of favorite songs, farewell dinners, and welcome balloons.

Recipe for Friendship  2 cups of patience, 1 heart full of love, 2 handfuls of generosity, 2 cups of loyalty, 1 cup of understanding, with some laughter. Mix them all well. Spray (喷洒) generously over a lifetime and serve everyone you meet.

Friendship helps to bring peace and positive things to the globe, another great reason to celebrate! Although our friends certainly deserve thanks on more than just one day of the year, what better day to honor them than Friendship Day!!

A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two - headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar (奇怪的, 异常的) that I do not know how to argue with them. If their cases were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.

No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.

Most of the time, people wear hats to protect themselves from harsh weather conditions. Hats are also worn to show politeness and as signs of social position. But nowadays, hats, especially women's hats, are much more than that. More exactly, hats have changed into fashion and style symbols by many movie stars. What's more, people now consider many different features(特点) when choosing even a simple hat. Many designers point out that, when choosing the right hat, it's important to consider the color of your skin as well as your hair, your height, and the shape of your face.

First of all, the color of the hat should match the color of your skin and hair. For instance, black hats should be avoided if you are dark skinned. If a purple hat is placed on top of red hair, one will look as attractive as a summer flower. Second, the height of the hat is also an important point. Tall women should not go for hats with tall crowns, just as short women should choose hats with upturned brims to give the look of height. Third, and most importantly, the shape of the face decides the kind of hat one should pick. A small, gentle hat that fits the head looks good on a small face. However, women with big, round faces should choose a different style.

As the saying goes, "Fine feathers make fine birds." A good hat can not only help your dress but also support your features, so why not choose the best possible one next time you want to be in public?

English songs have been very popular for people around the world for many decades. Songs from Elvis Presley to Ricky Martin, from the Beatles to Eminem and from Natalie Cole to Britney Spears have all been enjoyed by people around the world, even for people who don’t speak English, and even for people who speak zero English.

From my experience, some people listen to English songs for 20-30 years but still don’t achieve any good English skills. Some people choose English songs to be their main learning method, but most of them fail.

Listening to English songs does not help you to speak English fluently. It does help you gain some vocabulary, but most of these words are unusual ones that you don’t use in everyday life. You won’t learn the sentence “It is a difficult project. We really need to meet the deadline.” in any English songs. All you will hear are love, passion, affection, hate and blue, for the feeling, not the color.

People like using English songs to practice English skills because it’s easy and enjoyable. They think that sitting in the car listening to English songs day after day will improve their English skills. It actually will not.

You will definitely not improve your listening skills because normal people don’t speak with a tune. People don’t talk like Eminem’s songs. You can’t get yourself familiar with English pronunciation or accent just from listening to English songs. The words that they pronounce in the songs are not the words that you will hear in your everyday life. They can even confuse you more about how English is pronounced.

I would fully encourage you to watch English movies and listen to radio news or other normal talks, but not music. Of course, you can consume it for fun but not with the aim of improving your English skills. Having good English skills is not that easy. Remember you should work hard to improve your English step by step.

When NASA astronaut Scott Kelly completes his yearlong mission on the International Space Station next year, he’ll come back just a little bit younger than his twin, Mark, than he was before. This is because time travels more slowly in space, a phenomenon first described by Albert Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity.

This December, universities and academies around the world are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the theory’s publication.

Even 60 years after his death, Einstein is still the most important scientist of the modern era. Looking back as far as 2,400 years ago, only Newton, Galileo and Aristotle were his equals.

Born in the era of horse-drawn carriages, his ideas started a technological revolution that brought about more change in one century than in the 2,000 years before.

In 1905, Einstein published four important scientific papers. These completely changed people’s ideas about space, time, light and matter. In one of these papers Einstein. introduced his theory of special relativity. Two groundbreaking parts of the theory were about the relationship between mass and energy and the speed of light. Einstein was able to show that mass and energy were connected through the formula E＝MC². The theory also says that no object can travel faster than the speed of light.

About 10 years later came his theory of general relativity, the theory that modern physics is really based on. In Einstein’s mathematics, space has three dimensions, and the fourth dimension is time. Space and time are part of one continuum, called space-time. The presence of mass changes space-time, which explains where gravity comes from.

Computers, satellites, telecommunication, lasers, television and nuclear power, many of the biggest developments in the modern world, can be linked to Einstein’s work.

“We are a different people than we were a century ago,” said astrophysicist Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural. History, “completely different, because of Einstein.”

However, there’s more to him beyond the image of a science mastermind. Einstein, as a person, has also become a grandfatherly icon in our culture.

He liked playing Mozart on his Violin and keeping fit by hiking and walking. Power was not his goal. In 1952, the young nation of Israel asked Einstein to be its president, but he refused.

And, yes, he was eccentric. With hair like that, how could he not be?

The influence of America is increasing in my country. Spanish people drink Coca Cola, wear blue jeans, watch Hollywood movies, listen to American music, and eat fast food, and they do these things every day.

I think that American movies are a good way to spread American culture because people are often influenced by what they see in the movies. Most of the programs and documentaries (纪录片) we watch on TV are from America, and most of the movies we go to see are made in Hollywood. In the last few years, the government has tried to protect the Spanish movies. Now, in our cinemas, at least twenty percent of the movies which are shown must be from Spain or from other countries in Europe.

American culture is a part of Spanish life now. It’s certain that many things from America are as much a part of people’s lives as Spanish things. For example, Coca Cola is as familiar to everybody as any typical Spanish product. I’ve known about Coca Cola for my whole life.

However, it’s different with Western fast food. For example, I don’t think McDonald’s is as successful in Spain as it is in other countries. In my opinion, one of the reasons may be the lifestyle of the Spanish people. The Spanish people normally eat at home. On the other hand, maybe McDonald’s hamburgers will eventually replace the famous Spanish tapas. It’s true that in every city in Spain you can find a McDonald’s, and it is more popular among the Spanish children than among the adults. In any case, it’s obvious that American culture is becoming more and more a part of our lives every day.

Everyone needs friends. We all like to feel close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh and do things with. Surely, there are times when we need to be alone. We don't always want people around. But we would feel lonely if we never had a friend.

No two people are the same. Sometimes friends don't get along well, which doesn't mean that they no longer like each other. Most of the time they will go on being friends. Sometimes friends move away, then we feel very sad. We miss them much, but we can call them and write to them. Maybe we would never see them again, and we can make new friends. It is surprising to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them. Families sometimes name their children after a close friend. Many places are named after men and women, if they are friendly to people in a town. Some libraries are named this way. So are some schools. We think of these people when we go to these places.

There's more good news for people, if they have friends. These people live longer than those people if those don't have friends. Why? It could be that they are happier. Being happy helps you stay well. Or it could be just knowing that someone cares, if someone cares about you, you take better care of yourself.

Too much TV-watching can harm children’s ability to learn and even reduce their chances of getting a college degree, new studies suggest in the latest effort to examine the effects of television on children.

One of the studies looked at nearly 400 northern California third-graders. Those with TVs in their bedrooms scored about eight points lower on math and language arts tests than children without bedroom TVs.

A second study, looking at nearly 1000 grown-ups in New Zealand, found lower education levels among 26-years–old who had watched lots of TV during childhood. But the results don’t prove that TV is the cause and don't rule out(排除)that already poorly motivated youngsters (年轻人）may watch lots of TV.

Their study measured the TV habits of 26-years-old between ages 5 and 15. These with college degrees had watched an average of less than two hours of TV per weeknight during childhood, compared with an average of more than 2 hours for those who had no education beyond high school.

In the California study,children with TVs in their rooms but no computer at home scored the lowest while those with no bedroom TV but who had home computers scored the highest.

While this study does not prove that bedroom TV sets caused the lower scores, it adds to accumulating（积累） findings that children shouldn't have TVs in their bedrooms

When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasnˈt a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to hear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

He listened to me quietly, then he asked.“Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didnˈt you ever wonder what youˈre really like? Well, you now have that girlˈs opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldnˈt change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I go to fairly clear picture of myself.

I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it.“Thatˈs just for you，” he said.“You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something said about you is true, youˈll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Donˈt shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”Daddyˈs advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, Iˈve never had a better piece of advice.