Customs play a significant role in festivals,sometimes they can change over time. With the development of modern society and the spread of new ideas, some traditions may fade away and others may be established. One example is the typical Chinese Spring Festival custom of (light) firecrackers to drive away the evil spirits and celebrate the new year. Nowadays, many big cities (give) up this custom in order to avoid air pollution. Another example is Halloween,slowly became an exciting festival for children, in spite of its religious origins.

    Though Lin Qiaozhi never married, she  (know) as the ''mother of ten thousand babies'', having delivered over 50, 000 babies in her lifetime. Dr Lin did not retire the day she died, 22 April 1983. Since she had no children of her own, she left her savings to a kindergarten and a fund for new doctors. And even as she lay  (die), her final thoughts were for others; ''I'm ready to go,'' she said. ''Don't try to rescue me any more. Don't waste the medicine any more. ''

    In the afternoon, I headed to a local museum  showed the historical changes in California. I  (learn) that America got California from Mexico in 1848. In the same year, gold was discovered near San Francisco, which started a gold rush. Over 300,000 people came from all over the world  (seek) their fortune, and San Francisco quickly became a big city.

    A couple of weeks ago, when some friends and I took a trip to Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, I immediately 1 it. Since we are all living in North Germany which is not very 2, it only took us a few hours on the train 3 we were at the heart of this 4 city. The minute we stepped off the 5, we were surrounded by 6 architecture and weaving canals.

    We stayed at a youth hostel (旅社),which was a typical tall Dutch house with lots of stairs. I 7 staying in youth hostel; it is such a great 8 to meet people from all over the world and 9 your different experiences and 10 We stayed in a room with an Argentinian, who we befriended right away, and we spent a lot of 11 together.

    During our stay, we made sure to make the most of what Amsterdam has to 12 We took a boat trip through the 13, which gave us some great 14 of the fantastic architecture and canals. We also made sure to go to the Van Gogh Museum, which is one of the city's most famous tourist attractions, and consists of a 15 collection of his work, along with details of his 16 and the work of other artists that knew him. One of my favourite parts of the trip, though it was rather 17, was our visit to the Anne F rank Museum. She was a Jewish girl who hid with her family for 2 years before the Nazis 18 them and sent them to the death camps. It was a very 19 experience, and certainly worth seeing.

    Overall, I think Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities that I have ever been to, and I would love to 20someday!

    Working on a farm and taking care of crops can be hot, time-consuming and difficult. Engineers have long wanted to build robots to lighten the load. But it has proved a difficult task. Robots that walk or roll along the ground can step on the easily damaged plants heavily. And they have to stop working when rain turns fields muddy. "Tarzan", however, could deal with some of those challenges.

    Jonathan Rogers is a robotics expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. When it comes to a farm environment, he realized robots would face many problems. "Many robots tend to get twisted(弯曲的) together or get stuck," he says. What's more, he notes, "It's very hard to leave them out for long periods without a human helping them."

    What if the robot could move above the crops? Jonathan Rogers says, "The sloths(树懒)move from tree branch to tree branch to avoid having to walk around the forest floor. "Then his team set out to design a robot that could swing hand to hand along wires hung above the field. He named their invention Tarzan after the jungle-swinging character in a movie.

    Tarzan is not the first swinging robot. Mark Spong, a robotics researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas notes that some teams have built robots that do gymnastics or copy mammals. But he says he admires Tarzan for its using swinging movement to save energy and the idea of building a wire structure to move around above crops.

    Rogers first predicted that Tarzan could help farmers monitor crops with sensors (传感器) and cameras. But he also said future robots might take water to a particularly thirsty plant or fertilize one that needs nutritional support. And adding a third "hand" could allow such a robot to harvest fruits and vegetables. Finally the robot could move off the farm and into the city, helping deal with the traffic and security.

Moonlight Rainbow Fountain

Location: South Korea

    The Moonlight Rainbow Fountain is the world's longest bridge fountain. In order to be eco-friendly, it repeatedly gets water from the Han River below. When water comes out with music, 10, 000 LED lights switch on, and a rainbow effect appears.

The Giant

Location: Austria

    The Giant is designed by Austrian artist Andre Heller. It has a huge face with bright eyes and a watering mouth. The outside is covered with green grass. Its inside has a wonderful structure (结构).

Metalmorphosis

Location: USA

    It is a fountain, a sculpture and also a performing work of art. The high- tech artistic work attracts people from all over the world. The fountain is made of more than 20 stainless steel plates (不锈钢板). They can form a huge head when turned to a certain angle. Whenever the head appears, it shoots water.

Nacka Fountain

Location: Sweden

    Nacka Fountain is designed as a peace monument (纪念碑) for the founding of the United Nations. The main structure of Nacka Fountain is made of bronze. There are two sculptures on it. The fountain shoots water into the sea.

71 Fountain

Location: USA

    The great fountain is on Highway 71 in Ohio. It looks like a huge wheel surrounded by a green environment. The major part is a huge ring.

    Unless you are fortunate enough to know an NBA player, Ryan Martin is probably the best basketball player you'll ever meet. Unlike those who fly up and down the court (球场),however, Martin is forced to take a different approach; he doesn't have legs.

    Martin, a 33-year old man, is a professional wheelchair basketball player. His achievements have taken him halfway around the world to play in Spain for the last seven years. There he made a comfortable living playing basketball and working with some of the greatest athletes in the world.

    "A good wheelchair player can make $ 50,000 a year, while a star can make six figures," said Martin. What's more, he couldn't see his family for months and European cities were unfriendly to the disabled. He also had to learn Spanish. Martin, however, overcame those drawbacks (困难).

    He started by playing basketball when he was 12. It didn't take long for him to fall in love with the sport and, after graduating from Somers High, he attended Southwest Minnesota State University on a basketball scholarship. In college, he scored over 1,000 points in his career and set several school records.

    And he works as hard—if not harder—than any other professional athlete. "He destroys me," said Gina Navarra, who works out with Martin on occasion. "What he does amazes me."

    Martin also recognizes that, at age 33, he's in the back end of his career. With that in mind, he has been focusing more and more on his foundation.

    "I have 12 brothers and sisters. College gave me a true sense of achievement. The foundation is designed to give those with disabilities the opportunity to realize the dreams that I once had," Martin said.

    "I'm not saying that out of a sense of pity," he said. "I realize how fortunate I am to have achieved what I have. But I want to open doors for people."

    Most scientists are now certain that global warming is taking place. Gases such as carbon dioxide are creating a warm blanket around the earth. This blanket is trapping heat in the atmosphere, and so raising the temperature of the earth.

    In Europe, eight of the last ten years have seen record high temperatures. On the other hand, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea are receiving even less rain than before. In Sub- Saharan Africa the crops are drying out in the fields and people are dying of starvation. In 1999, the southern United States was struck by a serious of destructive (毁灭性的) hurricanes. Scientists expect such trends to continue, and to worsen, if global warming cannot be stopped.

    In addition to worrying about rising global temperatures and extreme weather conditions, scientists are closely monitoring sea levels around the world. They are slowly rising, as the northern and southern polar ice caps start to melt. This will have serious consequences for low-lying countries near the sea. Already parts of these places are disappearing under the rising sea water.

    According to a new research, one contradictory feature (特征) of global warming is that it will probably lead to a period of much colder weather. Scientists base their theory on what happened the last time the world warmed up, 8,300 years ago. They have discovered that when the ice melted from the northern polar ice cap it became trapped in a lake in northern Canada. As more ice melted, this lake suddenly burst open, pouring millions of tons of freezing fresh water into the North Atlantic. This flood of water prevented the normal flow of water in the Atlantic, which takes warm water from the tropics(热带地区) north to Europe. When this flow of warm water was cut off, temperatures in Europe dropped by between three and eight degrees over the next 200 years. ''That's the concern here,'' says Richard Alley, an American climate expert. ''The climate hasn't varied much in 8, 000 years. But big changes could come back!''

    Let's look back at all these years gone by. What have you done in your life? Are you spending your time wisely to make your life worthwhile? Neal Wu shared some of the things we should do to make our short time meaningful.：

Make more friends than professional contacts (社会关系).

    Your friends will take you a lot further than the professional contacts you make. .

Become an expert by learning as much as you can.

    Seek out the things you are curious about, find the things you enjoy and practice the skills you want to develop. . If you can achieve expertise (专长) in one or more, it will be easy to obtain (获得) an audience.

Volunteer to help out those less fortunate.

    In the process you will gain many new points of view and will better understand other people's real problems. In a society that always looks upward, these people are easily forgotten, so they need our assistance.

    .

    Even if you work in a big company, you should constantly take small steps to reduce your dependence on your job. Write a book, build an app, or start a small business on the side. Release your inner entrepreneur (企业家).

Stop treating life as a competition and do things for their own sake (缘故).

    . It is not only a desire to beat others. Find a community of people who are interested in the same things as you do and drive each other to keep improving.

A. Here's what you need to do

B. Become as independent as possible

C. Soon you'll be doing them all the time

D. Start your own business and change jobs

E. It is important to make friends with your workmates

F. True interest should be what drives you to improve yourself

G. Making good friends contributes to your personal happiness as well

注意：词数不少于50。

An Unforgettable Trip