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假定你是李华，你的英国朋友Chris正在开展与“友谊”相关的主题调研。他想了解你的交友情况，请你用英语给他回复一封邮件，谈谈你有怎样的朋友并说明你是如何与他们相处的。

How is everything going? I’m glad to share something about my thinking on friends.

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Looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours,

Li Hua

Bike-sharing is a good choice for short journeys. It allows people to borrow a bike from one place and return it at another place easily. With a large number of people choosing bike-riding instead of driving, especially in some big cities, bike-sharing has been popular all over China. In December 2016, Shanghai became the world’s largest bike-sharing city according to a survey done by Centre for Urban Development.

It’s very convenient to use shared bikes if you have a smart phone. First, you should download such an APP. Then you can find a nearest bike through the APP and scan the QR code. Then the bike can be unlocked (解锁) itself. After riding, you can lock it and pay the fee.

Bike-sharing is a green way of transportation and provides a user-friendly experience. An engineer of a company says that since the start of shared bikes, people have made fewer trips by car. “The love for shared bikes is not only among young people but also among people over sixty. I can easily find one and never worry about where to park it,” said Chen Hong, who is an office worker in Beijing. So it is very convenient and helps people save a lot of time when they are in a hurry.

However, bike-sharing also brings many different kinds of problems. Some people don’t park the bikes in the bike parking lots, which makes it difficult for people to walk. And some may even try to steal or damage (损害) the bikes. What’s more, even some children under 12 can unlock and ride the bicycle. There is no doubt that it’s very dangerous.

Technology and science have changed our lifestyles. We have to say bike-sharing brings us a lot of convenience, and we also hope that people can not only enjoy it but also put it to good use.

China is widely known for its ancient civilisation (文明) which has continued all the way through into modern times, in the fact of many ups and downs in its history. There are many reasons, why this has been possible, but one of the main factors has been the Chinese writing system.

At the beginning, written Chinese was a picture based language. It dates back several thousand years to the use of longgu-animal bones and shells on which marks were cared (雕刻) by ancient Chinese people. In ancient China, characters began as simple drawings of natural objects—trees, rivers, mountains and hill, horses and oxen, human beings themselves, etc. The earliest character-like drawings are “pictographic” in quality. Compared with other scripts (字体) in the world, Chinese characters appeared much earlier with the first evidence of the characters around 5, 000 or more years old. More than 50 kinds of carved marks appeared around the Banpo Site and other nearby places. They were shaped and ordered in a certain rule and they have the same characteristics as today’s simple characters—scientists judge them to be the original Chinese characters.

By the Shang Dynasty (around 1600—1046 BCE), these marks had become a well-developed writing system. Over the years, the systems developed into different forms, as it was a time when people were divided geographically, leading to many kinds of dialects (方言) and characters. This, however, changed under Emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty (221—207 BCE).

Emperor Qin Shi Huang united the six major states into one country where the Chinese writing system began to develop in one direction. That writing method was of great importance in uniting the Chinese people and culture.

Written Chinese has also become an important means by which China’s present is connected with its past. People in modern times can read the classic works which were written by Chinese in ancient times. Chinese character, therefore, is a bridge between the present and the past.

Today, the Chinese writing system is still an important part of Chinese culture. As China plays a greater role in the world, an increasing number of international students are beginning to show their love to China’s culture and history through this amazing language.

Memory professor Jemima Gryaznov answers some of the mast common questions about memory.

Why can I remember events in my childhood but not what happened last week? We remember things that have strong connections (联系) in our mind, especially emotional (情绪的) connections. Childhood memories are often very emotional. This is because when we experience things for the first time we often have strong feelings of fear or excitement. Also, interesting or funny stories from our childhood are often told again and again. As a result, we remember them much better, as retelling events helps fix experiences in our memories. So when remembering something new, try to connect it to our emotions. Also we can try to retell what we have learnt to a few others.

Do some people really have a photographic memory?

A person with a photographic memory could remember every detail of a picture, a book or an event many years later, but no one has proved that there are people who really have photographic memories. Yet, there are some people who do have amazing memories. For example, Daniel Tammet can remember the first 22,514 digits of pi (π) and Stephen Wiltshire can draw a detailed picture of a city from memory after flying over it in an airplane. They are both good at remembering things for a limited time. As most of us do not have amazing memories like them, an effective technique (技巧) to remember things is to group similar ideas or information together so that they can be easily connected to things that are already known.

Why do I forget the new words that I learnt yesterday?

Don’t worry. This is natural for many people. In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published a book called Memory and presented a famous forgetting curve. According to him, the quick loss of memory happens during the very early period after learning. This means timely review during this period, with a few revisits to what is learnt, can help us to remember the information better. Therefore, one of the golden rules to increase how much we remember is to review the material periodically, especially during the first day after learning.

Peter and Mona were cousins. Both of them loved finding their lost things and used to search like a detective. They enjoyed using telescopes and their magnifying glasses. They also had a cute and naughty dog named Jumbo. They often played a ball with their dog.

One day, the ball was missing from its place. They started searching for the ball and felt interested. But later, they found many things went missing and it became a mystery. So, the kids decided to search for the missing things.

They hung their telescopes on the shoulder and started their search with the magnifying glasses in hand.

Peter and Mons checked the place very closely from where the ball was missing. They found a small hair of brown colour after checking. This evidence was helpful for them to find their lost ball and other missing things in the house.

They both started thinking about that hair and listed everyone who had brown hair in this house including their dog. Their doubt was on Jumbo because none of the family members would do that. To find out that, they keep an eye on the activity of Jumbo. One day, they saw Jumbo digging (挖) a hole behind a tree. They watched quietly and kept watching till Jumbo left. When Jumbo left, Peter and Mona went to see the place well. They dug the hole and were surprised to see all the lost items of the house, including their ball.

Peter and Mona took all those things and showed them to their parents. They told them that the thief was their naughty Jumbo who hid the things. They put their magnifying glasses and telescopes back in their box. Again, Peter and Mona started playing the ball with naughty Jumbo happily. Both the kids felt proud and called themselves “Little Detectives”.

George grew up in an environment where winning was the most valuable thing, and he expected to succeed, too. George was good at running and he called everyone from the nearby _______ for a race. A large group of people came to see this exciting event. When the race started, George ran among the boys from around the villages. Finally, he won the race. The crowd (人群) went wild with joy and cheer. George _______ this moment. It made him proud and satisfied.

But among the crowd was an old man who did not seem as _______ as other people. He shouted from the crowd, “There is one more race left, the most important one.” George was _______, but he was confident he could win any race.

The old man brought two new competitors for the boy, a blind man and a weak old lady. “I can easily win them,” said George _______. When he crossed the finish line, the blind man was still at the start, and the old lady had just started to move. He raised his hands in great excitement after his winning, but he _______ that the crowd wasn’t cheering, instead, they were very quiet. He was unclear about it. At the same time, the old man said, “Let’s start the race again, but all three of you should finish together this time.”

George raced again, he guided the blind man and supported the old lady. Finally, all three crossed the finish line together. The crowd cheered more loudly. The boy was full of _______.

“Who was the crowd cheering for?” he asked the old man. “Boy, you have won much more than the first prize in this race, and the crowd is not cheering for any winners,” the old man replied.

What are you running for in your life? Do you strongly _______ success? Actually, life is not all about winning for ourselves. It is about growing together and helping others who are less lucky than us.