The mysterious world is where you can explore unknown and most interesting facts about living planet, universe and lifestyle of people. We tried our best to cover all possible information about a particular subject within the posts on our site online. Here are some top unmissable festivals in the world.
Rio Carnival, Brazil
It is a five-day festival which takes place forty days before Easter. Rio de Janeiro has earned its title as the Carnival capital of the world with its famous samba dancing, colorful eye-catching costumes and live music.
Holi Festival, India
Holi is a Hindu spring festival, also known as the "festival of colors". It is a sign of the victory of good over evil, the end of winter, and the arrival of spring. Starting with a night- time bonfire where people gather, sing and dance, Holi is celebrated the next day by people throwing colored powder and water at each other.
St. Patrick's Day, Ireland
Held on March 17 every year, it is a celebration to mark the death of Ireland's patron saint(守护神)Saint Patrick. Since 1996, an entire festival of parades, fireworks as well as food and drinks has surrounded the celebration. Enjoy traditional song and dance, watch musical street theater shows and get decorated in all green as you celebrate Irish heritage and culture.
Burning Man Festival, United States
As a week-long event at the end of August in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, it attracts tens of thousands of people from all over the world each year. Tickets to Burning Man are not cheap. But once you're there, you will surely have an unforgettable experience. The main event is burning a giant wooden statue on Saturday night, followed by a big dance party that lasts all night long.
We see a woman swimming at night in a dark sea. Suddenly, she is pulled underwater. She surfaces, cries in fear, then disappears forever. This is the opening scene from the 1975 film Jaws, showing a shark attack. It was a great success, attracting huge audiences and win- ning many awards. It also strengthened people's long-held idea of the great white shark.
People have always been scared of sharks, but Jaws made things worse. Many people who saw the film started to believe that sharks were dangerous animals that ate humans. Some started fishing for sharks, killing as many as they could. At that time, nobody cared if sharks were killed, or how many were killed.
After 1975, the number of large sharks fell quickly. This was not only due to fear of sharks, but also finning. Finning is a type of fishing where sharks are caught and their fins (鳍)cut off to be used in shark fin soup. Finning kills millions of sharks a year.
Finning would have an unexpected effect upon Peter Benchley, the man who wrote the book the film Jaws was based on. In 1980, Benchley came across an awful sight in an area where fishermen were finning, leaving the sea floor covered with dead sharks. Benchley saw sharks being killed and this caused a deep change in him. He came to see people as a danger to sharks, rather than the other way round. From that day on, he fought to protect sharks. He admitted that his book was wrong about sharks' behavior. "Sharks don't target humans, " he said.
Fortunately, not everyone who watched the film Jaws became afraid of sharks—some became interested in understanding them. Today, as we learn more about sharks, more people than ever want to protect them from extinction.
To stream or not to stream? That is a question facing both music listeners and musicians.
Taylor Swift made news recently by pulling her music off Spotify, the world's biggest streaming music service and turned to iTunes downloading and stores for sales. Back in July, Swift swept the pop music industry by selling almost 1. 3 million copies of her album, 1989 in its first week. In an article Swift wrote, "The music industry is not dying ... it's just coming alive. "
Her cheerful attitude surely comes from her own unique position. So far this year, Swift has made $64 million, according to Forbes. She'll make plenty more by bringing in about 70 cents for each dollar paid to download her music. It is much more than the royalty (版税)rate
paid out by Spotify of between $ 0. 006 and $ 0. 0084 per song stream.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America(RIAA), money from streaming on YouTube, Pandora and Spotify has helped bring in more money. But the small amount Spotify pays to musicians still caused many of them to withhold some or all of their music from the service, like artists from Beyoncé to The Beatles.
Yet for bands struggling to get by, struggling even to be heard, keeping their music off streaming services is not so easy. Such bands need to get their music out any way they can, and if they're going to make money, they need to make their music easily accessible to listeners.
To stream or not to stream is a difficult choice for fans, too. The streaming model puts ownership(所有权)of the music in the hands of the music industry. Rather than letting you own your collection, the music business is moving toward a model similar to on-demand cable TV. Every song written is available online whenever and wherever you'd like to hear, but the problem is that you, the user, need to pay over and over again each time you stream it.
Have your ever imagined a robot doing homework for you? This has become a reality due to the coming of ChatGPT. But teachers at UK universities have been asked to rethink about the way to assess (评价)their courses because students are already using a powerful new AI tool capable of producing high-quality essays (论文).
ChatGPT, the latest chat robot, has only been publicly available for weeks, but has al- ready caused concerns about the possibility of academic (学术的) dishonesty and questions about the acceptability of the essay as a future form of assessment. Working groups have been set up in university departments to meet this challenge.
Experts admit feeling both excited and alarmed. Dr Thomas Lancaster, a computer scien- tist working at Imperial College London, best known for his research into academic honesty, said ChatGPT was in many ways a game changer. He explains, "It's certainly a major turning point in education where universities have to make big changes. They have to adapt sooner rather than later. "
There are signs of Australian universities to have a return to greater use of in-person exams to try to protect the fairness of assessment. Lancaster said, however, a total return to exams was not the answer, suggesting instead the use of giving a formal talk to enable students to show their understanding of a subject.
Michael Webb, director of technology and analytics at Jisc, which provides network and IT services to higher education, agreed. He said, "The immediate reaction might be to avoid these tools in order to stop students cheating, but that's not advisable. We should not simply regard them as spelling or grammar checkers, but technology that can make everyone's life easier.
"We don't need to go back to in-person exams: This is a great opportunity for the schools to explore new assessment methods that measure learners on critical thinking, problem- solving and reasoning skills rather than essay-writing abilities. "
Apps play tricks on you to turn an activity into a habit. It's not necessarily a bad thing to encourage healthy behaviors such as exercising with the help of apps or playing word games. Here's how to recognize when your tech habit might be an unwelcome addiction, and
practical steps for you to take back control.
Do a cost-benefit analysis (分析).
It's hard to be mindful of why you start a habit or do what you do.A promise ofa reward for exercising more with an app could motivate you when you feel lazy. But if you're so motivated by the reward that you ignore signs your body needs a rest, then it might be an unhealthy habit.
Trick yourself.
Then a small device that cuts off your home internet connection at 10 o'clock every night can be of help. You could have pulled yourself out of bed to turn the Wi-Fi back on, but this extra effort may be enough to break unwanted bedtime scrolling (刷屏).
It can be helpful to plan in advance activities that might be a distraction. If your teen knows he's allowed one hour on YouTube at 7 p. m. , then he can relax without wasting time thinking about when he'll be able to have access to his favorite app.
Make it a joint effort.
If we just leave the job of controlling tech overuse to individuals or parents, that's crazy. Tech companies, schools, and governments all have a responsibility. A few schools lock up students' phones so they can't use them during the school day.
A. Make full use of a digital timer.
B. Schedule some time especially for your habit.
C. But even a good habit can cross the line into overuse.
D. However, we can reward ourselves with something we like.
E. Are you so addicted to your phone that it is ruining your sleep at night?
F. That's why you need consider whether a habit is benefiting or hurting you.
G. Governments can also limit the time young people spend playing video games.
Lucky Candy grocery store(杂货店)held a challenge game for its customers in the neigh-
borhood. The 1 is simple: answer a math question—say, what's 8×8+50?—and you'l get five seconds to take as much as you can from the store, all for 2 .
For Ahmed Alwan, 23, joy is as important as breakfast, but his regular customers sometimes 3 for both. So he came up with a clever way to 4 his customers'days. "I've grown up in the neighborhood, "he says. "I know most of them don't have much money, and sometimes they need 5 . "
Lucky Candy is located on a busy street in the Bronx, known as a food 6 , where people are badly in need of affordable, healthy food. Many residents depend on neighborhood shops for their daily 7 ,
When kids get an answer right, one of two things 8 happens. Some kids rushed for the candy and who could blame them. Others take things like rice and potatoes, clearly thinking of their 9 at home.
"The store is doing something 10 to many, "a customer told Inside Edition. "Many people here don't even have anything. A chance to get free stuff like this means a lot. "
Alwan 11 this challenge game with his own monthly pay. And his boss, also his father Aobad, doesn't 12 offering help, too. As an immigrant (移民), Aobad knows that in one of the 13 and most competitive places in the U. S. , a little help goes a(n) 14 way.
"This greatly changed our community, " says Alwan. "They're showing so much love and care—they're 15 at the store for a chance to play. No pushing or shouting. "
Each country in the world has its own traditional clothes, which show the (country) unique aesthetics (美学), philosophy and social values.
In China, the Hanfu, Zhongshan suit, Tang suit, and cheongsam (旗袍) are the four most distinctive types of traditional Chinese clothing, of which Hanfu is the (old).
Hanfu (date)back to the time of Emperor Huang Leizu made cloth with silk.
It was constantly improved throughout several dynasties.
Adopted and strongly (promote)by the ruling class, the Hanfu became the national clothing of the Han ethnic people in the Han Dynasty. Various ornaments (装饰品) (use)to decorate their Hanfu. The more decorations they had, the higher social status they had. Over the years, it has been changing (satisfy) people's needs in China.
It also had extremely far-reaching influence on neighboring—Asian countries, such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Nowadays, the Hanfu is seldom worn by people except special occasions, such as festivals and wedding (ceremony), or by young girls who want to show off or take photos.
It was a morning in late August. Down the shore(岸) line of a lake, my father was fishing by a bank of trees. He liked to fish, away from distractions and noise and other people.
He was also a wildlife officer, traveling all over the province to protect nature from humans.
But I was still new to fishing. "Dad, where should I stay?" He simply pressed his index finger to his lips, pointed to a shady spot by a large rock and shook his head gently. I knew he wanted me to be quiet.
The place where we were fishing was near a protected wetland. Songbirds, ducks and Canada geese flew by, touching down briefly on the water's surface before they flapped their wings and flew back into the sky. White clouds passed in front of the sun, blocking its war- ming rays from time to time.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a few big loons (潜鸟)gathered together near the shoreline. What were they doing there? Loons usually travel alone, but here were five. Maybe it was a family? One loon, wailing (哀号), swam away from the group, toward me.
"Dad? Come here!"
My dad turned a bit toward me but didn't move, until I urged him again.
"Look at that loon. It's swimming toward us, "I said, pointing toward that strange loon.
Just then, the loon let out a big laughing sound. It stopped in the water near shore, not ten feet away from us. It was so close that we could see its beady red eyes. Strangely, the bird's wings were held tight against its black-and-white body, its neck wrapped(缠绕)around by a thin line. Fishing line maybe? Was there a hook (钩子)on the line, too?
"It needs help. It's trying to get our attention!"With these words, my dad was ready to get into the water. "But. . . Look at its long beak (喙)! It could easily hurt us with it. "I didn't follow him.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
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"Go get the scissors from the tool box, "my dad was shouting.
"Take it easy! The bird won't hurt you!" encouraged Dad. |
