Major Sports Leagues in the US
NFL
Formed in 1920, the National Football League has a religious following in the US and around the world. It's one of the most profitable leagues in the whole world. The NFL consists of 32 teams, which are sub-divided into NFC and AFC, which compete against each other every year to win the Super Bowl, the halftime show of which features major hit musicians.
NBA
Initially formed in 1946 as the BAA （Basketball Association of America）, it merged （合并） with National Basketball League in 1949 and changed its name to NBA. The National Basketball Association might not be the biggest sports league financially, but it has a larger international following than other leagues. The keyword "NBA" was among the most googled keywords in 2021, which indicates how popular it is in the world.
MLB
Baseball is considered to be the national pastime activity of the US and the Major League Baseball is its highest level in the country. The MLB might not be popular as NFL in other parts of the world, but international supporters still make a large portion of the total fanbase. Formed in 1903, the MLB is the oldest US sports league and now has 30 teams, which was a merger between the National League and the American League.
NHL
Founded in 1917, the National Hockey League is the second-oldest sports league in the US and Canada and consists of a total of 32 teams. Three of the best performing teams from each division make it to the playoffs plus two wild card teams. All teams compete to win the prestigious Stanley Cup. Most of NHL's revenue comes from TV and gate receipts with hockey-crazed Canadians being the primary market.
Henry Kissinger, one of the country's most important foreign policy thinkers for more than half a century, enjoyed a worldwide reputation.
As a secretary of state and national security adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger played the major behind-the-scenes role in building the architecture that enabled more manageable relations with the Soviet Union, China, and major Arab nations. At the same time, he was closely associated with some of the most disputed U. S. foreign policy moves in recent decades, by promoting intensive bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia and repeatedly turning a blind eye to human rights abuses by governments perceived to be supportive of U. S. interests.
In America, the young Kissinger worked in a factory during the day and went to school at night, until he was drafted into the U. S. Army. After getting out of the army, he attended Harvard, where his 300-page undergraduate thesis titled "The Meaning of History" brought him to the attention of Richard Nixon. Over the next few years, he directed one of the boldest periods of diplomacy in U. S. history to strengthen its negotiating position. In 1971, Kissinger arranged Nixon's historic visit to China.
Though he never worked directly under a U. S. president again after Ford left office, Kissinger's influence was long-lasting. U. S. superpower relations to this day still bear his imprint, and he remained a sought-after voice on international affairs to the end of his life.
"There were other great secretaries of state and a long list of impressive historians, but no one who combined the two pursuits as Kissinger did, "said Richard Haass, president emeritus （荣誉退休的） of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I remember walking down the street in Manhattan with him, and he would attract a crowd like a movie star, a rock star, "recalled David Rothkopf, who worked for a time as a managing director at Kissinger's consulting firm. "Everybody, regardless of what they thought of Henry, wanted to see Henry, wanted to be with Henry.
Since we were kids, we've been taught the difference between good and evil. But the world is not black and white anymore, even in the realm of movies. Here are reasons why we're so captured by those "bad guys".
Villains（反派主角） are realistic. Studies have proven that we are more likely to sympathize with characters who are similar to us. Good guys are often portrayed in movies as nearly perfect, and it's hard to relate to them. We all have our own imperfections and a dark side. So, villains are often more realistic than good guys are.
At the same time, modern antagonists aren't 100% evil. They're complex and troubled characters who have their own story. Everyone hates Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter movies because she's unreasonably ill-natured. There's no story and no logic behind her behavior. She's just self-serving. But many antagonists actually have their point which we see, and often even accept. We see what they're going through and what they're thinking, and we can't help but empathize with them.
We're curious about them. Every time we see a person acting bad or weird, we want to know why. And that makes us eager to know more about them, about their past, and about what they're even thinking. They're controversial, and we like to analyze these characters and their actions. They're not pure evil, and modern movies do a good job of emphasizing this. There's something that made them evil or something that won't let them be good. There's some internal conflict constantly going on within the character that we just find fascinating.
Villains are unpredictable. We never know what will happen to the villain. And that makes us care about them during the whole story. It's what gets us hooked on watching them through to the end. Also, you can't predict their actions. There are not many options aside from the right thing to do for the hero. But there're many absolutely crazy possibilities for the villain that we couldn't come up with even in our wildest dreams. And this makes us interested in watching them.
The U. S. is in the midst of a "loneliness epidemic". For a lot of people, the feeling is even more noticeable during the holidays. In addition to the emotional impact of chronic loneliness, it has some dramatic health consequences: increased risk of heart disease and stroke, infections, cancer, even death.
People may feel lonely when their social needs are not met by the people around them. Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, a social cognitive neuroscientist at Princeton University, says loneliness epidemic captures two distinct groups: first, people with a low number of social connections; second, people who feel they have poor quality existing relationships.
Elisa Baek, a social neuroscientist at the University of Southern California, co-authored a study that looked at whether lonely people view the world differently than non-lonely people, specifically among college freshmen. Baek found that while non-lonely people were all similar in their neural responses, lonely people had responses that were really different-not just from the non-lonely group, but also from each other. Baek says that these idiosyncrasies （特性） in how lonely participants process the world, "may pose challenges in how these people are able to achieve social connection and feel connected with others. "
To study these changes to the brain, Baek's team collected fMRI data-a measure of blood flow changes in the brain-while first-year college students watched short videos to measure how similarly participants' brains responded to the videos. The videos ranged from dramatic and comedic clips to instructional demonstrations in order to reproduce experiences participants might have in daily life. She says it's the closest they could get to study people's brain activity-and how they process the world-while they were going about their lives.
Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, who is not involved in the study, says the research accurately highlights how individual differences affect people in experiencing loneliness. "Trying to connect more deeply with one or two or three other people may be more important than to try to get to know everybody and being on good terms with everybody. It doesn't have to be someone who is like-minded. It's more like: How can we get on the same page with people who we might not start off on the same page with, but that might form deeper connections afterwards?" she adds.
A sense of humor is, simply put, the ability to be amused. Most people have it, and are able to laugh at jokes, humorous situations, and a variety of other potential sources of amusement. ___
___ The ability to laugh can drive away tension, for example, while an understanding of complex situations can help people to make good decisions. People with a well-developed sense of humor appear to be happier in psychological studies, and some are healthier as well, suggesting that it may just be good for you.
A number of factors influence someone's sense of humor. ___ Toddlers, for example, tend to be highly amused by pratfalls and slapstick, while teenagers may delight in irony. As people age and what they find funny develops and matures, they are also influenced by their educational level, the surrounding culture, and their religious faith. ___ Others, on the contrary, find them disrespectful and distasteful.
Many people believe that what a person finds funny is something that develops on its own, and that you cannot teach someone to understand why jokes, comments, situations, and events are funny. ___ Children, for example, benefit from play and demonstrations of humor, along with encouragements to laugh. While some children's jokes might seem rather silly to adults, encouraging children to tell jokes and to think about what makes things funny, can help them develop a sense of humor. Older people can also boost this ability by paying attention to ways in which humor manifests around them.
A. Age is a big issue.
B. Here are some tricks to develop sense of humor.
C. Humor appears to be a vital part of better survival.
D. Some people have a unique or odd sense of humor.
E. There are, however, things one can do to enhance it.
F. Generally, humor is considered to be crucial for human development.
G. Some Christian groups, for example, have a deep appreciation for Bible jokes.
One year before Christmas, my mother gave us a used model toy car. My sister didn't want it, so it was all mine. I immediately set down to wiping it clean and polishing it to a bright one, which turned to be a thing of 1 . I became overjoyed at possessing it. My elder sister was amazed at the newly polished, refreshing toy car, with a hint of 2 and envy in her eyes.
As planned, our big family had a reunion on Christmas to strengthen the family bond. I shared the 3 toy car with Alex, my young French cousin. Eyes 4 to it, he fell in love with it the instant he saw it. It was a rare moment to see him feeling so 5 and happy. He'd been unlucky so far in life, suffering severe, life-threatening illnesses as a child, leaving him mentally and physically stuck and the family 6 cash. Such lovely toys were 7 dreams for him.
Seeing Alex's consuming thrill brought by the red car, I was seized by immense joy as well. However, I was worried he would 8 it for himself. My mother also noticed Alex's fondness, asking me whether I would like to give it to Alex. I 9 with myself. Giving it? Hardly could I imagine life without the model car! My heart kept aching at the 10 of giving it away. I shook my head 11 . Glancing at my mother's expectant eyes, I couldn't help sobbing. Keeping it? Definitely, it would otherwise upset Alex. Torn between the two tough 12 , I was totally at a loss. Nevertheless, I could feel my affection to Alex. I resolved to do the 13 thing.
When parting, my model car went with Alex. Though sad to see it go, my heart 14 when I saw his smiling face. Seeing the thumbs-up from my mother and sister, I did swell with relief, pride and joy, for I knew it was not a gift. It was our 15 and love for him.
Statistics show that there are more than
1. 9 billion videos related to stove-boiled tea on a popular Chinese short video platform. Stove-boiled tea, a newly ___（emerge）social activity among young Chinese people, has been filling up social media feeds in recent weeks. Usually several friends sitting around a fire stove enjoy ___ smell of charcoal-grilled snacks and socialize while waiting for the tea ___ （boil）. In many ways, it is the perfect activity in the winter, ___ （warm）body and soul in the colder months.
___ it has recently regained popularity, cooking tea on a stove actually has a long history in China. Stove-boiled tea is derived from an intangible cultural heritage from southwest China's Yunnan province: huotang roasted tea and a kind of huotang culture thus ___ （form）around it.
The reason why stove-boiled tea is gaining such popularity, apart from its embodiment of traditional Chinese tea culture, is ___ (part）because of its portrayal in the costume television drama "A Dream of Splendor", which ___（broadcast）last summer. The activity also shows young people's pursuit of a sense of ritual, with their ___ （long）for traditional tea culture and aspirations returning to the pastoral（田园）. It also helps that tourism is gradually recovering. ___, stove-boiled tea acts as a social way of combining ancient and modern elements, attracting many young people who love both tourism and traditional tea culture.
注意：1. 写作词数应为80左右；2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；3. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Dear Mr. Watson,
Best regards,
Li Hua
One spring day, the wind was gentle and the sun was shining brightly. The sky was clear and blue, and the temperature was comfortable. It was a perfect day for a walk outside.
Our teacher Mr. White asked us all to go out of the classroom to enjoy the natural sights and sounds of the natural world. But before Ruby and I were ready to go out to play, Cathy signed to both of us to stop. We were the best sisters, playing together each time.
"Come over, ladies! Guess what I discovered in Mr. White's locker, with a mysterious smile on her face, Cathy rocked a chalk box with pieces of colorful chalk inside.
"Fabulous! How exciting it would be to write on the blackboard with it!" Ruby exclaimed with curiosity and expectation.
"But we can't do it without our Mr. White's permission, "I said timidly.
"Nobody will find it out. If you're a chicken, you can stand by and just watch. Anyway, Cathy and I would have a try, "said Ruby. She picked out a piece of pink chalk and started to draw a dress.
Not to make them believe I was a chicken, I unwillingly involved myself in the creation of art. Soon I lost myself in the picture drawing though I knew we were breaking the class rule: never touch the teachers' supplies. A moment later we drew a rainbow, a rabbit and a dinosaur respectively. Then we went on drawing many other objects with our imagination. It was real fun.
Suddenly, I noticed the clock above the blackboard. It pointed to 10: 28, only two minutes to the end of the interval. We must erase all on the blackboard before Mr. White came back. If we were caught, we would be punished by doing the cleaning for the class in the next three days.
In a hurry, I picked up an eraser and started destroying our art pieces. As the chalk was so sticky that it left a heavy sign on the blackboard. I had to rub it carefully.
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。
When the work was almost done, the bell announcing the beginning of class rang.
Mr. White never asked about the scratch, even never noticed it.