You probably know that frogs hop ( 双足跳 ). But did you know that there's a small frog in the Pacific Northwest that bellyflops（肚子先着水）? It's called a tailed frog.

Dr.Rick Essner, who has been studying tailed frogs for the past few years, says, “ I've looked at thousands of jumps and have never seen them land on their feet like other frogs.” Most of the time, tailed frogs land on their stomachs and then bring their back legs in to prepare for another jump.

    Essner forst noticed these frogs because of the way they swim. Other frogs kick both of their back legs at the same time. But when a tailed frog swims, it pushes first with one leg and then the other.

    To try to find out why tailed frogs bellyflop, Essner and other scientists collected and filmed different kinds of frogs. They found that all of the frogs start their jumps the same way: they hold out their legs. The change comes in the landing. Tailed frogs can't move their back legs as quickly as other frogs do. Maybe they don't need to. Tailed frogs live around water and quickly jump into the water to escape danger.

    Early frogs developed around watery areas and could jump quickly into the water to escape danger. Scientists think those frogs blended in with (与…融合在一起) the green plants on the side of the rocky rivers, just like today's tailed frogs. “Ｉwould guess that other animals would have problems detecting them, ” explains Essner. When other animals find those early frogs, the frogs could jump into the river. They didn't need to continue hopping.

    Tailed frogs and other kinds of frogs went their own ways about 200 million years ago. Tailed frogs stayed by rivers. Other kinds of frogs moved to places where new hopping skills allowed them to survive.

When I was a young student, none of my friends listened to classical music. Few learned to play an1for more than a year or two. They were listening to the big bands. But dad2me to learn to play the piano and I studied for three years. And later, you know, I gave it up. But one day one thing changed me3

One Saturday, I went to a4birthday party of one of my classmates and there were quite a crowd of people of my5.And some of the kids were fooling around at the piano while the parents are6us a big meal. Then one of the girls7stopped talking, looked at me and said, "Robert, you took piano lessons.8,play something!"

"No, I'm not going to play the piano." I9that no one in that room would show10in the kind of music that I could play. But though I was11objecting, I was pushed by my friends toward the piano. I was "12" to sit down. And there I was face to face with eighty-eight black and white13

What to play? The only thing that came to my14was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. So, I began with the slow15.And after two measures I became aware that there was a16in the room. After the next two measures ,I felt people17toward me, and then the parents came out of the kitchen18.I played the whole first movement and when I was through, the applause and cheers were19to believe.

If I had known that this would have happened ,I never would have given up20playing the piano.

    A new study suggests household cats can respond to the sound of their own names. No surprise to most cat owners, right? But Japanese scientists said that they've provided the first experimental evidence that cats can distinguish between words we say. So your cats are kind of like dogs, whose communication with people has been studied a lot more, and who've been shown to recognize hundreds of words if they're highly trained.

    Atsuko Saito of Sophia University in Tokyo says there's no evidence cats actually attach meaning to our words, not even their own names. Instead, they've learned that when they hear their names they often get rewards like food or play, or something bad like a trip to the ve（t兽医）. And they hear their names a lot. So the sound of it becomes special, even if they don't really understand it refers to their identity.

    Saito and colleagues describe the results of their research in the journal Scientific Reports. In four experiments with 16 to 34 animals, each cat heard a recording of its owner's voice, or another person's voice, which slowly recited a list of four nouns or other cat's names, followed by the cat's own name. Many cats initially reacted— such as by moving their heads, ears or tails—but gradually lost interest as the words were read. The crucial (关键的) question was whether they'd respond more to their name. Sure enough, on average, these cats perked up when they heard their own name as if delicious food would be offered.

    Kristyn Vitale, who studies cat behavior at Oregon State University in Corvallis but didn't participate in the new work, said the results "make complete sense to me.' 'Vitale, who said she has trained cats to respond to verbal commands, agreed that the new results don't mean that cats actually make sense of their names. It's more like being trained to recognize a sound, she said.

    A group of graduates got together to visit their old university professor.

The conversation soon turned into complaints about 1 in work and life. To offer his2 coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and 3 with a large pot of coffee and a 4 of cups—porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain-looking, some expensive, some beautiful—telling them to 5 themselves to the coffee.

    When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said, “If you have 6all the nice-looking expensive cups have been taken up, 7 the plain and cheap ones. While it is 8 for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the 9 of your problems and stress.”

    “Be assured that the cup itself 10 no quality to the coffee. 11 it is just more expensive and in some cases 12 hides what we drink.”

    “13 all of you really want is coffee, not the cup, 14 you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began 15 each other's cups.”

    Now consider this: 16 is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and 17life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the 18 of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we 19 to enjoy the coffee. Value the coffee, not the cups! Don't let the cups 20 you...enjoy the coffee instead.

    For high school leavers starting out in the working world, it is very important to learn particular skills and practice how to behave in an interview or how to find an internship (实习). In some countries, schools have programs to help students onto the path to work. In the United States, however, such programs are still few and far between.

    Research shows that if high schools provide career-relat­ed courses, students are likely to get higher earnings in later years. The students are more likely to stay in school, graduate and go on to higher education.

    In Germany, students as young as 13 and 14 are expected to do internships. German companies work with schools to make sure that young people get the education they need for future employment.

    But in America, education reform programs focus on how well students do in exams instead of bringing them into contact with the working world. Harvard Education school professor Robert Schwartz has criticized education reformers for trying to place all graduates directly on the four-year college track. Schwartz argued that this approach leaves the country's most vulnerable (易受影响的)kids with no jobs and no skills.

    Schwartz believed that the best career programs encour­age kids to go for higher education while also teaching them valuable practical skills at high school. James Madison High School in New York, for example, encourages students to choose classes on career-based courses. The school then helps them gain on-the-job experience in those fields while they're still at high school.

    However, even for teens whose schools encourage them to connect with work, the job market is daunting. In the US，unemployment rates for 16-to 19-year-olds are above 20 percent for the third summer in a row.

"The risk is that if teenagers miss out on the summer job experience, they become part of this generation of teens who had trouble in landing a job," said Michael, a researcher in the US.

内容包括：

1）自我介绍；

2）申请理由；

3）随附个人简历(CV)；

注意：词数100左右；

Dear Madam or Sir,

Li Hua