13．Too Proud to Ride
　　"Do you want to come riding with us in the park this Saturday?" Eric asked. He and Dave were great at riding bikes.
　　"Of course!" Pete replied. Pete smiled at his friends Eric and Dave, but another thought crossed his mind. He didn't even know how to ride, but how could he tell his friends that?
　　When he went home that night, he got out his bike. His parents had bought it for his birthday. When he'd first gotten it, he'd been excited and had tried to (1)      . After a day or two and a scraped knee, he'd given up. His mother smiled now to see him trying again, but he just gave her an angry look. It was embarrassing not to be able to ride a bike!
　　So Pete (2)       his bike across the street to the parking lot and tried to ride again. After half an hour of trying, he still couldn't ride, and his legs hurt. He didn't know what he was going to do.
　　"It'll be all right, dear. You'll get it. Just keep trying." His mother said. But it just made Pete (3)      . He felt helpless. Even babies could ride bikes, right?
　　The next day at school, Eric and Dave sat with him at lunch. "Are you ready for the big bike trip on Saturday?" Dave asked.
　　"Oh, that." Pete said (4)      . He had his lunch and didn't want to say anything. It was hard to swallow(吞咽) his food, let alone his (5)      . How could he say that he couldn't ride a bike?
　　"What's wrong?" Erica asked. "Are you busy this Saturday?"
　　"No, it's just... " Here it goes, Pete thought, "They are going to laugh at me if I tell them."
　　"You can't ride a bike." Dave said.
　　Pete opened his mouth. He almost (6)       and said he could, but he didn't want to do like that. "No, I can't."
　　"We know already." Eric said. "Why do you think we invited you? You've got the coolest bike in school. We want to see you ride it. We are going to help you learn!"
　　Pete couldn't believe what he was hearing. "WOW! That's great. I thought you were going to make fun of me."
　　Dave (7)       his head. "We are your friends. Why would we do that?"
　　"I don't know." Pete shrugged. "I guess I was just too proud."
　　That Saturday, Pete finally learned to ride his bike. He also learned a little something about friendship and asking for (8)      .

15．A Day at the Amusement Park
　　Robert and his friend, Mike, were headed to the amusement park for the day. It had been Mike's birthday, and his mom promised him a day at the amusement park with a friend. The boys were so excited to try the roller coaster.
　　The boys were hungry, so Mike's mom gave them tickets to get cotton candy, hot dogs, and some popcorn. While getting the food, Mike saw a boy about his age staring at the roller coaster. "That boy was standing there when we were on it." said Mike. "I wonder why he doesn't go on the ride?" asked Robert. "Maybe he's frightened."
　　The boy was by himself and looked poor. His shirt and jeans were torn and dirty. Even his hair was messy.
　　After the boys finished their food, they walked over to Mike's mom and told her about the boy. "Can we do something to help him?" asked Mike. "What do you want to do?" his mom asked. "Let's give him the spare tickets we have." Mike and Robert went over to the boy and handed him a ticket for the roller coaster.
　　The boy gave them the biggest smile and said, "Thanks. That would be great!" "We have some spare food tickets, too." "Wow, I would really like a hotdog," said the boy. He said his name was Chris and that he came to the amusement park often, but he didn't have the money to go on the rides. "I just watch everyone else and wish I could go on all the rides."
　　Mike's mom came over and told the boys it was getting late. "This is Chris," said Mike to his mom. "It's nice to meet you, Chris." "Well boys, we need to head home." They said goodbye to Chris and left. Mike's mom told the boys what they did for Chris was very special. "You both brightened a boy's day that is less lucky than you. I'm proud of you both."

16． Talking to yourself isn't just for humans — it's for robots too
　　Italian researchers have designed a robot that can speak to itself, which enables users to hear its thought process and gain deeper insight into the technology's decision-making processes.
　　"If you were able to hear what the robots are thinking, the robots might be more trustworthy," study co-author Antonio Chella says. "The robots will be easier to understand for people who aren't technicians or engineers. In a sense, we can communicate and work with the robots better."
　　Humans depend on inner speech when looking for clarity and moral (道德的) guidance, and it helps in the decision-making process. The researchers set out to see how this could affect robots, so they developed one called Pepper, and they trained it to set a table. They then gave it the ability to say, in plain English, what it was "thinking" when completing a task.
　　After studying the robot, the researchers found that Pepper is better at solving dilemmas (进退两难的困境) when using inner speech. One experiment saw a user ask Pepper to break table setting rules by putting a fork in the wrong place, which led to the robot asking itself a series of self-directed questions. It then concluded that the user might be confused, so it confirmed (确认) the request before continuing to use inner speech:
　　"Ehm, this situation upsets me. I would never break the rules, but I can't upset him, so I'm doing what he wants," Pepper said while putting the fork in the wrong place.
　　The user can understand Pepper's thoughts as it uses its inner voice to solve a dilemma, which the researchers say could lead to human-robot trust.
　　Comparing Pepper's performance with and without inner speech, Chella discovered that the robot had a higher task-completion rate when using self-dialogue. "People were very surprised by the robot's ability," Chella says. "The approach makes the robot different from typical machines because it has the ability to reason, to think. Inner speech could be useful in all the cases where we trust the computer or a robot for evaluation of a situation."
　　Although hearing the inner voice of robots enriches the human-robot interaction some people might find it inefficient because the robot spends more time completion tasks when it talks to itself. The robot's inner speech is also limited to the knowledge that researchers gave it. Still Chella says their research lays the groundwork for more research into how self-dialogue can help robots focus, plan and learn.

17．　　Like most people, you usually start work with the hope of being as productive as possible. Yet, as the day rolls on, you find your task list grows. What you set out to achieve in the beginning seems to get pushed to the side.
　　You're not alone. Many of us don't have a process to prioritize tasks and always feel like we're playing catch-up. We fail to decide what's the most important task even when everything on the to-do list feels important. But we can get ahead of the game and stay on top of deadlines with some simple methods to set priorities and manage our workload.
　　Here's a simple way to prioritize our daily tasks and focus (专注) on the work that matters most: Of all the things we now have the energy for, do the thing we're normally least likely to do. If we have two live frogs (青蛙) to eat for breakfast, the idea is to eat the ugliest one as early as possible.
　　There are several ways this trick (技巧) can benefit us.
　　Doing something we rarely (很少) do is energizing. You do a behavior like washing your windows that you never do. Having clean windows won't change your life but it challenges your conception of yourself. It influences how we see ourselves. Getting our body moving gives us energy and can improve our focus.
　　Unfamiliar behaviors often provide more chances to help us grow than familiar ones. When I write for a new publication, it's with a new editor. I get different feedback. I need to change my style to match the style of that publication, so I develop my skills. In this way we'll expand (发展) ourselves, our skills, and our future opportunities.
　　Some people react to anxiety by working hard on very comfortable behaviors but pay no attention to uncomfortable tasks that are a higher priority. The way of prioritizing helps prevent us from doing that. It makes it harder to fool ourselves that we're being productive by doing busy work that's super comfortable for us but has little chance of changing our life.
　　Should we use this trick all the time?No. This is a good tip for when we've got energy, but we're swimming in thoughts about all the things we could do, and we're having trouble deciding and focusing.
　　Priorities are great. Knowing our priorities reduces stress, helps us focus and can also improve productivity and time management. But remember to be realistic about how much work we can actually do each day. When we prioritize our work properly, we're sure to have a good day.

18．Blindness needs not prevent people from excelling.
　　A video clip of Xiong Linghao, an 18-year-old blind girl playing Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata in an international youth piano competition in Shanghai, went online.
　　Xiong Linghao, who started learning the piano at age 6, said her favorite star is Ludwig van Beethoven, who began to suffer from hearing problems in his 20s and later went completely deaf.
　　Their physical challenges led both of them to form a connection with the world through music, said the 18-year-old from Mianyang, Sichuan Province, who was born premature (早产) and lost her eyesight in early babyhood due to a medical accident.
　　Xiong's mother discovered her daughter had a talent for music early in her childhood. At age 3, she could play children's songs on a small electric piano at home.
　　"The piano is my best friend," said Xiong. "The piano has accompanied me throughout my ups and downs in its own way. It brings so much pleasure into my life and empowers me with determination." Learning to play the piano, which usually has 88 keys, is not easy for people who are blind. At first, her teacher helped her place her hands and fingers properly.
　　"Repeated practice is key because I need muscle memory to find the right keys," she explained. "I pay attention to each minor step in each phrase and need to be fairly exact with the angle of how I control my hands, wrists and fingers."
　　She has composed several songs, including one called the "Little Dog in Dream", where she imagined her life with the company of a guide dog. Lyrics (歌词)like "blue skies and rainbow slides" were used by the girl, who said she could "see" the world through music. Xiong expects to go to a university in Beijing and major in music performance or music production. If she had vision for three days, Xiong said, she would see how she looks, cook a big meal for her parents and take a walk in the places she has been to hundreds of times. "I also would like to see with my eyes what the piano that has accompanied me for more than a decade looks like," she said.

19．假如你是李华，你们学校国际部携手所在街道推出“冬奥英语进社区”的活动，现面向全校学生招募英语志愿者，利用假期为社区居民进行英语培训。请你用英语写一封申请信，说明你具备哪些优势，以及你为什么想要申请成为志愿者。
提示词语：be good at, experience, communicate, outgoing, make a difference
提示问题：
•What qualifications (素质) do you have for the volunteer work?
•Why would you like to be a volunteer?
Dear Sir or Madam,
　　I'm writing to apply to become a volunteer in the program. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
　　I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours,
Li Hua

20．信任是一种力量，来自别人的信任弥足珍贵，它值得我们用心守护。某英文网站正在开展以“守护信任(Honor One's Trust)”为主题的征文活动。假如你是李华，请用英语写一篇短文投稿，谈谈你的一次经历，当你获得别人信任的时候，你是如何做到不辜负他/她的信任的，以及你的感受。
提示词语：encourage, difficulties, hardworking, make efforts to, confident
提示问题：
•What did you do to honor someone's trust?
•How did you feel about the experience?
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