National Coal Mining Museum

    Wacky Wednesdays—the perfect way to entertain the kids under 5!

    Each week during term-time from 10:15-l1:00 we combine storytelling, singing and craft（工艺）activities—the perfect opportunity to drop in and have a good time with your under-5s.

    Designed for children from 9 months.

    Doors open early at 9:30, so come and enjoy a coffee, juice and cake before the event starts!

    Sign in from 10 for a 10:15 start.

    Only 20 children are expected to take part in the event (we prepare crafts for 20). This makes it enjoyable for all. On very few occasions when too many kids want to join in there are always plenty of other things to do at the Museum.

    Why not make a day of it?

    ▲Stay for lunch in our family-friendly cafe

    ▲Explore the Nature Trail

    ▲Discover our indoor soft play area for under-5s

    ▲Play in the wonderful NEW Adventure Playground

    ▲Visit the small horses and our Clydesdale Finn

    ▲Download the iSPY Explore App and explore the Museum together

    Each event starts at 10:15 and finishes at 11:00.

    2017

    Sept 13th-Oct 18th                        Nov 1st-Dec 6th

    Wacky Wednesday Christmas Special 13th Dec (Payment & Booking Required)

    2018

    Jan 10th-Feb 14th                        Feb 28th-Mar 28th

    Apr 18th-May 23rd                        Jun 6th-July 18th

    Free entry, but we welcome donations to cover the cost of materials.

    Like many children, young Lotte Reiniger was crazy about movies, which at the time were a completely new invention. She taught herself how to cut paper silhouettes（剪影）, of people, animals, and objects. I could cut silhouettes almost as soon as I could manage to hold a pair of scissors, Reiniger said. “I could paint, too, and read...But everybody was surprised at the scissor cuts”

    At first, Reiniger wanted to be an actress, but her skill at making silhouettes drew the attention of the German film industry. Before 1927, films were silent. To help the audience understand the film, title cards with printed text appeared during the film between scenes. Reiniger helped create title cards for films, using her silhouettes. In 1918, she was asked to provide stop-motion animation（定格动面）, in which objects are photographed（拍摄）in a series of slightly different positions and then replayed at high speed so that the objects appear to move on their own, for wooden rats（老鼠）in the movie The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It was a breakthrough that led to her own films, first short films and then, in 1926, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the first full-length animated film.

    Although Reiniger once described herself as “a primitive（原始的）caveman artist”, her work is not simple. She carefully cut bits of card, paper, and wire, creating wonderful shapes, and then made them move and dance by hand. The black shapes were then placed on colorful backgrounds. She made more than 60 films, around 40 of which survive, all cut by her own hands. Most were based on timeless fairy tales, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

    Reiniger was truly a pioneer both in animation and for women in film-making. Though her last film came out in 1980, her style is still influential and can often be seen in today's films.

    Ever order a drink, and feel cheated on the pour? Before you trouble the waiter, take a closer look at the size of your glass. “People will generally think there being less in larger containers, than in smaller ones.” Says Theresa Marteau, a behavioral scientist at the University of Cambridge, in England.

    She and her workmates had analyzed（分析）how larger amounts—and larger plates—trick us into eating more food. And they wondered: could the same be true for alcohol?

    So the researchers convinced the employees at a local bar to run an experiment: every two weeks, for four months, they'd change the bars wine glasses from the standard 300 milliliter size, to either slightly larger—370 milliliters, or slightly smaller—250 milliliters. They saw how the size of the glass affected customers' drinking habits, even though the pour, the amount of alcoholic drinks, was unchanged.

    It turned out that serving wine in smaller glasses had no measurable effect. But the large glasses increased wine sales 10 percent-even after controlling for day of the week, temperature, holidays and so on. The reason? “When the wine, the same amount, is being served in a larger glass, people are probably thinking they've got less in there.” Which, she says, means they might drink more, believing they haven't hit their nightly limit. Or, they might just feel less satisfied with the pour, and buy another round. The study appears in the journal BMC Public Health.

    Marteau says that, if later studies confirm this effect, public health officials might consider directing a certain average glass size. “Stating clearly the largest size in which wine can be sold could be a measure to reduce the overconsumption（过度消耗）of alcohol that seems to be shown by the glass size.” Until that happens, the bar in the study now always serves its wine in the larger glasses.

    Galdwell's book, Blink, is all about first impressions and what he calls “rapid cognition（认知）”. In his own words, “It's a book about the kind of thinking that happens in a short time. When you meet someone for the first time or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions.”

    Galdwell points out that most scientific tradition is based on a great deal more than two seconds' thought though years of scientific study can come from a quick observation. As for rapid cognition, Gladwell realizes some first impressions don't seem to be based on anything. He noticed that Americans support taller candidates（候选人）. In fact, since 1900, only four candidates have beaten men who are taller than themselves. With this in mind Gladwell got in touch with 500 companies in the US and found that almost all of their managers were tall. Gladwell said, “That's weird. There is no connection between height and intelligence or height and decision-making…But for some reason companies chose tall people for leadership roles. I think that's an example of bad rapid cognition.”

    As an example of good rapid cognition, he tells the story of the Emergency Room doctors at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. A few years ago, the hospital changed the way they diagnosed（诊断）heart attacks. Their doctors took no notice of the patient's age, weight and medical history and gave most of their attention to a few really important pieces of information, such as blood pressure and heart rate. And what happened? Cook County is now one of the best places in the United States for diagnosing chest pain.

    Gladwell believes the power of first impressions should be studied further. “The first task of Blink is to show the fact: decisions made very quickly can be as good as decisions made slowly and carefully.”

    The first time I played basketball, I was 8 years old. I played in my community where I grew up, and there were never referees（裁判）. I didn't know the rules.        I always wanted to stay after the game and continue to play basketball.

    I grew up in a single-parent home with no father around, no brothers or sisters.        Sports gave me an opportunity to forget all that I had gone through during my childhood.

           One was the trust of the guys who were playing. It was passing the ball to friends and seeing their joy after making a basket. The other was competition, which is different from opposition. When I was in fifth grade, I wanted to be in the NBA.      

    When I was 14, my coach would tell others that I was the best kid he had ever seen, and that I had NBA potential（潜力）. From then on, I got bigger and bigger. I loved the game more and more. I had the greatest time of my life playing basketball in high school.

           There are no shortcuts（捷径）. My teammates and I come from different walks of life and in different shapes and sizes, but we all put in the time. We do that for the joy of being out on the basketball court. And we've achieved a lot in the field.

A. It's a natural habit.

B. But I knew I loved it.

C. We always had difficulty paying our bills.

D. I thought, I guess I'm doing the right thing.

E. You have to dream something to make it a reality.

F. I fell in love with basketball mainly for two reasons.

G. In basketball, you get back what you give to the game.

    Olivia Goldfarb likes to hike. But it isn't 1. The sixth-grader was born with a disease affecting her2. The condition makes daily 3, such as walking, difficult.

    Then a four-legged friend named Ally 4 her life.

Olivia met Ally through the Indiana Canine Assistant Network (ICAN), a service-animal training program that places dogs into 5 relationships with people, like Olivia, who need 6 with daily activities. Now, Olivia has a helping "hand" wherever she goes. For balance, she holds a specially7 tool fixed on Ally that allows the two to get around.

"I used my walker before and it was 8 to go through doors. But now, Ally helps me with that," Olivia says.

Olivia's mother says, "Ally really 9 Olivia, and when we were leaving, Ally went up to Olivia and put her head on the walker as if to say, 'I'm 10 with you.'"

    Service dogs like Ally are 11 to help people with disabilities.12 it may seem harmless, distracting（分散注意力）them can actually affect their ability to 13 orders.

"She is a service dog, not a 14," Olivia says. "The number-one 15 is people shouldn't pet Ally while I'm working with her."

"It takes two years to train a service dog to know more than 60 16. Training can be 17, but it's worth doing," says Sean Diamond, ICAN's director of training.

"Olivia's 18 a lot of strength and mobility（灵活性）," Olivia's mom says. "She has a lot more 19 to do what she wants."

    So when the family hiked the Quaking Aspen Trail with Ally, Olivia was able to 20 the long walk.

    In 1969, Armstrong       (successful) set foot on the Moon. This was        first time anyone had walked on the surface of another world. More astronauts（宇航员）reached the Moon later, but nobody       (visit) it since 1972. Do you think it's time we went back?

          (explore) of the Moon did continue after the astronauts left, but by robots instead        people. Satellites have helped us learn more about our neighbour and shown that there       (be) even more exploring to do, but astronauts would be needed!

    The problem is that sending humans to the Moon is very expensive. Even with all the new technology since Armstrong's time, it would cost so much for people       (return) to the Moon.

    ESA (European Space Agency) wants to change that. ESA's idea isn't just to make the spaceships       (they), but also to work with businesses here on Earth. ESA also wants to help businesses on Earth develop tools and technology        will allow people to live on the Moon. If we can use resources（资源）on the Moon, then journeys there will be much       (cheap). For example, what if we could get to water hidden deep within Moon rocks?

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

    Measuring at 8.0Ms, a terrible earthquake strikes Wenchuan on May 12, 2008. A great number of houses and buildings was destroyed, left as many as 10,000,000 people homeless. That shocked us was that almost everything was in ruins. Fortunate, the government took steps immediately. Now after a decade, with people who come from all fields giving a helpful hand, a new city appears in the front of us but it looks like a beautiful garden. In my opinion, without the support of our motherland, the survivor could not lead such a comfort life as it is now. I am proud that I live so great a country.

1）时间：农历（the lunar calendar）五月初五；

2）来历：纪念诗人屈原；

3）活动：赛龙舟、吃粽子等。

注意：1）词数100左右。开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数；

2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Alex,

Yours,

Li Hua