M: I can’t believe I can’t get a plane ticket for the May holiday. I mean it is only February. W: You don’t need to worry about it too much. You know, people cancel reservations all the time. Q: What does the woman imply the man should do? Travel otherwise. Modify his reservation. Cancel his travel plans. Await a plane ticket.

W: I heard you’re moving to New York. M: Yes. I’ve got an offer in upstate New York. W: Oh, that’s great! But I’m going to miss you. M: Me, too. Let’s keep in touch. W: Yeah. Don’t forget to drop me a line when you settle down. Q: What does the woman mean? She is about to move to New York. She is going to meet him online. She is expecting to hear from him soon. She won’t maintain contact with him.

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While jobs in science, technology, engineering and math(STEM)professions may be plentiful, many teenagers are unwilling to pursue a long-term career in these fields. According to a new survey, students in sixth through twelfth grade felt that careers as doctors and engineers would offer the most job opportunities upon graduating from college, but 67 percent were of two minds about whether they would pursue these careers, due to a multitude of difficulties involved. Chief among the challenges is the cost and time it takes to get a degree. According to this survey, 26 percent of respondents felt that the cost and difficulty of pursuing professionally qualifying education in these fields were too high compared with other fields. Additionally, 25 percent of students felt that these career paths were too challenging and involved too much studying. Careers as doctors and engineers were not the only places where students saw opportunities, though. According to the survey, the three career fields offering the greatest opportunity were doctors, engineers and teachers, followed by lawyers and entrepreneurs. “It’s encouraging to see that more students see the value of STEM careers like engineering, but clearly STEM professionals and educators can be doing more to support students along this career path,“ said Jim Rooney, ASQ chair and quality engineer with ABSG Consulting. That is because 25 percent of teenage respondents stated their grades in math and science aren’t good enough to pursue a future career in those subjects. For once, parents agreed with their children, as 53 percent of parents who responded in a similar survey were worried about the challenges these fields presented to their children. Just over a quarter of parents, 26 percent, also felt that teachers were not preparing their children enough for future careers in STEM fields. Another factor contributing to the non-pursuit of STEM jobs is the growing gender gap in education. According to this survey, 30 percent of girls stated that math was their most challenging subject, compared with 19 percent of boys. Additionally, 33 percent of girls admitted they felt teachers did not prepare them enough for future careers in STEM careers, compared with just 9 percent of boys. The information in this survey is based on the responses of 713 students and a complementary survey of 327 parents with children between the ages of 10 and 17.

Most people believe the key to happy and productive retirement years is staying healthy. Yet, it’s not just about diet and exercise. How you manage your money often determines your level of stress, which, if too high, may lead to chronic health problems like heart diseases. So you’ll have to do more than switch to whole wheat and start jogging every day. Your health also depends on feeling good about and in control of your finances. Not a lot of people understand that—and relatively few are doing much about it. In a survey, Principal Financial found that just 48% of American workers are monitoring their spending—down from 58% two years ago. Fewer are reevaluating their investments, and while more are using a budget, the rate is still low at just 28%. In other words, they are casual about their money. Most American workers see the link between wealth and health as one directional: Staying healthy is the ticket to saving on healthcare costs and to financial security in retirement. In the survey, 84% said being physically healthy is good for their financial future and 76% said if they spend money on their health or things they enjoy now they will avoid major health costs later in life. Yet it’s not that simple. Good health comes with its own financial demands. Living healthy means living longer, which is wonderful. But without a traditional pension or other source of guaranteed lifetime income how will you pay for all those extra years? You’ll need to save tens of thousands of dollars more than you may have figured in your lifetime—and still there is no guarantee you won’t need costly, end-of-life services. None of this is to say that living longer and healthier isn’t a blessing, and probably even less a demand on your resources than developing chronic illness and passing away early. But the link between financial health and physical health goes both ways. In the survey, workers were far more likely to rate themselves physically healthy(53%)than financially healthy(31%), suggesting they see it as a one-way street. But it’s also the case that feeling in control of your wealth—no matter how much you have—leads to better health.

You thought the rising cost of college tuition was bad? Then check out the rising cost of college textbooks. The American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry has put together a detailed chart showing the notorious, 812 percent rise in the cost of course materials since 1978, as captured in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index data. The price of all those Introduction to Sociology and Calculus books have shot up faster than health-care, home prices, and, of course, inflation. Academic publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent article, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they will never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don’t have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to step up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over ill-conceived and inadequate copyright claims. And that has consequences for students. According to the National Association of College Stores(NACS), the average college student reports paying about $655 for textbooks and supplies annually, down a bit from $702 four years ago. The NACS credits that fall to its efforts to promote used books along with programs that let students rent rather than buy their texts. But to put that $655 in perspective, consider this: after aid, the average college student spends about $2,900 on their annual tuition, according to the College Board. We’re not talking about just another drop in the bucket here. AEI’s Perry writes that he’s confident open educational resources, made available via the web, will eventually make traditional textbooks obsolete, just as Wikipedia killed off the encyclopedia. The difference is that nobody I know ever had a college professor who said, “If you don’t read the encyclopedia, you’ll likely fail this class.“ If we ever want to bring the cost of these books under control, the faculty need to become responsive to the problem.

Michelle Dockery, the actress who plays Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey, says manners have disappeared in modern Britain. “Those old manners,“ she says, “such as men standing when women arrive at the dinner table or opening doors for you—are lovely, and it’s lovely when you see a man doing that. But young men wouldn’t think about that for a second because it’s not the culture anymore.“ She puts it down to the rise of sexual equality, which I suppose might play a small part in the collapse of manners. But the loss of noble qualities is a minor element in a much bigger story. Over the last 50 years, the British have changed from one of the politest nations to one of the rudest. Luckily for us, the old-fashioned image persists abroad of us as a bowler-hat-wearing race, obsessed with tea and cricket. Those misconceptions are swiftly cured by a visit to one of the pedestrianised fighting areas in any provincial town centre on a Saturday evening at the closing time of a pub. Of course, the image was always a slight myth. The British have always drunk heavily, and sworn even more. But they used to have a double persona—the heavy drinking, swearing one, which would be replaced by the polite persona immediately when good manners were required. That idea of public shame has disappeared, and is now even condemned as pretentious. Self-righteousness has taken its place—it’s OK to play a DVD at top volume in a train carriage/wear a luminous green vest at a funeral, because the offender thinks it’s OK. The only driving factor in these decisions is desire for your own pleasure rather than the desire to minimize the pain of others. This selfish behavior is much more natural than the selflessness implied in manners. If we were brought up in the wild, we’d all behave like this. Manners are taught. And that’s the big reason why they’ve collapsed over here—and— survived much better in other countries. They’re not taught much here anymore by parents, on television or by public figures. In his latest book on litter, Theodore Dalrymple explains why the British litter these days—because they haven’t been socialized properly. Dr. Dalrymple and most of his generation—don’t litter, he writes, because their mothers told them not to. It’s the same with the modern collapse of manners.

M: I can’t believe I can’t get a plane ticket for the May holiday. I mean it is only February. W: You don’t need to worry about it too much. You know, people cancel reservations all the time. Q: What does the woman imply the man should do? Travel otherwise. Modify his reservation. Cancel his travel plans. Await a plane ticket.

TripAdvisor is a website where people can write reviews about their travel experiences. There are also ratings for hotels, restaurants, and places people have visited around the world. Every year, TripAdvisor makes a list of the top 25 cities to visit in the United States. The results are based on the opinions of visitors to the website. America’s major cities are still the most popular destinations for visitors. This is because of the good quality of services they provide tourists. This year, TripAdvisor said the top five cities named were New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Orlando. Brooke Ferencsik of TripAdvisor said the top picks on the list were not surprising. And it’s no secret why New York City was named the number one destination. New York City is just the place that has it all, and travelers know that. It has world-class foods, accommodations, attractions and entertainment. New York City is sometimes called “the city that never sleeps“ because it can be very busy. It is an exciting place for many people because there is so much to do. But the city might be too busy for travelers looking for rest and calm. They might want something more like Myrtle Beach, in the state of South Carolina, which made it to number 21 on TripAdvisor’s list. A lot of people come to Myrtle Beach for great weather, and it’s a wonderful family vacation spot. Along the beaches, there are a lot of family-friendly parks and water parks. Many people take time off from their jobs in the summer to travel. Because there are many tourists visiting other places, June until August is known as “high season.“ Traveling during the high season can be crowded. Hotels, restaurants, and transportation might also be very expensive. If you want to save money on a trip, it is a good idea to plan to leave before or after the summer months. These times are known as “shoulder seasons“ for travel, being the fall or the spring. The weather is still very good in some of the destinations, and you can get better prices. Q13: What makes America’s major cities popular destinations for visitors? Q14: Which city is not among TripAdvisor’s list of the top 5 cities to visit? Q15: Which period does the shoulder season refer to? Great weather. High-quality services. Family-friendly parks. Better prices.

First of all, plan your toast______(2 words).I’m here to talk to you about how to propose a toast. So, what an honor; you have been designated to do the toast. First of all, plan your toast in advance. You want to make sure that before you arrive to the event you know what you’re going to talk about. We don’t want to make a fool of ourselves, arid the best way to do that is perhaps to write it down. Also, look for information in regards to what the event is and maybe what you want to talk about. If it’s a wedding, you may want to talk about the couple. If it’s a birthday or any other type of event, then you go ahead and make a story or a special comment in regards to that special event. Always, the most important part is to stay with the tone. If it’s a wedding, you want to stay with a sentimental tone, and also, other events may go with other appropriate tones. Stand up and tap your glass to get everyone’s attention. For a formal occasion, have everyone stand up except the person you are toasting. If it is less formal, guests may remain seated. Direct your toast toward the host or hostess or the guest of honor. Speak loudly and slowly so that all can hear you. Make sure you’re confident, keeping it brief, sincere and to the point; choose simple but substantial words to convey your feelings. Some of the best toasts are just a sentence or two. Begin by saying, “I’d like to propose a toast.“ If you are feeling more creative, you can begin with an appropriate quotation, a poem or an amusing story. Always make sure you hold up your glass high, and once you’re ending that toast you may say cheers to the couple, cheers to the birthday girl or man, and just anything you want to. The guests may repeat your last phrase. Everyone takes a drink and sits down. I wish you all the success, cheers!

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M: I can’t believe I can’t get a plane ticket for the May holiday. I mean it is only February. W: You don’t need to worry about it too much. You know, people cancel reservations all the time. Q: What does the woman imply the man should do?

W: A dollar is valued at 6.3 RMB. And 100 Japanese yen at 7.5 RMB today. How much do you want to change? M: Thirty thousand Japanese yen, please. Q: How much RMB will the man get?

M: How do I use it? W: You need to push your card into the machine. Next, enter your PIN. M: What else do I have to do? W: Every option you can choose will appear on the screen. M: Then, I would choose “deposit.“ Q: What is the man asking help for?

M: I have the greatest respect for the fire chief. Over the last thirty years, he’s been a courageous leader. W: But, frankly, he has had his day. Firefighting has changed and it’s time we appoint someone who can take on new challenges. Q: What does the woman think of the fire chief?