Modesty

　　Modesty is one of the many qualities that cross - century young people should possess. It makes you foresee your imperfections. It gives you the impetus to go forward. Most important of all, it makes you accessible and creates favorable conditions for you in interpersonal contacts.

　　However, many young people do not seem to realize the importance of modesty. Some of them just feel satisfied with a little success, without the slightest desire to make further progress. Others have too high an opinion of themselves, totally ignoring other people s suggestions and advice. Consequently, their immodesty often drives them up against the wall. Worst of all, immodesty takes many young people away from their colleagues and friends. Therefore they find fewer people with whom they can confide.

　　For you to be modest, the first thing to do is to have a full understanding of your deficiencies. No matter who you are and no matter how talented you are, you are unlikely to be all - powerful. In fact, you will always, in spite of your talents, find things about which you feel helpless. Besides, you should also admit other peoples strong points and try your best to learn from them. If you keep these two points in mind, you are on the right path to developing modesty.

　　Todays Luxuries Are Tomorrows Necessities

　　By luxury, we mean a pleasant and often expensive thing that is not necessary. From a historical point of view, things which Were a luxury when they first came into being all became necessities later. When the electric bulb was first invented in the U.S., it was such a luxury that only government bodies could afford to use it. Nowadays, however, it has reached every part of the world. It is the same case with telephone, TV, and a lot of others, which were all luxuries years ago.

　　Anything, no matter how luxurious it is, will become a necessity when it is widely used. This is true of many of the present luxuries, including mobile phones, cars, computers and many other things. It is known to all that the purpose of the development of science is to make things easy for the mankind, not for only a small number of people. Therefore, the first thing to do after a new invention occurs is to spread it so as to benefit as many people as possible. In the course of the spread, the luxury becomes decreasingly luxurious until in the end it becomes a necessity. This is an objective law, nothing can be an exception.

　　With the quick development of science and technology, the process for many things to become a necessity from a luxury will be greatly shortened. Anything that can be imagined will be invented and in no time becomes a necessity accessible to ordinary people.

　　The Importance of Physical Exercise

　　Everyone hopes to live happily in the world. Physical exercise is indispensable to a happy life. There is a famous saying:Life lies on exercise. Although you will not necessarily die without regular physical exercises, they II certainly help you live longer and more healthily.

　　Exercise is good for us to build our bodies. It helps co - ordinate the different parts of our bodies when we have sports. For example, we must try our best to co - ordinate the movements of the arms and legs when we play basketball, or we wont be able to shoot the basket. Exercise also benefits our organs. It lets the heart beat faster than usual, and then helps enlarge the blood vessels to protect us from heart attacks.

　　Exercise can also contribute to the development of our ability to response agilely. For instance, when you play table- tennis, you must try to reflect as quickly as you can so that you may fight back at the right position at the fight moment.

　　Exercise can also contribute to improving our mood. When you do exercise, you move a lot, and you have to be more active. It helps you become more optimistic.

　　Exercise will fill your life with various contents and make it more colorful.

　　Whats more, exercise will help you get rid of your inertia. If you keep doing exercise regularly, you will never be a lazy person. Therefore, exercise has great effect on ones character.

　　In a word, exercise is helpful, important and absolutely necessary.

　　How to Keep Fit

　　A healthy body is very important to every one of us. When you are sick, you feel painful all over your body, have no energy to work; and the only thing you want to do is lying on the bed. When you are healthy, you can eat well, sleep well, sing and jump happily, do all the things you like to enjoy life.

　　The methods to keep us fit vary. In the morning, you can get up early, go outdoors, breathe the fresh air, and do physical exercises. Running and swimming are extremely helpful to keep one fit. If you are a busy person and have no special time allocated to do these things, there are still some ways useful for to keep fit. The easiest way is to walk to your office instead of riding a bike or taking a bus. You also have to take a routine physical check - up. Your doctor will know the condition of your body most clearly, and he will give you the most valuable advice to keep fit. You should always try to make yourself happy. If you feel happy, you can eat well, sleep well, and your body is sure to be in an excellent condition.

　　Health is the most valuable possession a person expects in his life. Try every means to keep fit is my advice to the people who want to live a happy life in this beautiful world.

　　Cinema and Television

　　Reading- The Best Means to Acquire knowledge

　　Knowledge may be acquired through many ways. One way of getting knowledge is from travelling Another way is by conversation, especially one with a great man. A person may also become knowledgeable through other ways such as listening to the radio or watching television. The best way to acquire knowledge, however, is through reading.

　　Reading as a means of obtaining knowledge has a number of advantages over many other ways. To begin with, it is the most consistent way of getting knowledge. One can read regularly but few people can travel in the same way. Secondly, reading can ensure a thorough grasp of what you are interested in. This is hardly so when one is listening to the radio or watching TV. Finally, reading is the most flexible of all the ways to obtain knowledge. For example, one can always read for ten minutes before going to bed, but it is not always possible for him to converse with others at such a late hour.

　　However, there exists one problem about reading. There are all kinds of Books in society. Some are good, while others are bad. Good books are beneficial to our .soul while bad ones are harmful to our mind. Therefore, it is of great irnportance for the reader to separate good plants from wild weeds. We should read good books and reject harmful ones.

　　Unemployment

　　Unemployment is viewed as the number one problem in China now and the government has launched a major attack on the problem.

　　The steps the government has taken to deal with unemployment are as follows. Firstly, unemployment fund has been established to help the unemployed workers to support themselves. Secondly, the unemployed receive vocational training, which is expected to pay off in the short term and give the unemployed an advantage in the job market. It is due to the lack of professional skills that these workers have lagged behind in the society. These training programs aim to equip the workers with some special skills, such as typing, sewing, and cooking. Finally, psychological advice is also available, since unemployment, apart from exerting financial pressures, brings enormous psychological discomfort. With the advice, the unemployed will learn how to adapt to the fierce competition in the technological age.

　　With the joint efforts of the government and the society, we are optimistic that we can win the current war on unemployment.

　　The Importance of Physical Exercise

　　Everyone hopes to live happily in the world. Physical exercise is indispensable to a happy life. There is a famous saying:Life lies on exercise. Although you will not necessarily die without regular physical exercises, they II certainly help you live longer and more healthily.

　　Exercise is good for us to build our bodies. It helps co - ordinate the different parts of our bodies when we have sports. For example, we must try our best to co - ordinate the movements of the arms and legs when we play basketball, or we wont be able to shoot the basket. Exercise also benefits our organs. It lets the heart beat faster than usual, and then helps enlarge the blood vessels to protect us from heart attacks.

　　Exercise can also contribute to the development of our ability to response agilely. For instance, when you play table- tennis, you must try to reflect as quickly as you can so that you may fight back at the right position at the fight moment.

　　Exercise can also contribute to improving our mood. When you do exercise, you move a lot, and you have to be more active. It helps you become more optimistic.

　　Exercise will fill your life with various contents and make it more colorful.

　　Whats more, exercise will help you get rid of your inertia. If you keep doing exercise regularly, you will never be a lazy person. Therefore, exercise has great effect on ones character.

　　In a word, exercise is helpful, important and absolutely necessary.

　　Read Extensively

　　Reading plays a very important part in human life. Every day we get in touch with reading something. We have a lot of things to read in our lives, such as books, mag~ines, newspapers, and even adver, tisement papers distributed everywhere. Through reading we can get a lot of useful information, for example, the latest news of our country and the world.

　　Nevertheless, peoples interests in reading vary considerably. Some people like reading novels. Some people like reading essays. Some other people may prefer reading magazines or newspapers.Here,what I want to emphasize is that no matter what you are interested in, you should read ektensively.

　　I have my reasons for it. First, we are living in a society full of information. We should make ourselves well- informed in order to keep up with the steps of our society. Reading extensively is an efficient method of acquiring information. Second, we need many kinds of skills in our lives. Reading extensively can help us learn those skills so that we can live more comfortably in the world. The more extensively you read, the more skills you can get. Third, we have a lot of decisions to make each day. Sometimes, we may feel difficult to make a correct decision. Reading extensively can help you understand the world you live in, and therefore, help you to make a clever decision in a difficult situation. Fourth, reading extensively can help you enlarge the range of your knowledge so that you can communicate with others more freely. You will find something to say when you talk with your friends no matter what topic you are talking about.

　　There are some other advantages of reading extensively. Because of the significance of extensive reading, you should begin to do so immediately. If you have determined to read extensively from now on, you are sure to be able to find a lot of books you are interested in, and the time to read them. Your life will become much more meaningful and substantial than before.

　　Good Manners

　　Good manners are very important in the communication of daily life. Everyone likes a person with good manners. But what are good manners? How does one know what should do and what should not do when trying to be a good - mannered person?

　　Well, here are some common examples. A person with good manners never laughs at a people in trouble. Instead, he always tries to consult or offer help to the person. When he takes a bus and sees an old man or a sick man, he always gives his seat to him. He doesnt interrupt other people when they are talking. He uses a handkerchief when he sneezes or coughs. He does not spite in public places.

　　Ideas of what are good manners are not always the same in different regions. For example, people in Western countries usually kiss each other to show their greetings, whereas in China, kissing in public is something of unusual and sometimes be regarded as impolite to somebody else. So it is important to know what is regarded as polite and impolite before you go to a region. But remember that it is always right to be kind and helpful to others.

　　A survey has been conductd in the United Kingdom about cinema admissions and television licences over the period 1957 to 1974. The purpose of the survey was to discover the ehanges of the popularity of cinema and television in this period.

　　According to the graph, it can be seen that the trend was towards a decrease in the popularity of the cinema. There was a dramatic fall in the number of cinema admissions from 1957, when about 900 million people went, to 1959, when the attendance figure was roughly 550 million. From 1959 to 1963 the rate of decrease slowed down, the figure for the latter year being about 350 million. From this yearon, there was a more gradual reduction in the popularity of the cinema, reaching a figure of about 125 million in 1974.

　　Therefore, it can be concluded from the graph that over the period 1957 to 1974 the cinema admissions became lower and lower while the television viewing licences became higher and higher oving to the advantages of watching television at home than going out to the cinema though it does not show directly in the grapgh.

　　Air-conditioners

　　In recent years, the air- conditioner has become one of the many indispensable electrical appliances for thousands upon thousands of families, especially those in the south, where the intense heat overwhelms the earth throughout the summer. The advantages of the air- conditioner are self - evident. Armed with the ability to refrigerate, the air- conditioner makes you feel refreshing and comfortable no matter how hot it is outside. Thus it guarantees the efficiency of your work and the quality of your rest. Without it there would be no knowing what would happen to you in the dog days. Moreover, it can also create a proper condition in summer for the operation of computers -- the best friends of yours in the information age. Too high a temperature would make computers work improperly, causing much inconvenience for your daily life and work.

　　With all the advantages the air- conditioner offers, its disadvantages are also obvious. To begin with, the installment of the air - conditioner always involves the hole making in the wall, which undoubtedly makes the wall less pleasing to the eye than if not. Besides, the air- conditioned environment may make you more and more dependent on the air - conditioner, thus physically weakening your ability to cope with hot weather. Most important, the air - conditioned environment provides poor ventilation, and sometimes may even give rise to a strange kind of smell, which makes you feel dizzy and sick. Consequently, you will be in no mood for enjoying the cool air produced by the air- conditioners.

　　Value of Knowledge

　　In the Information Age, public awareness of the value of knowledge critically affects the economic growth of a nation. The schematic diagram clearly shows how the value of knowledge evolved in China in the past 50 years.

　　The schematic diagram mainly consists of three parts. From 1950 to 1966, the curve was roughly a straight line slightly above zero, showing that China was a poorly-educated nation then. In 1966, the curve drastically dropped below zero, moving down hopelessly in the next 11 years. This periodcoincided with the Culture Revolution. Our society went mad then, books were burned,schools were closed and all kinds of academic activities were banned. Knowledge inflicted its masters nothing but disasters. Life was a nightmare for Chinese intellectuals, including famous scholars as well as common people who received higher education or whose profession had anything to do with knowledge. It was a time when ignorance was a virtue and knowledge was a crime. People tried desperately to be away from knowledge. As a result, China lagged farther behind the rapid progressing world. This was the darkest time in the history of New China. The curve returned to its original non-zero position around 1978 and moved up but slowly. From 1984 on, it has been shooting up. The open-up policy encourages people to study and to channel their knowledge to the market economy. Millions of Chinese are bettering off by means of their knowledge and more Chinese enjoy the fruits of knowledge and say goodbye for good to poverty that haunted them for generations.

　　As our world is rapidly advancing towards the Information Age, increasing number of people realize that knowledge is power and creativity is everything. Only when China becomes a better educated nation, can China be a great nation with international prestige.