A study has shown that here in the United States, we’ve experienced the revolution concerning our attitudes towards the workweek and weekend. Although some calendars still mark the beginning of the week “Sunday“, more and more of us have come to regard Monday as the first day of the week with Saturday and Sunday comprising the two-day periods thought of as the weekend. In fact, the word “weekend“ didn’t even exist in English until about the middle of the 19th century. In England at that time, Saturday afternoons had just been added to Sundays and holidays as a time for workers to have off from their jobs. This innovation became common in the United States in the 1920s. But as the workweek shortened during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the weekend expanded to two full days, Saturday and Sunday. Some people thought that this trend would continue due to increasing automation and the workweek might decrease to four days or even fewer. But so far, this hasn’t happened. The workweek seems to have stabilized the 40 hours made up of five eight-hour days. Next time I’m going to talk about the idea of adding Monday to the weekend.(199) Question No. 15 When did the word “weekend“ begin to exist in the English language? Question No. 16 When did American people begin to have two-day weekend? Question No. 17 What did some people predict from increasing automation? Question No. 18 What is the speaker going to talk about next time? About the middle of the 18th century. About the end of the 18th century. About the middle of the 19th century. About the beginning of the 20th century.

W: Hi, John! M: Hi, Mary! Are you going to be writing for the school newspaper? W: Yes, I’m excited about it. I’m thinking about journalism as a career. M: Well! Congratulations! How do they decide whom to hire? W: I have to send the writing sample. I used one of the essays I’d written for the literature class, then the editor assigned me a topic to write a short article about it. M: What did you write about? W: Actually, it was a lot of fun. I wrote about the students’ play that has been performed this month. M: Oh, I saw that play. The director is a friend of mine. It really caused a stir around here. W: Yeah, I know. That’s what I wrote about: people’s reaction to it. It’s really interesting. M: I wish I were a better writer. Working for the paper sounds like fun. W: Well, they’re looking to add one or two more photographers to the staff. M: You’re kidding! Maybe I’ll go over and apply. W: If you want, I’ll walk over with you to the newspaper office and introduce you to the photographic editor and some of the other photographers. M: That will be terrific! But can we go tomorrow? I have to go to math class now. And if we go tomorrow, then I’ll have time tonight to put together a portfolio of photographs to show them. W: Sure. And maybe you should call them and set up a time to meet them tomorrow. M: Good idea. I’ll do that before I go to class. W: All right. See you tomorrow. Question No. 11 What is the woman excited about? Question No. 12 According to the conversation, what is the man good at? Question No. 13 Why can’t the man go to the newspaper office with the woman right now? Question No. 14 What does the woman suggest that the man should do? She has one article published in a newspaper. She has been hired as a photographer. She’ll soon go into journalism as a career. She is going to write for the school newspaper.

春节是我国民问最隆重、最热闹的一个传统节日。春节时，家家户户都要做充足的准备。节前十天左右，人们就开始忙碌着采购年货，为小孩子们添置新衣新帽，准备过年时穿。另外，节前人们会在家门口贴上红纸写成的春联，屋里张贴色彩鲜艳、寓意吉祥的年画，窗户上贴着窗花，门前挂上大红灯笼或贴“福”字。“福”字还可以倒贴，路人一念福倒了，也就意味着福气到了。

Attitudes about expressing anger vary from culture to culture. In some cultures, almost any sign of anger is inappropriate. In others, people use anger as a way of extending 【C1】______. Finnish people believe that expressions of anger show a lack of 【C2】______. This attitude can make them seem 【C3】______. For example, road rage is a problem in many countries, but not in Finland. There, experts say, 【C4】______doesn’t make people angry. The drivers politely exchange information and then 【C5】______. And no one complains when a bus 【C6】______. The passengers simply get off and wait for the next one. Such behavior【C7】______in the United States where expressing anger is accepted— even expected. The problem occurs when people from cultures【C8】______visit countries where it is not. For example, if an American visiting England【C9】______in a tone of voice that would be effective at home, no one would【C10】______. They would see him as just another【C11】______. This is because the English usually avoid showing anger unless the situation is【C12】______. Avoidance of public anger is also 【C13】______. The expression of anger is unacceptable and destructive. This attitude is very 【C14】______the one in the United States, where many people believe that not expressing anger can 【C15】______, alcoholism, drug addiction, or even violence. In countries that don’t express anger, most people would think this idea was【C16】______. However, in some other cultures, anger is more lightly received and 【C17】______ than in the United States. Americans traveling 【C18】______or some Mediterranean countries are often surprised by the amount of anger they see and hear. They 【C19】______that people in these countries express their anger and then forget it. Even people who are【C20】______of the anger usually do not remember it for long.Attitudes about expressing anger vary from culture to culture. In some cultures, almost any sign of anger is inappropriate. In others, people use anger as a way of extending relationships. Finnish people believe that expressions of anger show a lack of self-control. This attitude can make them seem very peaceful. For example, road rage is a problem in many countries, but not in Finland. There, experts say, a car accident doesn’t make people angry. The drivers politely exchange information and then go on. And no one complains when a bus breaks down. The passengers simply get off and wait for the next one. Such behavior would not happen in the United States where expressing anger is accepted—even expected. The problem occurs when people from cultures where anger is acceptable visit countries where it is not. For example, if an American visiting England complained in a tone of voice that would be effective at home, no one would pay attention. They would see him as just another impolite American. This is because the English usually avoid showing anger unless the situation is extremely serious. Avoidance of public anger is also common in Japan. The expression of anger is unacceptable and destructive. This attitude is very different from the one in the United States, where many people believe that not expressing anger can lead to depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, or even violence. In countries that don’t express anger, most people would think this idea was ridiculous or even dangerous. However, in some other cultures, anger is more lightly received and easily forgotten than in the United States. Americans traveling in the Middle East or some Mediterranean countries are often surprised by the amount of anger they see and hear. They do not realize that people in these countries express their anger and then forget it. Even people who are on the receiving end of the anger usually do not remember it for long.(321 w)

Question No. 1 Arthur has three brothers living on three different continents and gets incredible phone bills every month to keep in touch. Question No. 2 I think we can both see that we are not quite ready to sign anything just now. For the moment, we are still quite far apart. Question No. 3 Mike said he was looking for a job in the bookstore, but when he had the chance to work there, he turned it down. Question No. 4 Do you really ask me to do the auditing over the weekend? To be frank with you, I would rather do anything but audit. Question No. 5 We believe we must increase our export sales if we want to continue to grow, and we hope to increase exports by 15 — 20 percent, with your help. Arthur calls his brothers frequently. Arthur should phone his brothers more often. Arthur does a lot of traveling on three different continents. Arthur is saving up to visit his brothers.

W: Good morning. My name’s William Johnson from an electronics company in Boston. I’d like to speak to Paula Brown, please. P: Good morning, Mr. Johnson. How are things in your company? W: Not as good as I had hoped, Mrs. Brown. P: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong? W: You sent an engineer, a Mr. Bains, to repair the faulty valves on the pipe system you installed last year and he came without the necessary equipment. He tells me it will take him a week to get what he needs. We told him what he needed and yet he came here with nothing. P: I guess he had to make an inspection to see what he had to get to do the repair. W: Mrs. Brown, you know that is not true. We told you what was needed and now we have a further delay. It seems to me he has wasted his time coming to Boston. And in the meantime, we cannot use the pipes. P: Well, where is Mr. Bains now, is he still with you? W: I think he has gone now to his hotel. He told me he would return with the parts he needs but he didn’t say when exactly. P: Leave it to me, Mr. Johnson. I’ll call him and talk to him myself. I’m sure we’ll work something out in a day or two. W: I hope so, Mrs. Brown, because you know we are not very happy with the service you have provided for us. At the beginning it was fine, there were no problems, but now we have a little technical fault and we have wasted a lot of time. P: I understand. Don’t worry. We’ll work it out. W: Yes. It’s very important, Mrs. Brown. We don’t have much time. P: Okay, I’ll talk to Mr. Bains and call you later today or tomorrow morning. W: Right. I hope you have good news for me. Goodbye. P: Goodbye, Mr. Johnson. Question No. 19 What did the man complain about? Question No. 20 How soon did the woman promise the man that the problem would be dealt with? Question No. 21 Why was the engineer Mr. Bains unable to do the repair? Question No. 22 What would the woman do after her talk with the man? The poor after-sale service. The repairman’s skill. The delay in delivering goods. The high price of low quality goods.

Good afternoon! Today I’d like to give you a brief talk on public speaking. Students in American schools learn from an early age to give presentations as part of their regular classroom activities. Children as young as five years old often give brief talks about objects they bring in to school—called “show and tell.“ This training is a basis for later public speaking. Even so, many native English-speaking adults are afraid to speak or give presentations in front of a large group. Speaking English in public meetings is necessary for many students and employees. The best way to improve is to practice public speaking in a friendly environment. Learners need to receive feedback about what they are doing well and about their mistakes. One group that gives members the chance to practice is Toastmasters. Toastmasters is an international organization that holds weekly meetings. At the meetings, members each give a speech and give others advice about their speeches and speaking style. Charles LeBeau is a public speaking professor and consultant. This is what he says about a simple approach that helps English learners. “The approach that I’ve taken is to simplify and break it down. First, if we look at presentation, what’s going on, there are basically three messages that the presenter is giving the audience, all simultaneously. There’s what I call the physical message, which is basically body language. It’s the way that my body, as a speaker, is talking to the audience. And then there’s also the visual message. The visual messages are the slides that we now make and show the audience. And the third message is the story message, which is the content of our presentation. The story message also includes how we organize our ideas to present to the audience. “ Next time we will explore Charles LeBeau’s recommendations for improving the physical message. He thinks this is the public speaking skill that is easiest for English learners to improve quickly. Question No. 23 How do American young children give their brief presentations in school? Question No. 24 Why do people go to Toastmasters? Question No. 25 According to Mr. LeBeau, public presentation basically gives three messages to the audience. Which of the following is NOT one of them? Question No. 26 What does Mr. LeBeau think of body language in public speaking? They talk about pictures their teachers show to class. They talk about objects they bring in to school. They tell stories they read at home. They talk to each other in regular classroom activities.

______I’m not just a consumer—I’m a victim. If I order a product, it is sure to arrive in the wrong color, size, or quantity. If I hire people to do repairs, they never arrive on the day scheduled. If I pay a bill, the computer program often overcharges me. Therefore, I save all shopping slips and original boxes, and if I need to make a complaint, I will go right to the top. It always works for me.

No matter if you’re leafing through those glossy admissions brochures, attending an information session on campus or browsing a college fair with your teen, there’s always one big thought at the back of the mind of every parent: Wait, how much is this college degree going to cost me? Thankfully, there are some new tools out there to make figuring out costs a little easier. This September the Department of Education released its College Scorecard, a project designed to help parents and students make more informed decisions about higher education. The tool provides information on college costs, graduation rates, average starting salaries, post-graduation and information that can help people pick the best school for their financial and academic needs. With the College Scorecard, you see a breakdown of what you’d actually pay for a college education, based on your family’s income. This is the most important aspect of this tool, because while the “sticker price“ of a school may be high, you most likely won’t pay full price to go there. For example, although Harvard’s list price is around $ 60,000 according to its admissions website, the average family will pay just over $ 14,000 per year once you factor in grants and financial aid. The tool lets you compare schools’ stats side by side, including their financial information. In the search function, you can filter out what kind of degree you want(two-year or four-year), location, public or private, size, major or program and more to make a really specific comparison. If any schools catch your eye, you can click on “View More Details“ for a comprehensive summary(SAT/ACT scores to get in, what typical student debt is like, etc.). You can also search for a specific school to get all the stats you want on it. You can also check out NPR’s college cost calculator, which uses the College Scorecard raw data of 150 major colleges and universities to show you right off the bat the net price(price of college minus financial aid, grants and scholarships)for various incomes compared to that scary sticker price. It’s a quick but less detailed summary looking specifically at costs. While these tools can’t determine the exact dollar amount you’ll have to pay, they do give you a better ballpark estimate of what college costs you are expected to be able to pay. Knowing that now will help you decide what school makes the best financial sense for your family.

In even the bleakest climate change scenarios for the end of this century, science has offered hope that global warming would eventually slow down. But a new study published Monday snuffs out such hope, projecting temperatures that rise with carbon emissions until the last drops of oil and lumps of coal are used up. Global temperatures will increase on average by 8°C(14. 4°F)over pre-industrial levels by 2300 if all of Earth’s fossil fuel resources are burned, adding five trillion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere, according to the research by Canadian scientists published in Nature Climate Change. In the Arctic, average temperatures would rise by 17°C(30. 6 °F). Those conclusions are several degrees warmer than previous studies have projected. If these temperatures do become reality, greenhouse gases would transform Earth into a place where food is scarce, parts of the world are uninhabitable for humans, and many species of animals and plants are wiped out, experts say. “It would be as unrecognizable to us as a fully glaciated world,“ says Myles Allen, head of a climate dynamics group at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Allen was not involved in the new study, but his research has focused on carbon’s cumulative impacts on climate. Noting that it took less warming, 6°C(10. 8 °F), to lift the world out of the Ice Age, Allen said, “That’s the profundity of the change we’re talking about.“ The 8-degree rise in global temperatures would blast past the 2°C(3. 8 ° F)limit that nations agreed upon last year in the Paris talks. It also would heat the world to a level approaching that of the early Eocene Period, 52 million to 56 million years ago, when palm trees grew as far north as Alaska? and crocodiles swam in the Arctic. Mammals survived Eocene temperatures: this is when early primates appeared. Some horses, however, shrank to the size of house cats, adjusting through evolution to a diet altered either by heat or carbon. Today’s organisms and ecosystems may not be able to adapt to warming over the next 200 to 300 years—an instant on the geological time scale, says Scott Wing, the Smithsonian Institution’s curator of fossil plants. Also, Wing notes that when the Eocene heat began, the Earth’s poles weren’t covered with ice as they are today. “In the future, warming will melt ice caps, which will expose bare ground, increase heat absorption at high latitudes, and cause more warming,“ Wing says. The study predicts that precipitation would quadruple in the tropical Pacific, while it would be reduced by up to third in the Americas and a factor of two over parts of Australia, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and the Amazon. Allen says not only could tropical rain forest systems collapse, but drought in southern Europe and the United States would be “ completely catastrophic for agriculture. “ Wealthy nations might maintain food supply, but not places like southern Africa. “A lot of people would have to leave, or a lot of people would die,“ Allen says.

Graham Mansfield is head of downstream operations at the UK oil company Apos Oil. The downstream end of the business, which includes the refining of petroleum products and their subsequent sale to retail customers, operates within a relatively short-term timescale. In contrast, the upstream end of the business, which is concerned with the exploration and extraction of oil, takes a long view of technology and the environment that may stretch over several decades. Mansfield says of his side of the business. “At the refining and retail end we are constantly struggling to make a profit. Margins are tight and competition is fierce. Having said that, aspects of this business do demand a range of management expertise. Knowing what rivals are charging for fuel at petrol stations, which oil products investment funds are buying and how sales respond to the weather are all a vital part of the job. Of course we don’t work on such a long timescale as the extraction side of operations, so there’s a lot less forward planning. “ But there may be tougher times ahead. “Ten years ago, Apos’ target return on capital for the refining and retail end of the business was about 15% , and it was difficult to reach that figure then,“ says Mansfield. “Today, we’re only seeing larger returns because we invested in some oil refineries at a low point in the market and we’ve been enjoying the margins from that increased production. “ However, because the refinery business generally has become so profitable, it is set to attract new investment, and the global capacity for refining oil is expected to rise enormously. The result, according to analysts, is that the refining margins currently enjoyed by oil companies could become a thing of the past. One strategy that cannot save the industry during an economic downswing is getting further into general retailing. Mansfield says, “Ten years ago, the downstream industry thought it could save itself by selling more food at its petrol stations. It was generally profitable, depending on which locations you looked at. But selling fuel was really the area we knew something about. Differentiating our existing products, and constantly changing what was on offer—that was the key. “ However, the possibility of global overproduction of oil has made Apos think carefully about further expansion plans. “National oil companies are on the move,“ says Mansfield. “They’re currently announcing additional capacity. Our economics are very different from those of the national oil companies, so we won’t grow as aggressively as they do. We’ve identified a country where we’d like to have oil refining capacity, though, so we’ll work hard on establishing that. The USA is also building refineries, which we’ve been part of, and we’ll be doubling our capacity at one of our existing refineries there. We can do that without a huge financial outlay. “

School bullying is quite common in most schools. According to the American Psychological Association, approximately 40% to 80% of school-age children experience bullying at some point during their school careers. Regardless of the grade level, socioeconomic environment, gender and religion, bullying can happen to anyone. Teachers need to have a certain level of awareness of this issue. This starts with understanding the three forms of bullying: physical, verbal and emotional. Physical bullying is any unwanted physical contact between the bully and the victim. It is the most identifiable form of all. Verbal bullying is any injurious language or statement that causes the victim’s emotional suffering. Emotional bullying is any form of bullying that causes damages to a victim’s emotional well-being. The consequence of school bullying might be horrible. It is a major cause of school shootings. School shooters that died or committed suicide left behind evidence that they had been bullied. Therefore, enough attention should be given and practical measures should be taken by the school administration to address this issue.

Question No. 6 We were sorry that we were late for the meeting yesterday. If we had not had a flat tyre, we would have arrived on time at 2:30 instead of 3:30. Question No. 7 The due date for our final paper is still four weeks away, but the professor told us not to wait until the last minute to hand it in. Question No. 8 He has suffered from that cough for almost three weeks. The sooner he stops smoking, the better he’ll feel. Question No. 9 Although he has won so many titles in the world tournaments, Jack is an unpopular tennis player because he always gets mad when he loses. Question No. 10 Diana picked up the things she needed and made for the checkout counter. Since she only had five items, she went to the “5 Items or Less Express Line“, which was also very long. We came on time at 2:30. We came at 2:30 and left at 3:30. We had a flat tyre an hour ago. We came an hour later than we should.

A study has shown that here in the United States, we’ve experienced the revolution concerning our attitudes towards the workweek and weekend. Although some calendars still mark the beginning of the week “Sunday“, more and more of us have come to regard Monday as the first day of the week with Saturday and Sunday comprising the two-day periods thought of as the weekend. In fact, the word “weekend“ didn’t even exist in English until about the middle of the 19th century. In England at that time, Saturday afternoons had just been added to Sundays and holidays as a time for workers to have off from their jobs. This innovation became common in the United States in the 1920s. But as the workweek shortened during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the weekend expanded to two full days, Saturday and Sunday. Some people thought that this trend would continue due to increasing automation and the workweek might decrease to four days or even fewer. But so far, this hasn’t happened. The workweek seems to have stabilized the 40 hours made up of five eight-hour days. Next time I’m going to talk about the idea of adding Monday to the weekend.(199) Question No. 15 When did the word “weekend“ begin to exist in the English language? Question No. 16 When did American people begin to have two-day weekend? Question No. 17 What did some people predict from increasing automation? Question No. 18 What is the speaker going to talk about next time? About the middle of the 18th century. About the end of the 18th century. About the middle of the 19th century. About the beginning of the 20th century.

Jack: The lecture was interesting. I really enjoyed it. Sally: Yes, indeed I agree,but I wonder are you new here? Jack: Actually yes. I’m a new student. I enrolled in the M. A. teaching progamme last week. Sally: Oh, really. Well, I don’t want to boast but I was in this programme only two years ago after my degree. I joined the staff of London University. Jack: I see. Well, then you could tell me something about this programme, couldn’t you? Sally: I’d be only too glad to. What do you want to know? Jack: Well, what kind of assessment is there for this particular programme? It’s just that I haven’t taken an exam for quite a long time, so I’m nervous about the course. Sally: Oh, take it easy. There is no need to worry at all. I was nervous too when I first came here until I found that the course assessment emphasizes essays and seminar papers. This helped me to gain confidence in my academic work before the final examinations. Jack: How many papers are required before the finals? Sally: Five essays and about six short papers, something like that. Jack: I see. That doesn’t seem too bad. Did you enjoy the course? Sally: Yes, very much. I greatly appreciate the year that I studied here. At first I thought the course would be very theoretical, but in fact it was very practical and relevant to the actual teaching. It proved to be of a great assistance to me in my education career. Jack: What about the teachers here? Sally: Oh, they’re very helpful. Throughout my time as a student the academic staff here were always approachable, encouraging and supportive. Jack: Well, that makes me feel much better. Sally: I’m sure you’ll like studying here. You know all my time spent in this university was a very happy one. I made a lot of good friends and thoroughly enjoyed the student life on campus. The lecturer today is one of my good friends here. Jack: Oh, is she? Well, sorry but I have got to leave now. I enjoyed talking with you. Thanks for your help. Sally: It’s been nice talking to you too. Good luck! Question No. 27 What is the relationship between the two speakers? Question No. 28 How did the man feel about the programme he enrolled in? Question No. 29 For the M. A. teaching programme, what does the course assessment emphasize? Question No. 30 What is the woman’s opinion of the course? They are students in their first year. They are student and teacher. They are good school friends. They are teaching programme designers.

______Sentence No. 1 My income is not enough to pay all my bills, so I have started riding my bicycle to and from work. Sentence No. 2 There are several ways you can impress your new boss. For example, you should dress well, arrive at work on time, and complete tasks efficiently. Sentence No. 3 Our landlord often invites his tenants to dinner and allows them to use his washer and dryer. He has become known as the kindest person in our neighborhood. Sentence No. 4 Online shopping is convenient, saves money and saves time. A lot of people are doing their shopping on the Internet for everything from soap to television. Sentence No. 5 In the United States, every year there are about nine murders per one hundred thousand people. In Japan, for example, that figure is 0. 5. In France, it’s 1. 1.

The Great Barrier Reef is more than worthy of its name. Coral of all shapes, sizes and colors cover more than 130,000 sq. mi. off the coast of Australia, making it the world’s largest reef system and supporting an astounding variety of marine life. But today the Great Barrier Reef is dying. The temporary warming effect of a major El Nino event—combined with ongoing climate change—has heated the waters around the reef to nearly unprecedented levels. That warming has in turn driven a mass bleaching that has sucked the color— and the life—out of the coral. And the Great Barrier Reef isn’t alone. “This is the longest bleaching event ever recorded,“ says David Kline, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist. “It’s truly global, and it’s looking very severe. “ Bleaching occurs when ocean disruptions—warm water, pollution, algae overgrowth-drive away the symbiotic organisms that live on the coral and give it color. Within weeks, the reef could die, leaving behind a forest of lifeless, bone white coral. Scientists believe the bleaching now under way may kill more than 15% of the world’s coral. It’s not just a matter of aquatic aesthetics. Reefs act as natural barriers that protect coastal communities from storms and flooding. Marine life depends on coral reefs as habitats, while coastal towns depend on them as tourist draws. But a bigger worry may be what the bleaching suggests about future climate change. The rapid death of coral reefs demonstrates that climate change is irreversibly affecting the world right now, even as policymakers treat warming as something to be dealt with in the future. “Climate change may be slow-creeping sometimes, but other times it takes great leaps forward,“ says Steve Palumbi, an ocean scientist at Stanford University. “This is one of those leaps. “ Local solutions—like reducing fishing and cleaning up pollution-can help slow reef loss, but scientists say a global problem requires a global solution. Nearly 200 countries agreed last year to work to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3. 6°F by 2100, but that goal will be tough to reach. And if governments fail, coral reefs will be only the first victims.

Can you spot a good marriage? I was pretty sure I could, starting with my own. My husband and I rarely argued, we had similar careers, and we shared common interests. So nobody was more surprised than we were when our 17-year marriage ended in divorce. It turns out I had been judging my marriage by the wrong standards-as most of us do. In one famous study, researchers asked therapists, married couples, and others to watch videotaped conversations of ten couples and try to identify the relationships that had broken up. Even the therapists guessed wrong half the time. Luckily, scientists have identified some simple but powerful indicators that can help you recognize marital strife long before your relationship hits the skids. For instance, a couple go hiking on their first date. They marry, and years later, the wife tells this story: “We got terribly lost that day. It took us hours to find our way back, but we laughed about how neither of us had a good sense of direction. After that, we knew not to plan another hiking trip!“ Another wife might tell it a different way: “He lost the map, and it took hours to find our way back. After that, I never wanted to go hiking again. “ The keeper marriage? The one in which the positive is accentuated and the problems laughed off. Research shows that it’s not what you say but how you say it: Your emphasis will correctly predict the success or failure of your marriage about 90 percent of the time. To size up your relationship, ask yourself these questions. Do you: Avoid arguments? Studies show it’s a mistake to judge a relationship by the amount of time you argue, especially early on. When I was first married, I felt lucky that my husband and I rarely fought. A University of Washington study of newly wed couples appeared to confirm my belief: It showed that couples who argued relatively little were happier than combative ones. When the same couples were checked three years later, however, those with an early history of bickering were more likely to have found stability in their marriages, whereas couples who prided themselves on their equanimity were in troubled relationships or already divorced. Of course, violence or verbal abuse is never acceptable. Roll your eyes? This seemingly harmless gesture is a clear sign of marital discord. The same researchers at the University of Washington found that eye rolling, even when accompanied by a laugh or smile, indicates some degree of contempt—poison to a relationship. “This kind of sarcastic gesture doesn’t clearly state an objection, which makes it difficult for the other person to respond,“ says Janice Kiecolt-Glaser at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. “The obvious first step is to stop the behavior. But the second is to explore the reasons behind it. “ Duck decisions? I often deferred to my husband when it came to making weekend or vacation plans. Later I realized our social life didn’t reflect my favourite activities—a relationship red flag. Psychologist Howard Markman, a professor at the University of Denver, agrees. It’s risky for your relationship when one of you controls the social agenda, he says.

On October 14, 2015 tracker dogs led game scouts to a group of armed poachers who were on the run after shooting and killing a well-known old elephant bull just outside Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. This was the latest in a string of successes by Tanzania’s tracker dogs, which are proving to be an effective weapon in the bloody war on elephant poaching in East Africa. “Apart from their incredible tracking abilities, dogs are wonderful to work with because they don’t have any political agenda—they can’t be compromised,“ said Damien Bell, director of Big Life Tanzania, the conservation organization that manages the Big Life Tracker Dog Unit. “Our dogs have tracked elephant poachers for up to eight hours at a time or more, through extreme conditions—heat, rain, wetlands, mountains—and still turned up results,“ he said. “They love their handlers, and they do a job until the job is done. “ The Big Life Foundation first began using dogs for anti-poaching efforts in 2011, after adopting four Alsatians(German shepherds)from kennels in the Netherlands and honing their skills with the help of Canine Specialist Services International, a dog training facility based in northern Tanzania. Alsatians were picked over bloodhounds as they have more stamina and can better handle the African heat. Two of the dogs, Max and Jazz, were stationed in southern Kenya. The other two, Rocky and Jerry, were sent to Tanzania to help out in the Amboseli/Kilimanjaro ecosystem, important elephant habitat that straddles the two countries. Since their arrival, Rocky and Jerry have helped with countless anti-poaching operations, leading to numerous arrests. In fact, the dog teams have become so popular that Tanzania National Parks , the Wildlife Division, the police, and even the military have requested their assistance. Canine sleuths aren’t limited to the plains of East Africa, either. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bloodhounds are assisting in the fight against poaching in forested Virunga National Park, where the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas live. In South Africa, Weimaraner and Malinois dogs are helping to find wounded animals and track poachers on foot through the reserves around Kruger National Park. Anatolian shepherd dogs are also used in Africa to mitigate human-wildlife conflict on farms, where the instinctively protective dogs defend livestock from predators. Rocky arrived with his handlers, and soon he was pacing and sniffing up and down beside the dead elephant, about to explode with excitement. He quickly picked up the human scents from footprints near the carcass. It seemed that multiple people had been at the crime scene the night before. Now the dogs were on their dusty trail. The hunters had become the hunted. Rocky led the chase through the foothills and scrublands of the Lesimingori, frantically tugging his handler at the end of the lead. But after five hours of relentless progress, the heat wore even him down, and his protege, Rosdus, took over. Rosdus is a new dog on the team—fresh from extensive training at Canine Specialist Services International, at Usa River. Rosdus didn’t disappoint his mentor. He took the team all the way to the main highway, where the unit followed a hot trail through the town and to a particular home. There,seven suspects were arrested. Six of the suspects have been charged and are now in custody in Arusha, without bail.