What is classic literature? Classics are the antiques of the literary world. They are novels, plays and poems that 【小题1】 (write) a long time ago and so well written were they 【小题2】 people still read them nowadays. They are examples of great writing and wisdom, and even those written centuries ago can still be found in bookshops and libraries today.

Because a lot of classics were written so long ago, their language characteristics are quite different from 【小题3】 of modern works. This makes them difficult for some people 【小题4】 (read), so they are often left to gather dust on shelves. Many people do not read them, because they think classics are old and boring and seem not 【小题5】 (close) related to life today.

However, if this is true, why do we still find these classics in bookshops and libraries? They have not disappeared and still have 【小题6】 place in the world. Why else would many films 【小题7】 (base) on them be successful? In 1995, an award-winning film adapted from Jane Austen's novel Emma 【小题8】 (come) out. Three years later, in 1998, a modern 【小题9】 (adapt) of Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations appeared in cinemas. Nobody would bother to make these classic novels into films if they had nothing to do 【小题10】 contemporary life.

Smog is a 【小题1】(combine) of smoke and fog. It occurs when gases from burnt fuel get together with fog on the ground. 【小题2】 heat and sunlight get together with these gases, they form tiny, 【小题3】 (danger) particles (颗粒) in the air. Smog occurs in big cities with a lot of traffic. It is harmful to our breathing and we can’t see【小题4】 (clear) in smoggy areas.

Smog 【小题5】 (discover) for the first time in the UK in the 19th century, during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. At that time, people used coal 【小题6】 heating and cooking. Factories also used coal to produce iron and steel. Smoke got together with wet, foggy air, 【小题7】 (turn) yellow. The smog often stayed in cities for many days.

Today, cities 【小题8】 have a high population and are located in hot, subtropical areas have some of 【小题9】 biggest smog problems — for example, Los Angeles, Mexico City and Cairo.

A lot has been done 【小题10】 (prevent) smog recently. Factories use coal that doesn’t have that much Sulphur (硫磺) in it. And cars are much cleaner today. In some cities, cars aren’t even allowed to drive on smoggy days.

While the practice of mindfulness has become increasingly popular, its roots can be traced back thousands of years to Buddhism (佛教). One of the people often 【小题1】 (think) to bring mindfulness to the West is Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and founded 【小题2】 is now the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Kabat-Zinn mixed Buddhist ideas about mindfulness with science, making it more accessible to 【小题3】 in the West.

Soon, mindfulness made its way into clinical settings and has been successful in treating health issues 【小题4】 anxiety and depression. A large quantity of studies 【小题5】 (focus) on the ability of mindfulness meditation over the past few years. For example, in a 2003 study of cancer patients, increased mindfulness was shown to effectively reduce stress and anxiety. Given the way 【小题6】 mindfulness can decrease stress, it comes as no surprise that it can also help deal with emotional problems.

Another study indicates mindfulness may also improve working memory. Jha and colleagues investigated its impact on military participants during a stressful time, 【小题7】 stress has been shown to decrease working memory. One group attended an eight-week mindfulness meditation course but the others did not. Working memory decreased in the control group; however, in the mindfulness group, working memory decreased in those who spent the least time on mindfulness meditation but increased in those who spent most of their free time 【小题8】 (practise) mindfulness meditation.

Clearly, mindfulness has many benefits, but it’s not a cure-all. For example, one study found that following mindfulness meditation, participants were 【小题9】 (likely) to form accurate memories. It may even result in severe anxiety for those PTSD (创伤后应激障碍) patients who tend 【小题10】 (avoid) thoughts and feelings related to their sad past.