Summer is a time to look forward to because there is no school to get you down. 【小题1】 You just need to stay active, occupied, and have an open mind.

●Read if you feel bored.

Subscribe to a magazine or comic if you don't like books. Choose whatever age－appropriate book that interests you and start reading. 【小题2】 In your backyard or on your balcony, on your bed, or out by the lake. Reading doesn’t have to be boring.

●Get caught up on schoolwork.

Not all of us are straight “A” students. Take this time to go to the library and review material for the next year in advance. 【小题3】 No need to rush or stress out. It’s just important not to forget anything you learned in the past year over the summer.

●Travel.

If you usually go on vacation in the summer, start packing now! Can’t afford to travel far? No problem! 【小题4】

Go on a road trip with your friends and family. Find out what’s on the other side of that lake. Be creative!

●【小题5】

If summers are hot where you live, you can go to the beach with your family or friends. Also, some water parks have great discounts at times during the summer. But be careful, if there’s a heat wave outside, you’d better stay out of the sun, or even go indoors.

For most Americans, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day are a time when we’re eating more than we should. 【小题1】 The problem wasn’t really the small weight increase but that study participants never lost what they put on during the holiday season.

So, how do you avoid gaining weight without missing out on the holiday fun? There are several small changes we can make.

We have to make time to exercise. With all the shopping that needs to be done and the holiday get-togethers, the first thing cut out of our schedules is often exercise. 【小题2】Exercise not only burns off those holiday treats, it reduces our stress as well.

【小题3】 Allow yourself to enjoy the foods you really love, but choose wisely and watch your portion (份额) size. If you’ve looked forward to Aunt Sally’s Christmas cookies all year, have one. Mindful eating is the key. Take a small portion of your favorite dessert or high-calorie dish and then enjoy it.

Try never to go to a holiday celebration hungry. When you are really hungry, you tend to eat more than you normally would. 【小题4】 Then you’ll find it easier to control how much you eat.

Weigh yourself at least once a week on the same day, at the same time and on the same scale (称). It’s important to keep in mind that our weight can change because of salt intake or other factors. 【小题5】

Clutter is the disease of American writing. Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important. But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these weaken the strength of a sentence.

Simplify, simplify. How can we achieve such freedom from clutter? The answer is to clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other. It’s impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English. He may get away with it for a paragraph or two, but soon the reader will be lost.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it? Is it clear to someone coming across the subject for the first time? If it’s not, some fuzz has worked its way into the writing. The clear writer is someone clear-headed enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.

I don’t mean that some people are born clear-headed and are therefore natural writers, while others are naturally fuzzy and will never write well. Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves, as if they were working on any other project that requires logic.

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.