If you go shopping in any toy store, you can see clearly the different games and toys for boys and girls——there are a lot of pink toys on one side of the store for girls and dark-colored cars, guns, and soldiers for boys. Some big stores with toys may even have a pink floor for girls and a blue floor for boys. In fact, if you want to buy a toy for a girl that is not pink, it’s not easy.

Some people think that too much pink is bad for girls. Sue Palmer, writer of Toxic Childhood, is very worried that most girls over the age of three are captivated about the pink. They’d like to just choose that color all the time. According to some scientists, this happens for two reasons. Firstly, most companies offer too many products in pink. Also, many parents think their little daughter looks cute in pink. Sue Palmer says that girls at this age cannot make proper decisions by themselves, but the pink can affect the choices and the decisions they will make in the future.

Some parents are worried, too, for example, Vanessa Holburn, thirty-two, who has two girls under the age of four. Their bedrooms are a sea of pink and Vanessa is not happy. “Pink says that you are soft and gentle. Blue says that you are strong and powerful. I want my daughters to be strong and powerful. I’m worried that pink will not help them with that,” she says.

But not everyone thinks there’s something wrong with pink. Grayson Turner is a father of three girls and he isn’t worried at all. “People forget that things change all the time,” he says. “My girls used to love pink when they were little, but as they get older, they change.” Turner explains that his twelve-year-old daughter never wears pink clothes anymore. “This love of pink is just a fashion and all fashions change,” he adds. “It’s only since the 1940s that people have stated dressing girls—in pink before that it was a color for boys.”

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①Opening the Weather app to watch for the temperature and weather conditions is what we usually do every morning. For sure, weather changes can be predicted (预测), but how about earthquakes? Can we predict when the earthquake will happen?

②Before answering this question, we must first know about the earth. The surface of the earth is made up of plates (板块), they run into each other. When they run into each other they cause strong earthquakes and can even build mountains. In other places, plates move away from each other.

③Though we understand earthquakes better than we did a century ago, some scientists think it’s impossible to answer this question. It’s one thing to say that an earthquake is most likely to happen in a high-risk area, but it’s another thing to tell whether it will happen tomorrow.

④In the late 1980s, scientists at the Earthquake Research Center decided to study the fault (断层) to see if there were any warning signs before an earthquake. To do this, they dug deep into the fault and set up machines to record its activity. Then they waited for the earthquake. Year after year, nothing happened. Finally when an earthquake did hit on September 28, 2004.

⑤However, some scientists with the strong will for a correct prediction of time and place are working hard to develop methods which they believe will make earthquake prediction possible.

⑥Naoyuki Kato, a scientist at the University of Tokyo, says his lab test shows that before the meeting point of two plates finally breaks and causes on earthquake, we will turn the impossible into possible. Scientists working in Parkfield, America, hoping to find a sign. Luckily, they discovered some tiny changes in the fault shortly before an earthquake hit. Although it’s the only one successful prediction among countless unsuccessful ones.

⑦From the research being done all over the world, it seems that before earthquakes, there are some small signs. If this is so▲.

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Chicago is a big city and home to people from many different countries. They are proud of their cultures,so every year they have parades(游行)to celebrate(庆祝)their cultures. Many people fill the sidewalks to cheer on the people in the parades.

The first parade every year is the Chinese New Year Parade. It is the first day of the Chinese calendar. The parade is held in January or February. People line the streets to watch the lion and dragon dances.

Next comes the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. It happens in March. People move down the street with bagpipes(风笛),playing Irish music. There are also bands and dancers in the parade. Many people wear green. Even the river is green on this day! People pour green coloring into the river to make it green.

The third is Cinco de Mayo for Mexican Americans. This parade is held to honor(向……致敬)the day Mexico won a big war. Red, white, and green colors run down the street. Men and women in colorful clothes dance in the street. Bands play music for them.Mexican Americans have two parades each year. They also have another parade, Independent Day Parade, in September to celebrate their nation’s freedom(自由).

The Columbus Day Parade is held in October. The parade celebrates Christopher Columbus’s journey across the Atlantic. It also honors the Italian American culture. Men and women celebrate it by playing music and showing dances from Italy. It is the last cultural parade of the year. All of these cultures make Chicago an interesting place to live.

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