I am an active playgoer and play-reader, and perhaps my best reason for editing this book is a hope of sharing my enthusiasm for the theater with others. To do this I have searched through dozens of plays to find the ones that I think best show the power and purpose of the short play.

Each play has a theme or central idea which the playwright(剧作家) hopes to get across through dialogue and action. A few characters are used to create a single impression growing out of the theme. It is not my intention to point out the central theme of each of the plays in this collection, for that would, indeed, ruin the pleasure of reading, discussing, and thinking about the plays and the effectiveness of the playwright. However, a variety of types is represented here. These include comedy, satire, poignant drama, historical and regional drama. To show the versatility(多面性) of the short play, I have included a guidance play, a radio play and a television play.

Among the writers of the plays in this collection, Paul Green, Susan Glaspell, Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder, William Saroyan, and Tennessee Williams have all received Pulitzer Prizes for their contributions to the theater. More information about the playwrights will be found at the end of this book.

To get the most out of reading these plays, try to picture the play on stage, with you, the reader, in the audience. The houselights dim(变暗). The curtains are about to open, and in a few minutes the action and dialogue will tell you the story.

The traffic signals along Factoria Boulevard in Bellevue, Washington, generally don't flash the same length of green twice in a row, especially at rush hour. At 9:30am, the full red/yellow/green signal cycle might be 140 seconds. By 9:33am, a burst of additional traffic might push it to 145 seconds. Less traffic at 9:37am could push it down to 135. Just like the traffic itself, the timing of the signals changes.

That is by design. Bellevue, a fast-growing city just east of Seattle, uses a system that is gaining popularity around the US: intersection(十字路口) signals that can adjust in real time to traffic conditions. These lights, known as adaptive signals, have led to significant declines in both the trouble and cost of travels between work and home.

“Adaptive signals can make sure that the traffic demand that is there is being addressed, ” says Alex Stevanovic, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University.

For all of Bellevue’s success, adaptive signals are not a cure-all for jammed roadways. Kevin Balke, a research engineer at the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute, says that while smart lights can be particularly beneficial for some cities, others are so jammed that only a sharp reduction in the number of cars on the road will make a meaningful difference. “It’s not going to fix everything, but adaptive signals have some benefits for smaller cities,” he says.

In Bellevue, the switch to adaptive signals has been a lesson in the value of welcoming new approaches. In the past, there was often an automatic reaction to increased traffic: just widen the roads, says Mark Poch, the Bellevue Transportation Department’s traffic engineering manager. Now he hopes that other cities will consider making their streets run smarter instead of just making them bigger.

Challenging work that requires lots of analytical thinking, planning and other managerial skills might help your brain stay sharp as you age, a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology suggests.

Researchers from the University of Leipzig in Germany gathered more than 1, 000 retired workers who were over age 75 and assessed the volunteers’ memory and thinking skills through a battery of tests. Then, for eight years, the scientists asked the same group to come back to the lab every 18 months to take the same sorts of tests.

Those who had held mentally stimulating(刺激), demanding jobs before retirement tended to do the best on the tests. And they tended to lose cognitive(认知) function at a much slower rate than those with the least mentally challenging jobs. The results held true even after the scientists accounted for the participants’ overall health status.

“This works just like physical exercise, ” says Francisca Then, who led the study. “After a long run, you may feel like you’re in pain, you may feel tired. But it makes you fit. After a long day at work-sure, you will feel tired, but it can help your brain stay healthy. ”

It's not just corporate jobs, or even paid work that can help keep your brain fit, Then points out. A waiter’s job, for example, that requires multitasking, teamwork and decision-making could be just as stimulating as any high-level office work. And “running a family household requires high-level planning and coordinating(协调), ” she says. “You have to organize the activities of the children and take care of the bills and groceries. ”

Of course, our brains can decline as we grow older for lots of reasons-including other environmental influences or genetic factors. Still, continuing to challenge yourself mentally and keeping your mind busy can only help.

I experienced years of loneliness as a child.
31． His friends teased him about babysitting his sister and his interests were far different from mine. With no other kids of my age in the neighborhood, I had to spend hours by myself.

A bright spot for me turned out to be reading. My love of the written word began early as my mother read to me every evening.
32． I started reading books on my own before age 5 and my mother took me to the public library once a week to borrow several books. I quickly graduated from typical children’s books to ones with fewer pictures and longer chapters. Reading opened new worlds to me.
33．

My mother also encouraged me to make what I wanted. I tried making toy cars with cardboard boxes and constructing buildings from leftover cardboard and bits of wood my father gave me. When my mother saw my creations, she told me how creative my designs were.
34． I learned a lot about how to extend the life of objects and transform them into something new and useful. It was a trait(特点) others found helpful, and I soon had friends who wanted to make things with me.

35．My parents made it a point for their two kids to spend time outside, no matter the weather or season. My brother, of course, raced off to be with his friends, while I had plenty to do myself. There was making leaf houses in autumn, ice skating in winter, and so much more. They’re all memories I treasure today.

I’ve been farming sheep on a hillside for 54 years. I use a small tractor to get about. My dog Don always sits beside me in the passenger seat.

One morning I _______ a lost lamb when I was in the top field，near where a motorway cuts through my land. The lamb had become separated from its _______ , so I jumped out of the tractor to _______ it while Don stayed in his seat.

Lamb and mother _______ , I turned back to the tractor only to see it move suddenly away from me. This was so _______ because I had put the handbrake on when I jumped out. _______ Don had somehow made the _______move.

My heart froze in my chest as I _______ the tractor heading towards the _______ .I ran desperately but failed to __________. It crashed through a wooden fence and disappeared. The __________ thing I saw was Don’s face, looking calmly back at me.

Heart in mouth, I __________ the fence and looked over. The tractor was __________against the crash barrier in the central reservation, having miraculously(奇迹般地) crossed the __________ road with fast-flowing traffic. I couldn’t see Don, but as I __________ the tractor he jumped out onto the road, apparently __________ , and dashed back to me.

The police __________ and the motorway ran normally again. I couldn't quite believe my __________ it turned out no one got badly hurt, but the outcome could have been __________ .Don was given a special __________ that night—I didn’t want him thinking I was angry with him.

Some time after 10，000 BC，people made the first real attempt to control the world they lived
56． ，through agriculture. Over thousands of years，they began to depend less on
57． could be hunted or gathered from the wild，and more on animals they had raised and crops they had sown.

Farming produced more food per person
58． hunting and gathering，so people were able to raise more children. And，as more children were born，more food
59．(need). Agriculture gave people their first experience of the power of technology
60．(change)lives.

By about 6000 BC，people
61． (discover)the best crops to grow and animals to raise. Later，they learned to work with the
62． (season)，planting at the right time and，in dry areas，
63． (make)use of annual floods to irrigate(灌溉)their fields.

This style of farming lasted for quite a long time. Then，with
64． rise of science，changes began. New methods
65． (mean)that fewer people worked in farming. In the last century or so，these changes have accelerated. New power machinery and artificial fertilizers(化肥)have now totally transformed a way of life that started in the Stone Age.

One fall, my wife Elli and I had a single goal: to photograph polar bears. We were staying at a research camp outside “the polar bear capital of the world”-the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada.

Taking pictures of polar bears is amazing but also dangerous. Polar bears-like all wild animals should be photographed from a safe distance. When I'm face to face with a polar bear, I like it to be through a camera with a telephoto lens. But sometimes，that is easier said than done. This was one of those times.

As Elli and I cooked dinner, a young male polar bear who was playing in a nearby lake sniffed, and smelled our garlic bread.

The hungry bear followed his nose to our camp, which was surrounded by a high wire fence. He pulled and bit the wire. He stood on his back legs and pushed at the wooden fence posts.

Terrified, Elli and I tried all the bear defense actions we knew. We yelled at the bear, hit pots hard，and fired blank shotgun shells into the air. Sometimes loud noises like these will scare bears off. Not this polar bear though-he just kept trying to tear down the fence with his massive paws(爪子).

I radioed the camp manager for help. He told me a helicopter was on its way, but it would be 30 minutes before it arrived. Making the best of this close encounter(相遇), I took some pictures of the bear.

Elli and I feared the fence wouldn’t last through 30 more minutes of the bear's punishment. The camp manager suggested I use pepper spray. The spray burns the bears’ eyes, but doesn't hurt them. So I approached our uninvited guest slowly and，through the fence, sprayed him in the face. With an angry roar(吼叫), the bear ran to the lake to wash his eyes.