—He ____________gets home at 6：00 on weekdays.

—No, thanks. I don't think it's good to have fruit just after dinner.

    In our daily life, direct questions are usually used to ask for information we do not know. Direct questions are either yes/no questions such as "Are you married?" or information questions such as "Where do you live?".

    It's OK to ask your friends or someone you know well direct questions. But they can seem abrupt and impolite at times, especially when you are asking a stranger. For example, if you come up to someone and ask "What time is it?" or "Can you move?", he/she may refuse to help you. It is certainly correct to ask questions in this way, but it's very common to make these kinds of questions more polite by adding "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" to begin your questions. "Excuse me, when does the bus leave?" or "Pardon me, may I sit here?" sounds more polite.

    It's also possible to use "can" in more informal (非正式的) situations. In the past, "can" was not used when asking for something, but only to refer to abilities. In the United Kingdom, Cambridge University publishes (出版) English teaching materials with the phrase "Can you lend me" "Can I have", etc. In the United States, this form is still considered to be incorrect, especially for written English, and "May I have" is preferred. Questions with "can" are made more polite by using "could": "Pardon me, could you help me?"

     "Would" can also be used to make questions more polite. "Would you let me borrow your pencil?" is also polite.

    Another way of making direct questions more polite is to add "please" at the end of the questions. We can say "Could you help me, please?" "Please" should not appear at the beginning of the questions.

    Have you noticed your life becoming a little easier? Now, when you go to a certain shopping mall, you can enjoy its free Wi-Fi there. When you want to take a taxi, you can book one with your phone. In fact, all these can be seen as the basic parts of a smart city.

    The idea of a smart city was brought up by US company IBM in 2010. Generally, a smart city is a city that uses digital technologies such as the Internet to improve city planning, save money and resources, and make our life convenient. How smart can a city be? Here are great examples that we can learn from.

    In 2009, Dubuque became the first smart city in the US. The city used smart water meters to take the place of traditional water me tens. They can detect (探测) water waste and leakage (泄漏) and send data to let the house owner know. The same system is used for other city resources like electricity and natural gas. In this way, people know how they use their resources and are glad to help reduce waste.

    Santander in Spain also gives us a look at the future. If people point a phone toward a nearby bus stop, the phone immediately shows all bus lines that serve the stop as well as their arrival times. The government organized a research team and provided an App (应用程序) that collects data on almost everything: light, temperature, and the movements of cars and people. Opening the App near a supermarket provides immediate information on special offers.