Every week, our teacher gives us a new topic to discuss in class. Last Monday, however, he asked us a very interesting question—"Do you think it is difficult to be a _______ ? "   Some of the students said they thought it was easy, as parents never have to do any homework! Our teacher said he wouldn't tell us the _______ . He said he would let us be "a parent" for a week. He was sure we would have the answer by the end of the week.

The rest of the lesson was _______ making flour (面粉) babies. We first took some bags and filled them with flour in order to make the "babies" as heavy as real ones. We then tied the bags very tight, so the _______ would not fall out. After that, we used cardboard (纸板) to make some arms, legs and a face for our flour babies, and then _______ them in old pieces of clothing. My baby looked _______ , as I am not good at art, but it was great fun.

When we finished, our teacher gave us all notebooks to _______ our experience with the babies for the whole week. We had to carry them with us every day and look after them like real babies. That was really difficult! For example, one of my friends has quite a bad memory, and _______ his flour baby on the bus one morning. We also had to feed the baby and get it for bed in the evening. Every night, I was supposed to get up three times to feed the flour baby. I was tired and fell asleep very _______ . Yet it was just a few hours before my alarm clock woke me up again. I got ________ little sleep that I had black bags under my eyes.

It was a difficult time, but now the project is finished. I feel I have learnt that it is not easy to be a responsible (负责的) parent. I think it also gave me a new perspective (观点) on what my parents have done for me.

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Perhaps you've seen the English letters "WC" in your city. They show public toilets. But do you know it is far from elegant English? In fact, foreigners from English-speaking countries rarely use the letters.

Workers in our city are changing "WC" signs all over the city. The government is spending much money changing all the bad English on signs and restaurant menus. Many other places in China are following our steps.

"WC, or water closet, is old-fashioned English. It sounds dirty to me, " says Charlie Shifflet, a young man from the US. The old sign will become "Gents/Men" and "Ladies/ Women".

"I see lots of poor English in everyday life, and not only on signs, " he says. "I know what they mean. But they are Chinglish, not real English. For example, when someone says to me ‘My hometown is Henan Province’, I know he would say: ‘My hometown is in Henan Province’. ‘Hometown’ is a smaller place in a province.” The common mistakes he picked up include "Not Entry", which should be "No Entry", "Direction of Airport" should be changed to "To the Airport". And it is "room rate", not "room price". And remember to "Keep off the grass", rather than "Care of the green".

Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

Members go on the site and register (注册) the books they own and would like to share. BookCrossing provides an identification number (标识号) to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure (冒险), traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

Bruce Pederson, the managing director of BookCrossing, says, "The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. BookCrossing brings them together."

Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.

People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E-mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated (更新) about where their books have been found. Bruce Pederson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.

BookCrossing is popular with people who want to get back to the "real" and not the virtual (虚拟). The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred and thirty-five countries.

If you look at the top of your phone, you'll see a little symbol that says 3G or 4G. The "G" stands for the "generation" of your mobile network. But these symbols will become things of the past after the SG network fully arrives.

The 5G mobile network is 100 times faster and has 1, 000 times more capacity(容量) compared with the 4G mobile network.

In recent years, China has paid great attention to the commercial(商业的)use of 5G and made great efforts to introduce the infrastructure(基础设施)for a 5G network. On March 30，Shanghai vice-mayor Wu Qing made the first 5G video call on a Huawei Mate X smartphone, CGTN reported Shanghai has also become the first city in China to start testing 5G networks.

5G will let people download and upload data faster than ever before. But 5G won't just bring faster mobile Internet. People can use it for many other things as well. For example, 5G will help to make self-driving cars safer. Today's self-driving test cars have one problem一lags. When the car "sees" something or somebody in the way, it sends this information to a data center and receives instructions.

However, it takes time to send and receive this information. With this kind of lag, the cars might crash because they don't receive instructions in time. With 5G, this lag will be greatly lowered, making the cars safer, according to CNN.

5G could also be used to power the Internet of Things(IoT). This refers to a large online network that connects all things and people. Fast Internet speeds will be the key to developing this technology. For example, with IoT, your refrigerator could order eggs online when it notices that there are no eggs left inside.

The weather is closely related to our life. It is all around us all the time.     38     . We cannot control it, but it often controls how and where we live, what we do, what we wear and what we eat. Read this passage and learn something about the weather.

    39     The weather is just the state of the atmosphere(大气)at any time, such as temperature, wind, rain, sun, etc.

    40     As we know, not every place on the earth gets the same amount of sunlight. Some places get more sunlight. So it's warmer in those places.     41     Then those places have colder temperatures. These differences in temperature make the air and water move around the earth. The movement helps to take the heat energy from the sun across the earth.

    42     Climate(气候)is a place's weather over a long time. The weather changes from day to day and even from hour to hour. It can be sunny in the morning, cold and wet in the afternoon. But the climate changes very slowly over lots of years.

Many people dream of becoming a programmer for a major tech company because they can get high pay. However, it may mean having to accept overtime work. In fact, working overtime has been common for workers in China's Internet companies for many years, but debate about the practice heated up recently online.

These days, many Chinese tech companies follow a "996" work schedule. This means their workers have to start work at 9 a. m, and finish at 9 p. m., six days a week. They seldom get overtime pay for this, Global Times reported.

This schedule has been heavily questioned ever since a computer programmer created a website called "996. ICU". It says that following a "996" schedule is unhealthy and could cause workers to end up in an intensive care unit(ICU). Many other programmers have complained about the schedule. "If it's a work-more-pay-more model, I'd be a lot more willing to follow the `996' schedule. But the truth is, not every company is run that way. That's why many people complain." a software developer said.

However, the bosses of some tech companies have defended "996". Jack Ma, a founder of Alibaba, said it's "a huge blessing" for young workers to do "996". He said, "If you don't do ‘996’ when you're young, when will you? If you don't spend more time than others, how will you get the success you want?"

Many have questioned Ma's thinking. People's Daily pointed out that "valuing hard work does not mean making workers work overtime. "

In fact, according to China's Labor Law, people should work no more than eight hours a day or no more than 44 hours a week. It is illegal for companies to use a "996" work schedule.

66. 初中三年，你一定结识了许多同窗好友，请你挑选一位你印象最深刻的好朋友，以“The friend who has impressed me most”为题写一篇英语短文，并涵盖以下问题:

The friend who has impressed me most

The friend who has impressed me most is______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________