Do you often use plastic straws? You probably use them to drink lots of things, such as apple juice, cola or milk tea. Plastic straws are small ________ they are a big problem. They are made in 10 seconds, used in 20 ________ and remain on the earth for over 100 years because they are hard to be ________.

But how do plastic straws get into the sea? Because of human mistakes, they are often thrown away everywhere and all gutters in some places lead to the sea. ________, plastic straws kill sea life. Last year a ________ was found bleeding because a 12-centimeter-long plastic straw was pushed into ________ nose. How terrible!

In fact, around 500 million plastic straws are used every day in the US alone. If we didn’t do anything now, there would be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050.

Luckily, more and more people around the world have realized this problem. They begin to thinks about ________ plastic straws are necessary or not when drinking drinks.

So what can we do to stop plastic pollution? The simplest way is to say “________ ” to plastic straws. Next time if you go to a restaurant, make sure to order your drink without a straw Coffee house chain Starbucks has started to ________ paper straws instead of plastic straws. And McDonald’s has ________ stopped using plastic straws. It is hoped that more companies and people will work together to protect our environment.

In Syria, there’s a library, and it has 15, 000 books on almost every subject you can think of. However, it is different from any libraries you know. It is a secret underground library, and only people in Syria know where it is.

Over the years, the war has destroyed Syria badly. Every day, houses are bombed and people are killed. Stores are closed one after another, and so are schools. To help the kids in Syria with their learning, Ahmad, a 19-year-old student, and his friends decided to build a library. They built the library under the ground to keep it safe from bombing. But it is dangerous to collect books for the library . Often, Ahmad and his friend look for books in houses that were bombed. They need to be careful because they may be killed in another bombing.

You may ask, “In a place like Syria, would people be interested on books?” “Just like the body need food, the mind needs books.” says one library user. In the library, people enjoy their time of reading and forget about the terrible world above, so their life doesn’t seem so hard. Through reading, they are able to dream of a better life after war.

If you have problems describing people, don't worry! We'll use popular film characters (角色) to help you learn some useful words.

Hongcun, with a history of about 900 years, is a beautiful village in Anhui Province. Located under Mount Huang, the village has kept the main Chinese styles from ancient times. It’s also one of World Heritage Sites.

Walk slowly along the old stone streets and roads, and you will feel like travelling back in time. All the houses with grey roofs and white walls were built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The front gate of each house is decorated with red Chinese knots and lanterns. All of them are outlined against the blue sky and reflected into the clear rivers, lakes with dark green mountains around. It’s a living water-ink picture.

Step into a tea house to take a rest. A piece of classical music, played by guqin, fills up the house and goes into your hearts, as if you hear birds singing and rivers running. You will be lost in a world, full of peace and pleasure. Holding the tea cup, some lines of poems will come into your mind:

No dust is rising on the road, went with morning rain.

The willows by the hotel look so fresh and green.

Walk out of the tea house, and go to the open-air theatre. The actors with colored make-ups are performing in special clothes. This special Huangmei Opera is different from others, such as Kun Opera, Beijing Opera and Yue Opera. Also, you can enjoy all kinds of quyi here: crosstalk, kouji and pingshu.

If you want to feel more about Hongcun, plan a visit to it right now.

Friendship Day is a great day for celebrating friendship. It falls on the first Sunday of August every year. Celebrating the festival was firstly started by the US in 1935. But now this doesn’t only happen in the US. People in other countries are interested in it, too.

The idea of spending the day with friends was spread all over the world. With more and more countries joining in the celebrations, Friendship Day soon became an international festival.

Between 1935 and 1997, Friendship Day didn’t have a symbol, like Santa Claus for Christmas. However, in 1997, the United Nations named Winnie the Pooh as the world’s Ambassador (大使) of Friendship. From then on people regarded this lovely bear as the symbol of this day.

People celebrate this festival in different ways. The traditional celebrations include activities such as meeting with friends and exchanging (替换) cards, flowers and gifts. Some people may have parties with their friends. Some may have lunch or dinner together. Others may hang out or go to the movies with friends on this special day. These are popular among all age groups from teenagers to old people.

Although Friendship Day and its celebrations may have changed over the years, the basic idea behind the festival remains the same. People enjoy the moment they spend together and express love and care for their friends.

My favorite teacher in junior high was Miss Mullins. My math teacher Miss Mullins was a very kind person, so she got on     36     (good) with all the students. She liked to smile to us while we were     37     (communicate) with her at school.

Miss Mullins was quite friendly, and she was ready to help us solve     38     (problem). No matter when we needed her help, Miss Mullins always     39     (seem) to be there waiting. She hardly acted as if she was in a hurry to leave.

Each student in Miss Mullins's class felt comfortable enough to ask her any question     40     she never made any of us feel embarrassed (尴尬的). Instead, she kept encouraging us.     41     (one) I handed in my homework without finishing all of the steps to each of the questions. I thought for sure she was going to get angry     42     me for the missing part, but she told me I had done a good job by finding     43     (difference) answers. I remember feeling so proud of     44     (my) at that moment.

I will miss Miss Mullins the most, and I’ll never forget such     45     great teacher.