Last year I was very lucky to have a week’s holiday. So I wanted to spend _______ in the best hotel I could find. That was _______ I chose The Haven in a country park. I thought I would be able to escape problems and pressures of daily life. But, just 24 hours after arriving there, my wife and I _______ problems with the restaurant and security.

We were ready to return to our room when we saw two policemen _______ closely at the building outside. One of them showed us how _______ in through the windows into our room. It seems that the hotel has no locks on the windows. _______ we were a little worried, our concerns were forgotten _______ when we saw a good-sized bed, a flat-screen TV, a spa bath which more suggested a comfortable stay.

Things started to go from bad to worse the following morning when I found the restaurant only served low-fat meals: six days of rabbit food and only _______ meat and fruit. What had I let myself in for? Nobody had told us what the food _______ like before we booked. I ordered my breakfast ________ my will anyway, but I had waited forty-five minutes for it to arrive. This was not the service ________ I had expected.

That afternoon, when we returned from a tour around ________ university nearby, we found that nearly £200 ________ from our room. The Haven refused to pay back the money. They claimed that they ________ not be responsible for any loss if our window was not locked.

My holiday was then a total failure. I thought a “haven” was sure to be a quiet and peaceful place. But in fact, I have experienced ________ stress and worry in that one day than I usually do working in the office for a week.

Laughter is natural for people. We start to laugh at about four months of age. We start to laugh even ________ we start to speak.

Laughter connects us with others. We laugh more when we are with other people. It’s difficult to pretend to laugh. Laughter is ________. When people pretend to laugh, most people know it’s not real.

When do people laugh?

Only 10 to 20 percent of laughter is about something ________. Most laughter is about being friendly with other people. Most laughter says, “I don’t want to ________ with you. I want to be friendly with you.” This kind of laughter brings people together.

We often laugh when we feel nervous. In movies, there is often a joke at an exciting moment when everyone feels nervous. It is usually a(n) ________ joke, but we laugh a lot. Our laughter helps us ________.

Why doesn’t everyone laugh at the same joke?

Not everyone has the same sense of ________. Some people think a joke is funny, but other people don’t think so. People have different ideas about what is funny.

Our idea of what is funny changes with ________. For young children, the world is new. They are interested in many things, so they laugh ________. Teenagers often laugh to protect themselves. Adults laugh at themselves and other people with similar problems. They laugh at things that give them stress. Our ________ for laughter change gradually.

Phil White has just returned from an 18,000-mile, around-the-world bicycle trip. White had two reasons for making this epic journey. First of all, he wanted to use the trip to raise money for charity, which he did. He raised £70,000 for the British charity, Oxfam. White’s second reason for making the trip was to break the world record and become the fastest person to cycle around the world. He is still waiting to find out whether he has broken the record or not.

White set off from Trafalgar Square, in London, on 19th June, 2004 and was back 299 days later. He spent more than 1,300 hours in the saddle (车座) and destroyed four sets of tyres and three bike chains. He had the adventure of his life crossing Europe first, and then the Middle East, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and finally the Americas. Amazingly, he did all of this with absolutely no support team. No jeep carrying food, water and medicine. No doctor. Nothing! Just a bike and a very, very long road.

The journey was lonely and desperate at times. He also had to fight his way across deserts, through jungles and over mountains. He cycled through heavy rains and temperatures of up to 45 degrees, all to help people in need. There were other dangers along the road. In Iran, he was chased by armed robbers and was lucky to get away with the little money he had. The worst thing that had happened to him was having to cycle into a headwind on a road that crosses the south of Australia. For 1,000 kilometers he battled against the wind that was constantly pushing him. This part of the trip was slow, hard and depressing, but he made it in the end. Now Mr. White is back and wants to write a book about his adventures.

What makes you who you are as a person? You probably have some ideas of your own personality. Are you similar to Martin Luther King or Albert Einstein? Read about these types and find out.

America is a mobile society. Friendship between Americans can be close and real, yet disappears soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while, then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship.

This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendship between us flows more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. Americans, however, express their welcome at home. But they truly cannot manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves to be treated hospitably.

For Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

Schools in the UK are quite different from those in China. In the UK, at the beginning of the term, students must select their courses and teachers first.

    46     So in the first term, don’t select too many courses, or you’ll feel nervous and it may influence your study. Then you have to ask for some teaching plans.There is some information about subjects, time arranging, marks and textbooks.     47     Different teachers have different teaching methods.

If the teacher is called “killer” by the last grade, many students will give up choosing him, because this kind of teacher will leave too much homework, give too many exams and too low grades.

    48     How to buy textbooks makes each student feel hard. The textbooks in the UK are very expensive. Each copy is about $30-50. In order to save money, many students buy some used textbooks.     49    

In class, discussing is very important. The teachers always encourage you to ask questions or show your own opinions freely. They don’t usually ask you to sit well.     50     They usually don’t give you much homework to do. So in the schools in the UK you can learn knowledge and do exercises by yourself. You must do almost all things independently.