Zhu Youyong, the honorary president of Yunnan Agricultural University, is famous for his research in agriculture. It is his dream to use knowledge to improve farmers’ life. So, at the age of 60, Zhu went to Lancang, a small county in very poor condition to put his idea into practice.

But poverty alleviation（扶贫）is much harder than writing research papers. “You need people to understand you first and this is not always easy,” said Zhu. After getting to Lancang, Zhu soon found it a perfect place to plant winter potatoes. Once planted at year end, they can be fully grown after the Spring Festival. But the villagers did not have a habit of working during winter, and they thought the poverty alleviation teams were just there to give them money. “They didn’t believe me or wanted to work with me in the field,” said Zhu.

To change local people’s mind, Zhu decided to show them by growing potatoes himself. In just three months, the quantity（数量）and quality of the potatoes surprised the villagers and many volunteered to join Zhu’s team. For the past four years, Zhu has spent more than 100 days every year living and working in the village. He went from door to door to teach the villagers scientific farming methods. A villager named Zhang Liujin made over 20,000 yuan in his first try.“It was Zhu who taught me each and every step of how to plant the potatoes,” he said. “I’m so thankful and will never forget him.”

Holly sat down on the branch. Eco licked her hand. Holly had another bad night. The owl didn’t come back, but there was an army of ants that decided to march all over her body. Eco got very excited and tried to eat them.

The next day, after breakfast, Holly waited for everyone to leave the house. Then she let down the rope ladder and took Eco for a walk. Eco loved it—he was happy to be on the ground again—and he ran and jumped and scratched and chased other dogs.

Holly wanted to see her friends—but she couldn’t stay away from the oak tree for very long. She had to be there in case her father tried to cut it down.

When he came home from work, Holly’s father tried to get her down from the tree again. This time he was ready for action! He walked up to the tree carrying a ladder. He leaned it against a branch.

“Right,” he said. “You’re going to come down from that tree right now.” “No way,” said Holly. Eco barked in support.

“OK, if that’s the way you want it. I’m going to come up and get you.”

But before her father could step on the ladder, Holly climbed onto the branch, and pushed it away. The ladder fell with a crash.

Then Holly saw her mother coming from the kitchen. She was carrying a tray with a bottle of fizzy water and a large mushroom pizza—Holly’s favourite. But Holly didn’t eat the pizza.

Her father took the tray and said, “Don’t think you’re going to eat this, young lady. You’re not going to get any more food from us while you’re up in the tree!”

And with that, he walked quickly back to the house and threw the pizza into the waste bin.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second smallest planet of the Solar System.

It is around two times smaller than Earth with a diameter of 6,779 km. If you stand on Mars and look at the Sun, it will appear about half the size we see it on Earth. Mars is widely known as the red planet. Its red appearance is caused by the rusty iron in the ground.

In many ways, Mars can be considered Earth’s brother. On Mar’s surface, we have discovered the biggest mountain in the Solar System. It is named Olympus Mons, and it is three times bigger than the largest mountain on Earth. A day on Mars is also a little longer than a day on Earth. It lasts about 24.6 hours. A year on Mars, however, or the time that takes for the red planet to circle our Sun, lasts about 687 Earth days. That is almost twice as long as a year on Earth !

In the 19th century, it was believed that life on Mars existed. An astronomer said that he “found” straight lines on Mars’s surface. Many people believed that those were the work of clever life as the straight lines were most likely to be canals for irrigation.

However, as more advanced telescopes were built, it was found that the straight lines were an optical illusion.

To this day, humans are still trying to find out whether there was life on Mars!

76. 初中生活即将结束，你们即将开始新的征程，规划新的人生。请根据下列图示提示内容，以“My plan for the new life”为题，给你们学校英语角写一篇英语短文，介绍你的计划。

My plan for the new life

Our middle school life is coming to an end. A new life is on the way. I plan to do lots of things for the new life. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________