The “left-behind” children（留守儿童） are children whose parents are working in cities far away from them. A program called On the Way to School did a research among 2000 children living in poor areas. The research _______ that 15.1% of children are unable to see their parents in a whole year, even during the Spring Festival. Many children can talk with their parents _______ the phone only once or twice a month. They feel very _______ if their parents don’t come home often. Yang Hai lives in a village with his grandparents. His parents work in Fujian, thousands of kilometers _______ . His grandparents love him and _______ him well. But he says he still _______ his parents. “Now more people in the countryside _______ to work in cities and leave their children at home. The government is trying to do _______ to care about such children at home and freeing their parents in cities from _______ about their children. Those children can’t be with their parents very often, ________ we should give them more care and love.” said one official（官员）.

Many teenagers want to look cool. But not everyone can buy a lot of cool clothes. Chloe Murray, an eighth-grader at Jefferson Middle School in the US, had an idea to solve this problem. She opened a charitable（慈善的）closet（壁橱）.

Her school agreed with the good idea, too. The school let her use a room for the project. Chloe’s classmates joined her as well.

Last month, the charitable clothes closet, called Chloe’s Closet（时髦的）clothes for girls and boys to help students look the best. Confidence is a big thing in middle school, especially when it comes to clothing, a daily newspaper in Chicago, the US.

But where are the clothes from? Many people from the school’s community and neighboring schools gave away used clothes, and the clothes are still new. The clothes closet is only open after school from Monday to Friday. Students can “buy” these clothes by getting “money”. They can get “money” when they hand in their schoolwork on time or make corrections（改正）on homework. Since it opened, they have “sold” about 100 things to students.

Are you a shy person? Do you want to become outgoing? Being outgoing can help a lot in your life. In fact, being outgoing is not so hard as you think. Here is some advice on how to become outgoing. You can start to try becoming outgoing when you stay with your friends. But the real challenge comes when you meet strangers or new friends. Smile at them and usually they will smile at you, too. You may find it easy to start talking in this way.

Start a talk positively. Try to speak first. Simple greetings such as “Hello!” “How is it going?” and “It’s a little cloudy today, isn’t it?” are a good start. After that, you can talk more. For example, you can talk about the latest news. But you’d better read some news in newspapers and have your own ideas first. Or you may find that you won’t have much to say.

The best way to become outgoing is to go out. It is also a very important step. Usually those who like to do the same things can communicate better. If you like playing sports, go to a sports club. You may make many new friends there if you get over your shyness (怯).

Now some women are spending a weekend at Mother’s Camp. There, husbands and children are not allowed. Why would a woman want to take a vacation without her family? Some women say they need time to be alone.

At Mother’s Camp, a woman has room for herself. She can sleep, read or watch TV,   “Mom, what’s for dinner?” No husband will say, “Oh, dear, I can’t find any clean socks.” In fact, almost 50% of women in the United States work outside the home. Many of them work full-time and then come home for a second job—taking care of their homes and families. These working women say one of their biggest problems is housework.

In the United States, working wives do about 75% of the housework. Many of their husbands say they want to help. But then they burn the rice or they can’t find the pans. They ask so many questions that their wives decide it is easier to do the job themselves.

Some women go to Mother’s Camp just to get a break from housework. For two days they don’t clean and they don’t look after their children and husbands. What do they do? They enjoy warm weather, walking, swimming or boating in a clear blue lake and sing songs around the campfire. They relax away from home. They have a really wonderful vacation at Mother’s Camp.

Where will people live in the future? Maybe people will work and live in the sea. But how will people go to work then? By submarine. Some scientists believe that some day submarines will be as many as today’s cars. A famous French driver says “One day, man will work on the ocean floor as they do on the street! If people want to live in the sea, they have to solve a lot of problems first. It is similar to those of living on the moon, such as being lack of oxygen（缺氧） and weightlessness（失重）. Many questions are hard to solve. For example, maybe in 50 years man will be able to live in the sea, away from the crowded and noisy cities on land. Man will find it fun and interesting to live in the sea. And life in the sea is more comfortable. Don’t you think so?

Last week I had a pretty good vacation with my family. We had great fun     41     (play) in different places. On Monday, the weather was     42     (sun) and hot. We went to White Beach     43     bus and swam in the water. On Tuesday, it was cloudy and humid (湿的). We visited two     44     (museum) in Central Park. We saw many old things. No one felt     45     (bore). On Wednesday and Thursday, it was rainy and windy. It was     46     (possible) to go out. So we stayed in the hotel and     47     (eat) some delicious food. On Friday, the weather was cool. We went     48     (hike) in the mountains. We were very tired,     49     we felt very happy. How     50     (wonder)!

56. 假如你是李华，你美国的朋友Tom在寒假打算学习中文。请你根据他提出的问题给出些学习建议。

I am glad that you want to study Chinese

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Best wishes!

Yours,

Li Hua