In Western countries, most people buy a lot of presents before Christmas, ________ some people think we buy too much. They celebrate Buy Nothing Day. They want people ________ shopping on that day. When is Buy Nothing Day? It is on the fourth Friday of every ________. It’s after Thanksgiving Day (感恩节). Thanksgiving is always on Thursday, so the day after it is Friday. This day has been known as Black Friday. It’s about 25 days before Christmas. It’s the busiest shopping day of the year. At this time, we can always ________ ads on TV telling us to “buy, buy, buy”!

The ________ is from Canada. Now people all over the world celebrate Buy Nothing Day. In the USA, parents and children usually get together on that day. They can do a lot of things, like ________ pictures and reading stories. The Children tell each other why they don’t want many toys. In England, people ________ special clothes and tell us that we buy too much. In New Mexico,school students have a dinner party ________ people about the day.

Do you want to celebrate Buy Nothing Day like those people? It’s not ________ for everyone. You can just stay at home with.a good book and ________ interesting stories with your parents.

When you are reading something in English, you may often meet a new word. What’s the best way to know it?

You may look it up in the English-Chinese dictionary. It will tell you something about the word: the pronunciation (发音), the part of speech (词性), the Chinese meaning and also how to use this word. But how can you know where the word is in thousands of English words? How to find it in a dictionary quickly?

First, all the English words are in the alphabetical order. In the dictionary, you can first see the words beginning with the letter A, then B, C, D, E…that means, if there are two words “do” and “put”, “do” will be certainly before “put”. Then if there are two words both beginning with the same letter, you may look at the second letter. Then the third, the fourth…for example, “pat” is before “picture”, “bald” before “balloon”.

Do you understand how to look up a word in a dictionary?

The dictionary will be your good friend, and we can learn better from it. I hope you’ll use it as often as possible in your English learning.

Lingling has a little brother, but she feels unhappy when her parents give her little brother more care. So she asks her classmates for help. Here is a reply (回复) from her classmate Zhu Yiwei.

It is common for you to feel this way. However, younger kids really need more care because they are too young. Just remember that your parents still love you as before.

I’m 13 years old. I have a sister. And now I am not the only focus (焦点) of my family. But believe it or not, I’m happy about that, because I have more time to do things by myself.

And I think brothers and sisters should help each other and play together. I often take care of my sister when my parents are not at home. I look after her and change her diaper (尿布). This teaches me how to be a good brother.

This is also a good chance to learn how to take care of yourself. You may find that you can do lots of things without your parents’ help.

Best wishes!

Zhu Yiwei

Hello, I am Bill. Do you like school trips?     31     Now let me tell you some great things about school trips.

First, school trips can make you relaxed（放松） and give you a lot of fun.     32    

Second, you can learn some things different（不同的） from what you learn in class.     33     For example, if you go to a zoo, you can learn a lot about animals.

Third, you can learn to do things by yourselves（独自）.     34     When you go out, you need to think about what to wear and what you need to take with you.

    35     It can make the friendship with your classmates better. For example, if you go camping in the mountains or have a picnic, you may need to work with classmates and help each other. Then you can learn to get on with others.

Tom is a middle school student. His grandfather’s name is Mike, and he is a great doctor in China. He gets an honor (荣誉) in helping people to be healthy. A lot of patients (病人) want to thank     46     for his great work.

Mike has healthy eating     47    . He likes vegetable salad. It’s his favorite. For breakfast, he has eggs, bread and milk. For lunch, he has     48     fish and beef. For dinner, he doesn’t     49     much. “That is     50     for our health.” He says, “I want to be     51    . That’s very important (重要的)!

Mike is 87 years old, but he still     52     hard. He meets patients in the hospital every week. He sees about ten patients on one afternoon.

    53     one day’s work, he is tired (劳累的), but he still does sports. Mike loves doing     54    . He likes playing basketball very much. He can play it well. And he is a key basketball team     55    . Tom loves his grandfather very much.

People eat different things in different parts of the world.

People in South China eat rice every day. Sometimes we eat it two or three times a day for breakfast, lunch and supper. We usually eat rice with fish, meat and vegetables.

Japanese people eat rice, too. They also eat a lot of fish because they live near the sea. It is easy for them to get fish. They sometimes eat raw (生的) fish.

In Africa, corn is the most important food. People there make corn into flour (面粉). From this flour, they make different kinds of bread and cakes.

In Western countries such as Britain, Australia and the USA, the most important food is bread and potatoes. People there usually make their bread from wheat (小麦) flour. They cook the potatoes in different ways. In England the most popular (受欢迎的) food is fish and chips. Sometimes people cook this food at home, but usually they buy it at the shop. They eat this food at home, in their workplace, in the park or even on the road. People call it “take-away” food.

七年级上学期的学习生活已经结束，在这半年的初中生活中，你一定结识了很多新朋友吧！那么谁是你最好的朋友呢?请根据下面的问题提示，以My best friend为题写一篇短文，向大家介绍一下你最好的朋友。

My best friend

Let me tell you something about my friend. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________