Genevieve Moss has problems with her ears. She cannot ________ anything. And in her life, alone in a town in England, she often felt ________.

Then one day in April 2021, Moss saw a photo of a tiny black-and-white cat in the local newspaper. A family was ________ a home for the kitten. Moss fell in love with the cat and took it home. Moss called the cat Zebby because his colours look like those of a ________.

Moss knew that pets can help people deal with loneliness. However, she had no idea that Zebby would become her helper and her ________. Every night, Zebby sleeps next to her. When he hears noises in the dark, he jumps up. “He became my night watch cat, ”Moss said. Sometimes he would run around the room until I ________. ”

After several weeks, Moss noticed that whenever her phone rang or someone ________ at the door, Zebby would tap (轻轻地敲) her. It wasn’t long before the cat took on another task: ________ Moss’s mail. Now, whenever he hears the mailbox being opened, he runs towards it, carries the ________ in his mouth and drops it at Moss’s feet.

“I can ________ imagine my life without Zebby now,” Moss said. “Zebby has made my house a home. ”

Rainforests cover six percent of the Earth’s surface. There are rainforests in many parts of the world, but the biggest forests are in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. There aren’t any rainforests in Europe or North America.

About 75 percent of animals live in rainforests. There are many beautiful birds, insects and so on. Many of them live in the trees, over 30 metres from the ground. There are also thousands of different plants. Lots of them are tall trees! It is always hot in the rainforests and the ground is always wet. It is also very dark there.

The rainforests are very important for us. We need them! The trees and other plants in the forest help make the air clean. They also help control the weather. They give us wood, rubber, fruits and many of our medicines.

Unfortunately, in many places, the rainforests are in danger. For example, many years ago there was a large rainforest in Java, but now there is nothing. The same thing happens now in many other parts of the world. We can never imagine a world without rainforests. If rainforests disappeared from the Earth, we wouldn’t find any trees, flowers or fruits. What’s more, we wouldn’t get clean air, and we wouldn’t find any animals. The worst result would be that we wouldn’t find any humans. It’s time to take action to save rainforests.

An elderly woman touches many people’s hearts. She is honoured as a role model in China’s fight against poverty (贫穷). Her name is Xia Sen.

Over the past years, Xia Sen has given most of her money to students from poor families in Danfeng, Shaanxi and Shangyou, Jiangxi. With the help of the money, those students were able to go to school.

Xia was born in 1923. She was only 15 years old when she became a teacher in Yan’an. She kept learning when she was teaching. Years later, she went to work as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In 2006, Xia visited a primary school in Danfeng. The school was old and students didn’t have a good learning environment. That made her very sad. She spent 20,000 yuan buying desks and books for the students.

In 2008, she gave away 200,000 yuan to help another primary school in Danfeng build a classroom building. It is a building with eight bright and clean classrooms. It is very different from the old one.

Five years later, Xia used one million yuan of her savings to set up the “Xia Sen Scholarship (夏森助学金)” to help high school and college students from poor families in Danfeng and Shangyou. So far, the scholarship has helped at least 182 students.

Xia often says that her life is much better than before. Now her only hope is that she can help more students.

Besides studying and tests, we need to learn some life skills for the future.     26     The following are some necessary skills.

Learn to make good use of our money.

We often get a little money from our parents, and we may spend it without thinking about how to use it. We can make a list of the things we want to buy, and plan how to spend the money.     27    

Do some washing correctly.

    28     Then we should check the pockets of the clothes. What’s more, we should be careful about different colours of them. Don’t wash light and dark-coloured clothes together.

Cook our favourite meals.

We should learn how to cook our favourite meals.     29     Then we can go shopping, cook the meals and clean up the kitchen together.

Keep safe.

We shouldn’t open the door for others if we are alone at home. If our friends from the Internet ask us to meet, we shouldn’t meet them alone.     30     If we are in danger, don’t forget to call the police.