Camp out in the garden

Go into your garden or your friend’s. Two or three friends, a small tent, sleeping bags, food and drink are necessary. When it gets dark, tell thrilling stories, play games and eat your sweets. You will need a torch or you won’t be able to see sweets, and it might get a bit too scary.

Learn to swim

Seriously, this is so important that it could save your life. 30. If you can’t swim, you won’t be able to do water sports. Even taking a boat trip will be dangerous.

Collect things

One of the best hobbies for under-18 is collecting things. You could collect stamps, cinema tickets and so on. The best way to collect them is to have a special album to put your collection in and to write what each thing means to you.   

Team sports help you work well with other people. Being a good team player is an important skill in life. And 31. they can make you keep healthy and are also great fun.

Write your family tree

Get to know all the older people in your family and find out as much as you can about when they were young. Draw a family tree and make notes about.

The plane took off. A passenger needed a cup of water to take his medicine. An air hostess (空姐) told him that she would bring him the ___ soon. But the air hostess was

In the following hours, each time she ____ the passenger, she would ask him with a smile whether he needed help or not. But the passenger ____ paid notice to her.

When it was time to get off the ____, the passenger asked her to hand him the passengers’ booklet (notebook), she was very ___. She thought that he would ____ down bad words in it, but with a smile she handed it to him.

Off the plane, she opened the booklet and then ___. The passenger put it, “In the past few hours, you have asked me whether I needed help or not for twelve times in all. How can I refuse your twelve faithful (真诚的) smiles?”

A book review of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a lively story full of fun.

Tom, the hero of the book, lives with his aunt Polly. He is a lively and clever boy. He doesn’t like people telling him     42     to do, so he always gets into trouble. He and his best friend, Huck Finn, run away to an island in the middle of the Mississippi River. Tom has more     43     because a bad man named Injun Joe is looking for him. Later, Tom escapes (runs away) from a cave with another friend, Becky. He also finds Injun Joe’s treasure box and takes it     44    .

My favourite part of the book is when Tom and Hunk start     45     adventures on the island in the Mississippi River. At first, they are     46    . But when they hear that everyone thinks they are dead, they feel very sorry, so they come back home. They hide and watch for a time when they see their family and neighbours     47     to their funeral in the church. Then, Tom and Huck     48     appear. Everyone is surprised to see them at first, but very pleased to find that they are alive.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a great book. It is more than an adventure story. Mark Twain wrote it in 1876. It describes people’s lives in the southern     49     of American at that time. It tells how young people grow, how people love each other and how bad people     50     for their actions. It is written in everyday English, and the dialogues sound especially real. Today, it is still read and loved     51     people all over the world, and it is thought to be one of the greatest American stories.

提示词：adventure冒险；   funeral葬礼；   church教堂

Once there was a man traveling in a faraway village. As he was passing the elephants, he stopped at once. He found that these huge elephants were being held by only a small rope tied to their front legs. No chains, no cages. It was clear that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their ropes but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and didn’t try to get away. “Well,” the trainer said, “when they were very young and much smaller, we used the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it was enough to hold them. As they grow up, they still believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can hold them, so they never try to break free.”

How could it be? These animals could at any time break free from their ropes. But because they were always stuck right where they were, they believed they couldn’t.

Just like the elephants, how many of us go through life believing that we cannot do something, just because we failed in it once before?

     ▲ . We should never give up the struggle (斗争) in life.

Nowadays, the food that you buy comes from many different countries. Have a look in your fridge and fruit bowl, and check the origins (来源) of the food. Perhaps there are apples from California or potatoes from Egypt. You will probably be surprised how far food travels to get to your plate. This journey, from “field to plate”, is called “food miles”. A food mile is the distance that food travels from the farmer’s field to the person who buys the food. Nowadays, food often travels thousands of miles to get to the consumer (消费者). Why is this, and what are the effects (影响) of these long distances?

Traditionally, farmers sold their food in the local market, so the food didn’t have to travel very far. The consumers also did not travel very far because they went to their local market to buy the food. Now, because of modern technology, food comes from all over the world. We do not have to wait for spring or summer to buy strawberries or tomatoes. They are available in winter if we want.

Some countries have to import (进口) most of their food. This is because they have difficult climates. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, get 85% of its food from other countries.

I believe these miles are worrying for some reasons. First of all, because food travels such long distances, we need more planes, trucks and ships to move the food. This means we use more oil or petrol, so there is more pollution and more global (全球的) warming. Besides, food that travels a long way is not fresh and usually not very tasty. Tomatoes, for example, are picked early and stored for their long journeys. For this reason, they are usually tasteless when they get to the consumer. Local food has a better taste, and it also reduces (makes sth. less) the amount of global pollution. We need to buy more local food.

France is well known for its fine art, tasty food and romantic scenery. About 75 million visitors come here every year.

France is the largest country in Western Europe. It has a population of over 66 million. The country is home to many famous places of interest, like the River Seine as well as the Eiffel Tower.

Many visitors also come for the country’s art. Sculptor (雕刻家) Auguste Rodin and painter Claude Monet once created their great works here. If you visit France today, it is not a surprise to meet street artists in the city or come across a singer in the subway.

No visit to Paris is complete without a trip to Louvre, one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. Inside, there are 35,000 works of art, such as the painting Mona Lisa by Da Vinci and the statue (雕塑) David by Michelangelo. It would take nine months to enjoy all the pieces.

Besides, French food is world famous. Bread is very important in France. The best known French bread is called a baguette. They are long, delicious and taste salty. Snails (蜗牛) are also a must-have here. French people eat 40,000 tons of snails every year!

But France is not always good. Paris, the city of light, may also show its dark side to visitors. Chinese visitors feel sorry about the crowded subway in Paris.

Depending on yourself

Growing up is not always easy. When we face difficulties, a spirit of depending on yourself is more useful than crying for help. That’s what Hong Zhanhui’s story of growing from boy to man with family hardship tells us.

Hong was born in 1982 in a poor family in Xihua County (县), Henan Province. When he was only 11, his father became badly ill and one day he came back with an unwanted baby girl. A year later, Hong’s mother left home. She no longer wanted to live such a poor life and face her sick husband. So everything hard fell onto the young boy’s shoulders: to take care of his father and the sister Chenchen, and to go on to study.

Although his life was hard, Hong didn’t go away from his father and sister. He worked in part-time jobs to feed his family. He climbed tall trees to get birds’ eggs for his sister. He walked two hours at weekends to the market to buy different things to sell around his school. A few years later, he studied at a college. To take care of Chenchen, he worked hard to rent (租) a room near his college for her, and sent her to school.

After Hong’s story went public, he became a hero in people’s eyes. But Hong refused offers from others. He said he felt encouraged by kind offers, but he could depend on his own work.

Through his hard life, he has grown up from boy to man.

From: Shanghai Middle School English Online

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Care for Our Parents

Our dear parents, you love us more than anybody else in the world.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________