In your school bags, most of you may have a pencil, some kinds of pens, a ruler and some books. None of these things grow in the fields. They are all made in factories and invented by someone. But thousands of years ago no one knew about these things.

Who invented them? We don’t always know. There have been many thousands of inventions, large or small, in the history. Some of these inventions have changed the world, such as paper, printing and radios, and we know the inventors. But we have forgotten most of the other inventors. Who invented the clock, for example, or the lock to the door? We don’t know. There have been thousands of inventors and we should be thankful to them when we grow up.

Have you seen the videos on TV? Do you wear large T-shirts and baggy jeans? Or have you heard someone rap(说唱)? Hip-Hop is very hot now.

Hip-Hop music was started in the middle of the 1970s by African Americans in New York. The music, break-dancing(霹雳舞) and graffiti(涂鸦) make up Western Hip-Hop culture. Most of the Hip-Hop songs are about love, jobs or even games.

Usually in rap, singers speak words very quickly to a certain beat. Most of the words are fun. Singers play off words to make fun of themselves or others. Hip-Hop music has few rules. Singers just do what they think and rap it out in a clever or creative way. The freedom makes a lot of teenagers fall in love with the music. Many of them like wearing large T-shirts and baggy jeans. Famous rap and Hip-Hop stars include Eminem in the USA and Jay Chou from China.

Today Hip-Hop is more and more popular across most of the world.

A Letter from Mars

I have enjoyed my stay on your interesting planet.

I think I understand the life on the earth now and I would like to give my impressions(印象).

First of all, you live in boxes. Every morning you leave your big boxes and get into smaller boxes on wheels(轮子). All these small boxes run around and around, and finally stop to rest. You leave these boxes on wheels and go to very large tall boxes.

After resting all day, you get back in your little boxes and return to your big boxes. There you sit and look at every small glowing(闪闪发光的) boxes with moving pictures on the front.

There is only one thing I don’t understand. I went to a football game one day. A group of angry boys fought a little round ball. Everyone shouted but they kept fighting. They were angry, because they had been kept in boxes all day. I think.

Thank you earthmen for this chance to get to know you.

Yours,

The man from Mars

I had a unusual experience on Sunday. At around ten a.m., I am walking down the street when a UFO landed right in the front of me. An alien got out and walked down Center Street. I follow it to see where it was going, and I was very surprise when it went into a souvenir shop. While they was looking at the souvenir shop, an assistant called the polices. Before they arrived, the alien leaves the shop and then visited the Museum of Flight. While the alien was on the museum, I call the TV station. Isn’t that amazing!

76. 随着网络的不断发展，传统的学习模式受到冲击。“网上学习(online learning)”这一新的学习模式备受青睐。假设你是刘欣，最近某英文杂志正在讨论中学生是否应该通过网络进行在线学习。以下是你所在班级的讨论情况，请你给该报投稿，反映讨论结果并谈谈你自己的看法。

Recently, our class had a discussion about whether students should learn on the Internet. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Liu Xin