When Sarah Cooper was 14, everybody at her school knew her. Was she the best student? The star of the football team? The best performer in the school play? None of those things. She was named as the most promising chef (最有前途的主厨) on a popular cooking show in the US.

Flynn McGarry was another kid chef on the show. He was famous as “the Justin Bieber of food” because he had so much talent at age 12. He even opened a restaurant in New York City. Just like Sarah and Flynn, there were many other kids on cooking shows.

So how did cooking start to rise (兴起) and become so popular with kids?

In the old days, people thought of cooking as a boring chore, just like doing the dishes and cleaning the house. Only people who wanted to be wonderful chefs were interested in cooking.

But things became different little by little. Cooking shows became popular in America at the beginning of the 21st century (世纪). Many kids watched these shows with their family. Some kids became stars on the shows. At the same time, online cookbooks and cooking videos made it easy to learn how to cook. At last, more and more kid chefs were born.

When I was eight, I got a book about stars. That was the A. beginning of my lifetime hobby.

B. I went outside with my mum on clear nights more often in the past and look at the sky. It looked like black velvet with a million diamonds on it. In different seasons, we saw different groups of stars. Sometimes we saw stars shooting brightly across the sky. C.它们多美呀！

Studying the stars was great fun for me. Once I learnt a little about them, I soon wanted to find out more and more. Now D.___________ is my career. I host a TV programme called The Sky at Night. I use my knowledge to tell people about the stars E.________ a lively way. I am proud of my TV programme—it has lasted for more than 50 years!

Actually, you can turn your hobby into your career too. Anybody can F. achieve their dreams. You just have to enjoy what you do!

When it comes to the letter grade on your test or homework, you might notice that there is no letter E. Have you ever thought about why that is so?

In the A. B, C, D and F grading system, the first four letters are typically considered passing grades. An F in this system simply stands for “fail”. The word “fail” happens to start with the letter F, which seems to leave out the letter E. The fact of the matter is that any letter can mean “not-passing” or fail. Some schools have U grade for “unsatisfactory”, or I grade for “incomplete”.

Even with all this said, we should also point out that E grade actually has been used pretty commonly throughout the history of letter grades in the US.

The first college in the US to use a letter grading system like the ones we use today is Mount Holyoke College. In 1897, they began to use the following grading scale:

A: 95—100%（excellent）               B: 85—94%（good）                 C: 76—84%（fair）

D: 75%（barely passed）                  E: below 75%（failed）

Gradually, the letter grading system became more popular throughout the US. However, many schools decided to drop the E grade and go straight to F. There is no evidence（证据）to really support this, but one possible explanation is that teachers were worried that some students and parents might mistake E for “excellent”.

Why do we have letter grades? Well, part of the reason is that they made grading simpler during a time of great change for schools. As the 20th century began, growing cities and an increase in immigration led to larger school classrooms. Most teachers at that time thought this new letter grading system was an easy, fair and clear way to grade students.

Today, more and more people argue that letter grades don't fully reflect student learning.

However, as teachers try to improve grading methods, many parents continue to favor the letter grades they got as kids, because they are familiar and easy for parents to understand. So while they might not be perfect, the letter grades probably aren’t going away any time soon.

【推荐2】Is it hard for you to get up early and get ready for classes? Some students at Winter Park High School just quickly get up and go to class in their own bedrooms. Of course, their teachers and classmates do not see them because all their class work is on the computer.

The Florida High School, the state’s only on-line school, has 250 students who are taking classes at home by computers.

“I’m a lot more comfortable at home,” said Luke Levesque, a 16-year-old who is taking a computer class on line. He thinks (A) the school’s computer lab is so noisy that he can’t study well. “Home is much better,” he says.

Students in this first on-line program take classes in math, American government, chemistry, computer, and Web-page design. They also have to go to regular (正规的) school to attend other classes.

When a student is ready to begin in class, he or she (B) ________ the computer, reads the teacher’s instructions, and begins working on the lesson for the day. What happens if a student has a question for the teacher? Or the teacher wants to say something about the work a student is doing? The student and the teacher talk to each other every day through email or by telephone.

Is it easy for students to cheat on tests (考试作弊) when they’re working at home? (C) The teachers have already thought about this. They make students take their final exams in person in the classroom.

“You see most of the same things on-line that you see in a regular classroom,” says teacher Linda Hayes.

If this first on-line program goes well, in three years Florida High School students will be able to take all their classes by computer. When that happens, students will be able to get their high school diplomas (毕业证书) without having to (D) 走进教室.

阅读短文，然后按要求完成下列小题。

【推荐3】Schoolkids in Queensland, Australia, are able to use emojis (bright yellow faces) to tell their teachers right away how they’re feeling.

New rules and behavior standards (行为规范) for middle school students came out. ①Who are the most excellent students? Middle schools use a new way to decide that. The best students won’t only have good grades. They will also be kids who don’t dye (染) their hair, smoke or drink. The following are some of the new rules.

② Have you ever copied others’ work during an exam? Don’t do it again. That’s not what an honest student should do. If you played computer games for two hours in your room, don’t tell your parents you were doing your homework.

Do more at school. ③好学生热爱动物，关心他人。April is Bird-Loving Month in China. Is your school doing anything to celebrate? You should join! That way, you can learn more about animals and learn how to protect them. And when your classmates are in trouble, remember to give them a hand. You know a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Use the internet carefully. Try to ④ away from web pages that are bad for you. Find good websites and use them for homework.

Be open to new ideas. Have you ever thought that people could live on the moon? Maybe you can discover a new planet someday. Don’t look down on new ideas. ⑤You should welcome them because new ideas can make life better.

Hello, everyone! My name is Betty. I am thirteen years old. I am in Class Two, Grade Seven. Today I want to tell you something about my school.

There are 2000 students in my school. We have 32 classrooms. In our school we have a big library. It is across from our teaching building (教学楼). There are many books in it. We can read books and learn a lot from them. The science labs (实验室) are next to the library. We like having classes in the science labs because it is very interesting. There is also a dining hall in our school. At noon we have lunch there. After school we can play table tennis, basketball or football on the playground. Some of us love running. We can run there. We love our school.