1     Welcome to Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Enjoy windsurfing(帆板运动) on the crystal-clear water. Eat under the palm trees while looking at the beautiful blue ocean. Travel in January or February for under £1,000 per person.

    2     Try a summer holiday in the mountains. If you enjoy walking, how about trekking(远足) in the French Alps? A guided walking holiday is £595 per person per week for groups of four, stopping at a different typical French hotel every night. If you don’t need a guide, it’s £495.

    3     Why not book a typical family beach holiday this summer? Book a room with a sea view in Sunnyside Hotel, Hope Cove, Devon. Family rooms cost £120 a night. Hope Cove is a fishing village with cafes, shops and two beautiful sandy beaches. The kids will love it!

    4     Take a short holiday in March in beautiful County Kerry in Ireland. Three nights in a double room in the luxury Killarney Hotel on Muckross Lake costs just £700, including dinner. And if the weather is bad, you can relax in the hotel’s indoor swimming pool and sauna. Come on-treat yourself!

    5     Come to The House, a multi-activity center for 15 to 17-year-olds on the Norfolk coast. You can take part in activities like rock climbing and paragliding, and there are dance lessons with parties and music in the evenings. Learn something new and have fun!

【推荐3】Imagine you are taking a plane from Tokyo to Paris, enjoying first-class travel, a big dinner with four dishes and a city tour without leaving the ground This isn’t a fiction story in a movie or novel.

This is the future of air travel according to Japan’s First Airlines, which has used the power of virtual reality（虚拟现实）to create dream vacations. Avoiding the high cost of the airport, passengers can enjoy first-class travel and a fantastic tour of Paris. This can be quietly completed in Tokyo. Also, First Airlines offers other virtual flights to New York, Rome and Hawaii. It just takes you 4,980 yen to choose the business class. “For me, it’s difficult to have a real trip because of the cost like time and money,” Hirokai Abc, the manager in First Airlines, said. “If I can easily get to the airport and take such a flight even though it’s virtual, I think it will be so cool.”

After getting on the plane, passengers can sit down and experience the two-hour flight. They are surrounded（环绕）by things in a real plane, which can make their tour more like a flight.

“There is the flight service for every passenger,” added Abe. Passengers will be served a delicious meal. The menu depends on where passengers want to go—Manhattan meat soup and cheesecake for New York and onion soup for Paris. When “arriving”, passengers can enjoy a 360-degree tour of the city. The company tries to give a perfect vacation to those whose ability to travel abroad is limited（限制）by the cost or health.

【推荐1】My name is Xue Yan. My home is in Shanchong, Changtai. Do you know where it is? It’s in Zhangzhou. It’s very nice and clean. There are many beautiful flowers and delicious strawberries(草莓) there. The trees are green.

Our house is in the middle of Shanchong village(村庄). You can see a big old tree in the village. My grandfather tells me that the tree is very, very old. Many birds are in the tree. We call it a “bird tree”. Our house is near a mountain(山). There are a lot of animals on the mountain. After school, I often play with my friends. We are very happy.

根据短文内容，判断正（A）误（B）

【推荐1】Living on water

There are at least 3,000 miles (about 4,828 km) of waterways in Britain. On these canals(运河) and rivers, there are over 30,000 “houseboats” — boats that people use as homes. Around 10,000 of them are located in London.

Houseboat communities are typically(典型地) made up of people who are looking for a slower way of life and who want to be in touch with nature.

Living on water sounds romantic(浪漫的), but it is hard work.

There are daily things that need to be done, like bringing fuel and water on board and dealing with “waste” water from the kitchen sink(洗碗槽), shower and toilet. In winter, living on a boat can be very cold and there is always a feeling of being wet. Of course, most boats are quite small inside, so you don’t have much space, especially if you are a couple, family or group of friends.

Despite(尽管) these difficulties, the number of people living on Britain’s waterways has increased by around 50 percent over the past ten years. This is not only because they like the idea of life on water but also because it is much cheaper to buy or rent a boat than a flat or a house.

There is a great sense of community on the waterways. Houseboat neighbors often become friends for life. This is quite a different story from people who live in flats or houses and may hardly know the people next door at all.

We know that there is air all around the world. And we could not breathe without air. Airplanes could not fly without air. They need air to lift their wings. Airplanes can not fly very high because as they go higher the air gets thinner. If we go far enough away from the earth, we find that there is no air.

What is the sky? Nothing. Where is it? It is all around the world. The sky is space. In this space there is nothing except the sun, the moon and all the stars.

The moon is about 384,000 kilometers away from the earth. An airplane cannot fly to the moon because the air reaches to an altitude of only 240 kilometers. Then there is no air. But there is something that can fly even when there is no air. It is a rocket.

How does a rocket fly? If you want to know, get a balloon and blow it up, until it is quite big. Do not tie up the neck o f the balloon. Let go! The balloon will fly off through the air very quickly. The air inside the balloon tries to get out. It reaches out through the neck of the balloon and this pushes the balloon through the air. It does not need wings like airplane.

【推荐3】Parents are the closest people to you in the world. They love you just because you are who you are. And they would do anything for you.

Like a lot of middle school students, Zhuang Shuxia has a problem. She and her parents don’t get on well.

“I really want to be my daddy’s little girl. But it feels like he just doesn’t understand. He would just tell me things and doesn’t listen.” said Zhuang, a Junior 3 student in Shijiazhuang, Hebei.

Do you and your parents also have problems?

Well, why don’t you all take a walk and have a talk on Saturday? It’s the International Day of Families. On May 15, people around the world give thanks for good things about their families and work on family problems.

A study last year showed that 1,500 Beijing families had the same problem as Zhuang’s: The children, 12 to 15 years old, didn’t like talking with their parents much. They weren’t happy at home.

Of course, lots of kids feel that way. But you and your parents will be much happier if you are friends. Here are some ways to have a good talk with them:

◆ Find a good time to talk, like when you’re having dinner, going out for a walk or watching TV.

◆ Tell them something you’re interested in, or ask them about their lives when they were young. They love to talk about it.

◆ Listen to them carefully, and look them in the eye.

◆ Be honest. That way your parents will trust you more. And a trusting family is a happy family.

【推荐1】

What’s On In London	Listings

【推荐3】A great wonder of the natural world

When I arrived, it was early morning and it was raining. I looked to the east—the sky was becoming grey. I got out of the car, went through a gate and walked along a dark path. There was nothing to see, but I knew it was there.

After about a mile, a stranger appeared beside the path. “Am I going the right way?” I asked. He knew where I was going. “Yes,” he replied, “you’ll get there in five minutes.” Finally, I came to some rocks and stopped. I looked over them, but it was silent and there was no sign of it. Suddenly, the rain stopped and the clouds cleared. The sun rose behind me and shone on the rocks. Far below me, the ground fell away and down to a river. I was looking across one of the wonders of natural world—the Grand Canyon.

I looked down to the Colorado River, a silver stream nearly one mile below me. If you put the two tallest buildings in the world on top of each other at the bottom of the canyon, they still would not reach the top. Then I looked across to the other side of the canyon. It was about fifteen miles away, maybe more. Finally, I looked to my left and to my right, and on both sides the canyon went far away for more than 200 miles. The Grand Canyon was not just big. It was huge!

I remained by the canyon for about half an hour, and I asked myself, “Is the Grand Canyon the greatest wonder of the natural world?” I certainly know the answer. What do you think?