①To-wit-to-woo, to-wit-to-woo! What’s that strange sound coming from the forest in the moonlight? It’s an owl, of course!

②All day long, seated comfortably on a tree, the owl is sleeping or at least he’s trying to snooze, because it’s sometimes hard to close the eyes with all the sounds made by the little birds and animals in the forest! The owl hunts (捕猎) only at night. When evening comes, the animals all get to a safe place. The owl opens its big, round eyes. Any little animal around had better watch out! The owl mostly eats small animals like mice, but it wouldn’t say no to another bird, if it gets the chance!

③The owl uses its fantastic hearing to find its food, and then it turns its head from side to side, using its sharp eyes to follow the animal. Finally, it flies down to get the animal. Owls have special, soft feathers (羽毛), so they can fly without making any sound. Owls are such good hunters that they can even catch a fly in the air!

④The owl is quiet most of the time, except when you get too close to its home. The owl is a great mother, who will protect her babies by opening her feathers angrily. An owl will even hurt people if she thinks her babies are in danger!

⑤An owl has no teeth, so it eats an animal whole. All the parts of the animal that the owl can’t digest (消化) will end up as small pieces. If you find these small pieces, you know you are near an owl’s home.

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3 . NASA has been building a new telescope, called James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists think it could help them search for signs of alien life! They can watch exoplanets (外行星) with the help of the new telescope.

So far, all the exoplanets we have found are too distant to send astronauts or spaceships to them. Researchers hope the new telescope will help them find out whether there are aliens on these exoplanets!

The new telescope should be able to find out if the exoplanets have oxygen on them. Oxygen is a gas. On the earth, all animals need to breathe oxygen to live. It’s produced by plants and some bacteria (细菌). This means if there is oxygen on a planet, there might be living things as well.

These aliens probably won’t be mankind. Instead, they might be tiny bacteria. Scientists say that finding oxygen doesn’t mean there must be alien life. “We don’t know if life is the only cause of oxygen in an atmosphere (大气层),” NASA scientist Edward Schwieterman said.

The telescope can do more than search for aliens. It can study light from billions of light years away. This will help scientists learn more about what happened at the start of the universe.

4 . Millions of years ago, dinosaurs (恐龙) controlled the earth. And there were different types of dinosaurs on the earth. Some of them were no bigger than chickens, but all of them had very small brains (大脑). Later on, there weren’t any dinosaurs. What happened to them?

In the days of dinosaurs, the whole earth was warm and wet. There were many green forests. But the earth changed slowly all the time. When parts of the earth became cold and dry, the forests there died. Then dinosaurs could not find enough food to eat. This must be one reason why dinosaurs died out.

What’s another reason? We can make a guess. New kinds of animals came to the earth. Some had big brains and were fast and strong. They could kill dinosaurs. Some ate dinosaur eggs, too.

There may be other reasons that we do not know about. Each year, people will find some dinosaur footprints (脚印) and bones. Scientists are trying to tell us more about dinosaurs.

6 . On the earth, people in different time zones have different living conditions at the same time. Now let’s have a good look at the four countries below.

7 . The earth is covered by water. All lives on the planet (行星,地球) need water.     1     To keep the water clean, we mustn’t throw litter into the sea, rivers, or lakes. We can also use machines to make the water clean.     2     Here are some reasons.

Firstly, clean water is useful for us humans. We use it when we take a bath and brush our teeth as well as cook food. We also play in the water.       3    

Secondly, all animals need clean water. When the water is not clean, animals may get sick or die, and some may have to leave their homes.       4     We should try to keep the sea and lakes clean and try to keep wetlands filled with water. We shouldn’t throw dirty things into the water.

    5     So we need to keep ourselves from using too much of it. Then we can get lots of fresh water for plants. We need to save water.

So saving water helps save the earth. If we save the water and make it clean together, we will help keep the planet safe.

When winter comes, most plants lose their leaves. But bamboo does not.

Bamboo is one of the     1     growing plants in the world. It can grow     2     60 cm every day. Even     3     cold winter, bamboo stands up well and grows fast. Chinese people see this as bamboo’s spirit (精神). It is about being     4     enough to face any difficulties. Because of this, Chinese people love bamboo.

Bamboo is a common plant in China. It has many uses in our daily life. It plays an important part in     5     furniture, such as chopsticks, baskets and chairs. People also use bamboo shoots (竹笋) to cook all     6     of delicious food. It also     7     food for pandas.

Bamboo is very     8     in art.     9     it is empty inside, it is a good choice for musical instruments. You can see bamboo in many famous movies, too. For     10    , in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (《卧虎藏龙》), people fly and fight on bamboo.