Peru is a country on the Pacific coast of South America,     1    includes three main areas: narrow, dry, flat land     2    (run) along the coast, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon rainforest. In the high plain area is Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world, on which boats can travel. Peru has abundant plants from desert grasses     3    vast areas of jungle.

Peru     4    (rule ) by Spain from the 16th century to 1821. So Spanish is     5    (official) spoken in Peru. The ancient Inca capital, Cusco, is a popular destination for the     6    (tour) as it is close to the famous Inca ruins of the city of Machu Picchu.

There are two especially interesting things for us     7    (admire) about the Inca civilization. The first is the roads and paths they built to connect     8    (they) important cities. Second, the Inca built wonderful cities,     9     there were no markets in these cities. One of the interesting     10    (question) of history is how the Inca lived without shopping.

4 . It happens every spring. Flowers suddenly come out everywhere on the same day, as if they made an appointment with one another. But how exactly do plants “know” when to flower?

It is a question that has puzzled biologists for years. But according to Science Daily, a US research group may have finally answered it —the secret lies in a protein (蛋白质) called FKF1. This allows plants to sense the differences in day lengths so that they can tell the seasons are changing.

Researchers discovered the FKFI protein when they were studying a plant called Arabidopsis. They found that the FKFI protein is a photoreceptor (感光器). This means it is sensitive to, and can be activated by sunlight.

“Plants produce this protein every day in the late afternoon throughout the year. If there is no light at this time, for example, in winter when the sun goes down early, the protein won’t be activated,” explained Takato Imaizumi, the leader of the study. “But when spring comes and the days get longer, the FKF1 protein can be activated by daylight and the plants ‘know’ it is time to flower.”

Although researchers have only studied how the FKF1 protein works in the Arabidopsis, they believe that the process is similar in other plants, including crops like rice and wheat. This could be useful to the agricultural industry in the world.

5 . What should you do if there’s an earthquake at school? How can you protect yourself when you are caught in a stampede (踩踏)? March 25 this year provides you with a good chance to learn about safety.

This day is called the National Day of Education on the Safety of Elementary and Middle School Students (NDESEMSS) (全国中小学生安全教育日). The theme of the day this year is to give students more knowledge about safety and make sure their lives safe.

A survey done by the China Youth and Children Research Center showed that school accidents kill more elementary and middle school students than anything else. The main accidents come from stampedes, earthquakes, fires and sports injuries.

What can we do to keep ourselves safe? Staying calm is the first and most important rule when facing accidents. But different accidents have different self-protection advice.

A stampede is possible anywhere. The larger a human crowd gets, the more likely stampedes become. When students around you begin to push, stand still and try to hold onto something, or stay in a corner until the crowd leaves. If you fall down in a moving crowd, cover your head with both hands. Lean to one side, curl up your body and bend your legs.

Earthquakes are common natural disasters. When you feel the ground shake and drop down, take cover under a desk and hold on. You should stay indoors until the shaking stops. If you are outdoors, don’t stay near buildings, trees or power lines.

When there’s a fire, follow the teachers’ instructions, leave the classroom quickly and use a piece of cloth to cover your mouth and nose so that you don’t breathe in smoke.

Spring has come with all its beauty! Trees have turned green or flowers can be seeing everywhere. Last Friday, my friends and me went on a spring outing. It was such a great fun! We cycled along the streams and down the paths. It didn’t take us long to get the foot of the mountain, that we left our bikes. Then we begin hiking. As we reached the top of the mountain, we were shocking to see many plastic bottle and food bags here and there. All of us started to collect the rubbish and then took it down the mountain. We felt happily to have done our part for the environment.

7 . Earthquakes are something that people fear. There are some places that have few or earthquakes. Most places in the world, however, have them regularly. Countries that have a of earthquakes are usually quite mountainous.

The most-talked-about earthquake in the United States was in San Francisco in 1906.Over 700 people died in it. The strongest one in North America was in 1964. It happened in Alaska.

Strong earthquakes are not always the ones that kill the most people. In 1755, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded was felt in Portugal. Around 2,000 people died. In 1923, a very strong earthquake hit Tokyo, Yokohama area of Japan. 140,000 people died. Most of them died in fires which followed the earthquake.

One of the worst earthquakes ever was in China in 1976. It killed a large number of people. The worst earthquake ever reported was also in China, in which 830, 000 people were killed. This earthquake happened in 1556.

Earthquakes worry people a lot. The reason is that we often do not know when they are coming. People cannot prepare for them beforehand.

My husband, Tom, has always been good with animals, but I was still amazed when he befriended a female grouse (松鸡). It’s unusual for a grouse to have any contact with people. In fact, they’re hard to spot, because they usually fly off when they hear humans approaching.

This grouse came into our lives in spring. Tom was working out in the field when he noticed her walking around at the edge of the field. She was surprisingly unafraid and seemed to be curious about what he was doing.

Tom saw the friendly bird several times, and she got more comfortable around him. We quickly grew fond of the bird and decided to call her Mildred.

One day, as Tom was working, Mildred came within a few feet of him to watch. Tom pretended (假装) he didn’t see her and kept working to see what she would do next. Apparently, she didn’t like to be ignored (忽视). She’d run up and peck (啄) at Tom’s hands, then back off to see what he would do. This went on for about 20 minutes, until Mildred became tired of the game and left.

As spring went and summer came, Mildred started to come out more and more often. Eventually Mildred felt comfortable enough to jump up on Tom’s leg and stay long enough for me to get a picture of the two of them together. This friendly grouse soon felt comfortable not just with our family, but with anybody who walked or drove by.

When hunting season opened, we put a sign (标牌) at the end of our driveway asking hunters not to shoot our pet grouse. My father, who lived down the road also warned people not to shoot her. In fact, hunters would stop and take pictures, because they had never seen anything like her.

One day, when Tom worked as usual, Mildred didn’t show up.

While all of us thought Mildred was dead, she came out the next spring with many small cute grouses.

Thank you for your attention!