1 . Rainforests are home to a rich variety of medicinal plants, food, birds and animals. Can you believe that a single bush（灌木丛）in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the whole of Britain! About 480 varieties of trees may be found in just one hectare of rainforest.

Rainforests are the lungs of the planet-storing vast quantities of carbon dioxide and producing a significant amount of the world's oxygen. Rainforests have their own perfect system for ensuring their own survival; the tall trees make a canopy（树冠层）of branches and leaves which protect themselves, smaller plants, and the forest animals from heavy rain, intense dry heat from the sun and strong winds.

Amazingly, the trees grow in such a way that their leaves and branches, although close together, never actually touch those of another tree. Scientists think this is the plants' way to prevent the spread of any tree diseases and make life more difficult for leaf-eating insects like caterpillars. To survive in the forest, animals must climb, jump or fly across the gaps. The ground floor of the forest is not all tangled leaves and bushes, like in films, but is actually fairly clear. It is where dead leaves turn into food for the trees and other forest life.

They are not called rainforests for nothing! Rainforests can generate 75%of their own rain. At least 80 inches of rain a year is normal-and in some areas there may be as much as 430 inches of rain annually. This is real rain-your umbrella may protect you in a shower, but it won't keep you dry if there is a full rainstorm. In just two hours, streams can rise ten to twenty feet. The humidity（湿气）of large rainforests contributes to the formation of rainclouds that may travel to other countries in need of rain.

5 . In our modern world, when something wears out, we throw it away and buy a new one. The _______ is that countries around the world have growing mountains of _______ because people are throwing out more rubbish than ever before.

How did we _______ a throwaway society? First of all, it is now easier to _______ an object than to spend time and money to repair it. _______ modern manufacturing (制造业)and technology, companies are able to produce products quickly and inexpensively. Products are plentiful and _______.

Another cause is our _______of disposable (一次性的) products. As _______ people, we are always looking for _______ to save time and make our lives easier. Companies ________ thousands of different kinds of disposable products: paper plates, plastic cups, and cameras, to name a few.

Our appetite for new products also ________ to the problem. We are ________ buying new things. Advertisements persuade us that ________ is better and that we will be happier with the latest products. The result is that we ________ useful possessions to make room for new ones.

All around the world, we can see the ________ of this throwaway lifestyle. Mountains of rubbish just keep getting bigger. To ________ the amount of rubbish and to protect the ________, more governments are requiring people to recycle materials. ________, this is not enough to solve (解决) our problem.

Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions ________ throwing them away. We also need to rethink our attitudes about ________. Repairing our possessions and changing our spending habits may be the best way to reduce the amount of rubbish and take care of our environment.

6 . Some people learn a second language easily. Other people have trouble learning a new language. How can you help yourself learn a new language, such as English? There are several ways to make learning English a little easier and more interesting.

The first step is to feel confident about learning English. If you believe that you can learn, you will learn. Be patient. You do not have to understand everything all at once. It is natural to make mistakes when you learn something new. We can learn from our mistakes.

The second step is to practice your English. For example, write a journal every day. You will get used to writing in English, and you will feel comfortable expressing your ideas in English. After several weeks, you will see that your writing is improving. Besides, you must speak English every day. You can practice with your classmates outside class. You will all make mistakes, but gradually you will become comfortable communicating in English.

The third step is to keep a record of your language learning. You can write this in your diary. After each class, think about what you did. Did you answer a question correctly? Did you understand something the teacher explained? Perhaps the lesson was difficult, but you tried to understand it. Write these achievements in your journal.

You must be positive about learning English and believe that you can do it. It is important to practice every day and make a record of your achievements. You will enjoy learning English, and you will have more confidence in yourself.

8 . It was Jennifer Williams’ mother who got her interested in books. As a librarian, Williams’ mother read to her three children every day. “From when we hadn’t gone to kindergarten,” Williams told vadogwood.com, a local news site, “until we went to college.”

When Williams, who is now 54, became an elementary school teacher and tutor in Danville, Virginia, she wanted her students to be falling in love with reading just as she had. But early on, she realized that some kids had little chance to get enough books to read.

To Williams, the solution was simple: give kids books. In 2017, she donated (捐赠) 900 used children’s books over three days. “I wanted to do something that’s going to continue my faith,” she said.

So she started a new project for herself: give away one million books. It sounds like an unreachable number, but as Williams posted on Facebook: “Don’t complain in the stand if you aren’t willing to work hard out on the field.”

She got to work, first by persuading her friends to donate books or money to buy books. Before long, as news of Williams’ project spread, strangers started leaving varieties of books on her front walk way. As quickly as the books came in, Williams gave them to local schools—free of charge —and also supplied 41,000 books to little free libraries around the city just over the North Carolina border. She also hosted a book club for prisoners in the local prison.

Over the four years she’s been doing all this. The Book Lady, as Williams has come to be celebrated, has given away more than 78,000 books—only 922,000 more to reach her goal! And she’s not slowing down. “Reading can take you anywhere,” she told CNN. “You can travel in time and space. If you can read, you can learn almost anything.”

9 . I used to be a very self-centered person, but in the past two years I have really changed. I have started to think about other people _______ I think about myself. I am happy that I am becoming a _______person:

I think my _______started when I was at Palomar College. At first, I just wanted to get my _______, and be left alone. I thought I was smarter than everyone else, so I hardly ever _______to anyone in my classes. By the end of my first semester, I was really _______. It seemed as if everyone but me had made friends and was having fun. So I tried a(n) _______. I started asking people around me how they were doing, and if they were having trouble I _______to help. That was really a big _______for me. By the end of the year, I had several new friends, and two of ________are still my best friends today.

A bigger cause of my new ________, however, came when I took a part-time job at a Vista Nursing Home. One old lady there who had Alzheimer s disease became my ________. Every time I came into her room, she was so ________because she thought I was her daughter. Her real daughter never ________her, so I took her place. She let me ________. That making others feel good make me feel good, too. When she died, I was ________, but I was very grateful to her.

I think I am a much ________, person today than I used to be, and I hope I will not ________these experiences. They have ________e to care about other people more than about myself. ________who I am today, and I could not say that a few years ago.

10 . For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?

Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.

In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is—politics, the laws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg—the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something—and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.