Robert is a middle school boy from Australia. He is in Grade Seven. This term, he learns Chinese and he likes it very much. He wants to learn it well, so he finds a pen pal from Guangdong, China. His name is Yang Guang and he is a clever boy. He and Robert are in the same Grade. They both love playing football. They often chat with each other on the Internet. They have different school lives. Yang Guang is very busy every day. He gets up early and he has to stay at school for 8 hours every day and he has much homework to do after school. But Robert only stays at school for 5 hours and he often finishes his homework in just half an hour.

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    Let's have a look at American students' school life. On school days, American students usually get up at 7:00 a.m. Most students walk or take a yellow school bus to school. Some students ride bikes. After they arrive at school at about 8:30 a.m., they meet their friends and talk about their activities. They put their backpack in a small cupboard(衣柜）and take out only one book, some writing paper and a pencil for each class. In the middle school, they take only five or six subjects each term. They usually go to the same class every day, and they have homework for every class.

    At noon, the students eat lunch at school. They often have meat, vegetables, fruit and some drinks. But some students like pizza, hot dogs or hamburgers better. At 13:00 in the afternoon, they begin to have classes. Their classes are always over at 15:00. Then they join the school clubs or play sports. They go back home at about 5:30 p.m.

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Mother bird is busy,

Flying from tree to tree,

Trying to find the right one,

To raise (养育) her family.

Should it be a maple, or maybe a pine?

Whichever it is, it will be just fine.

She finds one stick and another,

And hurries back to put them together.

She sits on her eggs to keep them warm,

And hopes they don't fall during the storm.

The nest is strong and holds them well.

The babies suddenly come out from their shells (壳) .

Mother bird is happy and as proud as it can be.

Now she is looking for food you see.

She feeds her babies most of the day.

They eat and eat but have no time to play.

It's time to learn to fly from the nest.

Mother bird doesn't get much rest.

The babies are so eager (渴望的) to fly,

But sad to tell their mother, goodbye.

    Trees are important and they can help us in many ways. However, some of them are in danger and need to be taken care of as much as possible. There are some ways to save trees.

    Use paper wisely. We can save trees by using paper in a right way. What can we do? Use both sides of paper when doing homework. Borrow books to read when you needn't buy them. Never throw old books away, but be kind to donate them to others who need them. Use cloth towels instead of paper towels.

    Plant trees. To save trees, it's a great idea to plant them. Spring is the best season to plant trees. If everyone around us does it, millions of trees will appear and make our world become green and beautiful.

    Tell people to understand the importance of trees and help save trees. Try to write letters to government officials (官员) and persuade (劝) them to use as little paper as they can.

    Do you know the way of using wind power to make electricity? There are many advantages (优点) of using wind to make electricity. Here're some of them.

    First, it may be one of the cheapest ways to make electricity. Second, it can make and store hydrogen gas (氢气). The most important one is that it won't pollute the environment. Besides, the wind power can be reused.

    But large wind farms might kill birds too, because the birds always fly into the wind turbine (风力涡轮机). Scientists are looking for ways to stop them.

    Experts said that by the middle of the 21st century wind power could supply (供应) more than 10% of the world's electricity. The wind really helps us a lot.

    People sometimes like to read stories of dogs very much. They think that dogs are much cleverer than cats, sheep, cows or other animals in their homes.

    One of my close friends, Bob, has a very large police dog named Jack. Every Sunday afternoon, Bob and Jack have a walk in the park nearby. Jack likes these walks very much. One Sunday afternoon, I paid a visit to my friend. I stayed there for a long time and my friend and I had much more talk with each other than ever before. Soon it was time for them to take a walk in the park. We forgot that. Jack became worried about it. He walked around the room several times and then sat down in front of me and looked at me. But I still paid no attention (注意) to him. I went on talking with my friend. At last, Jack could not wait any longer. He went out of the room and came back a few minutes later. He sat down in front of me again. But this time, he held my hat in his mouth. Suddenly, I understood what Jack meant and so did my friend.

    My name is Alex. I had an interesting and scary experience last Saturday. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was walking down the Main Street. I stopped in front of a jewelry store to look at some rings in the window. I really liked one of the rings. While I was standing there, two men came out of the store. They ran across the street, got into a car, and drove away quickly. Then I saw something on the ground. It was a black bag. I thought maybe they dropped the bag while they were driving away in the car.

    I went to pick up the bag and opened it. There was a diamond watch in the bag. I took the bag with the watch into the jewelry store and showed it to the store manager. The manager looked scared by what had happened but he was very happy to see the watch. He said the two men were thieves, and that the police were looking for them. He also said the watch was very expensive. To thank me, he gave me fifty dollars. I was happy that I helped him. However, the thieves stole many pieces of jewelry. They took ten rings, three watches, four necklaces, and ten pairs of earrings. I hoped the police would catch them soon.