The United States has always been a country of many cultures. Before Europeans came to North America, many groups of Native Americans lived here. Different Native American groups had different cultures. The first Europeans in the United States were from England and Holland, but immigrants came from all European countries. Many people also immigrated from Asia and Africa. Sadly, many Africans were brought to the United States as slaves. Many immigrants come from Latin America too. Today, the United States has people from more cultures than ever.

    In the 19th century, people spoke of the United States as a “melting pot.” People thought that all immigrates should forget their native cultures and languages and become English-speaking Americans. They felt that people should assimilate-join American culture. However, not everyone wanted to assimilate completely. Many people tried to keep parts of their cultures, such as foods, customs, and languages. However, their children often forgot their parents' or grandparents' language. But most Americans, even those whose families have been here a long time, can tell the countries their relatives came from. And of course, new immigrants take great pride in their curare and language.

    For all of these reasons, melting pot is no longer a good way to describe the United States. Instead, people now call the United States a “salad bowl.” They say salad bowl because in a salad, you can still see all of the individual parts (lettuce, tomato, and so on), but all the different parts mixed together and begin to take on the flavor of one another.

    Mrs. Turner's telephone number was 3463, and the number of the cinema in town was 3464. People often made mistakes and telephoned her when they actually wanted the cinema.

    One evening the telephone bell rang and Mrs. Turner answered it. A tired man's voice came over the telephone, “At what time does your last film begin?” “I'm sorry,” said Mrs. Turner, “but you have the wrong number. This is not the cinema.” “Oh, it began twenty minutes ago? ” said the man. “I'm sorry about that. Well, goodbye.” Mrs. Turner was very surprised, so she told her husband. He laughed and said, “No, that wasn't a mistake. The man's wife wanted to go to the cinema, but he was feeling tired, so he telephoned the cinema. His wife heard him, but she didn't hear you. Now they will stay at home this evening, and the husband will be happy!”

    They wear the latest fashions with the most up­to­date accessories(配饰)．Yet these are not girls in their teens or twenties but women in their sixties and seventies. A generation which would once only wear old­fashioned clothes is now favouring the same high street looks worn by those half their age.

    Professor Julia Twigg，a social policy expert，said，“Women over 75 are now shopping for clothes more often than they did when they were young in the 1960s.In the 1960s buying a coat for a woman was a serious matter. It was an expensive item that they would purchase only every three or four years—now you can pick one up at the supermarket whenever you wish to. Fashion is a lot cheaper and people get tired of things more quickly.”

    Professor Twigg analysed family expenditure(支出)data and found that while the percentage of spending on clothes and shoes by women had stayed around the same—at 5 or 6 per cent of spending—the amount of clothes bought had risen sharply.

    The professor said.“Clothes are now 70 per cent cheaper than they were in the 1960s because of the huge expansion of production in the Far East. In the 1960s Leeds was the heart of the British fashion industry and that was where most of the clothes came from，but now almost all of our clothes are sourced elsewhere. Everyone is buying more clothes but in general we are not spending more money on them.”

    Angela Barnard，who runs her own fashion business in London，said older women were much more affected by celebrity(名流)style than in previous years.

She said，“When people see stars such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren looking attractive and fashionable in their sixties，they want to follow them. Older women are much more aware of celebrities. There's also the boom in TV programmes showing people how they can change their look，and many of my older customers do yoga to stay in shape well in their fifties. When I started my business a few years ago，my older customers tended to be very rich，but now they are what I would call ordinary women. My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would never have done ten years ago.”

    In modern society, it is usually considered good to be an extroverted(外向的) person. This means that life can be hard for introverted people. Their talents and abilities are often not recognized.

    Some people often try to make introverts more outgoing. They think that being an introvert is a problem. But there is nothing wrong about being an introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of meeting and talking to others. They simply prefer to spend time on their own, away from the crowds. They like reading, writing and taking walks in the countryside. But extroverts need other people. If they spend a lot of time on their own, they get bored. They tend to be impulsive and talk a lot.

    Our society puts a lot of pressure on people to be extrovert, to be outgoing and self-confident on every occasion. Susan Cain, the author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, has spoken about this problem. "I was nine years old," Cain says. "In my suitcase there were lots of books. This seemed normal to me, because in our family we always read a lot. I thought it would be the same at summer camp. But I was wrong. To create camp spirit, all the children had to sing a cheer every morning. I couldn't understand why. In the evening, I took out a book from my suitcase. But another girl said, 'why are you being so quiet?' The second time I took out a book, the counselor(辅导员) came to see me. She told me to remember the camp spirit and that it was important to be outgoing."

    At work, extroverts often do well. At job interviews, it is usually good to appear extrovert. It suggests that you will be good at the job. But it is wrong to think that only extroverts are good leaders. Introverts work in different ways to extroverts, but they can still do really great things. Darwin, for example, was a quiet, family man. He often took long walks so that he could think clearly. But Darwin's ideas about evolution were revolutionary.

    Introverts must understand that it is perfectly okay to be the way they are. It is not necessary to want to be the center of attention. You don't have to take part in noisy, social activities if you don't want to. And it is not necessary to try to become more outgoing.

    The U.S. has countless secret swimming holes throughout most states, many of which you've likely never heard of unless you're from the area.

Having a great collection of books at home doesn't really mean that you are a person who has a passion for literature and reading. It can be a family inheritance (继承) or it can be just to impress people around you about the fact that you are a person of culture. On the other hand, there are many persons who cannot afford to buy books, because some of them are quite expensive, but they usually go to libraries and spend hours reading something that interests them a lot, or just borrow books to read at home.

From my point of view, literature is very important in our lives from several points of view. For example, reading is a means of gaining culture and enriching our knowledge in different areas of activities. It can help us have a great imagination and it makes things easier when it comes to making compositions on different themes. It gives you the possibility to speak about science, even if you don't work in this field, or you can express your opinion about a political aspect, just because you have read something connected to that.

Secondly, literature offers us the possibility to enter the world of imagination, and to leave apart the real one for a couple of hours. We come to meet kings and queens many years ago, dream in the world of the rich or imagine how life will be in the future. Sometimes, we identify ourselves with the characters in the stories we read and they can give us some clues to solve our problems and how to react in certain circumstances.

To conclude, I would like to say that literature is the perfect means to enrich our culture, to express correctly and have a rich vocabulary, to be able to interfere (干涉) in conversations in different fields of interest and to really be considered an erudite person.