An American named Crum invented potato chips in 1853, although that was not his intention (意图). He was a chef(厨师长) at a beautiful restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. A regular dish on the menu was fried (油炸的) potatoes, which was an idea that had started in France. At that time, French fried potatoes were cut into thick slices (片).

      One day, a dinner guest at the restaurant sent back his fried potatoes to the chef because he did not like them so thick. So Mr. Crum cut the potatoes a little thinner and fried them. The guest did not like those either. That made Mr. Crum angry, so he thought he would just show the man. He sliced the potatoes paper-thin and fried them, thinking that the man would say nothing about it. However, to his surprise, the man loved the thin potatoes very much. Other guests tried them and also liked them. So, Mr. Crum's potato chips were added to the menu. They were called Saratoga Chips.

      Finally, Mr. Crum opened his own restaurant to sell his famous chips. Now potato chips are packaged (包装) and sold in stores.

    Alice Brown lives in New York with her mum and dad and two brothers, Tony and Peter. It is Alice's fourteen birthday next week. The family has got two dogs, a cat and four rabbits. Alice likes cats and rabbits but her brothers like dogs. Alice's dad works in a hotel. He's a hotel manager. Her mum teaches English at a junior high school.

    Alice and her brothers study at the same school, but they are in different grades. She's in Grade Seven. Her brother Tony is in Grade Ten and Peter is in Grade Six. They live in a flat near the school. They walk to school together every day.

    Alice is interested in computers. At home she plays computer games in her free time.

    A very new, young officer（军官）was at a station. He was on his way to visit his mother in another town, and he wanted to telephone her to tell her the time of this train, so that she could meet him at the station in her car. He looked in all his pockets, but he did not have the coins（硬币）for the telephone, so he went outside and looked around for someone to help him.

    At last an old soldier came by, and the young officer stopped him and said, "Do you have change for ten pence（便士）?"

    "Wait a moment,' the old soldier answered. He began to put his hand in his pocket, "I'll see if I can help you."

    "Don't you know how to speak to an officer?" the young man said angrily. "Now let's start again. Do you have change for ten pence?"

    "No, sir," the old soldier answered politely and quickly.

    Bill is a good boy. He is seven years old, and he likes going to school. But he cannot get up early.

    He always wakes up until (直到) nine or ten o'clock in the morning.

    His mother doesn't want him to be late for school, so she buys an alarm clock for him. She says to Bill, "You must get up when you hear the clock ring." "Yes, Mum," Bill answers. From then on, when he hears the clock ring at six o'clock in the morning, he gets up quickly.

    One day his mother forgets to wind up (上发条) the clock. And the next morning, Bill doesn't get up on time. It's time for breakfast, so his mother goes to wake Bill up, Bill is in bed and his eyes are open. "Why don't you get up?" his mother asks, "You tell me that I must get up when I hear the clock ring, so I am waiting for the clock to ring," Bill said.

No one knows when the first kite was made. The first record of a kite was more than 2,000 years ago in China. Han Xin, the leader of an army, wanted to bring down a king. He decided to dig a tunnel (隧道) into the king's palace. He flew a kite over the wall of the palace to make sure the length of its string (线). In this way, he could determine how long the tunnel should be. His men in the tunnel took the kite string with them. When they reached the end of the string, they knew to dig up.

  Kites have been flown in Japan for hundreds of years. In the 1700s, kites were flown in autumn to give thanks for a good harvest. They were also flown to send good wishes to couples who had their first son. Today in Japan, kites are often flown as part of a celebration, such as the beginning of a new year. And kite festivals are held each year in many parts of the country.

  Kites have been used for scientific purposes in the western world. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin tied a key to a kite and flew it in a storm to find out that lightening was a form of electricity. In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite to test ideas about flight. From 1898 until 1933, the United States Weather Bureau (气象局) used box kites to collect weather data. The Wright brothers also experimented (试验)with kites. What they learnt helped them make the first airplane flight in 1903.