New rules and behavior standards for middle school students came out. Middle schools are going to use a new way to decide who the top students are. The following are some of the new rules.

You should not dye(染)your hair, smoke or drink. You should not copy others' work in an exam. Don't do it again if you did it!

     Good students love animals and care for other people. Being kind to animals is being kind to ourselves. Be friendly to the people around you. Try to think of others, not only yourself.

Don't look down on new ideas. Everyone's ideas are important. You should welcome them, because new ideas make life better for everyone.

Learn to protect yourselves. If you have to go home late, you should let your mother or your father know.

    Use the Internet carefully. The Internet can be very useful for your studies. But some things on the Internet aren't good for teenagers, so try to look through web pages that are good for you.

    My name is George．I'm from England．Now I'm studying in Germany．I get to school at 7：30 every morning．I find many of my schoolmates come to school by bike． 1

    This is an interesting thing for me．In England people usually drive，take a bus or walk somewhere,for example，to school．In Germany,I often see people，even people over eighty years old going somewhere by bike．It makes me think： 2

    My father gives the answer．We are living in Northern Germany,It is very fiat(平坦的)．So it is easy for people here to go somewhere quickly by bike．And it's cheaper than(比……更便宜)going by car or by bus．Also，it's good for the environment(环境)．

    I like riding bikes now． 3  When I go back to England．I will ride more and ask my friends to ride with me．I think they will like riding bikes，too．

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    We often see top students around us and everyone knows about them. Let us take Jenny as an example. She is the monitor of our class. She spends a lot of time working for our class. But she always gets good grades in all subjects. How do students like Jenny do that? When I asked her, she said, "Hard work is not the whole story. It's not how long you sit at the desk with your books open. It's what you do as you are sitting." In fact, we can see many top students spend fewer hours on their studies than their classmates. Jenny gave me some valuable suggestions.

    If your math teacher gives you five exercises, you should do six. If your Chinese teacher gives eight pages of reading, you should read nine. The more you practice, the more you learn.

    Studying is a matter of your personal interest, so choose the way you are most comfortable with. Some people like working at night when the house is quiet, while others like doing their work early in the morning. However, others like studying as soon asthey arrive home from school while the work is fresh in their minds. No matter(无论) which way suits you, try to do your best.

    Studying is your business and the business comes before entertainment(娱乐). When you are studying, phone calls should go unanswered, TV shows unwatched, snacks given up. Studying is the only thing in your mind. Nothing can pull your attention away from what you are studying.

    Studying is like eating. You should eat a little at a time. You can plan what to do today, but don't do too much. When you can't finish the work you planned to do, you will feel stressed and may lose confidence. On the other hand, you will not study well without a good plan. It all depends on how you manage your time.

    The students who hand in a clearly written paper are already half way to get an A. Tidy papers are likely to get higher marks than messy(乱糟糟的) ones. When you write clearly and do your work carefully, the thoughts in your mind are clear. You are able to make fewer mistakes.

    Steve visits the nursing home near his house two afternoons each week. On one of those days, he reads to his friend Martin. On the other afternoon, he plays cards and talks with Mrs Johnson. Steve enjoys spending his extra time this way. He is a volunteer. A volunteer is a person who helps another person or has a job for which he or she does not get paid. A volunteer donates his or her time for free.

    Everyone else in Steve's family is also a volunteer. Steve's mother Mary volunteers one afternoon each week at the local hospital. She talks to patients, delivers flowers, and helps the nurses with odd jobs. Steve's sister Gina volunteers two afternoons each week at the museum. She welcomes visitors and answers their questions. Steve's father David is also a volunteer. He is a volunteer fire fighter for the town in which they live.

    Steve's family thinks volunteering is very important. Steve's parents think being a volunteer helps to teach values. Steve and his sister learn how to be kind and respect other people.

Steve's family does volunteer work to give something back to the community. They want to help people who are not as fortunate as they are.

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A family of volunteers

    Now and then we all get ill. Then we usually go to see a doctor. Doctors know a lot about what makes us ill. They may give us something to take. The medicine often makes us well again.

    But sometimes the doctor's medicine doesn't work. A sick person does not get well. The pain(痛), or hurt(伤), will not go away. This happened to a man named Walter. He was in hospital, but he was not getting well. Then he found a new "doctor" inside himself. This "doctor" was his own sense of humor(幽默感). He saw funny films. He read funny books. And something wonderful happened. Laughing took away his pain. Then he was able to sleep and rest. His own happy feeling helped him to feel well again. And he told his story in a book. He said laughing was his best "medicine". His doctor thought so, too.

    Another man called James was ill, and he had a terrible pain in his back. The doctor could not stop it from hurting. So the man began to "picture" his pain. In his head he "drew" a picture of a dog. He imagined(想象) it as a real dog. And he made friends with the dog. And his pain went away!

    These stories may surprise you. But more and more people are getting well in this way. So call on the "doctor" inside your own head. Stay happy and well.

    Have you ever ridden a Ferris wheel lately? Can you imagine the flying feeling as you are pulled up to the top and then moved down to the bottom quickly again?

    Today a Ferris wheel is usually 40 to 60 feet tall. That seems very high when you are on the top looking down. But the first Ferris wheel was 264 feet high- taller than a twenty-story building! Can you imagine the view from the top of that?

    The first Ferris wheel was built for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The people who planned the fair were looking for an attraction that would bring people to Chicago. George Ferris handed a drawing of a giant wheel that people could ride on. At first everyone laughed at his strange idea. But Mr Ferris did not give up, and finally the idea was accepted. The ride opened in June of 1893.

    Today's Ferris wheels have 12 to 16 seats, which each carry 2 or 3 people. But that first one had 36 enclosed cars, each holding 60 passengers. When filled, it carried 2,160 people. During that summer in Chicago, about 1.5 million people rode the Ferris wheel.

After the fair, the ride was moved to a nearby amusement park built especially to show off the wheel. In 1904, it was moved again一to St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. After the fair there, the wheel stood unused. In 1906, it was finally sold to a company for scrap metal(废金属).

    Luckily a Chicago bridge builder, W.E. Sullivan, figured out how to make a smaller Ferris wheel that could easily be taken apart and put together. In 1906, he started the company that still makes many of the Ferris wheels used today.

    But, whenever you ride one, remember that it all began with George Ferris's strange idea!