Bob is an artist. He owns a house in New York. One afternoon when he drives home from work, his three children are playing in the garden. Some of his flowers are broken. The door of his wife's car is open, and the front door of the house is open, too.

    When he walks in the house, his house is messy. In the living room, the TV is on. Toys and clothes are everywhere. In the kitchen, dirty plates and bowls are in the sink(水槽). Breakfast food and dog food are everywhere. A broken glass is under the table.

    Bob runs fast and looks for his wife. He worries about her. Is she sick? He finds her in the bedroom. She is staying in the bed and reading a book. She looks at him and smiles.

    Bob ask, “What's up today?”

    She again smiles and answers, “You always ask me what I do today when you come home.”

    “Yes.” Says Bob.

    “Today I don't do it.” She smiles again.

    What was discovered by accident? The answer is penicillin (青霉素). It kills germs. By killing germs, it saves lives. Suppose you are sick. You go to a doctor. She examines you. She says you have a “staph” infection (葡萄球菌感染). She gives you some medicine. You take it. The medicine knocks out the staph. Soon you are well. Before penicillin, this would not happen. Staph was almost sure death.

    Everyone wanted a medicine. Laboratories worked day and night. They grew the staph in small dishes. Then they tried to kill it. Nothing worked.

    The laboratory dishes had covers on them. They kept things from falling into dishes. Molds (霉菌) were a big worry. They are always in the air. You can't see them. They're too small. There are thousands of different molds. Molds can make an experiment (实验) fail. That's why dishes are covered.

    Dr. Alexander Fleming was working to kill the staph germ. He worked for years. One day he took a cover off a dish. He looked inside. There was a thick growth of staph germ. There was also some mold. Then he saw something strange. Where the mold was, there was no growth of staph. This is what Fleming probably thought. “By accident, I found a mold to kill the dreaded staph.”

    This is how penicillin was found. But here's the real miracle (奇迹). There are thousands of kinds of molds. But only one kind can kill staph. The mold must have fallen into the dish a few days before. The cover was probably off only a few seconds (秒). In those few seconds the right mold fell into the right dish. Another man might have thrown the dish away. But Fleming was very careful and smart. He understood what the mold did. How lucky the humans were!

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    From a young age, I've had a really deep connection with being outside. I've been skiing since I was eight or nine years old. I've been on expeditions(探险) in many places like China, Pakistan and so on. But it was in my home country, the USA, that I came closest to death.

    It was April 1, 2011. I was skiing in the Tetons with my friends Jeremy and Xavier, both experienced snowboarders. That day, l was the last person to ski. They were watching me from a safe area. Suddenly, I heard someone cry loudly. I turned around and saw the whole mountain start to move behind me. It was a massive avalanche( 大雪崩). The kind of avalanche that destroys trees, cars, buses, even houses! Tens of thousands of tons of snow were coming straight down the mountain behind me. I felt the snow push me forward, hundreds of meters, and then cover me. It was so heavy that I couldn't breathe. And then it pushed me forward again and up, out of the snowpack. I looked around, and for a few seconds I actually stopped being terrified. I had a moment to pause and to look at the power of the avalanche.

    I looked down into the bottom of the valley(峡谷). I could see trees that were 30m tall, because! Was so far away, and they looked tiny to me. "OK, I'm going all the way to the bottom!" I thought. Then the snow pushed me again down the mountain another 450m. I thought the force of the snow would destroy me; it was powerful. But in the end, I felt the avalanche slow down and I just popped ( 迸出 ) right out of the snow at the bottom of the valley.

    It took Jeremy and Xavier about 20 minutes to reach me. There was a pile of debris(碎片) across the bottom of the mountain 300m wide. They couldn't believe it when they saw me. I was so lucky.

    Has the experience changed me? Do I think about life differently? I don't know, maybe. But I do know that it's important to live your life with meaning. Life is a gift. So use it wisely.

It's true that most children don't enjoy doing housework.  {#blank#}1{#/blank#}But in Australia, Jim and Robert's mother, Mrs Black, has good ways to get her children to do housework. Here is an example.

"Mum, have you worked out next week's housework? Let Jim and me choose the cards. I can't wait. It's fun!"

  {#blank#}2{#/blank#}On the cards, there are some words like these, "sweep the floor, clean your bedroom, help Mum cook, wash vegetables, make the bed, feed the fish, cut up the wood, clean the bathroom" and many others. Jim and Robert chose two cards each day from Monday to Friday. Then they would hang them on weekday task board(工作板). Jim likes to clean the bathroom, so he picked up the card"clean the bathroom".   {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Jim again picked up "wash vegetables" and Robert chose"feed the fish". Soon the two boys were happy to take away all the cards.

 {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Of course, the parents did the housework at the weekend and gave Jim and Robert two days to have a rest.

Who did the housework at the weekend at the Blacks'? (回答不多于5个单词){#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

I was in my room, slowly getting ready to head to the theatre with the rest of my family.

I don't want to put on the show in the theatre that day. "Kirstie, come here!" Mum called from down the hall.

"What is it?"I called back and found my mum outside the bathroom, holding a wet book.

Mum gave the book a shake. "Henry's book was in the bathroom. Did you put it there?"

"Not on purpose," I said disinterestedly,"It was already on the corner, and it happened to fall in when I stepped out." Mum looked at

me angrily,"You could have picked it up. That would be the kind thing to do."

Mum never acted like this before. Being kind wasn't actually that hard. But after Henry and his dad moved in, everything felt different. As Henry walked ahead of us to the car, Mum took me aside.

"This is our corner of the world now, Kirstie,"she said. "Let's try to make it a good one. "

I nodded unwillingly.

The theatre was busy as usual. One play a year in the theatre used to be what Mum and I did together most excitedly. But now, with Henry here, it won't be special any more.

Soon, it was my turn. I forgot my anger at Henry when I went on the stage.

As we kids lined up on the stage, I realised how poorly I had tied(系) the drawstring on my skirt —my bow(蝴蝶结) suddenly came untied and my skirt began to drop — in front of hundreds of people!

It was not a dream! It was terribly real! People soon began laughing, and I could feel my face burning.

Then Henry, beside me, came to my aid! He tidied up my clothes, tying the drawstring with a beautiful knot (结). He made a joke about me"not"knowing knots, and most of the people laughed again! This time, the laughter felt OK!

At the end of the show, I found Henry and touched him on the shoulder. "Thanks!"

He smiled, "Knot a problem!"

I smiled guiltily (惭愧地 ). Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a new person in my corner of the world after all.

The Beets were a new couple (夫妇). The things in their rooms, such as the television, the computer, the fridge, furniture and so on, were all left by their parents. They only paid some money for their food and clothes. But they tried their best to save money. If they had something important to tell their friends, they always visited them instead of calling them.

One day, it was a quarter past nine. Mr. Beet didn't come back. His wife was a little worried. The supper was cold and she had waited for two hours. She was sitting by the table in the dark room.

Suddenly the woman heard someone coming upstairs. It was her husband's step. She hurried to open the door. In the dark she could hear his deep breathing (呼吸). As soon as he sat down, she turned on the light and found he looked very tired.

"Why do you come back so late, dear?" asked the woman. "Haven't you caught a bus?"

"Yes, but I didn't take it."

"Why not?"

"I ran after it so that I saved two dollars this evening."

"That's great!" the woman said happily. "Run after a taxi next time and you'll save both more time and money."