On September 19, Alibaba went public (上市) on the New York Shock Exchange. It shows that Ma Yun has done his business successfully. A short Chinese man seems to be the tallest man in the world right now. Ma used to be an English teacher. So far, he has become the richest man on the Chinese mainland.

 Ma was born in Hangzhou and grew up as a happy kid. At the age of twelve, he found that English was very interesting. Every morning he got up at 5 a.m., and then ran to a hotel near the West Lake where he could communicate with foreign tourists in English. He did it for nine years.The experience made him become a fantastic English speaker and also opened his eyes to the wide world. In a 1995 trip to the US,  Ma was shown to the Internet for the first time. Seeing the chance, Ma returned to China and set up a website without knowing much about computers. Four years later, Ma set up Alibaba in Hangzhou. People called him “Crazy Jack Ma”. But fifteen years later, Alibaba has developed into the world's largest e-commerce (电子商务) company.

    Weekends are short. They are only two days out of a seven-day week. To make your weekends look longer, you need to plan it better. Here are some ideas.

★Get up at your usual time. The biggest mistake(错误) is to think that the weekend is a good chance(机会) for getting up late. So getting up early can make you feel the weekends are longer.

★Finish homework as early as possible. Nobody wants to do homework, but we have to do it. The earlier you do it at the weekend, the better you will feel. You can do homework from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a. m. on Saturday morning. After doing your homework , you can plan your weekends well.

★Go out to enjoy weekends. Weekends feel longer if you get out and enjoy them. Think about what you like to do. Plan a sports activity, for example, playing football in the park. You can also plan to go to a museum, a zoo, or a park.

    After you get back home from a trip, one of the most pleasant things is sharing your stories with people. And that's what we'd like you to do. Our magazine's “True Stories” section is for your strange experiences, heart-warming tales and funny stories on your trip. So if you have good stories, please write to us!

    If your story is chosen as the best one, you will win the nine-day trip across North America, including a seven-night trip along the California coast. For more information, please call 800-227-2826, or e-mail us at TrueStories@hotmail.com.

    Besides, you need to remember a few things if you want to write a story:

    Keep the story brief (简短的) and lively (within 250 words).

    Please send your story as the body of your e-mail, not as an attachment (附件).

    Most of the stories we print have photos, so send pictures, but try not to go crazy. Send only the best one(s).

    Please send your photos as an attachment, not embedded in (把……嵌入) the body of your e-mail.

    We don't mind if you or your friends are in the pictures, as long as you tell us who or what is in the photos.

    We need to be able to get in touch with you, so tell us your phone number and home address.

（B）

配对阅读:左栏是描述5个人曾经去过的名山，右栏有7座名山的简介，请为他们找出对应的名山。

    Hello, everyone! It's nine o'clock. Welcome to GMTV's Music & Stories Show. I'm the host, Wang Chunxue. We all know that music plays an important (重要的) part in everyone's life. It can make people happy or sad (悲伤). Babies and young children would like others to sing to them. When they are a little older, they like to sing the songs they have heard. After children go to school, their world of music grows (扩大). In the middle grades students take music lessons. When they go to high schools, they are interested in pop music.

    Well, in today's program, we'll listen to the People's Musician, Xian Xinghai's songs. Do you know Xian Xinghai? He's from Macao, China. He brought western and Chinese music together. He's famous (出名的) for the song The yellow River. He wrote this song in 1939 in only six days. OK, let's listen to the wonderful song The Yellow River.

     {#blank#}1{#/blank#} It has around 3 billion fans — nearly half the world's population! And about 300 million people play this game. That's 4 percent of the world's population!
    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Many people in old days played early forms of this modern game. Cuju (蹴鞠)，a ball-kicking game in China, was reported as early as 2,500 B.C. Around the same time in Greece, people were also playing a similar ball game with any part of the body except hands.
    But modern soccer didn't become official(官方的) until 1863. An Englishman called Cobb Morley introduced the idea of a soccer association(联盟). {#blank#}3{#/blank#} From then on, other associations in the countries were set up. They came together to build up the FIFA, which organizes the World Cup.
It's not easy to tell what makes soccer so popular. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Soccer needs only two feet and a ball. This makes it a sport that developing countries can easily play. Some of the sport's best players come from these poor nations.
    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} The sport's no-hands rule makes beautiful dance — like movements on the field. What's more, this sport excites the heart. Teams might score only a few times each match, so matches can turn around suddenly.
    No one knows who will win at the next World Cup. But one thing is certain: The world will be watching.