Mr. Brown is an American. He is now in Beijing with his family. This is his first visit to China. Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown are going to stay in China for three weeks. They want to visit some cities and villages. They hope to learn some Chinese, too. Mr. Brown is a doctor. He is going to visit some hospitals in Beijing. Mrs. Brown is a school teacher. She is going to visit some schools. Their daughter is a student. She is going to meet some Chinese students. They are going to take a lot of photos of China. When they are back to America, they are going to show the photos to their friends. They want the American people to know more about China.

Time spent in a bookshop can be enjoyable. If you go to a good shop, no assist ant will come near to you and say, "Can I help you?" You needn't buy anything you don't want. You may just try to find out where the book you want is and read it. But if you fail, the assistant will lead you there and then he will go away.①It seems that he is not interested in selling any books at all.

There is a story which tells us about a good shop. A medical student found a very useful book in the shop. ②But it was too expensive for him to buy. He couldn't get it from the school library, either. So every afternoon, he went there to read a little at a time. One day, however, he couldn't find the book from its usual place and was leaving when he saw an assistant singing to him. To his③      , the assistant pointed to the book in the corner. "I put it there so that it couldn't be sold out."said he assistant. Then he left and the student went on with his reading.

    Several days ago, I was walking home from school and saw some writing on the fence of a house I was passing by. It said, “Happiness is a direction, not a destination (终点).” I had been having a bad day and just reading this brightened my day a little. I also took out a pen and wrote one of my favorite quotes (格言) down.

    When I came back to the fence, I saw another quote under mine in the handwriting as the first one. I added another, and we kept at this pattern for quite a while. One day, I was writing another quote on the fence and the old man, one of my neighbors, who owned the fence, saw me. He came out and I was afraid he would be mad at me for writing on his fence; he was not known to be very friendly. He gave me a sharp glance and then read the quotes on the fence. Without saying a word, he said something to himself and then went back inside. I was a bit terrified for a while, afraid to go back to the fence, but when I did, I noticed not more quotes but two words in entirely different handwriting had been added, “Thank you.”

    Later, I saw the old man in his front yard. He beckoned (召唤) me over and told me how my quotes had been inspiring him, how he thanked me and how he was glad to see young people still have “values”. We are now good friend and I talk to him a lot. This experience has changed my life. I still don't know who wrote that very first quote, but if he is out there, I'd like to say “thanks” to that unknown friend.

    One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of building with a hat by his feet. He held a sign which said, "I am blind, please help me."

    There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words.

    Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Are you the one who changed my sign in the morning? What did you write?" The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way." What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it." Do you think the first sign and second sign were saying the same thing?

    Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.

    The first sign simply said the boy was blind, while the second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

    There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story. The first is: Treasure what you have. Someone else has less, Try your best to help those who need your help. The second is: Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way.

    Kian Hamer has become one of the youngest members of Mensa. Mensa is an international organization(组织) for IQ(智商). His IQ is 162 and it's two points higher than Albert Einstein's and Professor Stephen Hawking's. Mensa has 110,000 members all over the world, including 20 , 000 in the British Isles(不列颠群岛). Only eight percent of members are under 16.

    Mensa sent a letter to Kian's home. The letter wrote, "Kian is one of the cleverest people in the world. "Kian feels proud to have got such a good score and he's really excited to join Mensa. He always works hard on everything he does and he's always ready for自challenge. Although people call him a genius(天才), he still wants to be a professional footballer when he grows up. He loves playing football very much.

    His dad Rich Hamer, who works as a firefighter, said, "Kian is clever but I'm not allying him a genius like others. I want him to keep his feet on the ground. He needs to study hard forever. Never be proud. A lot of people have joked that he's too clever to be a footballer. I don't think Kian realized what a good score it was at first. He's always done really well at school. He works really hard and always tries his best."

    William Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers in English literature. His plays can be divided into three categories: histories, tragedies (悲剧) and comedies. Shakespeare wrote eighteen comedies, although two were lost. These comedies usually have happy endings and a light-hearted tone and style that are quite different from his tragedies.

    All of Shakespeare's comedies have five acts and the most important or exciting point always takes place in the third act. The hero does not appear until after other characters have talked about him. Shakespeare had some themes that he usually wrote about: the fight between good and bad, love's great effect on people, and the difference between first appearance and a person's true personality or face. Shakespeare also wrote his play in a certain style. For example, Shakespeare used words in such a clever and humorous way that they had more than one meaning. Some of the characters changed their appearances so that people didn't know who they were.

    Even though the tone is lighter in these plays. Comedies in Shakespeare's day were quite different from modern-day comedies because their purpose was not to make people laugh. Shakespeare's comedies are very emotional (有感染力的) and often include serious topics to think about.