Everybody usually makes decisions. They can be as important as what you will do in the future or as simple as what you will eat for breakfast . Any decision could be the turning point of your life.

    I made an important decision when I was in Junior 3.

    Before I made that decision I was one of the boys who tried too hard to act as an adult. I didn't know that only kids want to show themselves as adults. I didn't listen to my parents and teachers, and my grades became poor. Then came the high school entrance exam.

    At the turning point of my life, my mom wanted to have a conversation with me. I wanted to turn it down but when I looked at her eyes, I felt I couldn't refuse. Instead of asking me to study hard, to my surprise, Mom just asked what I wanted to do in the future. Without thinking too much, I just said I would like to study hard .

    Mom smiled and asked again: “ I asked: what do you WANT to do?”

    I never seriously thought about the question. So , I kept silent. “Whether you want to go on studying or enter the society,” she went on, “it is your own decision. Your life ought to be decided by you, not by anyone else, including me.” After saying that, she had tears in her eyes.

    For the first time in my life I was asked to make my own decision. I sat in my chair and thought about myself, my life and what kind of person I wanted to become.

    It took me what seemed to be ages to make the biggest decision so far in my life. I wanted to be a man who makes a difference in the world. To achieve that, I needed to study hard.

    The path to my future became clear to me. I didn't act rebelliously(叛逆地) any more. With passion(激情) in my heart, I studied hard.

    Now, I'm 17 and I'm in one of the best schools in my city, in one of the best classes at the school and I am one of the best students in the class.

    Thanks to that decision, I have become what I am today.

    On Miriam's 9th birthday two years ago, her aunt, who lives in Kenya（肯尼亚）, gave money to a group that cares for elephants to celebrate Miriam's birthday. Then Miriam and her mother visited Africa to learn how the group was helping elephants. Later, Miriam fell in love with the animals and wanted to help save them.

    A few months after visiting Africa, Miriam watched How I Became an Elephant, a film about the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand, and a young girl's effort to save them. Miriam decided she wanted to raise money to save elephants.

    Last year, Miriam created a program called They Deserve（应得） to Be Free after seeing how young elephants are abused in Thailand. She learned how people take a baby elephant, don't give it food or water for days and beat it hard. "It made me really sad. I need to do something useful." Miriam said.

    Miriam is working to make money for Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. She asked her friends to give money to the park rather than giving her birthday gifts.

    She recently joined about 12 other students in an art center. They made elephants from clay and decorated（装饰） them. Then she created a plan to sell clay elephants.

    Kate, Miriam's art teacher, opened her art studio（工作室） to Miriam and her friends on weekends so they could make clay elephants. She even gave them the clay." It's great to see a young student wanting to spend her time on something meaningful. This is what we should all work towards," Kate said.

    Miriam says she has sold 180 clay elephants worth 2, 000 dollars, and all of that money has been sent to Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.

    It seems very natural that if you have two dollars and add two dollars to them, you have four dollars. But do you know it too men millions of years to be able to think so? In fact, one of the most difficult things to teach children is the idea of numbers.

    In ancient times, when a man wanted to tell how many animals he owned. he had no system(系统) of numbers to use. He put a stone into a bag for each animal. The more animals, the more stones he had. It may explain why the word "calculate" comes from the Latin word "calculus", "calculus" means "stone."

    Then, man used lines to count. People would just draw a line for each thing they wanted to count, but they had no word to tell the number.

    Later on, people used fingers. Again we have word that goes back to this. The word "digit" comes from the Latin word "digitus". It means "finger"! And the fact that we have 10 fingers led to the use of 10 in the system of numbers.

    The number system we use today was invented by the Hindus in India thousands of years ago and was brought to Europe during 8^th to 11^th by Arab traders(商人). In this system, people count things with ten numbers. 1. 2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.and 0. It is decimal system(十进制), that is, it is built on the base of 10.

Jacob Tremblay (雅各布•特伦布莱) : a promising young actor

    While you might not recognize the name Jacob Tremblay, you may have seen him in the movie called Wonder (《奇迹男孩》). He plays the role of Auggie, a boy with facial deformities (面部畸形). The director calls the eleven-year-old boy "a once-in-a-life-time actor of his generation". So what about some background information to explain all this success?

    Born in 2006, Jacob started appearing in TV dramas at the age of five. His breakthrough came in Room(《房间》) in 2015. In that movie, he plays Jack, a young boy who has been kept in a small room since he was born. His first-rate portrayal (角色的刻画) of this role won him a lot of praise and several important awards. People then really began to notice this very talented young actor.

    Jacob impressed people again with his acting skills in Wonder. Although the movie audience can see only his eyes under the heavy make-up, they can feel the emotions of the character. People also wonder how he was able to get inside the character so successfully without a shared experience in real life.

    The young actor had, in fact, done a lot of research on children with facial deformities before shooting began. He sent a video to children with facial deformities and asked them to send him letters telling him anything they wanted him to know. He always kept the letters by his side and read them over and over again between takes (录制). He said those letters helped him prepare for scenes with emotional content.

    Jacob's performance on screen has made him one of the most promising actors in his age group. Hopefully, we will see a lot more of him in the future—on the silver screen or on TV.

    A crow, having stolen a piece of cheese, held it firmly in her mouth and stood in a tree. A fox, who was very hungry, took the following ways to get the cheese for himself.

    "How handsome is the crow!" he said. "How beautiful is her shape and how fair her feather! Oh, if her voice were only equal to her beauty, she might rightly be called the queen of birds!"

    This he said in a soft voice. The crow, anxious to show that her voice was equal to her other attractions, made a loud caw, and dropped the cheese.

    The fox caught it as it fell. "My good crow," said he," your voice is all right, but your brain is not good."