This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. As I searched the name, I found that there were two famous people having the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts（花生）, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: let the coin decide. I flipped(掷) a coin and Ah! Tails (背面)! My report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.

    Weeks later, I stood in front of the classroom and proudly read my homework. But things started to get strange. I looked around the room, only to find my classmates with big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes and my stone-faced teacher. I was completely lost. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”

    Oh well, I dropped the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American War of Independence.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that my teacher meant that George Washington?

    Of course, my subject result was awful. Sad but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to the headmaster Miss Lancelot, but she said firmly(坚决地): No re-dos; no new score. I felt that it was not fair, and I believed I should have a second chance. So I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, I sat in the headmaster's office again, but this time a completely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the terrible moment at the beginning of the year when the headmaster told me I was good enough to skip(跳过) the 6th grade and started the 7th grade next term.

    Captain（船长）Nemo invited me and my friends to go hunting with him in the forests of Crespo Island. I asked him why he was so interested in Crespo Island. “I thought you preferred the sea to being on land.”

    “I do,” replied the captain. “But these forests are under the sea.”

After going through a door, we were about ten meters under the water. The light from the sun reached us. Everything looked very colourful. We were going deeper and deeper. At 100 meters deep, we could see quite well, and Captain Nemo stopped and pointed to some dark shapes. This was the forest. The “trees” in the forest were giant seaweed, and all their “branches” were vertical（垂直的）.We could not stop looking at them. Fish swam around the branches like birds in a forest.

    Suddenly, I saw a large sea spider about a meter tall. It was going to attack me. Captain Nemo's man killed it with his gun, but it reminded me that the sea could be as dangerous as it was beautiful. When we reached 150 meters, it was dark. The sun's light could not reach this depth（深度）. We turned our lights. We could see about 20 meters around us. Finally, we found Crespo Island—where a steep rock wall rose in front of us.

    We could go no further, so we walked back toward the Nautilus. Suddenly, Captain Nemo stopped and shot an animal with his gun, it was a beautiful and rare sea otter. At last, we could see the Nautilus. Several large sharks swam over us. Luckily they didn't see us. We re-entered the Nautilus safely. I was tired but amazed by what I had seen.

Zhu Yanjun is a migrant worker(农民工)from northwest China's Gansu Province. Recently the 50-year-old took part in the 2023 Chinese Poem Competition and won second place in the final.

Zhu was born in a family of farmers. As a young boy, Zhu would help his father do farm work after finishing classes. In 1983, as a first-grader in primary school, he met poetry for the first time in a Chinese class. Since then, he has been in love with poems. After noticing Zhu's interest, his father spared some money from the family's living costs to buy him poetry collections （诗歌集）. During junior high school, some of his classmates dropped out of school and moved to other cities to look for jobs. Zhu listened to them talking about the outside world during holidays. "I also wanted to leave my hometown to see the world. "he said.

After graduating from junior high school in 1992, Zhu stopped his schooling. He began to work as a migrant worker. But he did not stop reading poems. 

In the past years, Zhu has worked in seven cities in China. Whenever he arrives in a city, he first visits the bookstores and libraries there. Although he is busy working during the day, he spends his time at noon and in the evening reading poems. He knows around1, 000 poems by heart and the lines help him keep a calm mind. 

In 2023, with the encouragement of his wife, Zhu decided to sign up for the 2023 Chinese Poem Competition. To his surprise, he made it to the final. Under his influence, his son and daughter have developed a great interest in poetry. They have been accepted by universities away from their hometown. "I hope more people will also fall in love with poetry, "said Zhu, adding that he will continue learning poetry.

Mr Smith looked at his watch at times. He1 to go home as soon as possible. There would be a (n)2 football match in London and he could not do anything in his office. He3 home after work. Supper was ready and he went to his4 after that. But he could not fall asleep. He was5 he would miss (错过) the match though he had told his wife to wake him up at once at night. He had to6 and began to read some evening newspapers.

Finally the match began. His team7 the half of the match. He was angry. He was so8 that he did not know when he had gone to sleep. The next9 his wife brought some bread and milk into the sitting room. She saw her husband sleeping on the sofa and called out, "Oh, dear! Get up, or you'll be10 today. It is five to seven!"

Hearing this, Mr Smith jumped off the sofa and asked, "Who won?"

Stunt (特技) actors work in movies and television shows. They always take the real actors' places to do some dangerous actions. Circus (戏团) performers work just as hard as they could, because they also want to be the stars of the show. 

Stunt actors must be strong. Many of them start doing this from martial arts (武术) and learn many other things such as horse riding and driving. Some become good at one thing, such as stunt driving. They try to make their performances look real, just like real actors do that. 

Stunt actors work wherever movies or television shows are made. As we all know, Hollywood is the most famous film city of the world. And there are also other places working with movies or television shows, such as Vancouver in Canada and Queensland in Australia. Also, they often work in forests and mountains. Stunt actors left home to work for weeks or even months. 

Circus life is also busy. Performers need to be strong and flexible (灵活的). Circus performers are not shy people and they enjoy being the center of the whole performance. 

Many circus performers travel from town to town. They stay for a week, and then move on. And some performers even have no home. They live in large cars and go everywhere to perform. Circus families often travel together. The children perform with their parents sometimes. Circus children don't go to school. They study by the teachers' letters, or study with a teacher who travels with them.