B

    John's birthday is on August 16th. His parents are going to have a party for him. He is very happy about it. He would like to invite his friends to the party. Last Sunday night, while John was in his room, his mother walked in.

    "Are you still doing your homework?" she asked.

    "No, I'm writing a letter to Uncle Tom," John answered.

    John's mother was very surprised because John never wrote letters to anyone.

    "Are you asking him to come to your birthday party?"

    "No," John answered, "Uncle Tom never comes to my birthday parties."

    "Then what are you writing about?" his mother asked. "Will you read me the letter?"

    "OK," John said, "but I haven't finished it. I have only written two lines. I'll read them to you."

    "Dear Uncle Tom, thank you very much for sending me such a nice gift. I hope..." her mother stopped him. "But Uncle Tom hasn't sent you any gifts."

    "I know," John answered. "I'm not thanking him for this year's gift. I'm thanking him for last year's. You know, it's never too late to thank him."

    Everybody has his own hero in mind and is always trying to copy his behaviors in life. As for me, my 1 is just that man. My grandfather had a small farm. He also worked in a 2.

    One autumn, most of the farmers in the village were 3, so he promised to help his neighbor harvest（收割）the corn as he often did. 4, after harvesting his own corn, Grandpa's little corn machine broke. What was 5, the factory where Grandpa worked made the workers have extra work. He had to 6 the farm early and didn't get back until very late. It now seemed 7 to help out his neighbor because he really had no free time.

    One night, Grandpa 8 that he wouldn't let his neighbor's harvest rot（腐烂）in the field. Without a 9, he'd harvest it by hand.

    “I don't think you'd have time to do it,” said my grandma. “10, it would be too dark to do anything at night.”

    “I know of one night that I could do it!” he 11. “There's still one more full moon in October. If the 12 is clear, I think I can do it.”

    A few days later, after a long shift（轮班）at the factory, my grandpa went to the 13. The weather was cold but clear. He cut all the corn through the night to 14 his word.

    Sometimes, when I want to put off responsibilities, I'd see my grandfather 15 corn in the light of the harvest moon. Behind him, row after row of corn stocks（玉米秸秆）stand at attention in respect for a man who keeps his word.

At the age of 16，Julia left school and worked at a restaurant. For many years, she was only interested in making money. Then one day she had a serious car accident which changed her life.“I had a terrible car accident in August 1996.It took me 10 months to recover （康复) from the accident. During that time，I realized I wanted to find a more meaningful reason for being here in this world，”said Julia.

    As soon as she recovered，Julia gave up working at the restaurant and traveled to California. One day she found a big company wanted to cut down part of a forest. In the forest there were lots of redwood trees. One of the trees was more than 1,000 years old.

Then Julia learned a group called Our Earth was trying to save the redwood forest from the company. They decided to find someone to live in a redwood tree and hoped this would stop the company from cutting the trees down. Julia volunteered.

    Julia lived in the tree for over two years without ever going down. It was cold and wet in a redwood tree. There were even very serious winter storms while Julia was in the tree.

Finally the company decided to protect the tree Julia lived in. They agreed never to cut down the big redwood tree or the trees around it. When Julia put her feet on the earth，she began to cry. But she continued to do other things to protect the environment.

    Jay Chou was born(出生) on January 18th,1979, in Taiwan, China. He grew up with his mother, and was a quiet and shy kid. He didn't do well in study, so people thought(认为) he would never be successful(成功) in life.

As a small child, Jay took a great interest in music. His mother sent(送) him to learn the piano when he was only three years old. He loved it and kept on practicing. When he was in high school, he could play the piano quite well. At the same time, he showed his talent for writing songs.

    Before Jay became a singer, he worked as a songwriter. For two years, he spent most of his time writing for singers. Some of them were very famous, like Coco Less and Jacky Cheung. Jay released(发行) his first album(专辑) in 2000 and soon he got quite popular.

    Now Jay is one of the most famous singers in Asia. However, he is still shy and doesn't speak clearly when he sings or talks, but he has a lot of fans. Most of his fans like him because he is really good at music and never follows(仿效) others.