When I was about 6 years old, I lived in Kenya. On the roads, there were always street children asking for money. There was such a big difference between those children and me. At least I didn't have to worry about my living.

    My family had a wonderful driver, John, who had been working for us for years. He took me to and from school. One day, when we stopped in busy traffic (交通), a young street child went to us and called, "Hi, John!"

    John then gave him a little money and said goodbye to him with a smile before we went on to school. I was quite surprised. I knew that John worked hard to make money. He had a large family himself. We always sent food and clothes to his family. I couldn't understand why he gave money to the child.

    "Who was that?" I asked.

    "My friend," he replied. "Sometimes I see him on my way to work and I give him a little money."

    I was still unable to understand, so I asked, "Why do you give him money?"

    John replied, "So he can use it to buy some food."

    At that moment (瞬间q) I understood what kindness really was.

    Every Friday my grandfather gave me chocolates. I would save (保留) some so I could give them to John' s friend on the weekend.

根据材料内容完成下列任务。

A. basketball      B. soccer    C. golf      D. tennis   E. volleyball

    Not enough American students want to be engineers, mathematicians, or scientists. The US government wants to change that. The government will spend three billion dollars on the education of young Americans in science, technology, engineering, and maths. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Many jobs in the STEM fields will open in the coming years. The purpose of the government's investment（投资）is to increase the number of Americans who can take those jobs. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} than boys. Only 25 percent of STEM students are girls.

    Camsic McAdams is at the US Education Department. She says girls simply do not feel welcomed in STEM subjects, Debbie Sterling is an engineer. She invented a toy for girls. The name of the toy is "Goldie Blox". To interest girls, Sterling create the character"（Goldie". {#blank#}3{#/blank#} . Goldie tells stories, solves difficult problems and builds new worlds.

    Mia is a seven-year-old girl who likes science. In her room, she has no fashion dolls. Instead, she received a set of（Goldie Blox from her grandmother. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Experts say parents should do more than just buy toys to interest their girls in STEM subjects. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

    At school, girls should take part in projects that require teamwork and creative thinking.

    Running two miles on the playground isn't a fun thing to do for most students. But students in Miss Brown's class at Mark Twain School in the USA gladly put on their running shoes. They wanted to raise money to help a dog in need.

    Miss Brown told her students about Peter, a dog who had a hard start in life. At less than a year old, Peter's owners found out that he was not healthy. Something was wrong with his body. Medicine could help but it was very expensive. For Peter to have a better life, he needed surgery (外科手术). But his owners couldn't afford that. Finally, they had to leave Peter at the animal hospital.

    "I love dogs and when I hear about Peter, I felt so sad for him," says student Tony.

    Miss Brown's class decided to hold a Jog-a-Thon to raise money for Peter's surgery.

    "At first I felt like the Jog-a-Thon was just to get us to exercise," says Mike "but then I wanted to help this dog."

    "I just wanted to make a difference in Peter's life," adds student Chance Wood.

    News of the Jog-a-Thon spread throughout the school. Before long, five other classes also took part in the event. "I started receiving money from all kinds of people in our school community," says Miss Brown. "We raised $3,180.64 in all."

    English people are well known for plenty of tea that they drink. Per person in the UK consumes (消费) around 1.9 kg of tea every year. Tea is drunk by all sections (阶层) of society.

    But tea is not native to Britain. Most of the tea is grown in India and China. Tea first arrived in London in the 1600s. At this time, British ships were exploring the world and came across the drink in China. It was not long before green tea was available to buy. However, this was only available to the rich.

    At the beginning of the 1700s, the amount of tea arriving in Britain increased slowly. Black tea arrived at this time. At first people drank this tea exactly as it was in China. They soon discovered that it mixed really well with a little milk and sugar, giving the drink a special British characteristic.

    In the 1800s tea was still a product enjoyed only by people with money. At this time they began to have "afternoon tea". This includes drinking tea with a snack around 4 p. m. to avoid feeling hungry. It is a tradition that is still going today but has become less popular in recent times.

    In the late 1800s, the price of tea dropped a lot as more tea began to arrive on ships from India and China. It was no longer a drink just for rich people. Tearooms-shops where you could buy and drink tea-started to appear across the country. People enjoyed drinking tea and social activities in these places. At the start of the 20th century, Englishmen began to make tea in their homes whenever they felt like it. Kettles (烧水壶) became necessary in every kitchen.

    On Nov. 18, 1908, three men went up in a balloon. They started early in London. The headman was Augusta Gaudron, and the other two men were Tannar and Maitland. They had a big balloon and they were ready for a long way.

    Soon they heard the sea. They carried a usual rope, and it was hanging down from the basket of the balloon. At the end of the rope they had tied(系) a metal box. This could hold water, or it could be empty. So they were able to change its weight. It was for use over the sea. They also carried some bags of sand.

    After the Sun rose, the balloon went higher. It went up to 3,000 metres, and the air was very cold. The water in the box became ice. Snow fell past the men's basket, and they could see more snow on the ground. The men tried to throw out some more sand; but it was hard. They tried to break the icy sand with their knives, but it was not easy. The work was slow and they were still falling, so they had to drop(投下) some whole bags of sand.

    One of them fell on an icy lake and made a black hole in the ice.

At last they pulled the box into the basket. They rose to 5, 100 metres! Everything became icy. They were so cold that they decided to land. They came down in Poland safely. They had travelled 1,797 kilometres from London!