根据短文理解。选择正确答案。

    At my primary school, I was one of the smartest kids there, I never studied, but always got perfect scores. I thought I was born clever. At least I believed so. I was also a prodigy in music according to myself. I could sing better than almost everyone else in my school. I was pretty sure that once I got t sixth grade, everyone would be surprised by me.

    But actually, they weren't.

When I arrived at my new class, I couldn't wait to show everyone what I could do. However, there weren't" always someone else who could do them better. My grades began to suffer. More talented (有天资的) girls often sang solos(独唱). I believed I wasn't smart. I believed I wasn't talented. I believed I was a failure.

   Over the next two years, I had to work very hard. Every prize for the singing competition was given to me for hard work and effort. Grades were still very low but improving little by little. I worked really hard. However, I was never the best at everything.

    I haven't realized until recently that I really don't have to be the best at everything. I was too hard on myself. In fact, when I did badly in a test, my classmates never laughed at me.

    No one is perfect. There will probably always be someone better than me at something. Anyway, there are about seven billion people in this world. I will never be the number one at everything, and that's really okay.

    An old man died and left his son a lot of money. But the son was a foolish young man, and he quickly spent all the money, so that soon he had nothing left. Of course, when that happened, all his friends left him. When he was quite poor and alone, he went to see Nasreddin, who was a kind, clever old man and often helped people when they had troubles.

    "My money has finished and my friends have gone," said the young man. "What will happen to me now?"

    "Don't worry, young man," answered Nasreddin. "Everything will soon be all right again. Wait, and you will soon feel much happier. "

    The young man was very glad. "Am I going to get rich again then?" he asked Nasreddin.

  "No, I didn't mean that," said the old man. "I meant that you would soon get used to being poor and to having no friends. "

    One day a farmer took his horse to the town for sale and hoped to bring some money home. On his way he saw an old woman. She looked weak, so the farmer carried her on his horse. Before the woman said goodbye, she gave the farmer a ring. She told him that the ring had magic power and could make any dream come true. But he could make only one wish.

    Later the farmer sold his horse and began to walk home. Then he met an old friend and went to his friend's house to take a rest. After drinking some wine, the farmer talked to his friend about the ring. The friend asked him to drink more wine to celebrate his good luck. The farmer drank too much and then fell asleep. The friend took the ring away and put another one in its place. After the farmer woke up and left, the man took out the ring and said, "Fill the house with gold." 

    Lots of gold fell down like a heavy rain and killed the man. When the farmer got home, he thought he should wait until his children grew older to decide what wish was the best. So he hid it and forgot about it after several years.

    Chinese people have never liked a Japanese sports star before as they have loved Japanese ping-pong player Ai Fukuhara.

    But now they may feel sad, as the 29-year-old said on Oct.21,2018 that she would be retiring(退役)from the sport, "As a ping-pong player, I'm drawing the line here."

    Fukuhara has had a talent for playing ping-pong since 3 years old. When she was 12 years old, she came to China to learn ping-pong as well as Chinese Now she speaks Chinese very well.

    That's one reason why Chinese fans love her so much. Another reason is that she always shows her real feeling to others. Fukuhara often cries when she loses the games especially against Chinese ping—pong players so Chinese fans call her "Crybaby."

    Although Fukuhara is not always the winner, she is trying her best when playing her favorite sport all the time. When talking about why she planned to stop playing ping—pong, she said Japanese players are playing ping—pong better and better with her help and that it's OK for her to retire as for her future plans, Fukuhara wrote that she would like to help more people around the world get to know the beauty of the sport.

Dear James,

    How are you? I want to tell you about the ways (方式) my family go to work or school. My parents are teachers, but they are not in the same school. My father's school is far from our home. It's about five kilometers. He drives his car to school every day. My mother usually walks to her school, because her school is near our home. I have two brothers, John and Peter. John is a high school student (高中生). He likes taking a bus to school. He thinks it is fun, because he can meet his friends and tall with them on the bus. It takes him thirty minutes to get to school. Peter and I are students in a middle school. My mother is in the school, too. I always go to school with Peter. We ride our bikes to school for ten minutes every school day.

    What about you? How do you get to school?

Yours,

Amy