Tom has two good friends. They are Jack and Mark. They have different hobbies. Tom likes football. He often plays football on weekends. He thinks playing football can make him strong and healthy. He is in the school football team.

    Jack doesn't like sports. He likes listening to music. He likes Jay Chow best. He buys many of his CDs. He often listens to music on the way home after school. He thinks music can make him happy.

    Mark likes taking photos. He has a good camera(照相机). When he is free, he often takes it out and takes some pictures. Some of his pictures are in newspapers(报纸) now. He thinks we live in a beautiful world. He wants people to see the beautiful world in his pictures.

    Do you know anything about the way of shopping in Western countries? In the West, people usually make a list before they go shopping. Most people like to go to supermarkets or big shopping malls.

    In the West, most supermarkets or malls open at 8:00 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m. But some big supermarkets and big malls are open until 11:00 p.m. at night. When people go into a supermarket, first they should get a basket or a cart(手推车) at the entrance(入口处). Then they begin to choose things and put them into the basket or the cart. After they get everything they want, they pay the money. There are always a lot of people in the supermarket at weekends. They must wait for their turn.

    Most people go to the supermarket or the shopping mall once a week. Some people go shopping twice or three times a week.

    British people pride themselves on their polite manners towards one another in public. They often use the word 'sorry'—even when they don't really mean it! Usually, if they want to ask a stranger for the time, they would start by saying 'Sorry to bother you. Do you know what time it is?' If they're five minutes late for an appointment (约会), they would generally greet the person by saying 'Sorry I'm late!'

    They use the word 'sorry' in so many different situations that the meaning of the word has changed a little over time. The two main dictionary definitions (释义) of 'sorry' are: 1) feeling sad for someone else because of their problems or bad luck; 2) feeling regret because you've done something wrong. Now, think about this. Normally, when they want to ask a stranger a question, they start with 'Sorry to bother you'. In this situation, they aren't saying sorry because they feel sad for that person or because they feel regret.

    So what does 'sorry' really mean? And why do British people use it so much? Well, in the British culture, saying 'sorry' is a way to be polite, especially to people who they don't know very well. It's also a very clever way to get what they want. In a recent experiment, an actor went up to a different strangers on a rainy day to ask if he could use their mobile phones in order to make a call. When he went up to one group of strangers and asked them without saying 'sorry' first, he was only 9 per cent successful in borrowing their phones. However, when he said 'sorry' to another group of strangers about the bad weather before asking if he could use their mobile phones, he was 47 per cent successful. So maybe saying 'sorry' is not just being polite, but it is also a good method to get what they want too!

Hello, I'm Lisa. I'm a middle school student. What's this on the table? It's a photo of my family. Look! The woman with gray hair is my grandmother. And the man next to her is my father Steve Black. He is a football player. The woman next to my grandmother is my mother Annie Black. She is a teacher. The little girl in front of (在—的前面)my mother is my sister Laura. And the girl in red is me! Oh, I also have a lovely cat. It's black and white. Where is he? It's on my bed, haha!

    When it comes to the letter grade on your test or homework, you might notice that there is no letter E. Have you ever thought about why that is so?

    In the A. B. C. D and F grading system, the first four letter are typically considered passing grades. An F in this system simply stands for "fail". The word "fail" happens to start with the letter F, which seems to leave out the letter E, The fact of the matter is that any letter can mean "not-passing" or "fail". Some schools have U grade for unsatisfactory", or I grade for "incomplete."

    Even with all this said, we should also point out that E grade actually has been used pretty commonly throughout the history of letter grades in the US.

    The first college in the US to use a letter grading system like the ones we use today is Mount Holyoke College. In 1897, they began to use the following grading scale:

A: 95-100% (excellent)   B: 85-94%(good)   C: 76-84%(fair)

D: 75%(barely passed)   E: below 75%(failed)

    We can see the inclusion of E instead of F.

    Gradually, the letter grading system became more popular throughout the US. However, many schools decided to drop the E grade and go straight to F. There is no evidence(证据)to really support this, but one possible explanation is that teachers were worried that some students and parents might mistake E for "excellent".

    Why do we have letter grades? Well, part of the reason is that they made grading simpler during n time of great change for schools. As the 20th century began, growing cites and an increase in immigration led to larger school classrooms. Most teachers at that time thought this new letter grading system was an easy, fair and clear way to grade students.

    Today, more and more people argue that letter grades don' t fully reflect(反映)student learning. However, as teachers try to improve grading methods, many parents continue to favor the letter grades they got as kids. They are familiar(熟悉) and easy for parents to understand. So while they might not be perfect, the letter grades probably aren't going away any time soon.