Long, long ago there lived an old man. He had a very big orange tree in his garden. On the tree there were many fine oranges.

    One day the old man found one of the oranges was bigger than the others. It was as big as a watermelon. So he took the big orange to the king. The king was very happy and gave the old man a lot of money for it.

    When a rich man heard of this, he said to himself, "It is only an orange. Why did the king give him so much money? If I take my gold cup to the king, he will give me much more money for it."

    The next day when the king got the gold cup, he said to the rich man,"What a beautiful cup! I'll give you something for it. Please take the great orange."

A. By plane   B. By bike   C. By boat   D. By subway

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Wow! I am in a beautiful village. There're two rivers around the village. The restaurant is between the two rivers. How can I get there?

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Look at the map. We can see a park. It's far from here. We can take the bus to get there. Let me see which bus we shall take. Oh, there aren't any bus stops near here. Look! A subway station! Let's go!

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}I love Beijing. I want to see different Hutongs, I don't want to take the bus or subway. I can borrow a bike. I can go around the city by bike by myself. That's great.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Guilin is famous for its water and mountains. I will visit it. It's about 3,000 kilometers away from here. It's so far.

    Flowers have habits or ways of doing things, just as people have. Would you like to hear about some of these?

    There is one habit that almost all flowers have. They turn to the light. If plants are kept in a room, the flowers turn to the window. Some flowers shut up at night. It seems that they go to sleep. They open again in the morning. Tulips（郁金香）do this.

    One morning Lingling was looking at some tulips. When one of them opened, a bee flew out. He stayed too late last night, and so was shut up in the flower. He might be hard at work all day getting honey. He stopped to rest in the tulip, and was shut in when it closed. He had a fine bed that night. Lingling wondered if he slept any better than he would have slept in the hive（蜂巢）!

    Reading is fun! Besides for fun, we can also analyze (分析) texts to learn more from the texts and more about the texts. One way we can do this is by finding out the theme of the texts.

    The theme of a text is the "big idea" that runs through the text, connecting the characters and events. It is what the writer wants to tell us through the story. Usually the theme of a text isn't told directly, you have to use clues (线索) in the text to find it out. 83 Themes can be ideas like family, friendship, love and so on. The theme might not be just one word, but it might be an idea such as "Friendship is important." There may also be more than one theme in a story. How can we find out the theme of a text? The following steps may help you.

    Read through the whole text, usually characters change as the story goes on, so the theme you get at the beginning might not be true at the end! For this reason, you need to read through the whole text first.

    Find out the clue after reading the whole text, try to answer the following questions. What important events happened during the story? What was the problem? How did the problem get solved? How did the character(s) change? What did the character(s) learn? The answers may help you to get the clues.

    Get the big idea Read again for the writer's purpose of the text by answering the following questions. Was most of the plot(情节) around friendship? Did the characters solve problems with their families? Did the main character learn the importance of friendship? If one of the answers is "yes", you may get the big idea.

    Check the big idea out If you've found a "big idea", go through the text to find the evidence( 证 据 ) that supports this idea in the text. For example, if there was only one small problem with a character's family, then "family" might not be the theme of the text. You might find more evidence for other themes.

    Have you got the way to find out the theme of a text? 84 Get your favorite book quickly and see if you can find the theme out!

    Each year, many Chinese people go abroad because of all kinds of reasons. They are becoming younger and younger year by year. Even some Chinese parents send their children to foreign countries when they are only in a middle school. They think their children can get a wider view, less academic(学业的) competition or family honor. But life can be hard for young people there. At first, they have to face the cultural differences and language problems. However, these are not always the most difficult things to overcome(克服).To most children, controlling (管理)themselves well is a big challenge when they are studying alone in a strange country. Yu Yang, a 15-year-old student from Guangdong Province studies in a high school in Toronto, Canada. ⑶To his surprise, his teachers there seldom push students to study hard. And usually there isn't too much homework .Students have lots of free time to do some activities. Some of his friends spend their whole year's money in the first two months of the new term. So they have to ask their parents for some more money. On the one hand, studying abroad can help students learn foreign languages quickly and open up their eyes, but on the other hand, some children may feel lonely, become bad, lose themselves, etc. Many problems may happen to them. These are different from their original thoughts. ⑷So parents should think them over before their children go abroad.