John is a famous writer now. But he said he was not a1 student when he was young. He was often late for2 and didn't like doing his homework. Sometimes, he slept in class while the teacher was teaching. He didn't understand much,3 he always thought he understood everything. One day the teacher4 the students a question, “When Jack was ten years old,5 brother Bob was twenty, Jack is fifteen now and6 is his brother Bob?”John said, “That's easy. Bob is twice as old as Jack, so he is now thirty.”

Another time, the 7 in a science class asked, “When it thunders(打雷),8 do we always see the light before we 9 the sound?”

     “But, Miss,”said John quickly, “don't you 10 our eyes are in front of our ears?”

    A first-grade student whose best friend is battling cancer thought that hours of playing and telling jokes was not enough - he wanted to show his buddy just how he understood the1time he was going through.

    Seven-year-old Vincent Butterfield2the only way was to cut off his hair in support of his best friend Zac who lost his hair through chemotherapy(化疗).

    Zac Gossage is receiving treatment but3goes to Union Central Elementary School in Missouri every day,4that's where he gets to play on the swing with Vincent. Vincent found out that Zac might5his hair because of the chemotherapy treatment. So one day, he showed up in the first grade class wearing a6He said to his teacher Mrs. Koester, "I have a surprise for Zac." And he pulled off his cap and other7saw that he already had all his hair8_off.

    "I did it just to make Zac feel he's not the only one without any9" said Vincent.Vincent has also been raising money for his best friend after learning how10his chemotherapy treatments are. He asked his mother to make11than 20 scarves and gloves. He and his mother12them at the price of 10 dollars each, raising over $200 for Zac. The encouragement from Vincent seems to be working. Though Zac is receiving treatments, he has13_missed any days of school. He knows that Vincent is out on the playground, waiting for him at break.

    When asked14friendship was, Vincent looked at his friend Zac, thought for a(an)15and responded,"It's a beautiful thing."

Clearly, wisdom doesn't always come with age.

    We look at the world around us everyday, but somehow we don't manage to see it until what we've become used to suddenly disappeared. That's to say that you may get used to some places and some 1 around you. For example, the neatly-dressed woman I used to see --or look at on my way to work each 2.

    For three years, no matter 3the weather was like, she was always waiting at the bus stop around 8:00 a.m. On 4 days, she wore heavy clothes and a pair of woolen gloves. Summertime turn out clean cotton dresses and a hat pulled low over her sunglasses. 5, she was an ordinary working woman. Of course, I 6all this only after she was seen no more. It was then that I realized how 7I expected to see her each morning. You might say I 8her.

    "Did she have an accident? Something 9?" I thought to myself about her disappearance. Now that she was gone, I felt I had 10her. I began to realize that part of our  11life probably includes such chance meetings with familiar strangers: the milkman you see at dawn, the woman who 12walks her dog along the street ever morning, the twin brothers you see at the library. Such people are 13markers in our lives. They add weight to our 14 of places and belongings.

    Think about it, while walking to work, 15we mark where we are by passing a certain building, why not mark where we are when we pass a familiar, though unnamed , person?

    In the mid 1990s, people started doing business on the Internet. At that time, there were two kinds of companies. First, there were traditional companies which sold things in shops. Then, there were Internet companies which didn't have shops; they sold things only over the net.

    Traditional companies didn't want to lose any business. Quickly, they created their own website and began selling things over the net. These are the so-called "brick and click" companies. Many shops are made of brick, and you click on your mouse to buy things with your computer. That's where the name "brick and click" comes from.

    By the late 1990s, e-businesses like Amazon.com and Buy.com were in trouble. Their profits were not very high, and there was a lot of competition. Many of these businesses lost a lot of money, and in 2000, many e-businesses went out of business.

    Why are "brick and click" companies, like Barnes & Noble, Toys "R" Us, and Walmart so successful? First, many customers know and trust their names. Their websites, like walmart.com, are easy to remember. These companies also have a lot of experience. They know how to run a successful business.

    In the world of e-commerce, companies are fighting for every dollar and every customer. Will "brick and click" companies win the war? Only time will tell.

Several times each year the Queen gives afternoon tea parties at which guests are served tiny cakes filled with cream from her own cows. Cakes and sandwiches are bought in by footmen, yet you never see the Queen touch a thing. She

simply sits beside a big silver plate, pouring cups of tea for everyone and carefully avoiding the cakes.

At cocktail parties the Queen moves from group to group, chatting informally, and manages to make one glass of diet drink to last a whole evening. Tours abroad are difficult because hosts seem to believe the warmth of their welcome must be shown with wonderful state banquets(宴). But the Queen has perfected the art of appearing to enjoy her meal without actually eating much. During one visit to the Pacific islands of Tonga, a specially-prepared dinner was set up in   a hut made of wood and bamboo leaves. Deep holes were dug in the ground, filled with hot stones and baby pigs, and the pigs were slowly cooked with dry heat over several days. The Queen looked uneasily at her plate when she discovered a   whole roast(烤) pig was her serving.

Then she became uneasy when a turkey, some meat, bananas and an apple were also carried in for each guest. So she depended on her old favourite trick of talking with her host, King Tupou IV, carrying on a warm conversation. At the same time she pushed her food around her plate and only ate a piece of turkey and some fruit.

Reporters traveling with her have noticed that the Queen will sometimes seem so interested in a foreign leader's political(政治的) chat that she simply never has time to finish a meal before it is time to get up and make her speech. She will lift her fork, then put it down again to make another point, leaving almost all of her meal untouched.