Teenager Jake Deham was skiing with his family in the USA when he fell over and lost one of his skis. His family didn't know that he had a problem. They kept on skiing. When they got to the foot of the mountain, there was no sign of Jake.

    Jake couldn't find his ski anywhere. In the end, he decided to take off his other ski and walk down the mountain. But he couldn't work out the right way to go.

    It was now getting dark and he was a long way from any place of safety. He knew that he might die that night in the cold temperatures. But Jake kept calm. At home, Jake watched a lot of programs about living in difficult situations. He remembered the advice from these programs and knew that he should build a hole in the snow. He made a hole and pointed it up the hill so the wind couldn't blow into it. Outside his hole, the temperature fell to a dangerous-15℃ that night, but inside it Jake was safe from the cold.

    But he had to get down the mountain. The TV programs always said," If you are lost, you should find someone else's tracks(足迹) through the snow and follow them." "I wanted to live my life." remembers Jake." So I got up and I found some ski tracks and I followed those." He walked and walked and finally he saw lights. Nine hours after he lost his ski, he found a team of worker who came to save him. He was safe!

    His mum was very happy when she heard the news. Amazingly, Jake didn't even have to go to hospital. He got through the terrible experience without any injuries.

    So, the next time someone says that watching TV is a waste of time, think of Jake. Sometimes TV can save your life!

    A rabbit is running into its hole. You may ask, "What happened?"

    Well, when a rabbit sees something dangerous, it runs away. Its tail moves up and down as it runs. When other rabbits see this tail moving up and down, they run too. They know that there is a danger. The rabbit has told them something without making a sound. It has given them a signal.

    Many other animals use this kind of language too. When a bee found some food, it goes back to its home. It cannot tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does a little dance in the air. This tells the other bees to go with it to find food.

    Some animals say things by making sounds. A dog barks, for example, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs (发出呼噜呼噜的声音) when it is pleased. Some birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning.

    But human beings have something that no animals have—a large number of words about things, actions, feelings or ideas. We are able to give each other information and to tell or inform other people what is in our mind or how we feel. By writing words down we can remind ourselves of the things that have happened, or send messages to people far away. No animal can do this. No animal has the wonderful power of language.

    No one knows how man learned to make words. As centuries went by, he made more and more new words. This is what we mean by language.

    People living in different countries made different kinds of words. Today there are about fifteen hundred different languages in the world. A very large English dictionary, for example, contains four or five hundred thousand words. But we do not know all of them. The words we know are called vocabulary. We should try to make our vocabulary larger. Read as many books as possible. When we meet a new word, look it up in the dictionary. A dictionary is the most useful book.

    Once upon a time, there was a young man who liked puppets (木偶) so much that he became an apprentice(学徒) to a master puppet-maker. Sadly, the young man was not so clever, and his teacher and the other apprentices were always telling him he had no talent for making puppets, and that he would achieve nothing in making puppets.

    Even so, he was fond of it so much that he worked day after day to improve himself. Though he made every effort, they would always find something wrong with his puppets, and the poor puppets ended up being thrown out of the workshop.

    The young man wasn't going to give up, so he decided that from then on he would spend all his time making just one kind of puppet. Whenever he found a fault in his puppet he would throw it away and start again. Years passed, and with each new attempt his puppet became a little bit better. By that time, his puppet was much better than anything that the other apprentices could make, but he kept making improvements. Living like that, the man wasn't making any money, and many people laughed at how poor he was.

    By the time he was an old man, his puppet was truly wonderful. Finally, after so many years of work, he finished work on his puppet, and said, "I can't find anything wrong with it. This time it is perfect." And for the first time in all those years, instead of throwing his puppet away, he put it up on the shelf, feeling truly satisfied and cheerful.

    It is well-known that the perfect puppet, Pinocchio, came to life after that, had a thousand adventures, and gave that old man –whose name was Geppetto—more joy than any other famous puppet—maker had ever got from any of their creations.

Einstein has to speak at an important science meeting.  On the way there, he tells his driver that looks a bit like him, "I'm sick of all these meetings. I always say the same things over and over!"

The driver agrees, "You're right. As your driver, I attend all of them, and even though I don't know anything about science, I could give the speech in your place. "

"That's a great idea!" says Einstein. "Let's exchange our places then!"

So they exchange clothes. As soon as they arrive, the driver dressed as Einstein goes on stage and starts giving the usual speech, while the real Einstein, dressed as the car driver, attends it.

But in the crowd, there is one scientist who wants to show off and thinks of a very difficult question to ask Einstein, hoping he won't be able to answer. So this guy stands up and cuts in the speech by raising his very difficult question. The whole room goes silent, holding their breath, waiting for the answer.

The driver looks at him, dead in the eye, and says, "Sir, your question is so easy that I'm going to let my driver answer it for me."

Clothes Donation (捐赠) Box

    Have you ever put your old clothes into the donation box in your neighborhood? If not, you can do it right now because the clothes donation is becoming a trend (趋势) in Urumqi.

    "From time to time, my mother clears out the clothes which I no longer wear. You know, we teenagers are growing fast. I think it's a good way to help others." Lin Tao, a junior student says.

    "I often pick out some of my clothes which are out of style after going shopping. Then I put them into the donation box." Miss Li, a pretty young lady says.

    "That seems like a good idea. Some clothes in the box are quite new. People can either wear them or use them to make things such as handbags and pencil cases," Mrs Wang, an old woman says, "sometimes I also look through the box for some nice clothes."

    However, there are some problems along with the popularity of clothes donation. Recently, a UTV reporter from Focus on the City has made a survey. Here are the results:

    Some boxes are full of clothes in a short time. There is no more room for people to give away clothes.

    Some people sell the clothes in the donation box for making money instead of wearing them.

    Some communities set the boxes in unsuitable places. So there are few clothes in it.

    Many clothes are too old and shabby (破烂的).

    "What's worse," one of the staff in a community added, "we quite often see people throw rubbish into the box when they pass by. We've tried to stop them several times but failed. It has been the most serious problem since we set the box."

    In order to make the donation box work in an efficient (有效的) way, our government is taking action. Clothes donation will be better-organized and it'll be more convenient for people in need to take the clothes away.

In a small Chinese town lived a poor young man named Liang.He loved 1 . One night, an old man with a long beard 2 Liang in a dream.He gave Liang a paintbrush.

"Use this magic paintbrush to 3 the poor," he said, "but don't use it to help people who are 4 and greedy (贪婪的), or the skill will 5 your fingers and you will never paint again."

When Liang woke up, he 6 the paintbrush on the table by his bed. He painted a butterfly and was 7 to see it fly off the page and out of the window.

Liang ran out of his little house and started painting things for people. He painted a buffalo (水牛) to help a farmer, food for 8 people and clothes for people who were cold.

A rich man, however, 9 about the paintbrush and asked Liang to paint some gold for him, 10 Liang refused.

"If you don't paint for me, I'll cut your fingers off," the rich man said."Then you will 11 paint again." So Liang painted an island of gold in the middle of a blue 12 .

" 13 will I get there?" asked the rich man.

Liang painted a 14 for the rich man, who got in it and went on his way toward the island.

But when the rich man was halfway there, Liang painted a hole in the side of the boat.The boat sank(沉)into the water and 15 ever saw him again.