"What's the matter, Mum?"

    As soon as I enter the door, I find that my mother is unhappy. It's unusual. She usually   1  the door and welcomes me with a smile!

    "She's dying," Mum says sadly. I  2 what she says. The tulip(郁金香), mother's favourite, is dying.

    A month ago, we moved 3 our new house and Mum bought a very beautiful tulip. Mum liked it very much.   4   she was free, she would sit in her armchair beside the tulip and enjoy its beautiful colour   5nice smell.

      She treated it like a baby and looked after it   6   . She put the tulip by window and moved it from one place to 7 to give the tulip enough sunshine. The first thing she did when she 8  every morning was to water the tulip. Mum also fertilized(施肥) it many times.

    She hoped that with great care, the tulip would become more and more beautiful and   9.But the tulip was dying because of too much sunshine, water and fertilizer.

    It's true that mother loved the tulip. But this kind of love 10 be harmful. Love can sometimes kill what you love.

When I was about ten, I was woken up by the shouts（喊声）of my sister one morning. She was hungry, but my mother wasn't at home, so I made a banana cake for her. Let me share the recipe with you.

What you need:

2 eggs  3 bananas  2 cups of flour(面粉)

2 spoons of baking powder(发酵粉)

1/4 spoon of baking soda (小苏打)

1/2 spoon of salt

2/3 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of vegetable oil(油)

What to do:

l  Mix(混合) together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

l  Add the vegetable oil. Then add a little sugar, and stir (搅拌) it.

l  Pour the eggs into the bowl and stir them well.

l  Add the bananas and stir them.

l  Turn the oven to 180℃.

l  Pour them into the oven（烤箱）. Bake（烘焙） the cake for 20 minutes.

l  Get the cake out of the oven, and cut it into pieces to eat.

It's 4:30 in the afternoon. School is over. It's time for students to relax.

Look! Some boys are playing soccer and some are playing basketball on the playground(操场). Most girls don't like ball games because they think they are boring. They like to do other sports, such as swimming and dancing. Some girls are swimming in a big swimming pool. In the gym, Maria and her friends are dancing to the music. Some students are singing together in the classroom.And some are telling stories to each other. Who are they? Oh, they are students of Class Four. All the students are having fun after a long day of learning.

{#blank#}1{#/blank#}After 4:30 p. m., the students don't have classes.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}On the playground, some boys are playing basketball and soccer.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}No students are swimming in the pool now.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Maria is dancing to the music on the playground.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Some students from Class Four are singing together in the classroom.

How do you relax after school?{#blank#}6{#/blank#}.

When I was fourteen, I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn't the first time I had been abroad. Like most English children, I learned French at school. And I had often been to France, so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn't understand French. I believed that I wouldn't have any 1 problems when I went to America. So I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday there.

How2 I was! The misunderstanding (误解) began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to call my friend Danny who had been in America for two years and told her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking confused and asked if he could 3 me.

"Yes," I said, "I want to give my friend a ring."

"Well, that's nice," he said. "Are you getting married? But aren't you a bit too 4 ?"

"Who is talking about marriage?" I replied. "I just want to give my friend a ring to tell her I've arrived. Can you tell me 5 the phone box is?"

"Oh! I see. " he said, "There's a phone downstairs."

When Danny and I met up, she explained the misunderstanding to me. Then I knew "Give somebody a ring" could mean deciding to get engaged or marry someone else. I felt shamed for myself.

"Don't worry," she said to me. "I had so many difficulties at first. There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from the British. You'll soon 6 all the funny things they say. Most of the time British and American people understand each other!

Chloe Ho Pui-pui is an officer from Hong Kong Police Force. She volunteered for the 19h{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Games in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. In a training course, Ho got up close to horses to get firsthand knowledge {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Equestrian (马术) events. Her main job was to help two UK horse-shoers (蹄铁工) communicate with the Chinese workers who didn't speak English.

During the{#blank#}3{#/blank#}few days, it was hot and some people fell ill. "My role was to be ready to go wherever I was needed. So, I ran around the center, taking 10,000 steps each day," Ho said. In these days, she slept{#blank#}4{#/blank#}and always had to shout to be heard in noisy conditions. As a result, one day she had difficulty{#blank#}5{#/blank#}. On National Day, the organization invited Ho and other volunteers to a party because they had really set good examples for the public.

My friends have different interests. Lily has a {#blank#}1{#/blank#} voice. Singing has become her hobby. She often sings Karaoke and {#blank#}2{#/blank#} many music videos every day. John likes watching {#blank#}3{#/blank#} in nature. He also reads books about them. Many people are interested in {#blank#}4{#/blank#} model planes. Bobby is one of them. He thinks it is fun and relaxing. All in all, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} can make our life colourful and bring us knowledge.