Mr. Harris taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a talk about an animal called" birdcat", which died out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull（头骨） as he talked. We all took notes carefully and later we had a test.

    When he returned my paper the next day, there was a big red"×" through each of my answers. I failed! There must be some mistakes! I wrote down exactly（确切地）what Mr. Harris had said. Then I learned that everyone in the class had failed. Why? "Very simple, "Mr. Harris said, "I made up all that 'birdcat'. But there had never been any such animal. So the information in your notes was not correct. Did you think you would get good grades for that?"

    However, we felt that was unfair. What kind of a test was this? And what kind of a teacher was he?

    Mr. Harris added, "I have told you many unbelievable things about this animal, such as the size, the color, but none of you have questioned. I hope you will learn something from this lesson. Teachers and textbooks are not always correct. In fact no one is." He also told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we thought he or the textbook was wrong.

    Up to now Mr. Harris' class gave me and my classmates something just as important: to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong.

Dear Becky, 

How is it going? It is summer in our{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. But in Switzerland, it is winter. I am {#blank#}2{#/blank#}a vacation with my parents here. Now the weather here is cold and it often{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Many people like skating{#blank#}4{#/blank#}. It is people's favorite {#blank#}5{#/blank#}here in winter. 

My{#blank#}6{#/blank#} teach me to skate. It's{#blank#}7{#/blank#} for me to walk on the ice because I skate for the first time. But I think I can do it well. We skate {#blank#}8{#/blank#}a mountain. Many people {#blank#}9{#/blank#}it every day. The food here is{#blank#}10{#/blank#}. We will have a big dinner after skating. 

Write back to me and tell me what you are doing over the vacation. 

Yours,

Laura

参考词汇： play basketball 打篮球： interesting 有趣； 

on the weekend 在周末； have milk喝牛奶

Myself

……

Ye Shengtao was a famous Chinese writer. He created the first collection of fairy tales(童话集) named The Scarecrow(《稻草人》) for Chinese children between 1921 and 1922.

Ye was born in 1894 in Jiangsu. He once worked {#blank#}1{#/blank#} a teacher in a primary school He often told his students stories from Chinese and foreign classics. His students were all happy {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (listen) to those stories.

In 1921, Ye {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (begin) to write fairy tales for a magazine. He finished his first fairy tale Little White Boat in November of {#blank#}4{#/blank#} same year. In the following seven months, Ye wrote {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (many) fairy tales than before. And they made up The Scarecrow we see today.

There are two kinds of stories in the collection. The {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (one) story is about children's innocent smiles and beautiful feelings like Little White Boat. People's hard life like The Scarecrow {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (describe) in the second story. In the story, the scarecrow often sees poor people's difficulties in life, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} he isn't able to stop them from happening or give people a helping hand. He feels very helpless and falls down in the field at last. Ye wanted children to care about what happened around {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (they). And he hoped children could understand adult's {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (sad) after reading the collection.

Good works always stand the test of time. Nowadays, Ye's fairy tales are still popular with children.

Mooncakes are an essential(重要的)part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.Each year, bakers create millions of these desserts so people can share them with friends and family. But where did this tradition come from?

About 650 years ago,the Mongols ruled(统治)over China.The Han people wanted to get back control.However,they did not want the Mongols to catch them.So,they began passing secret messages inside of mooncakes,saying that they were going to fight the Mongols on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.When the evening arrived,the Han people fought hard and were successful.

Each year after that,people celebrated the victory by eating mooncakes.It is a good way to remember the history.The practice spread quickly throughout China.Gradually, eating mooncakes became a cultural tradition.It is also a good chance for Chinese families to get together for family reunion(团聚).

Today,people can buy all different types of mooncakes.They come with different fillings and in different prices.People enjoy filling up with these tasty treats,but many of them don't know the history of the simple mooncakes.

 Last Sunday evening, my parents went out for a walk with my sister. But I studied alone at home because I would have an English test. Suddenly, I saw bright light in my neighbor's kitchen. I thought he was cooking, so I went on studying.

Soon, there was a terrible smell in the air and I thought something was wrong. I went out and saw fire coming out of my neighbor's kitchen. So I shouted" Fire, Fire!" But no one heard or came out.

I ran quickly to my house to call 911, and then I rang my neighbor's doorbell, knocked at the door, but there was no response. I got into the house through the window and found my neighbor sleeping in his bedroom. I woke him up and we rushed out of the house together.

We tried our best to pour water through the kitchen window, but the fire was too heavy. Luckily, the firemen came and put out the fire quickly. When my parents came back, they found I was dirty and tired. After my neighbor told them the whole story, they were happy and said I was a brave boy.