Pablo Picasso was born in Spain in 1881. His father was a painter and art teacher who gave his son the first lesson in drawing. He won a prize— Science and Charity”for his first important painting when he was only fifteen. He studied in several cities in Spain. But there was no one to teach him all that he wanted to know. When he was nineteen, he visited Paris.

    Paris was then the center of the world for artists. Everything that was new and exciting in the world of paintings seemed to happen there. When he was twenty-three, Picasso moved there to live and lived in France for the rest of his life.

 When he was over ninety, this great painter still lived his life like a young man. He was still looking for new ideas and new ways to use his artistic materials.

    When he died in 1973, he was ninety-one years old.

    Clara Daly was sitting on an Alaska Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles when she heard a worried voice over the loudspeaker: "Does anyone on board know American Sign Language?"

    Clara, 15 at the time, pressed the call button. An air hostess came by and explained the situation. "We have a passenger on the plane who's blind and deaf," she said. The passenger seemed to want something, but he was traveling alone and the air hostesses couldn't understand what he needed.

    Clara had been studying ASL for the past year to help blind and deaf people and she knew she'd be able to finger spell into the man's palm. So she rose from her seat, walked toward the front of the plane, and knelt by the seat of Tim Cook, then 64. Gently taking his hand, she signed, "How are you? Are you OK?" Cook asked for some water.

    When it arrived, Clara returned to her seat. She came by again a bit later because he wanted to know the time. On her third visit, she stopped and stayed for a while.

    "He didn't need anything. He was lonely and wanted to talk," Clara said.

    So for the next hour, she talked about her family and her plans for the future. Cook told Clara how he had become blind over time and shared stories of his days as a traveling salesman. Even though he couldn't see her, she "looked attentively at his face with such kindness," a passenger reported.

    "Clara was amazing," an air hostess told Alaska Airlines in an interview. "You could tell Cook was very excited to have someone he could speak to, and she was such an angel."

Cook's reply: "Best trip I've ever had."

    Ding-dong!

    "Jason, honey? Can you answer the door?"

    "I'm busy, mom!" Jason shouted back at his mother. He'd spent three hours so far working to his point in the gate. He couldn't stop now.

    Ding-dong! Mom's footsteps approached the front door.

    "Jason, it's your friend, Todd." Mom called from the doorway.

    Todd, his best friend, stepped into the room. "Jason! I need a partner for playing basketball. He sounded excited.

    Jason snorted, "No way, Todd. I'm playing a game here."

    Todd shook his head. "You can play later. Let go."

    Jason gave his friend a dirty look, and his character in the game almost got killed while he looked away, "I almost died because of you!

    Todd looked at Jason's mother. Jason's mother looked back at him. They both looked at Jason. "Why don't you play basketball with your friend?"Jason's mother suggested.

    "Tomorrow, maybe." there were more levels to beat tomorrow, though. Maybe he'd play tomorrow. He'd have to see what mood he was in. He thought he heard footsteps walking away, but he was too busy beating the next level to care.

    An hour later, Jason's father came home. It was dinner time after his father washed up and sat down. Jason didn't even hear his name being called to the table. He didn't hear his father walk up behind him and ask him to turn the game off, either.

    When the screen suddenly went black and his father's angry face loomed in front of him, Jason finally heard. "No more game for a month." Jason's father shouted at him. "You don't play basketball, you don't come to dinner, and you don't do your chores. We'll make sure everything else gets done before you play anymore."

    Jason nodded slowly. He knew better than to argue with father, and when he thought about it, he had been playing quite a bit. It was fun, but he was letting down(使失望) his friends，his family, and himself by playing too much.

    He'd try harder in the future.

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.

Mr. and Mrs. Green are two old farmers in the countryside. George is 1 only son and he is 30 years old. He works in 2 big city and visits his parents only on weekends.

3 the morning of April 2nd, Mr. and Mrs. Green decided 4 to the city to visit George by bus without giving him a call. The bus was very slow 5 they didn't mind it. It was the first time they went to the big city, so they were 6 to see the new things on the way. When the bus arrived there three hours later, George was surprised and happy to see his parents 7 before him. That evening, they 8 out in a restaurant. The food was quite different from that in the countryside. After supper, George showed his parents around the city. His father said, "If we come here next time, we 9 shopping and buy lots of things."

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Green went back home 10 . Although they were away for only one day, they began to miss their farm.