Confucius is the greatest teacher in Chinese history. He was born on September 28, 551BC(公元前) in the Kindom of Lu, in today's Shangdong Province. When he was young, he and his mother had a hard life. At the age of fifteen, he began to learn music, and he did well in it. Then he went on learning other subjects. When he was thirty, he became a teacher. He started his own school. He believed everyone should have a chance to get education whether they were rich or poor. He had about 3,000 students and many of them became famous.

 Chinese see Confucius as the greatest thinker and also the greatest teacher. His most important ideas are kindness and good manners. He said young people should take care of old. People should stop thinking of themselves and work for others. His ideas are around in people's everyday life. Today people can still hear them, and they go far into east and south Asia.

阅读短文，根据短文内容判断下列句子的正（T）误（F）。

    Long ago, a wolf called Howler lived in a valley where lots of fruit trees grew. He often tried to climb up the trees to eat the fruit, but couldn't reach. In the valley, an old man named Martin also had a few fruit trees that he looked after very well. But as he was getting older, he noticed that he didn't have the strength to pick the fruit.Martin had the most beautiful fruit trees in the valley, which was why Howler had his eye on them. One day he decided to steal the fruit and started jumping up and down the tree.Martin looked out of the window and realized that the wolf was trying to steal fruit from his beautiful trees. Howler jumped and jumped, but he couldn't reach even the lowest branches of such a big tree.

    Seeing this, Martin had a great idea: he offered Howler a ladder to climb up, but in return the wolf would have to give him half of the fruit. Howler accepted the deal and began to collect the fruit. For the whole morning, he went up and down the ladder filling his basket with the fruit.

    Howler soon realized that he could eat all the fruit if he didn't give Martin some. He thought up a new and secret plan. Martin, on the other hand, trusted Howler and even began to think they would be friends forever.

    But the wolf stole the ladder and went off to other trees in the area for more fruit.Realizing that the ladder was missing, Martin went looking for it. Martin felt very disappointed at the trick and no longer trusted Howler. Though he wasn't angry with the wolf and they became friends again, he never made any more deals with him.

    At last, Howler learned that he shouldn't trick people and he should keep promises. He also learned that if he had been honest and not greedy, he would still have been able to enjoy more delicious fruit.

    Susan has a big and happy family. Alan and Linda are her grandparents. They are old but very kind. They like reading at home, and sometimes they take a walk in a park. Susan's father Peter is a teacher. He teaches in a middle school. He likes playing sports, such as volleyball, basketball and tennis. He doesn't like taking a walk in the park. That isn't interesting, he thinks. Susan's mother Jasmine is a beautiful lady. She goes to work from Monday to Friday. She is a policewoman. Peter has a brother. His name is John. He and his wife live(生活) in the big family, too. They have a daughter called Joanna. She and Susan are in the same school. She has many school things. She puts them in the right places. So her room is always tidy.

In our daily life, we usually use direct questions to ask for information we do not know. Direct questions are either yes or no questions such as "Are you married?" or information questions such as "Where do you live?"

It's OK to ask your friends or someone you know well direct questions, but such questions can seem unfriendly at times, especially when you are asking a stranger. For example, if you come up to someone and ask "What time is it?" or "Can you move?", he or she may refuse to help you. It is certainly right to ask questions in this way, but it's very common to make these kinds of questions more polite by adding "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" to begin your questions. "Excuse me, when does the bus leave?" or "Pardon me, may I sit here?" sounds more polite.

It's also possible to use "can" in more informal （非正式的） situations. In the past, people used" can" when asking for something, but only to speak about abilities. In the UK, some English teaching materials from Cambridge University come with the phrase （短语） "Can you lend me…" "Can I have...", etc. In the US, this form is still considered to be not true, especially for written English, and "May I have..." is better. Questions with "can" will sound more polite by using "could": "Pardon me, could you help me?"

"Would" can also be used to make questions more polite. "Would you let me borrow your pencil?" is also polite.

Another way of making direct questions more polite is to add "please" at the end of the questions, We can say "Could you help me, please?" But notice this, "please" should not appear at the beginning of the questions.

If you are hiking with a friend who is overweight, you may hear them say that the hills look steeper(更陡峭的) and the distances look farther away than what they really are. Is your friend lazy? Actually, this is just what the world looks like in their eyes.

 Scientists from Colorado State University show that being overweight distorts perception(扭曲知觉). They think distances are farther away than they actually are.

 In one study, scientists asked 66 people of different weights and sizes to say how far away a traffic cone (交通围标) was. The cone was actually 25m away. Those who were about 57kg thought it was just15m from them, but those who weighed about 146kg saw it as being 30m away.

 So far from being crazy. Overweight people simply see the world differently when thinking about exercise. The heavy weight can feel like a load (装载物) to carry.

"If you find yourself out hiking with a heavy backpack, hills are going to seem steeper, distances are going to look farther, a gap across a river are going to look bigger." Jessica Witt from Colorado State University told the Guardian.

 It's this idea that if you have to make more of an effort to climb that hill because you are carrying this heavy backpack, the hill is going to look more challenging.

"You are not seeing that hill as it is. You are seeing the world through your ability to act. You have less ability because you are having to carry this backpack." Witt said.