The word“day” has two meanings. When we talk about the number of days in a year,  we are using “day” to mean 24 hours. But when we talk about day and night,  we are using“day” to mean the time between sunrise and sunset. Since the earth looks like a ball,  the sun can shine on only half of it at a time. Always one half of the earth is having day and the other half night. A place is moved from day into night and from night into day over and over by the spinning（旋转）of the earth. At the equator（赤道）day and night are sometimes the same length（长度）. They are each twelve hours long. The sun rises at 6 o'clock in the morning and sets at 6 o'clock in the evening. For six months the North Pole is tilted（倾斜）toward the sun. In those months the Northern Hemisphere（半球）gets more hours of sunlight than the Southern Hemisphere. Days are longer than nights. South of the equator nights are longer than days. For the other six months the North Pole is tilted away from the sun. Then the Southern Hemisphere gets more sunlight. Days are longer than nights. North of the equator nights are longer than days. Winter is the season of long nights. Summer is the season of long days.

    We all know about this famous Kitty. She has no mouth, and she wasn't born out of a TV show or a video game. So how did this cute character become popular? How did she change the world?

    Hello Kitty was created (创造) in Japan in 1974.Sanrio, a company in Japan, was working for a new character to put on their new purse. The first picture of Hello Kitty was introduced on November 1. She was so cute that it became popular soon in Japan and all over the world.

    Hello Kitty is only a character, but she has a story of her own. Her full name is Kitty White, and she's even not a Japanese. She lives in the countryside outside London with her family—George White, Mary White and her twin sister Mimmy. Hello Kitty wears a red bow  (蝴蝶结) on her left ear while Mimmy wears a yellow bow on her right ear.

    Kitty loves goldfish and baking cookies, but her favourite thing is to eat her mum's apple pie! She also loves stars and candies, too. She is in the 3rd grade and she weighs as much as three apples but is five apples tall. She even had a blood (血.) type, which is A.

    Hello Kitty's appearance hasn't changed much, though she turned 40 on November 1, 2014.

    Different families have different table manners. For example, some people don't talk while they eat, some do. Some people talk with their mouths full, others don't. Some people put their elbows (肘) on the table, but others consider it unacceptable.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Here's some good advice. If you're new somewhere just watch what other people do and don't do. If you follow the people you're eating with, you'll always have good table manners in their eyes.

    I grew up in an old-fashioned family. The main time my family saw each other was at dinner.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}. We talked about our day through the dinner whether we had good stories or not.A reason we talked so much was that our parents didn't allow us to get up until we finished all of our food. Being the daughter of a Greek cook and an Italian woman, my mom always put doubleportions (双份) of delicious meals on our plates.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. I still remember my father making us eat dinner for almost two hours just because we couldn't finish our food!

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。

A. When we sat down to eat it was our time to talk.

B. The problem was that sometimes we couldn't finish all the food.

C. Table manners vary (变化) with different people and different situations.

D. You may find Western table manners are different from Chinese manners.

C

    Do you like traditional Chinese paper-cutting? Ding Xiang, a student at Nongsishi Middle School in Xinjiang, is really good at it. At the eighth National Excellent Talents Competition last month in Beijing, the 15-year-old girl got the gold award（金奖） for her paper-cutting skills.

    At the competition, Ding cut a piece: Millennium Dream（千年梦想）. The piece has two papers. One shows an ancient cave painting(壁画) and the other a Chinese-made spaceship. The two papers form a sharp contrast（对比）. Ding said she wanted to show three things with the piece: China's long history, China's rapid development, and her hope for the future of paper-cutting. This piece helped Ding walk away with the gold award.

    "I was very surprised to get the award." Ding said in an interview with Yili Daily, a Xingjiang newspaper. "I should thank paper-cutting for bringing me the award."

    All the hard work has paid off. In two years, Ding's skills have improved a lot, and she has the gold award to prove(证明) it.

    Ding said she has learned a lot from paper-cutting. "I have learned to observe things carefully," Ding told Yili Daily. "I have become more confident, too. It is a great help in my studies. Also, I have learned a lot of history from the art."

Interesting festivals in the world

    In 99% of human history, people took their food from the world around them. They ate all that they could find, and then moved on. Then about 10,000 years ago, or in 1% of human history, people learned to farm the land.

    The kind of food we eat depends on which part of the world we live in, or which part of our country we live in, For example, in the south of China they eat rice, but in the north they eat noodles. In European countries near the sea, people eat a lot of fish. In central Europe, away from the sea, people don't eat so much fish. They eat more meat. In Germany and Poland there are hundreds of different kinds of sausages.

    In North America, Australia, and Europe, people eat with knives and forks. In China, people eat with chopsticks. In parts of India and the Middle East people use their fingers to pick up food.

    Nowadays it is possible to transport(运 输) food easily from one part of the world to the other. We can eat what we like, when we like, at any time of the year. In Britain, bananas come from Africa; rice comes from India or the USA; strawberries come from Chile or Spain. Food is very big business. But people in poor countries are still hungry, and people in rich countries eat too much.