Cindy is my good friend. She has a sister and a brother. Jennifer is her sister and Victor is her brother. They are in a school. Cindy and Jennifer can sing and dance. Cindy can also play the guitar, but Jennifer can't. Victor, Cindy and Jennifer can play chess, but Cindy doesn't play with Victor. She likes playing with Jennifer because Jennifer plays worst (最糟糕) of the three. Victor plays sports every day. He can play basketball very well. But Victor's favorite sport is soccer, not basketball. He is in the school sports club. And he often plays in soccer games.

    Martina looked out of the window. A robin was singing a lively song in the tree. At this time, Grandpa, who lived with the family since Grandma had died, came in. He looked at the floor as if looking for something. He said, "When the robin sings..." he stopped, trying to remember what he had started to say.

    "Spring is here," Mum finished the sentence. "And I'm thinking of our spring cleaning," Mum suggested. "Martina, you can help me, right?" Martina agreed unwillingly.

    They cleaned the house. They cleaned upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, until everything was clean. Then Mum pointed to Grandpa's sofa and shouted. "That old sofa has got to go. We'll buy Grandpa a new one."

    It was true and Martina had to agree. The sofa was really old. As they tried to move the sofa, Grandpa stood in their way. "You can't take my sofa," he shouted.

    "It's old," Mum said. Grandpa tried to push his sofa back into place. "We'll buy you a new one," Mum promised.

    "I don't want a new one," Grandpa insisted. Mum let go of the sofa. "We'll talk about it tonight when John gets home." John, Martina's dad, was still at work.

    "Why don't you let us take away the sofa? It's too old!" Martina asked when the family were having supper. Grandpa shook his head and said, "I sat in this sofa, with your grandma right here, when I asked her to marry me. It was so long ago, but when I sit in this sofa and close my eyes I feel she is near."

    "It's amazing," Martina thought, "how Grandpa can remember things from the past. These days he forgets almost everything."

    The old man smiled to Martina and went on. "And the night your father was born, I sat in this sofa. I was nervous when they placed the little baby into my arms."

    "I think I'm beginning to understand," Martina said. "Many years later," Grandpa continued, "I sat in this sofa when the doctor called and told me that your grandma was ill. I was lost without her, but the sofa gave me the comfort."

    "I do see now," Martina looked at Grandpa. "This is not just an old sofa. This sofa is more like a friend." "Yes," Grandpa added. "We've got through a lot together." The whole family agreed that the living room would be boring without the old sofa.

    Mr Henry worked in a middle school. He read a lot and could answer all the questions that his students asked.

    One Sunday morning, when he was dressing his little son, Jimmy, suddenly the little boy said, "May I ask you a question, Dad?"

    "Of course, you may, "answered Mr Henry.

    "Are you sure that you can answer it?"

    "Don't you believe me? I'm sure I can. "

    "Well." said Jimmy. "are there any holes in your socks? Look at them carefully, or you'll be wrong."

    It made Mr Henry pay some attention to Jimmy's question. He took off his socks and looked at them carefully. Then he said, "No, there are no holes in them."

    "How can you put your feet into them, then?" Jimmy said with a smile.

    Immediately(立刻)Mr Henry didn't know how to answer it. After a while he couldn't help laughing. Finally he understood that his son played a joke on him.

    Athena was born and raised in Ukraine. Her parents wanted her to become a lawyer or a doctor. But she always knew she wanted to paint. She also realized a career in painting would not be possible if she stayed in her country.

    Even though she was painting in her whole life and it was her passion(热情)but it was only a hobby. And she never really took it to the next level because back in the country all the artists were hungry artists. So she knew for some reason she never took art as a career because she would never be able to make money and be successful in it in several years.

    So. Athena came to the United States when she was 14 years old to pursue(追求)an American Dream. She was clear on her goal. Athena first worked at a health food shop. She began to paint on the shop's menu boards. A customer praised her skill and asked if she would help paint faces at street fairs. Athena says it was a good start. Then she went to FABAIC to start body painting.

    Body painting is quite different from plain painting. And she loves it very much. She says. "With body, you work with the people factor and it's not only you. Maybe they want to talk or move, and they cannot stand still for several days while the painting will last three to four days. When I paint. I can't stop."

Zhu Yanjun won the second place in the Chinese Poetry Competition for his excellent poetry skills.

Born in {#blank#}1{#/blank#} village in Jingning County, Gansu Province, Zhu only received primary and middle school education. His love for {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(read) poetry and books came from his Chinese teacher who has published many {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(article) in magazines. "I also wanted to publish stories, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I started to read," he told China Daily.

Although Zhu left school so early, he didn't stop his poetic journey. He worked {#blank#}5{#/blank#} more than 10 cities. Whenever he got to a city, he visited the bookstores and libraries there. He took a notebook to write down paragraphs from books and recite（背诵）{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(they).

Most of his favorite poems from the Tang Dynasty, and some of them {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(write) by Chairman Mao Zedong. Why? Because he found them easy {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(remember). Over the years, he has read thousands of poems and he can recite more than 1,000 of them now.

Reading poetry {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(help) Zhu stay calm and he never complains about hard work. "Whenever I face any difficulty, I think of a famous saying 'Nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets his mind to it'," he told China Daily.

Zhu's children were {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(interest) in poetry too. They were accepted into universities in different cities.