Cinderella is a beautiful girl. She has two ugly stepsisters. They are not kind to Cinderella. Cinderella does all of the work at home. She must cook, clean and do everything.

    One day, a letter comes to the house. It is a letter from the prince. He will have a big party. He would like the three girls to come. The prince wants to find a wife.

    Cinderella can't go to the party because she doesn't have beautiful clothes. The day of the party arrives. Cinderella met a fairy godmother. She gives Cinderella a coach, two horses and a beautiful dress. But magic will stop working at 12 o'clock.

    The prince's palace is full of people. They are all happy to be at the big party. All the girls want to marry the prince. Then Cinderella walks into the palace. "Who is she?" everyone asks. "She's so beautiful," they say.

    The prince sees Cinderella. He asks her to dance with him. All night long they dance and talk. The prince and Cinderella fall in love. At twelve o'clock, Cinderella runs out.

    Cinderella runs and loses one of her glass shoes. She must get home before twelve. She is late. She runs into the house. Now, she is wearing her old dress again.

    The prince finds Cinderella's shoe. "I know this shoe. It is that beautiful girl's. I'll find her," he says. The next morning, he goes from house to house to find her. He goes to Cinderella's house. The two ugly stepsisters try on the shoe, but their feet are too big.

    "Can I try it on?" asks Cinderella. "Yes," the prince says, so Cinderella tries the shoe on. It fits her foot. "I have found my princess," the prince says. Soon Cinderella and the prince get married. They live happily ever after.

    A group of swans flew down to a beach where a crow(乌鸦) was jumping around. The crow watched them with disdain(鄙视).

    "You have no flying skills at all!" he said to the swans. "All you can do is to move your wings. Can you turn over in the air? No, that's beyond you. Let's have a flying competition. I'll show you what real flying is! "

One of the swans, a strong young male, took up the challenge. The crow flew up and began to show his skills. He flew in circles, performed other flying tricks, and then came down and looked proudly at the swan.

    Now it was the swan's turn. He flew up, and began flying over the sea. The crow flew after him, making all kinds of comments(评价) about his flying. They flew on and on till they couldn't see the land and there was nothing but water on all sides. The crow was making fewer and fewer comments. He was now so exhausted that he found it hard to stay in the air, and had to struggle to keep himself from falling into the water.

    The swan pretended(假装) not to notice, and said, "Why do you keep touching the water, brother? Is that another trick? "

    "No," said the crow. He knew he had lost the competition. "I'm in trouble because of my pride! If you don't help me, I'll lose my life…"

The swan took pity on him, and took him on his shoulders and flew back to the beach.

    Perhaps the only test score that I remember is the 55 I got when I was in high school.

    The test was the last one of the term. I remember waiting nervously as my teacher Mr. Right gave out our papers one after another. It was a rather difficult test. I heard my classmates groaning(叹息),and I could guess by the groans that the scores were not looking good.

    Mr Right put my paper on my desk. There in big red numbers, circled to catch attention, was my score, 55! I let my head go down, and covered the score up quickly. A 55 is not something that you wanted your classmates to see. "The scores were not very good, none of you passed," Mr Right said. "The highest score in the class was a 55."

    A 55. That's me! Suddenly I didn't feel so bad. I had the highest score. I was getting a little better.

    I walked home alone that day with the low but high score. My mother knew that I had a big test that day and asked me as soon as I got home, "How did you do in your test? ""I got 55, "I said. A frown (皱眉) appeared on my mother's face I knew I had to explain at once. "But Mum, I had the highest score in the class," I said proudly. "You failed, Dave!" my mother replied. "But it's the highest!" I insisted (坚持). "I don't care what scores others had, you failed. The important thing is what you do!" my mother said in a strong way.

    For years, my mother was always in that way. She didn't care what others did, only cared what I did and that I did it excellently. My mother's words have made a big difference to my life.

    Everyone has his own birthday. People in different countries celebrate their birthdays in different ways. Now here are four people from different countries. They will tell us how they celebrate their birthdays in their countries.

    Sandy comes from Madrid(马德里). She says happily," My 21st birthday is on Saturday, and I'm going to go out with some friends. To wish me a happy birthday, they are going to pull on my ear 21 times, once for each year. It's an old custom. Some people pull on the ear just once, but my friends are very traditional."

    Mr. and Mrs. Sato are from Tokyo. Mr. Sato is going to be 60 tomorrow. In Japan, the sixtieth birthday is called Kanreki(花甲)—it's the beginning of a new life. The color red is for a new life, so we always give something red for a sixtieth birthday.

    Liu Mei from Beijing feels very excited and tells us, "Tomorrow is my 16th birthday. It's a special birthday, so we're going to have a family party. Maybe I will get some lucky money from my relatives(亲戚). My mother is going to cook noodles for a long life.

    Phillip, from Paris, smiles to us," I'm going to be thirty next week, so I'm going to invite three very good friends out for dinner. In France, when you have a birthday, you often invite people out."

    How do you usually celebrate your birthday?

It was sunny last Saturday. Mr. Black {#blank#}1{#/blank#} his children to the zoo. When they {#blank#}2{#/blank#} there, they saw many people and animals.

The children went to the lake first. There they saw many fish {#blank#}3{#/blank#} in it. Jane was really happy, "Look, how beautiful the fish are! I hope I can swim {#blank#}4{#/blank#} them." Then they went to the bird garden. There were different {#blank#}5{#/blank#} of birds in it. These birds were not {#blank#}6{#/blank#} when people were near them. Mr. Black bought some bird food for the children {#blank#}7{#/blank#} them. The children were very happy. After {#blank#}8{#/blank#} many hours in the zoo, the children were hungry. Then Mr. Smith took them to a {#blank#}9{#/blank#} for lunch. The food was expensive {#blank#}10{#/blank#} very delicious. All in all, they had a great day.