You may love to see tigers at the zoo. But what if you had to stay with one on a boat on the open sea for over 200 days? Life of Pi《少年派的奇幻漂流》, the movie from American Chinese director(导演), Li An, tells an amazing story.

    Pi is a boy. He lives happily with his family in a beautiful Indian town. His father has a zoo, so Pi knows a lot about animals.

    But one day, his father decides to move to Canada. He will sell all his animals there. The family begin to sail on the Pacific with all the zoo animals. But a big storm(暴风雨) hits their ship at night. Finally, Pi finds the only Survivors(幸存者) are himself and a large tiger called Parker on an 8-meter boat.

    To keep himself alive, Pi has to keep feeding the tiger so that he does not get eaten. He tries to get on well with the tiger during a 227-day sail on the sea.

    The movie is from a Canadian writer Yann Martel's book of the same name. The book has sold 7 million copies world-wide. It discusses not only hope but also relationship(关系) between humans and nature.

    It took Li An four years to make the movie. He also used 3D for his first time. He hopes the movie will “make the people think”. Life of Pi opened in Chinese theaters on November 22, 2012.

    Now you've finished three years of English study. There's one way to demonstrate(展示)

    what you've learned－take a test!

    Do you have any special methods you use to help you do better on a test? How well you do is often a matter of how well prepared you are. Here are some ways to make sure you're at your best on test days.

    Go to bed early. The night before a test is not the time to stay up watching TV. You want to be rested and wide-awake for test day.

    Have a good breakfast. Test day isn't a morning for donuts(面包圈). Nor is it a time to starve(挨饿) yourself. Eat plenty of low-sugar, high-energy food to keep your brain and body working their best.

    Be prepared. Make sure you have two pencils and anything else you were asked to bring.

    Watch the numbers. Make sure that the number of the items(项目) on your answer sheet matches the number of the question.

    Look over all the answer choices. Don't assume(假定) that choice A is correct until you've checked the others. You may find a better one. And it is wrong to eliminate(排除) any choice that you can see at once. You'll have a better chance of finding the right answer.

    Check the clock. Make sure you allow yourself enough time to answer every question and go back and check your answers. Don't spend too much time on any difficult question. Skip（跳

    读） it and come back to it later.

    Keep up with your schoolwork all year long. That's  how you get the skills you need for taking a test.

    Look! People are gathering to get water from a huge well in the village of Natwarghad in the western Indian state of Gujarat! ①Because of the large population on the earth, the world is ________hungry, it is ______be thirsty for water now. The world's population has reached 7 billion. And it could possible grow to 15 billion by the year 2100.

    ②On the other hand, about 97% of water on the earth is sea water which we can't drink or use for watering plants directly. Man can only drink or use the other 3% of fresh water which comes from rivers, lakes and underground. And we can't even use all of that, because some of them has been polluted.

    Now more water is needed. The problem is: can we avoid a serious water shortage later on? Firstly, we should all learn how to save water. Secondly, we should find out the ways to reuse it. Today, in most large cities water is used only once, but it can be used again .Even if every large city reuse its water, still there would not be enough. What could people turn to next?

    The sea seems to have the best answer. The sea is very big. Look at the map of the world, there is more sea than land. It covers three quarters of the earth. All that needs to be done is to get the salt out of the sea water. Scientists are trying to find a cheaper way of doing it. So you see,③如果我们可以找出解决方法，我们就不会有干涸（dry up）的危险。

    There are four students talking about their favourite {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Michael likes {#blank#}2{#/blank#} because it's important and interesting. Lisa likes English and her English teacher is {#blank#}3{#/blank#} {#blank#}4{#/blank#} likes history and he has two history classes every week. Amelia loves art because of {#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

    Helen has always been interested in helping her community (社区). Her first volunteer experience was for the American Red Cross when she was in high school. When she was a school teacher, she also found time to volunteer.

    After she retired (退休), she started volunteering to help the old. When her father was older, he was not able to see as well as he used to, which made her sad because he had always enjoyed reading. She decided it would be fun to read to elderly people in her community.

    She also helped one woman write her stories. Ann was almost 100 years old, and Helen wrote down information about her life when she visited her. She put the information in a book and got it published (出版), Ann was very excited to share her life story with her children and grandchildren.

    After a strong storm hit some southern cities, Helen volunteered again for the American Red Cross. She prepared food and answered phones in a care centre.

    One day Helen read an article in the newspaper about refugees (难民) who needed to learn English. She met once a week with Sahra, a 38-year-old woman from Somalia. Helen gave Sahra a camera and asked her to take pictures of her daily life. In the end, they wrote a book together and used the photos in the book. This helped Sahra learn many new words about her everyday life.

    Helen says, "The real value of my volunteer work is becoming friends with the people I help. They enrich my life as well as I enrich theirs."