The Duanwu Festival in China, also called Dragon Boat Festival, is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month every year according to the Chinese lunar calendar. For thousands of years, this festival has been marked by people's eating Zongzi and racing dragon boats. (A) To hold the dragon boat races is in memory of Qu Yuan. He was one of the greatest poets in ancient China.

    Qu Yuan was born in Zigui of Hubei Province over 2,200 years ago. Qu Yuan was an honest minister (大臣) of the State of Chu during the Warring States Period (475—22l BC) . He was upright, patriotic (爱国的) and wise. (B) 屈原想给自己的祖国带来和平并让它变得更强大。But the country was in the hands of bad officials, he could do nothing to change it. (C) He was very discouraged. At last, Qu Yuan ended his life by throwing himself into the Miluo River. It is said that people tried to save him by jumping into the river. But it was too late and all their efforts were in vain. Also, they were so sad and they threw rice into the water to feed Qu Yuan's spirit.

    Now we read his poem Li Sao which is filled with deep love for his country. We can see the dragon boat races and have a kind of Chinese food named Zongzi to eat during the Dragon boat Festival.

Where would you like to stay when you go on a vacation? What kind of hotel would you like to choose? Different people have different ideas. In fact, there are all kinds of special places to stay when you go on a vacation. There are hotels, motels, youth hostels, B&Bs (bed-and-breakfast), home stays, and more. Each is for a different kind of people. If you travel by car, a motel is good for you. You can park your car outside your room. A youth hostel is good for young backpackers (背包客). A B&Bs might be best for couples (夫妻) or anybody who doesn't like being noisy.

    For people who like reading, the library hotel in New York is a must-see. Each of the hotel's 60 rooms is full of books. In fact the hotel has over 6, 000 books in all. If history is your thing, the 9th floor is for you. If you are interested in math and science, you can stay on the 5th floor. Artists will feel at home on the 7th floor. The Poetry Garden is on the 14th floor, and there is a cozy sofa in it. You can sit on the sofa and enjoy reading a good book or relax outside in the Poetry Garden.

    When people think of tigers, words like" strong" and " dangerous" come into their mind. But now, the big animal is calling for our help. There were once eight kinds of tigers in the world, but three died out during last century. In the past 70 years, the number of Siberian tigers has gone from as many as 300 to somewhere between 18 and 22.

   World Wildlife Fund started a programme. It is about to put an end to tiger poaching(非法狩猎) and save wild tigers. China, together with 12 other countries, has joined in. The aim is to double the number of wild tigers in the next ten years.

According to the research by Chinese officers and WWF, the Siberian tiger is already one of the planet's most endangered animals. "If the government doesn't do anything, it's quite possible that there will be no more Siberian tigers in China in 10 to 20 years." said Zhu Chunquan, director at WWF Beijing office.

    Wild animals such as deer and wild bears are tigers' main food. The poaching of these animals is the greatest danger to tigers. Another one is the trap(陷阱). "Volunteers from WWF remove traps every year, but we cannot clear all the traps ourselves," Zhu said. The most important thing people can do is to save the animals tigers eat." To protect the tigers, we need to call on more people to stop hunting wild animals."

    Just as a famous saying goes, a Reading is to success what water is to fish." {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    It can open many doors and can lead you into a path to success. It's quite clear that every successful person has a good habit of reading. This is because reading is an important way to get the information required to understand something. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Then, how can you develop an interest in reading? There is only one way. Let me explain this to you. If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you have to get on the bike as many times as possible until you can ride successfully. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} If you want to improve your reading, try to read as much as you can. When you finish reading your first book, take another book and do the same. If you are going out, take a magazine, a book, an article or something else to read. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    So, parents should help to get their children to read as early as possible. Studies have shown that reading to your unborn child is very good. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Reading is always a wonderful time. Good books are good friends.

    Many people know that rubbish is a big problem on planet Earth. What many people don't know is that junk (垃圾) has become a problem in outer space too.

    According to BBC News, there are more than 22, 000 pieces of space junk floating around the earth. And these are just the things that we can see from the surface of the earth by telescopes (望远镜). There are also millions of smaller pieces of junk that we can't see.

    Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the planet at very high speeds, so fast that even a very small piece can break important satellites or become dangerous to astronauts. If the tiniest piece of junk crashed into a spaceship, it could damage the vehicle.

    To make things worse, when two objects in space crash, they break into many smaller pieces. For example, when a U. S. satellite hit an old Russian rocket in 2009, it broke into more than 2,000 pieces, increasing the amount of space junk.

    To reduce additional space junk, countries have agreed that all new space tools can only stay in space for 25 years at most. Each tool must be built to fall safely into the earth's atmosphere after that time. In the upper parts of the atmosphere, it will burn up.

    Many scientists are also suggesting different ways to clean up space junk. In England scientists are testing a metal net that can be fired into space junk. The net catches the junk and then pulls it into the earth's atmosphere to burn up. The Germans are building robots that can collect pieces of space junk and bring them back to Earth to be safely destroyed.

    "The problem is becoming more challenging because we're sending more objects into space to help people use their mobile phones and computers," says Marco Castronuovo, an Italian space researcher.

    "The time to act is now. The longer we leave the problem, the bigger it will become," he says.