There would be a school party on Friday evening. The girls were talking about what they were going to wear.

    “I'm going to wear a black dress, so everybody will notice me,” said Emily. “How about you, Linda?”

    “I'm not sure. Maybe jeans (牛仔裤), an old shirt, and a hat. People will notice me more than you!” Linda said.

    “But what are the boys going to do at the party?” asked Jane. “Do you remember the last school party, last year? They just stood there, and we girls had to dance by ourselves!”

    “I hear that some of the boys learned how to dance this summer. Maybe it'll be better this time,” said Mary.

    The party was held on Friday evening. Groups of students arrived. The music began. The girls stood in a line on one side, and the boys on the other side. Mr. Green, their teacher, tried to get them together, but failed. After a while, Tim said, “I don't want to stand here the whole time. The party is only for two hours. It'll be over soon.” He started to dance. All the others watched him. Then David asked Emily if she wanted to dance. Then Jack and Linda. Then, all began to dance. Soon there were more dancers than watchers.

    Alf is a big soccer fan. At school, there are lots of children playing soccer. Alf really wants to be a soccer star, but he thinks he isn't good at soccer. He feels very sad. He always thinks about how to be a great soccer player.

    One day, Alf went to watch the school soccer match on the playground with his friend. There were many students watching the match. Suddenly Alf shouted, "Look out!" He jumped up and made a very good save(救球)！

    All the soccer players and the coach cheered for him. "What a good save, Alf! You're the best!" His friend said. The soccer coach came to him and said, "Alf, come with me." Alf stood in the goal(球门) and the coach took a shot(射门). It was a good shot, and Alf saved it. Alf saved the next shot, too; and the next one. All the students cheered. Now Alf knows he is a very good goalkeeper. He is good at playing soccer.

    Do you know the astronaut Chen Dong? He and another astronaut Jing Haipeng stayed in space for more than 30 days from October to November in 2016. During the days, they, did some experiments in space. For example, they tried to plant vegetables there.

    Chen Dong was born in Henan Province in 1978. When he was a child, he wasn't a good student. When he was in Grade 3, he made the vegetables at school dirty for fun. The vegetables were a gift to the teachers from the school, He was very afraid after that. However, his teacher wasn't angry with him. "You have to think about others when you do such things," the teacher only said.

    After that, Chen became a good student. He later became the class monitor, In 1997, he joined the PLA Air Force(中国人民解放军空军). With a safe flight record of 1,500 hours as a pilot, Chen became a member of the Shenzhou-11 mission(任务) in June, 2016.

    Before flying to space, Chen told his twin sons, "Dad is going out. When you look up at the sky and see a shining star, I am probably there, and say hi to me."

There are some very good inventions which, for one reason or another, don't become popular. These inventions should be better known, even though I think that some of them are crazy. Let's have a look at some of these inventions and see if you agree that they should be more successful. 

The Australians had a great idea to stop people from drinking and driving. The idea was that if a driver wanted to start the car, she or he would have to blow into a bag first. If there was too much alcohol(酒精) in their breath, the car wouldn't start. It sounded like a great idea to me, but people said that they might need to drive the car in an emergency even if they had drunk too much alcohol. Another idea I liked was an invention by a scientist who thought his children watched too much TV. He linked the TV to an exercise bike so that the electricity to power the TV was generated(产出) by the bike. If the children wanted to watch a lot of TV, they had to pedal(踩踏板) very hard. I found another invention on the Internet which was intended (倾向于) to encourage good habits. Believe it or not, this invention was an ashtray(烟灰缸) which spoke to you when you lit a cigarette! The "voice" of the ashtray was activated (启动) by the heat from the cigarette and reminded you how dangerous it is to smoke. 

One of the strangest inventions I have come across is a bicycle which can cross rivers! The idea was that when you came to a river, you could inflate a huge plastic ball all around the bike. You would then get into the ball which would float on the river while you pedaled the bike inside the ball! Why not use a bridge instead? A friend of mine at school once bought a strange pair of football shoes. On the bottom of the shoes there was a rotating pad of studs (转动钉垫). The idea was that you would change direction more quickly if the studs rotated with you. The problem was that every time you stopped you changed direction whether you wanted to or not! I think he wore those shoes twice! One thing I would like is a baseball cap with a built-in radio so you can listen to sport all day with your hands free. While we are on the subject of sport, the Americans invented a kind of robot for sports fans. If you were watching your team on TV on your own, you could press a button and the robot would do "high fives" with you! Fantastic! I wonder if you have any good ideas for inventions like these. 

Good morning! I'm Chen Xiaoying. Call me Xiaoying. I'm thirteen years old. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

Today is Monday. It's a fine day. I go to school with my good friend Wang Ziyao. He is thirteen years old too. He and I are in the same class. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. He is kind and clever. He often helps us in the class. We all like him very much. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} We are very happy. We meet our English teacher Mrs Zhang at the school gate(大门). Mrs Zhang is also our class teacher. She is nice to us students, We say hello to her. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.Our classroom is tidy and nice. We clean it every day. It is like our home. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} We are classmates and friends.

 Hello, my name is Tony Smith. I come from Cambridge, a beautiful city about 80 kilometres to the {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(北方) of London. It has a {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(人口) of about 120,000. Every year, {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(百万) of people come to visit Cambridge. Tourists enjoy the boat trips along the River Cam. It's {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(宽的) and cleaner than many other rivers.

I came to study in Beijing two years ago. I live {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(远) from school in my class, so I get up earliest and take the underground. At school,I enjoy {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(练习) Chinese with my classmates. I also love football and I'm in the school team. Next week, we are going to play {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(对抗) HAS. To win the match, I {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(改善) myself by training hard with my teammates from now on.

 After school, my classmates often take me around Beijing. Last week, we visited Lao She Teahouse. The {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(魔术) shows were interesting but the Beijing Opera was difficult for me to understand. Maybe I will know better about it one day {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(如果)I watch and listen several times.

 Anyway, I do love Beijing, though I often miss my home town, Cambridge.