My Family Is Very Poor
    A little boy comes to a new city. His name is Peter. Of course（当然）, he lives with his mother and father. His family is very rich（富裕的）. They have a driver（司机） and a lot of servants（仆人）.
    Peter is going to a new school. On the first day his parents say to him, "peter, be modest（谦虚的）at your new school. Don't say we are rich. "And Peter says, "Yes, Dad, mom. ”
    So Peter goes to school. He sees his new teacher. And he sits down with the other children. The teacher says. “Good morning，children. The first exercise today is a composition（作文）. The topic（题目） of the composition is "My Family".So every child writes a composition. This is Peter's composition:
  “My name is Peter. My family is very poor（贫穷）. Both my father and my mother are very poor. Our driver is very poor and all the servants are poor…”

A

    Tom lives in a town near New York. His father has a shop there and his mother is a doctor. Tom is seven years old this year and begins to go to school this September. It is a little far from their shop and his father drives a car to take him to take him to school five days a week. So he is never late for class and his father likes him very much.

    It is Monday today. Miss Green is teaching them to count(数数) from one to ten in the morning. Tom is study hard. Soon he can count them. Miss Green is very happy and asks, "How many people are there in your family, Tom."

    Tom stands up and says, "Two, Miss Gao."

    "Who are they?"

    "My father and my mother."

    "Oh," Miss Green is surprised(吃惊). She says "Then there are three people in your family."

    "But now I'm not at home. I'm at school, you know."

    Some people have a very poor sense of direction. Unluckily，I am one of them. I have visited a place many times but I may still get lost there the next time.

    When I was a little girl，I never dared to ask strangers the way. And so I used to walk round in circles and hope that by chance I would get to the place I was going to.

    Now，I am  no longer too shy to ask people for directions, but I often receive helpless or even wrong information. So I try to avoid giving people wrong directions.  If anyone ever asks me the way somewhere，I would say, "Sorry,  I am a stranger here."

    Once on my way to work I was stopped by a man. He asked me if I could tell him the way to the Friendship Building. I gave him my usual reply. But just as I walked on only a few steps, I realized that he had asked the way to my office building. However, I had no time to turn back and look for him. I was rushing to meet with someone at my office and I didn't want to keep him waiting.

    When I just got to my office, the secretary showed in the man who had asked me for directions. Imagine how embarrassed I was and how surprised he was when we saw each other at the first sight!

    My friend's grandfather came to America from a farm in Thailand. After arriving in New York, he went into a cafeteria in Manhattan to get something to eat. He sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to take his order. Of course nobody did. Finally, a woman with a big plate full of food came up to him. She sat down opposite him and told him how a cafeteria worked.

    "Start out at that end," she said, "Just go along the line and choose what you want. At the other end they'll tell you how much you have to pay."

    "I soon learned that's how everything works in America," the grandfather told my friend later," Life's a cafeteria here. You can get anything you want as long as you want to pay the price. You can even get success but you'll never get it if you wait for someone to bring it to you. You have to get up and get it yourself."

    Joseph has written a letter to his cousins, James and Susan. Here is the letter.

    Dear James and Susan,

    I am writing to you again because I am at home in bed. I have a cold recently and I am unable to go to school. I've got a fever and a bad headache as well. In addition, I'm always thirsty, probably as a result of the fever. But, with a lot of effort, I'm writing a letter to you.

    The weather here in Toronto is horrible. I am sure the weather is much better in Hong Kong. Do you agree? The snow came a bit early this year and it was freezing cold. It's surprising to see kids playing in the snow happily and building "castles" and snowmen this morning. A few of them made snowballs by pressing snow together and threw them at each other.

    I am going to have my examination soon, I'm worried about it because I'm too sick to get out of bed to hold my text-books. What's more, I haven't attended school for nearly one week. I have to work hard to catch up with my classmates.

    I have got a new mate recently. That is Bobby, our cat. Uncle Tom gave him to me as my birthday present. He is rather disobedient and he runs here and there from time to time. However, I'm glad to have him as my friend at the moment.

    Please write to me if you have time.

Yours,

Joseph

Life is not easy to most people, so when anything happens, be sure to believe in yourself. When I was young, I was {#blank#}1{#/blank#} nervous that it was hard for me to talk to anyone. My classmates often {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (laugh) at me. Then I felt very frustrated. 

I was {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (real) sad but could do nothing. Later, something happened, which changed my life. It was {#blank#}4{#/blank#} English speech contest. My mother asked me to take part {#blank#}5{#/blank#} it. What a terrible idea! It meant I had to speak in front of all the teachers and students of my school!

"Come on, boy. You should believe in yourself. You are sure to win." mother said to me. 

Then, mother and I talked about many different topics. At last, I {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (choose) the topic "Believe in yourself". I tried my {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (good) to remember all the speech and practiced it over a hundred times. With my mother's great help, I felt {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (relax) and did well in the contest. I could hardly believe my ears when the news came that I had won the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (one) prize. 

Since then, things have changed for me. No matter what I do, I try to tell {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (me) to be confident and I will find myself. This is true not only for me but also for everybody, I think.