A. Practice makes perfect.
B. Every minute counts.
C. Failure is the mother of success.
D. A good beginning is half done.
E. It is never too old to learn.

    Jane is my sister. She is not very healthy. She doesn't like exercising. She just likes watching cartoons on TV every day or playing with her toys at home. Her eating habits are also not good. 她非常喜欢吃肉。 Her favorite meat is beef(牛肉). She never eats vegetables. She eats junk food three or four times a week.我父母亲想要她保持健康。They ask her to drink milk every day. But Jane thinks she can't stand(忍受) that. Although (尽管) she is not very healthy, she has one good habit. She sleeps for nine hours every night. I think it is important to keep healthy, so I hope Jane can do more exercise and eat more fruit and vegetables.

    In the town of Lampang in northern Thailand, there is an unusual group of musicians. They play many different kinds of music—everything from traditional Thai songs to music by Beethoven. Both children and adults love this group. What makes them so popular? Is it their music? Their looks7 Yes, it's both of the things, but it's also something else: they're elephants.

    These musical elephants started at the TECC in Lampang. The TECC protects elephants. It teaches people to understand and love them. And, like many zoos around the world, the TECC encourages elephants to paint.

    Richard Lair works for the TECC. He loves his job there and knows a lot about elephants. He says some of the animals' paintings are very good. But, in fact, elephants hear better than they see. And so he had an idea: if elephants are smart and they have good hearing, maybe they can play music. To test his idea, Lair and a friend started the Thai Elephant Orchestra. During a performance, the elephants play a number of instruments, including the drums and the xylophone (木琴).

    But can elephants really make music properly? Yes, says Lair. They are very creative. Human encourage the animals to play, but the elephants make their own songs; they don't just copy their trainers or other people. There are now CDs of the group's music which make money for the TECC. And the music these artists create is pretty amazing

    The giant panda is one of the most popular animals in the world. A giant panda can grow to be 1.5 metres tall and weigh up to 150 kg. People think the giant panda is very lovely. So it is not surprising that the World Wide Fund for Nature chose the giant panda as its symbol. The WWF tells people that giant pandas are in danger and raises money to save them.

    The giant pandas only live in China. There are fewer than 1, 600 giant pandas left in the wild. The main reason why pandas are endangered is that the area where pandas can live has become smaller.

    The WWF works to help giant pandas in the wild in many ways. One of the ways that help them is to increase the size of panda reserves. Some reserves need to be joined together by planting bamboo between them to make "corridors(通道) ". These are paths that lead from one reserve to another. No one may harm the pandas in these areas. The corridors let pandas move from one habitat(栖息地) to another to look for food.

    People are working very hard to make sure the giant pandas do not die out.

Note-taking is a skill that can help you do well in all your schoolwork. It can make you confident when you are studying. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

★Write down key facts. If your teacher writes notes on the blackboard, that's great. You can copy them or write down the most important facts of all in class. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} For example, some teachers may focus on (关注) lots of dates and facts in class, but they only write the important ones on the blackboard. Other teachers may not write anything down, but they may say something important again and again.

★Ask. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} If your teacher speaks too fast and you can't follow what he is saying, you can ask him after class.

★Compare. Comparing your notes with your classmates' can be good for your learning. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}
    ★Organize. Note-táking also needs organization. Keep notes for each subject in one notebook, so that you can find everything easily when a test comes.

★{#blank#}5{#/blank#} If you decide to recopy your notes every evening, you' ll surely have less time to watchTV. But you' ll save time in the coming test.