“It's just a story,”you may think. But new research has found that crows' brains may sometimes be better than those of 6-year-old children.

In a recent experiment, American scientist Corina Logan and her team caught six crows to test them. The crows and children had to choose between two sets of tubes(试管). They had to drop stones in and get water.

With the red set, when they dropped a stone into a wide tube, the water level raised in a connected narrow tube. The blue set of tubes, however, had no connection between them.

Children aged 7 to 10 were able to learn the rule. Children aged 4-6, however, failed.Five of the six crows failed the test. But Kitty, a 6-month-old crow, passed it. She put most of the stones into the red tubes.

So, could a bird be more clever than a kindergartner? Don't be too quick to say no.

     A lot of boys and girls in western countries are wearing the same clothes, and many boys have long hair, so it is difficult to tell whether they are boys or not.

      One day an old man went for a walk in a park in Washington and when he was tired, he sat down on a chair by a swimming pool. A young person was standing on the other side of the pool.

     “Oh!” the old man said to the person sitting next to him, “Do you see the person with the loose clothes and long hair? Is it a boy or a girl?”

     “A girl,” said the person, “She is my daughter.”

     “Oh!” the old man said quickly, “Please forgive me. I don't know that you are her mother. ”

     “I'm not,” said the person, “I'm her father.”

      A few years ago, the company I worked for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I've always loved running, so I was happy when I found out the house we lived in was next to Central Park. This means I could go to the park to run every morning before I went to work.

      A lot of people had told me to be careful of robbers in the park, so usually I didn't take any money with me. But one morning, my wife gave me a $10 bill and asked me to buy some bread on the way.

      While I was running through the park, another runner knocked into me. Just as I was wondering what was happening, he said sorry to me and went on running. I thought it was kind of strange, and suddenly I thought of my money, so I checked my pocket and found that my money was missing. Without thinking twice, I ran after that runner. The minute I held him by the arm, I shouted, “Give my money back! Now!” I'm not usually a hot-headed person, but I got really angry this time. He seemed to be afraid and he took out the money and gave it to me. Then he ran away as quickly as he could.

      I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I began to tell my wife my story. “You won't believe what happened to me.” I started. She immediately stopped me, “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”

Dear Tom,

    How are you? I'm at a new school this term. And I'm writing to tell you about my school. My new school is big and nice. There are one thousand and four hundred students and one hundred and forty teachers at my school. I like the teachers. They are very kind to me. My classmates are very friendly too. They teach me Chinese and I teach them English. There are trees, flowers and green grass at my school. They are very beautiful. Behind my school there is a small river. The water in it is quite clean. We can swim in it. We have no classes at weekends. Sometimes I play football or basketball with my classmates. Sometimes I stay at home and watch TV. Sometimes I go shopping with my father and mother. We all like China.

    Please write to me soon!

Yours,

Jack