No. 4 Middle School

Kunming, Yunnan

April 2nd, 2014

Dear Editor,

I live in a beautiful city. Many visitors come to my city. There are so many colorful peacocks (孔雀)here.

    The peacocks mostly (主要）live on the grassland of Dongfeng Square. Visitors can give them food freely. They usually throw food to them, and don't think about at all whether the food is right or not. Some of the peacocks became ill. Some even died after eating the bad food.

    I'm sure most of the visitors who throw food to the peacocks really like the birds, but they don't realize that they may be doing any harm.

    We should tell the visitors that what they have done is very harmful to the birds, and we also must stop this kind of thing from happening.

    Perhaps we can build some small shops beside Dongfeng Square to sell peacock food. For every one of us, it's our duty to give more love to these beautiful birds and to look after them carefully.

Yours,

Sun Yan

In the eyes of many foreigners, Chinese people are the best hosts and the worst guests. And Western hosts sometimes look rude (粗鲁的) in the eyes of Chinese guests too. That's because the guest-host relationship in China is{#blank#}1{#/blank#}from that in some Western countries.

Whenever I enter a Chinese home, there is always fruit on the table for me, and there is always someone bringing me a{#blank#}2{#/blank#}of tea or water.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} in the West, the hosts always do things in their own way. 

My wife's mother is Chinese and she doesn't smoke. When I see some of her guests smoking in her house, as a non-smoker, I {#blank#}4{#/blank#}unhappy. Usually I want to {#blank#}5{#/blank#}them directly, but in China, a good host does not do that. In most North American homes, if you are a guest, and the hosts are non-smokers, you should not smoke in their house. At the very least, you should ask, "Is it OK if I smoke here?" But, don't be {#blank#}6{#/blank#}if they say, "No, you can't smoke here," In our culture, if you smoke in the host's house, you are a bad guest. But if the hosts don't allow you to {#blank#}7{#/blank#}in their house, it doesn't mean they are rude hosts.

Guests in China also {#blank#}8{#/blank#}special habits. Some Western people may not adapt to (适应) these habits very soon. Thankfully, my wife is Chinese, so whenever we visit a Chinese family, she {#blank#}9{#/blank#}me to buy the host a gift. However, giving a gift to a host is not always necessary in my country. So, if you invite international guests to your house, don't be too surprised if they don't bring you a(n){#blank#}10{#/blank#}.

In a word, no matter where you are, the best way to be a good guest is to adapt to the habits of your hosts.

As one of the world's favorite drinks, tea has become more and more popular. Chinese tea art with its custom was included in intangible cultural heritage lists by UNESCO (联合国教科文组织非物质文化遗 产名录)in 2022. 

China is the1 of tea and tea has a long history. It is said that a Chinese ruler called Shen Nong was 2 first person to discover tea as a drink. When a leaf dropped into 3 , the taste of the water was changed, and so tea was born. From that moment on, the Chinese began 4 the soul (灵魂) of this special leaf. 

It's known that tea culture gradually 5 normal people's life in the Tang Dynasty. The people in the Tang Dynasty not only drank tea,6 ate the tea leaves. That was why the process of tasting tea was 7 "tea eating". However, the Song people preferred "whisking tea"(点茶) . In the Ming Dynasty, tasting tea gradually went back 8 its true nature of "drinking tea. Later, the tea culture of 9 country finally was blended (融入) into normal families. 

Nowadays, making tea around a stove (炉子) is a special way of drinking tea. It 10 already brought a wave of new lifestyle in China 

Tea culture is a kind of sublimation (升华) of tea. In the long river of historical culture, tea combines the characters of the time, the nationality and unity. 

Hi, I'm Mark. This is a photo of my family. These are my grandparents-Jim and Anna. They are my dad's parents. My dad is Leo White and my mom is Lily White. I have a sister and a brother. My sister is Sue, and my brother is Eric. ( 1) They and my parents are in the photo. This is my uncle Jerry.(2)他是我爸爸的兄弟。And Mary is his wife (妻子). That's their dog Peter. Where am I in the photo? Ha! I'm not in the photo.

①Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Come By Chance — all are names of towns and cities in North America. Ottawa, Beijing, Paris, Hanoi and Tokyo — all are important world cities. But how did they get these names? And why?

②Some names sound funny, and some of them make no sense when you first hear them. But there is always a story or a tradition behind a name. People live in an area. A city begins to grow. In the beginning, it might have no name, but soon, people start calling it something. When enough people use this name, it usually sticks. And a new city name is born.

③In the tradition of East Asia, important cities are given names that tell us exactly what they are, and where they are located (位于). Nearly everyone will know that Beijing means "northern capital". But do you know that Tokyo and Hanoi mean "eastern capital"?

④Ottawa, Canada's capital city, was given its name thousands of years ago. It is located at a place where two rivers meet, and was a place where Indian nations came to trade with each other long ago. In the native (当地的) language, Adawe means "to trade". When the Europeans lived in the area, they heard the natives calling the place Adawe. This sounded like Ottawa to the European ears. Soon enough, everyone was calling the city Ottawa.

⑤When a European explorer (探险家) arrived at a place in the far northern area of Canada, he found native people carried huge knives made of copper (铜), which appeared yellow in the shining sun. The explorer decided to call them Yellow knives. He named the place where they lived Yellowknife.

⑥Next time you hear an unusual city name, see if you can discover how it got that name.

根据材料内容选择最佳答案。

Running is good for you.

 Every day in newspapers and magazines there are articles telling us we should exercise more. And scientists now say that running is one of the best ways to keep fit. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Some say it can even make you live longer. 

Get started!

{#blank#}2{#/blank#} You don't need to buy special clothes but you should get a good pair of trainers. And remember - you should always buy trainers for running one size larger than your usual shoes. 

Make each day different!

 Some people find running boring, so go cycling or swimming instead sometimes. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It's very important to rest two or three times a week. You should eat well and drink lots of water but you can still have nice things like chocolate sometimes. Do some leg and stomach exercises, because this helps you run better. 

Enter a race!

 If you're a beginner, there are lots of ways to make exercise fun. You can join a group or you can exercise with a friend. Another idea is to enter a race. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

What else can you do to make exercise fun? {#blank#}5{#/blank#}