The morning was cold and clear. A yellow bus came around the corner and stopped near a wood (树林). A coach asked the students to get off the bus. Girls began to gather by the starting line. One of them is a young, little girl. She had prepared for this running race for the whole summer. She looked around at the other girls, noticing how she was different.

    There was a break in the silence, and everyone started to run. After about twenty-five minutes, every runner finished the race except the girl. She was still running for the next forty minutes. As she came near the finishing line, she saw her parents, classmates and the coach. They shouted her name and told her not to stop until the end. The sweat (汗水) was flowing down her face.

    She kept on running until she crossed the line. I was that girl, and that was the first time I had finished a cross-country race (越野赛跑). Finishing this race made me realize that I could do anything with my own strength. After that, I took more hard work to practice running. I was not a natural-born runner, but I want to become one. I continued to struggle (努力) with every run. Now I run much faster than before and become more and more confident. I am so thankful for running because it has helped make me who I am today.

    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!

    When he was nine years old, American boy Milo Cress had a question: How many plastic straws(吸管) do Americans use every day?

    He quickly learned there wasn't a simple answer. The boy tried to work it out himself. Through lots of research, Cress found out that Americans use about 500 million straws every day. In hopes of reducing plastic waste, he founded the Be Straw Free project in 2011.

    Cress started the project in his hometown – Burlington, Vermont. He asked a local restaurant to stop offering straws with every drink order. It was a simple change. However, it would save money. And by doing that, the restaurant would cut down on its straw use by 50 percent.

    For the years that followed, Cress tried to spread his project across the United States. More and more restaurants agreed to join. They stop providing the customer with a straw unless he or she asks for one. Last April, Seattle became the first American city to completely ban (禁止) plastic straws.

    Plastic pollution has been one of the most serious problems today. According to scientists, more than eight million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Plastic straws are especially terrible. They make it easy for people to get comfortable with single-use plastics.

    After his project became popular, Cress took his findings on the road. He has since spoken to tens of thousands of students around the world. He wants to encourage more people to say no to plastic straws.

    "Focusing(聚焦) on straws is one simple step we all could take," Cress says. "And it makes me feel that I, as a kid, could make a difference, too."

    When he was small, Hill was a famous bad boy.

    At the age of 9, his father married his stepmother. At that time they lived poorly in the countryside while his stepmother was from a wealthy family.

    His father introduced Hill to his stepmother as he said, "Dear, I hope you notice in the entire shire this is the worst boy, who has made me have no other way. Maybe before tomorrow morning he will throw a stone at you, or do a bad thing you will never imagine."

    To Hill's surprise, his stepmother went up to him with a smile, held up his head and looked at him carefully. She then turned around to tell her husband, "You're wrong. He is not the worst boy in the entire shire, but the cleverest and most creative boy. Only he doesn't find a place to show himself."

    His stepmother's words warmed his heart, his eyes full of tears. With this, he started building friendship with his stepmother. And this became the drive of his life, making him create 28 successful golden rules, which helped tens of thousands of ordinary people walk on the road to success.

    Before his stepmother came, no one praised him smart, and his father and neighbours considered him as a bad boy. However, his stepmother's words changed his life.

    When Hill was 14 years old, his stepmother bought him a used typewriter and said to him, "I believe you will become a writer." Hill accepted his stepmother's gift and expectation, and started writing things to a local newspaper. He understood his stepmother's strong feeling of interest in his family while he saw with his own eyes she had changed his family. Therefore, he would do as well as she expected him to.

    The strength from his stepmother made him a rich man and famous writer in the United States and one of the most important persons in the 20th century.

    Praise will never be unnecessary, especially for children. A sincere(真诚的)praise may be better than 10, 000 bad words.

    Mr. Grey was the manager of a small office in London. He lived in the country, and went to work by train. He liked walking from the station to his office if it wasn't raining, because it gave him some exercise.

    One morning he was walking along the street when a stranger stopped him and said to him, "You may not remember me, sir, but seven years ago I came to London without any money in my pockets. I stopped you in this street and asked you to lend me some money and you lent me￡5, because you said you were always ready to take a chance (机会) to give a man a start on the way to success."

    Mr. Grey thought for a few minutes and then said, "Yes, I remember you. Go on with your story!"

"Well," answered the stranger, "would you like to take another chance?"