O. Henry, a famous American writer of short stories, was born in North Carolina in 1862. O. Henry was a pen name. His real name was William Sydney Porter. When he was a young boy, he did not go to school for long because of being born in a poor family, but he tried to teach himself everything he needed to know.

    When he was about 20 years old, O. Henry went to Texas. There he tried different jobs. He first worked on a newspaper, and then had a job in a bank. But he got himself into some trouble. Some money went missing from the bank. O. Henry was believed to have stolen(偷)it, so he was sent to prison(监狱). During the three years in prison, he learned to write short stories. After he got out of prison, he went to New York and went on writing.

    He wrote mostly about New York and the life of the poor there. People liked his stories, because almost all of them finished with a sudden change. This made the readers surprised.

A Trip to the Forest

    One day Bob took two of his friends into the mountains. They put up their tents and then rode off to a forest to see how the trees were growing.

    In the afternoon when they were about ten kilometers from their camp（营地）, it started to snow. More and more snow fell. Soon Bob could hardly see his hands before his face. He could not find the road. Bob knew there were two roads. One road went to the camp, and the other went to his house. But all was white snow. Everything was the same. How could he take his friends back to the camp?

    Bob had an idea. The horses! Let the horses take them back! But what would happen if the horses took the road to his house? That would be a trip of thirty-five kilometers in such cold weather!

    It was getting late. They rode on and on. At last the horses stopped. Where were they?

    None of them could tell. John looked around. What was that under the tree? It was one of their tents!

    Who were your best friends five years ago? Is there anyone you would really like to see again? In 1999, Julie Pankhurst, a computer programmer from London, was thinking about her past-and especially the people she used to go to school with.

    Julie looked on the Internet for a website to help her find her old school friends. But there was nothing. So Julie and her husband, Steve, started their own website. They called it Friends Reunited.

    The site grew slowly at first, but soon they received their first "thank you" email. The man wrote, "Thank you so much. Using your website, I found an old friend from thirty years ago！"Julie and Steve were very excited about this and continued to improve their website. By the end of 2000, there were 3,000 members.

    The next year was really hard work for the couple.

    In January, a national radio station mentioned their website. Their membership doubled in one week! People were talking about the website all over the country, and it became a full-time job for Julie and Steve. In a year, they had four million members!

    Now, over fifteen million people in lots of different countries use Friends Reunited to find old school friends, work colleagues and neighbors. Some of the stories which people tell Julie and Steve are amazing. For example, David Webster lost his memory in a car crash. He used the website to find old school friends, and they helped him remember his past.

    Julie's simple idea gave us a national obsession（痴迷）-getting in touch with old friends and hearing their news. And it made her and Steve very rich in 2005, they sold Friends Reunited for ￡120 million!

Hi, I'm James, a student of Class 1, Grade 7. At school, my teachers and classmates are very kind to me. My school life is very interesting.

Classes begin at 8:00 a.m. I have four classes in the morning and two classes in the afternoon. I study Chinese, English, PE, history and five other subjects. English is my favorite subject, and I often speak English with my classmates. I also like PE and music. But I don't like history. I think it is a little difficult and boring. What do you think?

After school, I often play basketball with my classmates. It's my favorite outdoor activity (活动). Sometimes I swim in the swimming pool. Sometimes I draw pictures with my friends in the park. I go to the school library every Tuesday and Thursday.

Do you think my school life is very interesting? What about yours? Can you tell me something about it?

I am the only child in my family. My parents always care too much about me. They m{#blank#}1{#/blank#} every minute of my life. They help me do almost every {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (任务). Actually, I'm really unsatisfied and bored with their o{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. I even wish I could stay at home alone every day. My wish came true yesterday. My parents would be away for a {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(会议). In the afternoon, after I saw my parents off, I hurried home, threw myself onto the {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (沙发) and watched TV. I didn't turn it off until {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(午夜). Today nobody w{#blank#}7{#/blank#} me up, so I got up very late. I had to go to school with an {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(空的) stomach. What was worse, I didn't finish my homework because I played all day long yesterday. When school was over, I hurried home and tried to cook some s{#blank#}9{#/blank#} food. Unluckily, I didn't make it. At last, I only had a c{#blank#}10{#/blank#} of milk. What a bad day!

I love chocolate. So you can1 how excited I was when I discovered that a chocolate festival was coming to Bastia, my new home town in Corsica! It is one of the most popular2 in Corsica. Every year more than 50, 000 chocolate lovers come to it. 

 The chocolate festival started on 21st October and lasted for three days! I 3 a ticket for the festival online. For just€2. 50, I went into the 4 festival tent. 

 Inside the huge tent, I found there were over 125 different stalls(摊位). It was hard to know where to begin!5 , I decided to enjoy the most interesting part of the festival. It was a huge Arc de Triomphe(凯旋门) made out of 6 ! It was almost four metres high with over 900 kilos of chocolate. It took the chocolater Bruno Rouly almost 1, 500 hours to7 it. To my surprise, although it was very hot outside, the Arc de Triomphe showed no8 of melting(融化). 

 After taking a few photos in front of the Arc de Triomphe, I began to 9 my favourite chocolate. The chocolate came in many 10 shapes, sizes and tastes; I saw chocolate planes, shoes, animals. . . The one in the shape of a pencil caught my eyes. It was my favourite!