Rosa liked making up stories. She was sosure that her classmates believed her from time to time. In fact, the wholeclass believed her! At first she supposed it was1. Now, as she got up to talk before theclass, she knew that making up stories had some way of coming back to make yousad.

    Rosa's parents were separated. Nine monthsout of the year, Rosa lived with her mother in an apartment on Anderson Street.But when summer2, she went to her father's farm inArizona.

    The farm was great! Rosa rode horses andhelped with some farm work. Her father, however, was so3 that he couldn't find time to go to otherplaces with her. When she arrived each summer, her father would meet her at theairport and take her out to eat. And the day she went back to the city he wouldalways buy her a present.

    When summer came to a close, Rosa returnedto her mother. At school she heard lots of stories her friends told about theirfamily trips. Rosa wished she had a4totalk about too.

    Not long after5 began, Rosa was looking through travelmagazines in the school library. They talked about many exciting places, likeEngland and Germany. When Rosa's friends asked what she had done in the summer,she made up something that was not6. Remembering the travelmagazines she had read, she told her classmates that she and her father hadgone to England.

    When the class began studying England, MrThomas asked Rosa to tell all the things she could7 about her trip to England!

Since humans sent the first satellite（卫星） to space in the 1950s，scientists have been studying an important topic：how to grow plants in space if humans live there one day.A recent experiment at the Tiangong space station makes a big step forward.

Chinese astronauts have successfully grown rice seedlings（幼苗） during the Shenzhou XIV mission.The researcher said，"The rice seedlings are growing very well."Since the rice experiment began on July 29，the seedlings of the tall shoot rice variety（高杆水稻品种） have reached a height of 30 centimeters.The seedlings of the dwarf rice variety（矮杆水稻品种） have grown to 5 centimeters，China Daily reported on August 30，2022.

While there have been other rice experiments in space，this one is the first of its kind to produce the complete life cycle of a plant—it begins with a seed and ends with a grown plant producing new seeds.

Such food﹣growing experiments are not for astronauts.They can solve food problems on Earth.By sending seeds to space，we can create mutated（突变的） seeds that can produce higher yields（产量）on Earth.

For more than 30 years，China has developed over 260 new types of seeds in space.They are planted on Earth every year.

According to Yao Tong，an engineer from Hainan Aerospace Engineering Breeding Research Center，30%of strawberries sold in Beijing are "space strawberries"，which are as big as eggs.The center has also produced "space tomatoes"with yields increased by 30%，and "space bananas"with a growth cycle shortened from 13 months to 9 months.

It was Saturday that day. Luke was wearing his basketball clothes, waiting for his chance to play but until last week, nobody asked him to play. Although the 18-year-old student does well in playing basketball, his coach wouldn't like to bring Luke into play. This is because it isn't easy for Luke to see things even when he wears glasses. He has to try his best to aim at the basketball hoop^① by focusing on the right corner of his glasses. His mother said that he was born with cerebral palsy^②. 

On the high school's Senior Night last week, Luke's coach finally called him to play during the final minute of the game. With the teammates already coming to give him a warm welcome, Luke got into position as the crowd cheered him up. 

"I want to get him in. It was Senior Night, the most important moment for every player in the team." the head coach told the reporters, "If there was a chance for him, I would want to take advantage of it."

Once the game was back in play, one of Luke's teammates passed him the ball. Though he had been practising shooting hoops since he was in the third grade, this was the first time he had ever taken a shot on his high school basketball team. He took a deep breath to release the nervous feeling. 

As the watchers waited, Luke took the shot and dropped the ball. It fell through the net, hardly touching the hoop. He made it! In fact, his score helped the team win the game. All his teammates came to hug him, showing great admiration^③ and respect. 

"I heard the watchers calling my name," Luke told the news reporters. "They were jumping and shouting. I still can't believe I was awarded the title of MVP (Most Valuable Player) of this game."

A handwritten letter by a little boy asking Santa for a "very good dad" has captured hearts worldwide.

The boy, known only as "Blake" in the letter, wrote, "Dear Santa, We had to leave our house. Dad was mad. We had to do all the chores. Dad got everything he wanted. Mom said it was time to leave and she would take us to a safer place where we don't have to be scared.

"Blake is a 7-year-old boy in one of our shelters, and his mom found this letter in his backpack..."Posted by SafeHaven of Tarrant County on Wednesday, December 18, 2019.

"I'm still nervous. I don't want to talk to the other kids," he continued. "Are you going to come this Christmas? Can you bring a dictionary, and a compass and a watch?"

The most heart-breaking part of the letter was the last line that read, "I also want a very very very good dad. Can you do that too?" 

Officials with SafeHaven of Tarrant County, a group seeking to help end domestic (家庭的) violence（暴力）, posted Blake's letter to its Facebook page. Now, some of the child's wishes have come true. All of the gifts he asked for have been donated by people in the community. Though SafeHaven received more than 10,000 gifts this year, they want to shine a light on the bigger issue of domestic violence.

"To us, it was kind of a story that we've heard all the time," Kathryn Jacob, the organization's president and CEO, told Today. "Like tonight, we have 73 kids in the shelter.""Blake is just one of many."