When you're not at home, many worries may start to crowd your mind. Did I turn the coffee maker off? Did I lock the door? Are the kids doing their homework or watching television? With a smart home, you can quiet all of these worries.

　　　A smart home is a home with a communication network. This network connects devices(装置),such as lights and TV sets, and allows them to be controlled from far away through electrical wiring, mobile phone communication or WiFi over the internet.

　　　More and more people may start to consider owning a smart home, because it makes life much more convenient. It can help keep your room at a certain temperature. It can record what happens inside the home and send the video to your phone. When you are on vacation abroad, you can use a smart home controller to switch on or off the electricity when necessary. Some smart homes can receive a visitor, allowing him to come in and offering him a drink. They can even feed the cat and water the plants.

　　　Besides, smart homes are easy to fix. Most smart home technology and devices are wireless and can be set up with a minimum of tools, using only the guiding information. When a problem appears, you can deal with it yourself without paying a professional.

　　　However, for home-users, the smart home technology is far from perfect. It can be rather expensive to own the technology and the devices. Also, because the smart home system(系统)allow its owner to get home information from anywhere, it leaves the home easy to be attacked by hackers(黑客),who may secretly use or change the information in the system.

　　　Now, many scientists are excited at the future of smart home technology. Imagine being able to get fashion advice from your mirror, or receive food shopping suggestions from your refrigerator. While there are others who worry that those smart devices will make people lazier and lonelier. Whatever it is, one thing is for sure—smart home technology will change the way we live and work.

Dear friends,

    I am writing this letter to draw your attention to the disasters（灾难）these days. Too much rain destroyed the crops and washed the earth away. Sometimes it was too little and made plants dead. Also there was too much dust in the air. All these did great damage to our life.

    However, we made them! So it is time for us to try our best to save the Earth.

    The most important thing is to plant trees as many as possible. At the same time, we should stop cutting down trees and protect the forests. And we can save our planet through many other ways, such as saving water and using both sides of paper. Besides, don't keep TVs or computers on when you are not using them. When you leave a room, turn off the lights.

    A small action is very helpful to our planet. Please join us in the action of protecting the Earth. Let's start from the little things right around us.

Bruce

Leader of the Students' Union

Do you know time differences（时差）?

{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Li Lei has breakfast at home. At the same time（同时）, it's eight o'clock in the morning in Japan and Anna is at school. In the USA, it's seven o'clock in the evening. Jack is Bob's friend. And Bob is at Jack's home now. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Their favorite subject is English. It's seven o'clock in the evening in Canada. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}His mother wants to buy a new sweater for him. Now it's seven o'clock in the evening in Cuba, too. Maria is at home. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}After dinner, she will play games with them. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Charlie is in bed. He goes to bed at ten o'clock in the evening every day. 

I'm Li Fang. I'm a Chinese girl. I like English best because it's very interesting and useful (有用的). I like speaking English with my classmates. I join the school English club. I go to the club on Saturdays. Our English teacher is Miss Gao. She loves us very much. But she is very strict with us. And we love her too. She often tells us some funny English stories. She likes sports very much. After class, she often plays volleyball with us. She also plays the piano very well. She often plays the piano and we sing and dance. Miss Gao is really good with us. 

My favourite sports are volleyball and swimming. I usually go swimming on Sundays with my friend, Han Mei. My favourite animal is a dog. I often play with it after school. It's my friend too. 

Friends are very important in people's lives. Just as a saving goes, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} I think it's very easy to make friends with other people and build a friendship between each other. However, it is not easy to get true friendship, I think. So what is true friendship (友谊)? In my opinion, true friendship includes:

First of all, true friendship must treat their friends loyally and help each other. In other words, you must not take advantage of your friends,{#blank#}2{#/blank#} For example, some unfriendly people make friends in order to cheat money and feelings, or get a certain secret. I don't think these are true friendships.

Second,{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, if a friend is really in need of money to escape (逃避) from some troubles, true friends might lend it and help him or her.

Third,{#blank#}4{#/blank#} One of the greatest men once said, " If you tell your happiness to your friend, you will get double happiness I f you tell your sadness to your friend, you will get half."

How do you keep a true friendship with your friends?(不超过15个词) {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

How much do you know about terraces (梯田) in China? Imagine mountains are in silver (银色) water, shining in the spring sun.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} During autumn, these same mountains are gold, and in winter they are covered with white frost (霜冻 ). These are the amazing colours of the Longji Rice Terraces. 

It was hard to build these terraces for the local Zhuang and Yao people in Guangxi.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Reaching as far as the eye can see, these terraces cover tall mountains, often from the bottom to the very top. 

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} First, building the terraces meant that they could have more fields to grow rice. Second, the flat (平坦的) terraces catch the rainwater and stop the soil from being washed away. 

People have worked in harmony (和谐) with nature to make these terraces. The terraces have hundreds of waterways (河渠). During the rainy season, rainwater along these waterways moves down the mountains and into the terraces.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} This forms clouds and then rain falls down onto the mountain terraces once again. 

Though modern technology could help produce more crops (庄稼), these terraces still mean a lot to the local people. For them, traditions have too much value (价值).