Dear James,

    How are you? I want to tell you about the ways (方式) my family go to work or school. My parents are teachers, but they are not in the same school. My father's school is far from our home. It's about five kilometers. He drives his car to school every day. My mother usually walks to her school, because her school is near our home. I have two brothers, John and Peter. John is a high school student (高中生). He likes taking a bus to school. He thinks it is fun, because he can meet his friends and tall with them on the bus. It takes him thirty minutes to get to school. Peter and I are students in a middle school. My mother is in the school, too. I always go to school with Peter. We ride our bikes to school for ten minutes every school day.

    What about you? How do you get to school?

Yours,

Amy

Last night I was preparing for the coming examination when I heard loud noise from my neighbor's house. The 1went on and on. It was 2loud that I could hardly pay attention to my study any longer. So I went to my neighbor's house and knocked at the door. The young man looked3when he 4 me standing outside his door.

I said to him: "5, could you please turn down the TV? I'm preparing 6tomorrow's exam."7he heard these words, his face turned red. And he said politely, "I'm sorry to have made so much noise. Just now, the football game was very wonderful. I was too excited to control 8. I won't bother（打扰）you again. 9 in your coming exam." Then, he 10 the TV and continued to watch the game. After that, I got down to my study.

    Li Qiang and Li Gang are brothers. But their living habits(习惯) are different. Now let's go to Li Qiang's room. Li Qiang cleans his bedroom every day and puts his things away. Look! There is a computer on the desk. There are two footballs under the bed. A guitar and a kite are on the wall. Some books are on the shelf. So he must be a careful boy. Now let's go to Li Gang's room. The room is not clean. There are some books on the floor. Can we see his clothes on the desk? Oh, yes. We can also see a football and a knife on the desk. Li Gang never does any cleaning. So his room is  in a mess(混乱).

    What do you think of Li Qiang and Li Gang? I think Li Qiang is a good boy. Li Gang must learn from his brother.

    Welcome to our museum(博物馆). It is free and you can come only with your ID card. We don't ask you for any money, but we have some rules for you.

    First, don't bring any food to the museum. You can't eat in the museum. But you can bring some water to the museum. Second, you can take photos here, but you can't touch (触摸) the things. Third, keep quiet in the museum. Don't talk loudly. Fourth, don't run in the museum. Finally (最后), our museum closes at half past five in the afternoon. Please leave before five and we need thirty minutes to do some cleaning. Have a good time here! Thank you.

    How important is your appearance? Although everyone wants to be good-looking, are beautiful people always happier people? For example, it must be a problem to be a really beautiful woman, because some people may be more interested in looking at you than talking to you. They think of you as a picture rather than a person.

    Some people think that women who are exceptionally(格外地) pretty and men who are particularly handsome must be stupid. They believe that only unattractive(无魅力的) people can be intelligent(智慧的).

    On the other hand, no one wants to be really ugly, and have a face that even your mother doesn't want to look at; and no one wants to be plain, either--that is, to be neither attractive nor unattractive, and have a face that is easily forgotten. Being attractive is like being rich. It can help you find happiness, but it doesn't always make you happy.

    So maybe the best thing is not to worry too much about how you look, but simply try to be an interesting person. For interesting people have interesting faces, and interesting faces are almost always attractive.

Dear sister,

I've been happy here in New York. But when holidays are coming near, I really feel "There's no place like home", just like the English proverb says, "East, west, home is the b{#blank#}1{#/blank#}."

You must be doing well in English class. The letter you sent to me was written in good English.

Well, I want to i{#blank#}2{#/blank#} my friend Diana to our home. I dare not tell Mama directly. If Dad and Mum say that will be all right, please write to me as soon as possible.

Diana is a poor girl whose parents died last month in a terrible accident. She has to spend the holidays alone. She wants to see China and try e{#blank#}3{#/blank#} that we Chinese do. She p{#blank#}4{#/blank#} speaking Chinese for two years and can speak a little now. She has great curiosity about our family life and will ask you many questions about it. Isn't it a good chance to u{#blank#}5{#/blank#} each other? I'm sure you'll learn many things from her.

Please give my love to our father and mother!

Your sister,

Mei