Some things can carry messages, for example, a sign at the bus stop helps you to know which bus to take. Signs on the door tell you where to go in or out. Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of signs around you and that you receive messages from them all the time?

    People can communicate on many other ways. An artist can use his drawing to tell about beautiful mountains, about the blue sea and many other things. Books are written to tell you about all the wonderful things in the world and also about people and their ideas.

    Books, magazines, TVs, radios and films all help us to communicate with others. They all help us to know what is going on in the world and what other people are thinking about.

A. Because I can make a snowman.

B. That's OK.

C. Canada.

D. Spring.

E. Class Eight, Grade Seven.

⑴Where is he from?       {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

⑵Which season do you like best?        {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

⑶What class are you in?    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

⑷Why do you like winter?            {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

⑸Thank you.               {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    In America, boys and girls like watching TV. Some children spend six hours a day at school and four to six hours a day in front of the TV sets. Some children even watch TV for eight hours or more on Saturday.

    Television is like books and films. A child can learn both good things and bad things from it.  Some TV programs help children to understand the news, the people and places in other countries. With TV, children do not have to go to the movies. They can listen to interesting music or watch a game at home. But some programs are bad for children, so parents sometimes should help them to find other interesting and useful things to do.

    Margaret Porter is a violinist and music teacher. According to her, the best age to start learning the violin is between three and six. She says, “It's the time when you are learning about the world.” Margaret, who was born in London, likes to take pupils at three and four. However, she has made lots of exceptions (例外) for five-year-olds. She started teaching the violin in 1972 and she taught her children's five-year-old school friends at first.

    In Margaret's opinion, it's important for one to know why music sounds the way it does. Without knowing it, one can't become a great musician at all. So from the earliest lessons, pupils in her class learn to play by ear. They do not even try to read music until they have been playing for several years. Margaret says that her method is not to produce great violinists. She always suggests that pupils should leave and study the violin using more traditional methods.

Information Card

    Libraries give kids a quiet and safe place to read and learn. For over 100 years, libraries have played an important role in Americans' education. But how are these book—filled buildings changing with the times? You may be surprised to find out.

    Benjamin Franklin famously founded(创建)America's first lending library in 1731. But the public library system got its biggest development in the American history in the late 1800's. Businessman Andrew Carnegie donated millions of dollars to help build free public libraries across the country. Between 1886 and 1919, Carnegie's donations helped build 1,679 new libraries.

    Carnegie believed that libraries could offer the chances to Americans, young and old. He knew that the more libraries there were, the more people would have opportunities to read and use books, speeches and news.

    If you can easily find a public library in your community(社区), you'll get more chances. After all, the United States has 9,225 public libraries. Today, libraries keep growing. Seven tenths of the libraries have free Internet. It provides much more information and opportunities to ask for jobs online.

    Libraries are also teaching kids about the fun of reading. The new program Read! Build! Play! adds reading into playtime. As kids listen to a book that is being read aloud, they use Legos(乐高积木)to build images(图像)from the story happily. Today's libraries are always looking for creative programs to bring people into the library.

    Benjamin Franklin once said, "The doors of wisdom(智慧)are never shut." As long as the doors of public libraries are open, what he said is most certainly correct!

    Why do people cry? Scientists say the body produces tears because they need them. One kind of tears is for the eye, the other is for the heart. They both work as cleaners. If something else like dust(灰尘) gets into your eye, tears also come into the eye to clean it out. If you are hurt by something, your strong feelings produce some poisonous chemicals(毒素) in your body, and at the same time, tears come out with them. If these poisonous chemicals are not cleaned out of your body as soon as possible, they will do harm to the heart sooner or later.

    In the United States men have heart problems more often than women do. Doctors say heart problems have something to do with the pressures(压力) of living and working now. Perhaps men suffer more from these illnesses because they do not cry enough. They need to cry more.

    In fact, you can find many ways of reducing the pressures to keep fit. Crying is a natural and physical one.