There was a time when New York City buildings were almost all the same height.

3.Today you can see buildings of different heights that seem to touch the sky. They are called skyscrapers(摩天大楼). They shape the famous New York City skyline.

 It started about 90 years ago. It began like a race. This wasn't a race down the street or around a track(跑道). It was a race for the sky. Who was racing? Buildings were.Their builders were actually racing to build the world's tallest skyscraper.

 The race started slowly.

 First came the Woolworth Building, in 1913. It rose 792 feet(英尺) on the southern side of the city. Then the race heated up.In1930, two skyscrapers were nearing completion. The Bank of Manhattan Building was finished first. It rose up to 927 feet into the sky. Builders were then putting a round roof（屋顶）on the top of the Chrysler Building. It rose up t0 925 feet. The Bank of Manhattan, two feet taller, seemed to be the winner.

 A few weeks later, New Yorkers saw a strange sight（景象）.  The day that the Chrysler Building was to be completed, workers raised a shiny metal, spire（尖顶）through the top of the building, adding 121 feet to the building's height! At l,048 feet,the Chrysler Building was now the world's tallest.

 But the race was not over.  A year later, in 1931, the Empire State Building became the new winner.4.At l,250 feet, it was the world's tallest building.

 In 1973, even that record was broken. Builders finished the World Trade Center. At 1,368 feet high, it rose above all other buildings in New York City.

 Time goes on. As technology improves, taller buildings are being built. The race is still on.

    A 50-year-old American officer came back to his school. The teacher asked him to give a talk to the small boys and girls there. The talk was about the love of their great country. All the little ones were sitting in a large meeting room. The old officer went up and began speaking. He said, “Boys and girls, I studied in this school forty years ago. When I was your age, we were not as happy as you are today. Think about it and answer me. Why are you so happy now?”

    No sound came from the children. The old man waited for a long time. Then a short boy in front put up his small dirty hand. “Good boy! Please answer me, dear.” said the officer.

    With a big smile on his face, the boy stood up and said, “If you speak long enough, we won't have Maths and Biology lessons this morning.”

    The word "hobby" is an interesting word. Every person has one thing he or she likes to do for fun. Some people like to collect things like stamps or story books. Others like to play football or go window shopping where you can look at many beautiful things without buying them.

    I have many hobbies I do for fun. I sometimes play golf with my sons. I play tennis with all the family. I like to collect music books. I also collect musical instruments from China like the erhu, the dizi, the xiao, the suona, and the pipa. These are the instruments of China which cannot be found in America.

    My favourite hobby is fishing. I like to go and see my brother in the state of Alaska where fishing is wonderful. The two of us take a boat and go to a small river where we fish for salmon, the American most famous fish.

    English is an important international language，but that doesn't mean it's easy to learn．①Many experts have tried to make English easier to learn,but they weren't always successful．

    In 1930，Professor C．K．Ogden of Cambridge University invented Basic English．It had only 850 words and Ogden said most people could learn it in just thirty hours．The problem was that people who learned Basic English could write and say simple messages，but they couldn't understand the answers in“real”English!

    R．E．Zachrisson，a university professor in Sweden，decided that②对英语学习者来说最大的问题是拼写 ， so he invented a language with the name of Anglic．Anglic was similar③      English，but with much simpler spelling，"father'' became “faadher'' and “new'' became “nue”．Unluckily，Anglic never became popular．

  In the age of international communication through the Internet，a new form of English might appear．A large number of world's emails are in English and include examples of“Netlingo”like OIC(Oh，I see)and TTYL，(Talk to you later)．In another fifty years，English might not be used．We might all speak fluent Internetish !

Stories and Art of Chinese Fans

    You may think you cannot live through summer without air conditioners. But in ancient China, hand fans were almost the only ones to help people keep cool.

    Chinese people started to use hand fans over 2,000 years ago. The fans came in different shapes, such as round and square. They were also made from a11 kinds of materials. Palm leaf fans were cheap and easy to make. Feather fans(羽毛扇) showed the owner's high status. Sandalwood(檀香)fans could send out a sweet smell.

    Later, hand fans became far more than just something that could cool you down. They developed into art works, in which tuanshan (round fans)and zheshan(folded fans)were the most common.

    In the shape of a full moon, tuanshan was usually made of silk. They had beautiful birds and flowers on them. Women especially those in the imperial palace(皇宫),liked to use them. Meanwhile, men, especially the literati(文人), used zheshan. The literati liked them because zheshan were usually made of paper and they could paint and write poems on them. It was a way for them to show off their ability in literature, painting and handwriting. Almost anything can be painted on zheshan.

    Today, Chinese people still use these fans, only not many people write or paint on them any more. Next time when you are waving a fan, you may think of the stories behind it.

What were they doing?