Children love their parents, but I didn't get on well with my parents before. I hardly talked to my parents, because they liked to 1 me with my sister. And that made me unhappy. I sometimes argued 2 them for that.

    However, I wanted to show them that I could do things as well as my sister. Then I began to spend most of my free time painting in my bedroom. Luckily, my art teacher, Miss Green, 3 to help me a lot. She taught me some drawing 4 to improve my painting. She was the only person I would like to talk with.

    One day, I told Miss Green about my problem. She encouraged me to enter a painting competition. In her mind，the best way to communicate with my parents was to prove（证明）5. I took her advice.

    Several days later, Miss Green told me the result. I was very happy and excited 6 I won the first prize! My parents were very 7 and I could see that they were very happy. And they began to care more about me. Now 8 between my parents and me have become very good. And I think it's very important to have someone to talk with.

    Bill and Cathy wanted to go on a holiday. They chose a place called Maldives（马尔代夫）. And they decided {#blank#}1{#/blank#} there for two weeks in spring，because the {#blank#}2{#/blank#} there was perfect at that time. They thought they would have a {#blank#}3{#/blank#} trip. But their tip was more like a nightmare（噩梦）!

    The plane {#blank#}4{#/blank#} off twelve hours later because of the bad weather. And they couldn't fly to Maldives {#blank#}5{#/blank#} there was a storm. They had to fly to the capital city instead. There they stayed in a small hotel near the airport.

    The hotel was next to the sea, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} the sea was so dirty that they couldn't swim in it. The food in the hotel was awful, too. For breakfast there {#blank#}7{#/blank#} only bread and milk! Because of the bad weather, they had to stay {#blank#}8{#/blank#} another night in the small hotel. And they had {#blank#}9{#/blank#} to do. It was so boring. {#blank#}10{#/blank#} , they arrived in Maldives three days later. And someone told them the weather there had been wonderful all the time!

    Phil White has just returned from an 18,000-mile, around-the-world bicycle trip. White had two reasons for making this epic journey. First of all, he wanted to use the trip to raise money for charity, which he did. He raised £70,000 for the British charity, Oxfam. White's second reason for making the trip was to break the world record and become the fastest person to cycle around the world. He is still waiting to find out whether he has broken the record or not.

    White set off from Trafalgar Square, in London, on 19th June, 2004 and was back 299 days later. He spent more than 1,300 hours in the saddle (车座) and destroyed four sets of tyres and three bike chains. He had the adventure of his life crossing Europe first, and then the Middle East, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and finally the Americas. Amazingly, he did all of this with absolutely no support team. No jeep carrying food, water and medicine. No doctor. Nothing! Just a bike and a very, very long road.

    The journey was lonely and desperate at times. He also had to fight his way across deserts, through jungles and over mountains. He cycled through heavy rains and temperatures of up to 45 degrees, all to help people in need. There were other dangers along the road. In Iran, he was chased by armed robbers and was lucky to get away with the little money he had. The worst thing that had happened to him was having to cycle into a headwind on a road that crosses the south of Australia. For 1,000 kilometers he battled against the wind that was constantly pushing him. This part of the trip was slow, hard and depressing, but he made it in the end. Now Mr. White is back and wants to write a book about his adventures.

The little girl put her doll {#blank#}1{#/blank#} to the shelf（架子） and ran over to the computer game. After she talked to her father, she {#blank#}2{#/blank#}for the computer game and said to the shop assistant in a low voice.

So the boy got the computer game that he wanted for free（免费）—he was told it was a prize from the store. He smiled {#blank#}3{#/blank#}, although he felt it was so unbelievable.

The girl saw all this happen. She smiled happily, too.

When I walked out of the store to my car, I heard the father ask his daughter why she had done that. I would never {#blank#}4{#/blank#}their short talk. "Daddy, didn't Grandma want me to buy something that would {#blank#}5{#/blank#}me happy?"

He said, "Of course, she did."

"Well, I just did!" With that, the little girl started skipping(蹦跳) towards their car happily.

Videos of the granddaughter of American President Trump showing her Chinese speaking skills became very popular on the Internet. In the video, Arabella {#blank#}1{#/blank#}a popular Chinese song and recited two Chinese poems by a Tang poet.

More and more kids try to learn Chinese just {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Arabella. About 50. 000 American students {#blank#}3{#/blank#} now studying Chinese." Because of China's fast growth, Chinese is more useful {#blank#}4{#/blank#}other languages, "said Scott Mcginnis, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} language expert(专家).

For example, in 1999, only three Chicago schools had {#blank#}6{#/blank#}classes. This year more than thirty do. In many US cities. students take Chinese lessons during holidays or on weekends. But Chicago schools teach Chinese during the school days. Last year China gave them 3.000 textbooks {#blank#}7{#/blank#}they had done a good job.

Although Chinese classes are becoming popular, it is still {#blank#}8{#/blank#}of the most difficult languages. It {#blank#}9{#/blank#} an English speaker about 1,320 hours all to become good {#blank#}10{#/blank#} Chinese, but 480 hours to learn French, Spanish or Italian.

Li Hua and Wang Tao are two students of Class 4, Grade 7. They both like sports. Li Hua is a basketball fan. His favorite sport is playing basketball. Yao Ming is his favorite basketball player. He wants to be a basketball player like Yao Ming when he grows up. Li Hua is on the school basketball team now. Every Friday afternoon, Li Hua plays basketball with his classmates after class.

Li Hua's friend Wang Tao isn't good at basketball, but he is very good at soccer. Ronaldo is his favorite soccer player. Wang Tao is on the soccer team. He plays soccer with his teammates (队友) every Tuesday afternoon.