Long long ago, there was a spider. She found a beautiful farm. She liked the farm and decided to live there forever.
    One day, the spider caught a little bug. When the spider ate it, the bug said, “If you let me go, I will tell you an important thing. The thing will save your life.” The spider stopped and listened.
    The little bug said, “You'd better get out of the farm. The harvest is coming! If you stay here, you will be killed by the farmer's machine.”
    But the spider didn't listen to the bug and ate it for lunch. The next day when she was sleeping, the farmer came to have a harvest. The spider was killed by the machine.

    A few years ago, I worked at a church（教堂） and since my son was home schooling, he went with me to the church every day. Most mornings, we'd stop at a local convenience store, getting a chocolate drink for him and a cup of coffee for me.

    The clerk at the store we chose to visit refreshed our lives each day, and so we returned again and again. She had found her own way of enjoying life and her job. I'm not even sure that she was realizing that her energy put a smile on the face of each customer.

    When a customer brought cookies to the counter, any other clerk could have asked, "Would you like some milk with those cookies?" Instead, she inquired, "Would you like a lottery ticket（彩票） with those cookies? "

    She might have asked me if I wanted a donut with my coffee. But instead, she asked, "Would you like some batteries（电池） with that coffee?"

    Yes, life is what you make of it. This clerk's method of dealing with what some think is a boring job, and with the customers she met daily, made the hours in her day more enjoyable. In doing that, she also refreshed the lives of others and made them laugh.

    Sometimes, if my day at the church had been particularly tiring, we'd stop at that store before heading home. We'd giggle（咯咯笑）as we left the store, the clerk's words echoing（回响）behind us. "Would you like some shampoo with that soda?"

    Donny, an 11-year-old boy, is playing with a ball. The ball goes into the street, and Donny runs for the ball. A car hit Donny.

    His parents take him to the hospital. The doctor tell Donny's parents, "Donny is in a coma. Maybe he will wake up tomorrow. Maybe he will wake up next week. Or maybe he will never wake up."

    Every day Donny's parents visit at the hospital. They sit next to Donny's bed and talk to him. But Donny never talks to them. He just sleeps.

    One day Donny's father says, "Wake up, Donny. Wake up and come home. Come home and play with Rusty." Rusty is Donny's dog.

    When Donny's father says "Rusty", Donny moves his arm.

    "Rusty!" Donny's father says again. Again Donny moves his arm.

    Donny's parents have an idea. They tell the nurse, "We want to bring Donny's dog to the hospital, is it OK?"

    "A dog in the hospital?" the nurse say, "That's very unusual. But, yes, it's OK."

    The next day, Donny's parents bring Rusty to the hospital. When they put the dog on Donny's bed, Donny opens his eyes and takes the dog in his arms.

    Donny's parents bring Rusty to the hospital every day. One day, Rusty jumps on Donny's bed and scratches Donny's arm. Donny says his first words, "Bad dog!"

    After seven weeks Donny is well. He leaves the hospital and goes home. Rusty goes home with him.

I want to tell you about a very exciting holiday I had. Last December I went to the Ice Hotel with my father. It was in a village of Sweden. 

It was a special hotel made of ice and snow. I read an interesting report about this hotel in a travel magazine and I showed it to my father. He was so excited that we decided to go. 

It was like a dream. We were so surprised. Everything was made of ice. A woman at the door gave us special coats and gloves. We could use them to protect ourselves in the very cold place. There was a garden at the hotel. There we saw a lot of nice sculptures (雕塑). Some artists came to the Ice Hotel and they made them with ice. In the evening we ate at the hotel restaurant. They put the food on ice plates. We had some fantastic fish and a delicious dessert. Of course, it was ice cream!

There was a nice shop there too. I bought a sweater and a cap, but I didn't buy many things because they were very expensive. In the shop, I met a girl named Catherine. She is from France. She wanted to buy a sweater, but she didn't speak English, so I helped her. We became friends. Yesterday I got an email from her with several photos she took at the hotel. It was really a fantastic holiday. 

Choose the best answer. 

On Wednesday, August 7, China got its first-ever gold medal in artistic swimming at the Paris Olympic Games.

Among the impressive performers were twin sisters, Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi. Born in 1997 and grew up in Shenzhen, the sisters took an interest in artistic swimming when they came to Shenzhen sports team in 2005, asking to learn artistic swimming. The twins almost didn't make it to the team because of their parents* heights.

There is an unwritten rule in artistic swimming. If a sportswoman is less than 1,68 meters tall, she is unlikely to become a professional. The twins' father is less than 1.7 meters tall, while their mother is a little taller than 1,6 metres, which means the daughters are unlikely to be tall enough.

However, the twins' wrong will and strengths impressed Hu, coach (教练)of Shenzhen team. She recalled that twins, who studied at Nanshan Foreign Languages School, went for training after school every day. At 20 years old, the twins grew to be 1.72 meters tall. They were among the tallest when joining the national artistic swimming team in 2017,

With good physical quality and willingness to bear hardships, through years of hard training, they became key players and got a lot of medals. In 2010, the twins won the gold medal at the provincial games. They also won a gold and a bronze medal at the national games in 2013 and 2O17.Then, they won four gold medals at the 2022 World Championships in Hungary and a gold in the duet event at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, winning the right for the Paris Olympics.