My grandmother is over eighty years old. She always complains about how greatly things have changed, and she often says that life used to be better.

    Families aren't families the way they used to be. If a husband and wife are having problem with their marriage, they don't stay together any more. They choose to divorce. Mothers used to stay at home and take care of their children, but now everyone is busy working; no one has time to look after children at home.

    And the cars! No one walk any more; people get richer and richer, and more and more people buy cars and drive. We used to walk five miles to school every day, even in winter. But now children don't.

    And in school, children don't have to think any more. When I was at school, I used to add, subtract, multiply and divide using my head in math class, but now, children use calculators instead.

    Most families have computers and TVs now. In the past we didn't have computers or TVs, we spent a lot of time talking with our family members. But now, people are too busy to talk to each other. If they have time, they'd watch TV or surf the Internet rather than talk to family members. They are even too busy to eat and think.

    Life used to be simple, but it isn't any more.

Information Card

We've talked about snails (蜗牛) and their slow move. But much of the time snails don't move at all. They're in their shells —sleeping .

    Hot sun will dry out a snail's body. So at the least sign of hot sun, a snail draws its body into its shell and closes the opening with a thin cover. Then it goes to sleep. A snail will die in a heavy rain. So whenever it rains, it goes inside its shell house and goes to sleep. A snail can sleep for as long as it needs to. It can take a short sleep. Or it can sleep for days at a time. And it spends all the winter months in its shell, asleep.

    In spring the snail wakes up. Its body, about three inches long, comes out of from the shell. When hungry, the snail looks for food. It can't see very well. Its eyes, at the ends of the top feelers are very weak. But its sense of smell is very strong. It helps the snail to the new greens. Then the snail's little mouth goes to work.

    A snail's mouth is no longer than the point of a pin(针). Yet it has 256,000 teeth! The teeth are so small that you can't see them. But they do their work. If you put a snail in a hard paper box, it will eat its way out. And if a snail wears out its teeth, it will grow new ones.

    Mostly, a snail looks for food at night .But on cloudy days it eats in the daytime. It eats all day long. A snail can go on eating for hours and never feel full.

    Some of the greatest problems we face today are the destruction (破坏) of our environment. Brown clouds, polluted water, endangered wild animals.., these problems seem so huge.

    So my family does what we can. We take cloth bags to stores instead of using plastic bags. We walk where we don't have to drive...

    But does it do any good? When I am the only one in line at the market with cloth bags, am I doing any good? Does my walking to stores make any real difference to the world?

    I recently learned something about flamingos (火烈鸟) which like to get together in groups of a thousand or more. Every year, when the time comes for migration (迁徙), a few of them first takeoff from the lake. But none of the others seem to notice, so the small group returns. However, the next day they try again. This time few more fly along with them, but most of them still pay no attention, so they return again. They try for several times. Every time a few more birds join in but, since the thousands of others still take no notice, the great migration plan is once more stopped.

    Then one day something changes. The same small group of birds once again starts flying and a small number more join in just as before, then more. Finally, they all take flight and the migration really begins. What a spectacular sight it must be—thousands of flamingos taking off into the sky at once!

    A few can make a difference. Even if you're the one to take the first step, and continue trying, others will someday take notice and together we will solve even our greatest problems.

    Mo Yan is the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature(文学) .He comes from Gaorai, Shandong Prcvince. He was born in a common family of farmers. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} As a young boy, Mo often helped to look after the sheep of the family. He enjoyed watching over them when they were eating grass. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}He also enjoyed the green open land of Shandong. He enjoyed looking up at the clean blue sky and white clouds. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It was the beginning of his life as a storyteller.

    Many years later, Mo left school and worked in a store. Though he still wanted to study, he had to make a living first. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Luckily, a friend gave him some books. Later .Me joined the army and could go on learning .Then he started to write.

    Mo left Gaomi many years ago, but Gaomi never left him. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Mo is famous now, but he is still a true son of the land.

A. basketball      B. soccer    C. golf      D. tennis   E. volleyball