Chinese students work hard to learn English. Do you know American kids are {#blank#}1{#/blank#} to learn Chinese? About 50,000 American students now study Chinese .“Because of china's fast growth, Chinese is more useful than{#blank#}2{#/blank#}languages,” said Scott McGinnis, a Washington language expert.

    For example, in 1999,only three Chicago schools had Chinese classes. This year more than 20 do. In many US cities , students take Chinese lessons during holidays{#blank#}3{#/blank#}on the weekends. But Chicago schools teach Chinese during the regular day. Last year China gave them 3,000 textbooks because they had done a good job.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Chinese classes are becoming popular, it is one of the most difficult languages. It totally takes an English speaker about 1,320 hours to become good at Chinese , but it only takes 480 hours to learn French, Spanish or Italian.

    Hello! My name is Susan Smith. I'm a(n){#blank#}1{#/blank#}girl. This afternoon I lost (丢失) my schoolbag on my{#blank#}2{#/blank#}home. It is black and red. I{#blank#}3{#/blank#}to find it. A blue pencil-box, a student ID card (学生证) and some{#blank#}4{#/blank#}are in it. Well, a(n){#blank#}5{#/blank#}eraser, a black pen, a pink ruler and a family{#blank#}6{#/blank#}are in the pencil-box.{#blank#}7{#/blank#}you find my schoolbag, you can{#blank#}8{#/blank#}me. My telephone{#blank#}9{#/blank#}is on the student ID card. It's 4432-5936. Well, you can email me at susan @ 163. com, too. Please{#blank#}10{#/blank#}! Thanks. 

    What will life be like after 200 years? Teachers won't{#blank#}1{#/blank#}on the blackboard with{#blank#}2{#/blank#}in the future. Students won't do their homework on{#blank#}3{#/blank#}, and we won't draw a line (线) with a {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. At that time, every student will study {#blank#}5{#/blank#}the computers.

Tips for Writing Better Articles

    Many of us don't spend a lot of time improving our writing skills. This can be a problem when we hand in our articles. Good writing skills will help us improve our grades and be good for us later in life. The following tips can be {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Make good word choices. When we are not sure which word is the right one for a sentence, look it up in a {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. Many of us choose words in a hurry and don't think over if they're {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Good word choices are necessary for good writing.

    Check facts. If we want people to {#blank#}4{#/blank#} what we write, we must make sure our facts are true. We should use dependable (可靠的) facts.

    Rewrite. A common problem is that we don't like to rewrite. In fact, rewriting is the best way to find out and correct some {#blank#}5{#/blank#}, like bad grammar and spelling. Rewriting makes our writing better than before, thou it takes more {#blank#}6{#/blank#}and more work.

    Read aloud. It is a good {#blank#}7{#/blank#} to learn English well. Sometimes it's easier to find problems with spelling, word usage, and grammar when we read aloud. Reading aloud helps us not only find out our problems {#blank#}8{#/blank#}develop our writing.

    Prepare a Hist. It is very important for writing a good article. Such a list includes: Is there a proper title? Have we {#blank#}9{#/blank#} every point? Are all the parts of the article included? This can help us make sure that we have covered everything.

    It is not easy to become a better{#blank#}10{#/blank#}. But with a few simple steps, we can improve our writing skills and learn how to write better articles.