Robert is nine years old and Joanna is seven. They live at Mount Ebenezer. Their father has a big property. In Australia they call a farm a property.

    Robert and Joana like school very much. At school they can talk to their friends, but Robert and Joanna can not see their friends. They live 100,perhaps 300,miles away and like Robert and Joanna, they all go to school by radio.

    Mount Ebenezer is in the centre of Australia. Not many people in “The Centre”, there are no schools with desks and blackboards and no teachers in “The Centre”.  School is a room at home with a two-way radio. When all students answer, lessons begin.

    Think of your teacher 300 miles away!

    Afternoon tea is quite a new tradition in England. Drinking tea dates as far back as 3,000 BC in China, yet it made its first appearance in England in the mid 17th century.

    Afternoon tea was introduced in the country by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the year 1840. The Duchess would become hungry around four o'clock in the afternoon. The evening meal in her family was usually served late at eight o'clock, thus leaving a long period of time between lunch and dinner. The Duchess asked that a tray（盘）of tea, bread and butter and cakes should be brought to her room during the late afternoon. This became a habit of hers and she began inviting friends to join her.

    Traditional afternoon tea is made up of a choice of nice sandwiches, scones served with cream and jam. Cakes and pastries are also served. Tea grown in India or Ceylon is poured（倾倒）from silver teapots into bone china cups.

    Nowadays, however, in the average suburban home, afternoon tea is likely to be just a biscuit or small cake and a cup of tea, usually produced using a teabag.

    For those hoping to try an afternoon tea, there are many tea rooms up and down the country. The UK has a variety of holiday destinations, and whether you choose a stay in the villages of Yorkshire or the coastal resorts of the south, afternoon tea is never far away.

    At a daycare center in Texas, children were playing outside. One of the children was Jessica Mc Clure. She was 18 months old. Her mother, who worked at the daycare center, was watching the children. Suddenly Jessica fell and disappeared. Jessica's mother screamed and ran to her.

    A well was in the yard of the center. The well was only eight inches across and a rock always covered it. But children had moved the rock. When Jessica fell, she fell right into the well.

    Jessica's mother reached inside the well, but she couldn't feel Jessica. She dialed 911 for help. Men from the fire department arrived. They discovered that Jessica was about 20 feet down in the well. For the next hour the men talked and planned Jessica's rescue.

    "We can't go down into the well," they said. "It's too narrow. So, we're going to drill a hole next to the well. Then we'll drill a tunnel across to Jessica. When we reach her, we'll bring her through the tunnel and up through our hole."

    The men began to drill the hole at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, October 14, 1987. The men had a difficult job; they were drilling through solid rock. During her days in the well, Jessica sometimes asked for her mother. Sometimes she slept, sometimes she cried and sometimes she sang.

    All over the world, people waited for news of Jessica. Everyone worried about her.

    At 8 p.m. on Friday, October 16, men reached Jessica and brought her up from the well. She was soon sent to hospital. Jessica was dirty, hungry, thirsty and tired. Her feet and forehead were badly injured. But Jessica was alive.

    After Jessica's rescue, one of the rescuers made a metal cover for the well, saying, "To Jessica, with love from all of us."

    I am Henry Jekyll. I was born in the 1 800s. I inherited(继承) a large fortune, a healthy body and an excellent mind. I was naturally hard-working and soon I was very successful in my job. So the outside world saw a serious, hard-working, successful doctor. Behind this quiet character, however, was a wild, fun-loving, irresponsible young man. Both of them were me. They lived together in the same body.

    “Was it possible," I wondered, “to find a drug that could give each side of my character its own separate face and body?"

    After much thought and careful study I believed I had found the answer. I had read many scientific books and spent many hours in my laboratory, searching for the right mixture of chemicals to make my drug. At last I got everything ready.

    Late one night, I mixed everything together and prepared my drug. I watched the smoke rising from the liquid as its color changed from red to purple and at last to green. Then, bravely, I drank every bitter drop.

    I felt a violent sickness in my stomach and a terrible pain in all my bones. The room seemed to turn round and round and I trembled with fear. Then the fear and pain disappeared and a strange, sweet feeling took its place. Wild thoughts danced through my mind- the wild passions of an evil and cruel stranger. But inside myself I felt younger, lighter, more carefree than ever before. "If this is pure evil," I thought, “I like it.”

    I stood there, enjoying these strange new thoughts and passions and suddenly realized that I was shorter. So I decided to go to my bedroom in my new body and take a look at myself in the mirror there. As I came into my room, I saw Edward Hyde for the first time.

    At that time, the good side of my character was stronger than the evil side. Henry Jekyll had his faults, but he was mostly a good, kind man. I believe that is the reason why Edward Hyde was so much smaller than Henry Jekyll. But that was not the only difference between the two men. Henry Jekyll had a kind, open, honest face. But pure evil stared out of Edward Hyde's eyes. I felt no dislike, however. Indeed, I welcomed him. Edward Hyde was me, young and strong and full of life.

A new study of fifth and sixth graders in Germany examined the relation between classmates' gender stereotypes (性别刻板印象) and individual students' reading outcomes to explain how these stereotypes contribute to the gender gap in reading.

"It's a cycle of sorts," explains Francesca Muntoni, a researcher at the University of Hamburg, who leads the study. "Reading is first thought as a female advantage." It stresses that girls are born to have an advantage in reading, which in turn greatly affects boys by causing them to devalue their actual reading ability. So finally, it damages their reading motivation (积极性)."

The study has proven that boys are less motivated to read and hold weaker reading-related beliefs about their own skills if they hold the strong stereotype mentioned above. And accordingly, they perform poorly in the reading test. The effect of classmates' stereotypes is seen over and above the effect of individual stereotypes. The study found fewer individual positive effects and no effects of classmates, stereotyping on reading-related outcomes for girls.

The researchers say although their study provides evidence of lasting negative effects of stereotypical beliefs in a classroom context, they need more experimental findings on the subject. They also note that students' gender stereotypes were measured by self-reports, which might limit their accuracy. Finally, they point out that their study did not settle how gender stereotypes were formed.

"To solve socially the determined gender inequality in reading and help create classroom contexts that discourage students from acting on their stereotypical beliefs, teacher and parents may consider educating boys and girls in ways that change stereotypical behaviors. And thus students can become aware of their gender stereotypes to counteract their effects on other students' outcomes and to create a gender-fair learning environment," says Jan Retelsdorf, professor of the University of Hamburg, who co-authored the study.

According to one legend, dumplings first appeared during the Han Dynasty. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(rough) 1800 years ago, the story goes, a physician named Zhang Zhongjing returned to his hometown during a cold winter. He found his fellow villagers with frostbitten ears and created a new dish to help them warm up. The ingredients he chose for their warming {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(comprise) of button, herbs, and spices. The doctor wrapped them {#blank#}3{#/blank#} pieces of dough and folded the pieces to resemble tiny ears. Dumplings{#blank#}4{#/blank#} (continue) to take off and diversify since then. Typically{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (fill) with meat or vegetables, the simple bites are distinguished by their pleated （起褶皱的）, wheat dough wrappers. They're often served for the Chinese New Year, though not because they look like crescent moons （新月）. Eating them is believed {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (bring) prosperity in the new year. Traditionally, if you want to wish someone good fortune in China, you feed dumplings with a coin hidden inside and {#blank#}7{#/blank#} gets this coin will be lucky in the coming year. Making dumplings together with the whole family creates a unique, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (harmony) atmosphere. Today, Jiaozi is still {#blank#}9{#/blank#} must in winter in most parts of northern China, especially during the Spring Festival. No words can precisely describe Chinese people's affection for dumplings, as the food has already become a symbol of home and {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (warm).