Dan was the doorman of a club in a big city. Every day, thousands of people passed his door, and a lot of them stopped and asked him, “What's the time, please？”

    After a few months, Dan said to himself, “I'm not going to answer all those stupid people any more. I'm going to buy a big clock and put it on the wall here.” Then he did so.

    “Now people aren't going to stop and ask me the time.” He thought happily.

    But after that, a lot of people stopped, looked at the clock and asked Dan, “Is that clock right?”

Time spent in a bookshop can be enjoyable. If you go to a good shop, no assist ant will come near to you and say, "Can I help you?" You needn't buy anything you don't want. You may just try to find out where the book you want is and read it. But if you fail, the assistant will lead you there and then he will go away.①It seems that he is not interested in selling any books at all.

There is a story which tells us about a good shop. A medical student found a very useful book in the shop. ②But it was too expensive for him to buy. He couldn't get it from the school library, either. So every afternoon, he went there to read a little at a time. One day, however, he couldn't find the book from its usual place and was leaving when he saw an assistant singing to him. To his③      , the assistant pointed to the book in the corner. "I put it there so that it couldn't be sold out."said he assistant. Then he left and the student went on with his reading.

The story of the red-crowned crane

    Have you ever heard of the song "The story of the red-crowned crane"? It is about a girl called Xu Xiujuan.

    Xu xiujuan was born in Zhalong, Heilongjiang Province in 1964.Her father's job was to look after red-crowned cranes. Xiujuan started helping her father when she was young. She soon showed a great love for these white birds. She become good at raising them.

    When Xu Xiujuan was 21, she got a job at a nature reserve in Jiangsu Province . She enjoyed taking care of the baby cranes. If a bird become sick, she took good care of it stayed with it every day until it was strong enough to fly again.

    In September 1986, one of the birds went missing .The workers in the nature reserve looked everywhere, but no one could find it. Xiujuan was very worried. She looked for it day and night for two days. On the second night, while she was looking for the missing bird, she fell into a river and died. She was only 23.

    Later, a song was written in memory of Xiujuan. Though Xiujuan died young, people always remember her when they hear the song or see a red-crowned crane.

Decide to Do Well

    Everybody makes decisions in daily life. They can be as important as what you will do in the future or as simple as what you will eat for breakfast. Any decision could be the turning point of your life.

    I made an important decision when I was in Junior 3.

    Before I made that decision I was one of the boys who tried too hard to act as an adult. I didn't know that only kids want to show themselves as adults.

    I didn't listen to my parents and teachers, and my grades became poor. Then came the high school entrance exam.

    At the turning point of my life, my mum wanted to have a conversation with me. I wanted to turn it down but when I looked at her eyes, I felt I couldn't refuse. Instead of asking me to study hard, to my surprise, mum just asked what I wanted to do in the future. Without thinking too much, I just said I would like to study hard.

    Mum smiled and asked again, "I asked 'what do you WANT to do'?"

    I never seriously thought about the question. So, I kept silent.

    "Whether you want to go on studying or enter the society," she went on, "it is your own decision. Your life ought to be decided by you, not by anyone else, including me. "After saying that, she had tears in her eyes.

    For the first time in my life I was asked to make my own decision. I sat in my chair and thought about myself, my life and what kind of person I wanted to become.

    It took me what seemed to be ages to make the biggest decision so far in nay life-I wanted to be a man who makes a difference in the world. To achieve that, I needed to study hard.

    The path to my future became clear to me. I didn't act rebelliously(叛逆地) any more. With passion (激情) in my heart, I studied hard.

    Now, I'm 17 and I'm in one of the best schools in my city, in one of the best classes at the school and I am one of the best students in the class.

    Thanks to that decision, I have become what I am today.

    This morning Tom gets up at 6:00. Today his family is going to move(搬家)into a new house.

    Tom and his family are busy putting their things into some boxes. When Tom helps to put some glass cups into a box, he breaks one of them. He hurts(使受伤)his right hand. Mum tries to find some Band-Aids(创可贴) for him. But she forgets where the Band-Aids are. So she has to open the boxes one by one. Dad comes quickly to help them. But he falls over. He hurts his hand, too. At last they find the Band-Aids in one of the boxes. Most of the boxes are open now. The family have to pack(打包)them again。

    There are so many boxes in the house. Dad puts some of them behind the door. Later, some friends come and they help to move all the things onto the truck.

    In the new house, Dad starts to count the boxes. One, two, three, four…There are only twenty boxes.

    Where is the last box? Is it behind the door of their old house? They don't know.