Jane was an old woman. She was rich and lived in a big house. One sunny morning, Jane opened the window and looked at her garden. The sun was shining brightly. "What a good day!" She said. Suddenly she saw a man eating grass in the front garden of her house. She walked to the man and asked, "Why are you eating grass? Are you very hungry?" The man answered, "I have no money to buy any food. I haven't had meals for days. I'm dying of hunger." "Poor boy," said Jane, "come to the back door." Then she walked into the house again. "The rich lady will give me some food to eat. It's so kind of her." The man thought. But when he went into the house, Jane opened the back door and said to him, "The grass is taller behind the house."

B

    Most of us have ever imagined the life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise(天堂) where the sun always shines. “Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you are free to sit around without any work. This is really a beautiful picture, isn't it? However, the other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is awful. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes.

    Perhaps there is some truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the chance to find out. We can only experience it in the story like the following.

    Many years ago, two men spent five days on a coral island and they wished that they could stay there longer. They were driving a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink(下沉). They quickly put food, matches, and cans of beer into a rubber dinghy(救生筏) and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island.

    There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not seem to be a problem. The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a gun with them, they had plenty to eat. They caught lobster and fish every day, and they thought they lived just like a king. Five days later, a tank passed by and saved them. However, they felt sorry that they had to leave

    Dereck and Beverly are wildlife animal filmmakers(电影制片人). They have made lots of films about animals and plants.

    Their job is to keep and protect the big cats of Africa from damage(伤害). Beverly also takes photos of the lions and her pictures have appeared in National Geographic magazines.

    When they were kids, Dereck was quiet and healthy, he was good at math and science. Beverly had a twin brother. At that time, her brother and she often got their mother into trouble! Beverly was a dancer, an athlete, played the piano (not very well), and was a class leader. Her favourite subject was science and she always got excellent grades in her science exams.

    When in the field, their work starts at around 4 am. After drinking a cup of tea, they drive out into a bush(灌木丛)to find their subjects. Sometimes that is a lion pride(群). Lions are family animals, they usually live in groups of 15 or more. Sometimes that is a single leopard(花豹). They follow the animals for the day, filming, researching, and collecting facts, information or pictures. They don't stop working even when they have lunch. They are often back in camp by 8 pm.

    When talking about the favourite places to explore, Dereck says, “We live in it!” Beverly thinks being in nature is her favourite. Dereck thinks running or taking a swim in the Okavango swamp(沼泽)—especially swimming close to crocodile(鳄鱼)is great fun, but Beverly says, "Swimming is fun but crazy in these waters."

    Do you know the astronaut Chen Dong? He and another astronaut Jing Haipeng stayed in space for more than 30 days from October to November in 2016. During the days, they, did some experiments in space. For example, they tried to plant vegetables there.

    Chen Dong was born in Henan Province in 1978. When he was a child, he wasn't a good student. When he was in Grade 3, he made the vegetables at school dirty for fun. The vegetables were a gift to the teachers from the school, He was very afraid after that. However, his teacher wasn't angry with him. "You have to think about others when you do such things," the teacher only said.

    After that, Chen became a good student. He later became the class monitor, In 1997, he joined the PLA Air Force(中国人民解放军空军). With a safe flight record of 1,500 hours as a pilot, Chen became a member of the Shenzhou-11 mission(任务) in June, 2016.

    Before flying to space, Chen told his twin sons, "Dad is going out. When you look up at the sky and see a shining star, I am probably there, and say hi to me."

    He was a poet (诗人) known for the nostalgia(思乡之情) he expressed in his poems. Now, it's time for us to express our nostalgia for this great writer. On December 14, famous Chinese poet Yu Guangzhong passed away in Taiwan, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

    Born in 1928 in Nanjing, Jiangsu, Yu and his family moved to Taiwan in the 1950s.He lived and worked there until his death.

    Nostalgia(《乡愁》) is Yu's famous poem in which he expressed his homesickness for the Chinese mainland when he was in Taiwan. Published in 1971, the poem was popular among Chinese all around the world. Even those who little about literature(文学) are familiar with lines from the poem. The poem is chosen in Chinese high school textbooks.

    Besides his achievement in poetry, Yu was also a successful essay writer, and translator. He once translated English poet Siegfried Sassoon's poem In Me, Past, Present, Future Meet into Chinese. It is regard as an accurate and powerful translation, in which the most famous line is "心有猛虎，细嗅蔷薇" for "In me the tiger sniffs the roses". Yu spent his whole life writing.