George had stolen some money, but the police had caught him and he had been put in prison. Now his trial was about to begin, and he felt sure that he would be found guilty (有罪) and sent to prison for a long time.

    Then he discovered that an old friend of his was one of the members of the jury(陪审团)at his trial. Of course, he did not tell anybody, but he managed to see his friend secretly one day. He said to him, "Jim, I know that the jury will find me guilty of having stolen the money. I cannot hope to be found not guilty of taking it—that would be too much to expect. But I should be thankful to you for the rest of my life if you could persuade the other members of the jury to add a strong recommendation (劝告) for mercy to their statement that they consider me guilty."

    "Well, George," answered Jim, "I shall certainly try to do what I can for you as an old friend, but of course I cannot promise anything. The other eleven people on the jury look terribly strong-minded to me."

    George said that he would quite understand if Jim was not able to do anything for him, and thanked him warmly for agreeing to help.

The trial went on, and at last the time came for the jury to decide whether George was guilty or not. It took them five hours, but in the end they found George guilty, with a strong recommendation for mercy(仁慈).

    Of course, George was very pleased, but he did not have a chance to see Jim for some time after the trial. At last, however, Jim visited him in prison, and George thanked him warmly and asked him how he had managed to persuade the other members of the jury to recommend mercy.

    "Well, George," Jim answered, "As I thought, those eleven men were very difficult to persuade, but I managed it in the end by tiring them out. Do you know, those fools had all wanted to find you not guilty!"

    For most of us, the idea of giving up our jobs to travel around the world seems impossible. However, one young couple has made it come true. What's more, they're getting a lot of money. How can they do this?

    While traveling in Fiji in 2016, Jack Morris, 26, met his girlfriend Lauran Bullen. After that, they began to travel around the world together.

    Now the two have become Internet stars with nearly three million followers from 45 different countries. To everyone's surprise, a simple photo taken during their trips can easily bring them thousands of dollars.

    Talking in his blog Do You Travel, Jack shared many stories behind their wonderful photos. He said that they were used to taking photos at a certain time.

    "Most of the time we like to take photos around one hour after sunrise. At this time of day, most places of interest aren't so busy," Jack wrote. He also said that they never dressed up their photos and tried to keep what they were like." People prefer a true life, I believe. "

    Now the couple live in Bail. They are always posting inspirational(灵感的)photos to the Internet. At the same time, they are planning to visit one new country each month.

Last year, I went to asummer camp in the United States with my classmates. It was my first time to goabroad.

I lived with a hostfamily in Los Angeles for five days. My host family were friendly and gave melots of advice. For example, they said I should say "" excuse me"if I have to interrupt(打断) someoneor ask for directions.

l also took someclasses. They were different from the classes I've had back home. In the US, eachclass is like a seminar. Students join in groups, speaking freely andcreating a cheerful atmosphere(氛围). I hadto work hard to learn more vocabulary, sol could better communicate with my internationalclassmates. I used to pay little attention to my word usage (使用), but now I pay more attention.

During my visit, Ialso went to some famous universities in Boston, New York and Washington. Welearned about the history behind the universities. At MIT(麻省理工学院), we saw lots of names on a wall in the hall. The tour guide toldus they were the names of students who had lost their lives during wars. I wasinspired(鼓舞) by the fact that they fought for theircountry.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was1 old farmer. He loved money very much. He kept a lot of gold coins but 2 used them. He 3 not give them to others. He put them into an 4 box and put it in the ground. He came to the5 every day to look at it. This made him happy,6 , when he came to the place, he could not 7 the box. He became very, very sad. He began to cry.8 a man came to him and said, "Don't cry. Put a stone in the ground instead, and 9 it is a box of gold coins. A stone will be 10 the same, because when coins were there, you never used them."

Shen Junbo is a high school boy from Lianhua community，Haidian district in Beijing.He {#blank#}1{#/blank#}praised by many Internet users for pasting（贴） poems at a nucleic acid test site（核酸检测点）.

On May 4th，2022，Shen was standing in line with {#blank#}2{#/blank#} mother.They were waiting {#blank#}3{#/blank#}the second round of nucleic acid test.He then noticed that the volunteers had to ask people not to get close to each other time after time  {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the lines on the ground were unclear.

He came up with the {#blank#}5{#/blank#}of printing out poems and pasting them on the ground.In this way，people could read the poems as well as {#blank#}6{#/blank#}a certain distance from each other without getting bored.

Shen carefully picked out some excellent poems online after getting back home.He used the lucky {#blank#}7{#/blank#}he received during the Spring Festival to print them out at a store.It was past 11 p.m.when he finally {#blank#}8{#/blank#}pasting all the poems on the ground that night.

The next morning，the residents（居民） saw the poems and were all very {#blank#}9{#/blank#}at what Shen did.Internet users thought Shen was such a creative boy."I'm sure people will notice these poems {#blank#}10{#/blank#} they're playing with their cellphones or not，"one netizen told the newspaper.

青少年在成长的过程中应不断学习新的生活技能。假如你是李华，你所在的学校校刊英文专栏开展题为"Life Skills Are Helpful"的主题征文活动，请你给该专栏投稿。内容包括：（1）你喜欢的生活技能；（2）你学习该项生活技能的经历；（3）该项生活技能对你的帮助（至少两条）。

作文要求：语句连贯，词数80个左右。作文的开头已经给出，不计入总词数。

Life Skills Are Helpful

Life skills are very helpful.

……