An elephant and a monkey were arguing.

  “Look, how big and strong I am!” The elephant said.

    The monkey disagreed, “Look, how fast I can run and climb! Can you?”

    At last they asked a wise tiger, “Which is better—to be strong or to be quick?”

    The tiger said, “Go across the river and pick the fruit on that tree for me, then I can tell.”

    So they went to the river, but the water ran fast and the monkey was afraid.

“Get on my back,” said the elephant proudly, “I shall carry you.”

Soon they crossed the river. There stood the tree. But the fruit was too high for the elephant to reach. He also tried to pull the tree down, but failed.

  “Don't worry.” The monkey climbed quickly up the tree, and picked the fruit.

    Then they returned and gave the tiger the fruit. “Which is better—to be strong or to be quick?”

The tiger smiled, “Neither of you could get the fruit alone. It took both the elephant's strength and the monkey's quickness to get it.”

    Mike teaches a very basic programming (编程) course to a group of students. They are all very interested in computers.

    One day, Mike told his students to write a short program on their computers. After writing it, they only needed to type "R", "U" and "N" and press "enter" to see the program run.

    Soon, a student sitting in the back of the classroom put up her hand. She said, "I did what you said, but it didn't work." Mike knew that students sometimes make mistakes when typing. So he suggested that the student retype (重新输入) "R", "U" and "N".

    A few seconds later, the student's hand went up again. "It still doesn't work," she said. This time. Mike went to her to see what the problem was. To his surprise, he found that instead of typing "RUN", the student had typed "ARE YOU IN"!

    When his mum fainted(昏厥) and knocked herself out, unconscious, four year old Henry Davies knew just what to do— thanks to a storybook.

    He calmly dialled 999 and told the emergency services how to get to his home and then phoned his father.

    The boy told the doctors what had happened and directed them to the house in Coundon, Coventry, and even offered the doctors a drink

    When they arrived. Henry also offered to look after his 12— month old brother Noah.

    His father, Iran, 35, said, "Chloe has been unwell with a high fever which has made her feel quite poorly. I left for work early at about 7:30 am and as she got up after I left she felt quite dizzy and faint. The next thing she remembers is fainting down on the floor and hearing Henry talking to someone. He had seen her fall and hit her head on the table, but he couldn't wake her up. So he picked up the phone and dialled 999 for an ambulance."

    Chloe said, "Henry has a storybook, Ambulance Crew, on what to do in an emergency, which we've read a few times. He even put a blanket over me. The ambulance crew were amazed. We're very proud of him."

    The mystery(悬疑) stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are famous all over the world.

    The detective in his stories is called Sherlock Holmes. He solves mysteries in a most surprising way. Through it all, his assistant, Dr Watson, watches with admiration(钦佩). Watson then writes up the story of the mystery afterwards.

    This is a useful story writing skill. Because Watson is not very clever, the story remains a mystery until the end. The readers can sometimes pick up some clues before he does! Then, to make Watson understand the mystery, Holmes has to explain it all, step by step. So we, the readers, get to see it step by step too. Watson is almost as good a character in the story as Sherlock Holmes!

    The very first time they meet, Holmes greatly surprises Watson. When they are first introduced, Holmes says to Watson, "How do you do? I see you have been to Afghanistan.”

    Watson is too amazed by this to ask Holmes how he knows this. Watson has, indeed, been to Afghanistan. Later, he asks Holmes about it. Holmes explains that there is nothing magical about what he does. He gets to know it all by very, very careful observation (观察).

Observation One

    Watson was introduced to Holmes as a doctor. Yet Holmes thought that the way he stood and walked made him seem like a soldier. So, this meant he was probably an army doctor.

Observation Two

    Watson's face was quite dark skinned. But his wrists(手腕) were pale. So his dark face was probably sunburnt. This meant that he had been to a hot, sunny country. As he was a working doctor, this was not a holiday. He must have gone with the army.

Observation Three

    At the time, the British army had soldiers at bases in many parts of the world. So there were still a lot of places to choose from. However, Holmes saw that Watson looked very tired and he was always holding his left arm, as if it was painful. So, he had probably been with the army to a place where they were fighting. There was only one place where the British army was fighting at that time: Afghanistan.