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    How do you win a Nobel Prize for writing? Here's the secret from a previous winner: make it short, keep it real, and work hard.

Canadian author Alice Munro, 82, was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature. She is known for her short stories about personal relationships of ordinary people, usually women.

    Munro was born into a farming family in Ontario. The family was very poor. Munro did a lot of physical work as a young girl. She decided to be a writer at the age of 12. Now Munro turns her hard childhood into great writing ideas. The story Dear Life, for example, opens with a description of the neighborhood in which Munro grew up. Also, she talks about her poor relationship with her mother in many of her stories, such as Lives of Girls and Women and Friend of My Youth.

    Since she published her first book in 1968, Munro has won many awards, with the Nobel Prize as her biggest honor. But Munro doesn't see herself as a talented(有天赋的) writer.

    “I'm the opposite of a writer with a quick gift. I don't grasp it very easily at all, the‘it' being whatever I'm trying to do,” she said.

    Do you dream of becoming an author while sadly admitting you are not that talented? Munro has a tip for you: use notebooks and write a lot.

    “I have lots of notebooks that contain(包含) this writing,” she said. But it helps her sort out (整理) her mind. “Stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them.”

    Hi, everyone. I'm Daming. I come from a family 1 five people. They are my grandparents, my parents and me. We live in a tall building in Shanghai in the 2 of China. Our apartment is big and 3. We're living a happy life. My grandfather doesn't work now. He often tells me something about his 4.

    My grandfather 5 born in 1958in a small village. At that time, there wasn't a 6 in the village. 7. My grandfather couldn't go to school. There was a 8 behind my grandfather's house. The water was clean and there were lots of fish in it. People in the village were friendly and they got on well with each other. People were busy on the farm all day. There were many interesting games for children to play. It was great for my grandfather to 9 other children, so he wasn't 10. My grandfather often says, “the life in the past was hard, but it was happy too.”

    A young man couldn't sleep well every night. He was very worried. One day he went to see the doctor. The doctor looked him over carefully. But nothing wrong with him. The doctor told him to count from 1 to 10 again and again. “Keep doing it until you fall asleep,” the doctor said.

    After a few days, the young man came to the doctor again. But to his surprise, the doctor found the young man was even worse than before! “Didn't you count as I told you?” the doctor asked. “Yes, I did,” the young man answered. “But every time when I reached eight, I couldn't help jumping from bed.”

    “But why?” the doctor wanted to know. The young man said, “I am a boxer.”(拳击运动员)

根据短文内容完成下列句子。

    People sometimes like to read stories of dogs very much. They think that dogs are much cleverer than cats, sheep, cows or other animals in their homes.

    One of my close friends, Bob, has a very large police dog named Jack. Every Sunday afternoon, Bob and Jack have a walk in the park nearby. Jack likes these walks very much.

    One Sunday afternoon, I paid a visit to Bob. I stayed there for a long time. Bob and I had much more talk with each other than ever before. Soon it was time for them to take a walk in the park but we forgot that. Jack became worried about it. He walked around the room several times and then sat down in front of me and looked at me. But I still paid no attention(注意)to him. I went on talking with Bob. At last, Jack could not wait any longer. He went out of the room and came back a few minutes later. He sat down in front of me again. But this time, he held my hat in his mouth.

    Suddenly, I understood what Jack meant and my friend understood, too.