The word "hobby" is an interesting word. Every person has one thing he or she likes to do for fun. Some people like to collect things like stamps or story books. Others like to play football or go window shopping where you can look at many beautiful things without buying them.

    I have many hobbies I do for fun. I sometimes play golf with my sons. I play tennis with all the family. I like to collect music books. I also collect musical instruments from China like the erhu, the dizi, the xiao, the suona, and the pipa. These are the instruments of China which cannot be found in America.

    My favourite hobby is fishing. I like to go and see my brother in the state of Alaska where fishing is wonderful. The two of us take a boat and go to a small river where we fish for salmon, the American most famous fish.

    Mayme Clayton collected books， magazines and letters written by African Americans. Her son， Avery Clayton， thought her collection was important. Unlike most books， these were rare and hard to find. They were written by writers who helped shape African American culture.

    One book in the collection was written by Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was a slave who wrote poetry. She was the first African American to publish a book. Wheatley herself signed (签名) the book in the Claytons' collection. No one else owns a copy signed by Phillis Wheatley.

    By the time she passed away at age 83， Mrs. Clayton had more than 30，000 books by or about black people. Her collection also includes papers about slaves， photographs， movies， sheet music， and personal letters by black leaders and artists. It is one of the biggest personal collections of African American history and culture in the United States.

    Avery Clayton's dream was to create a museum for his mother's treasures.  Scholars say that Mrs. Clayton's collection is very important. Without her work， part of African American heritage (遗产) would have been lost. “We didn't know these things existed，” says Sara Hadron of California's Huntington Library.

    The collections new home is likely to be in Culver City， California. Part of Avery Clayton's dream is to share the cultural riches his mother collected with others. He especially wants children to have a chance to see the collection. “ At present African American culture is being explained by pop culture，” he says， “ It's important to offer a more complete picture.”

    In order to learn how the students in our school spend money, we made a survey by asking them some questions. First, we asked them how much money they spent last month. And then we asked how much money they spent on snacks, books, movies, computer games, phones, transportation and other things last month. Our maths teacher helped us make a graph（图表） of their answers as follows.

    In our school, each student spent about{#blank#}1{#/blank#} yuan on average（平均）last month. According to the graph made by our{#blank#}2{#/blank#} teacher, we know how much money the students spent on different things in our school. As the graph shows, they spent most on{#blank#}3{#/blank#} , covering 22% of all. It was followed by computer games and movies. Each of them was {#blank#}4{#/blank#}  . But to our surprise, he students spent {#blank#}5{#/blank#} on books, only 6%.

English weather

    Everybody talks about the weather in England and this is not surprising. It changes from minute to minute, so it's always interesting. Someone once wisely remarked(评论) that other countries have a climate, but England just has weather! Gretel was amazed by this talk at first, but she has got used to it now.

    Last month Gretel really understood why everyone is so concerned about the weather:  you can never be certain what's going to happen. Though it was spring, there were heavy snowfalls. As usual, no one expected it. The pipes in many houses were frozen; trains failed to run; cars on the roads shrank; there were many accidents on the roads; lots of people slipped on the icy pavements and got hurt. The weather was very bad. Everyone complained gloomily(沮丧地), "What awful weather we're having! Haven't seen anything like it!". And then, suddenly, the sun came out, the snow melted and it was spring again.

    "Typical(典型的)! Just typical! " Gretel remarked. "From the way you talk about the weather, Gretel," Mr Clark said, "anyone would think you were English."

    What season is it in October? If you ask people from the UK, they will tell you it's "autumn". {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Why does this season have two names in English? According to Dictionary.com, both words have been around for a long time, but neither of them was the first to describe this season. During this season, crops(庄稼)would become ripe(成熟)and farmers would have a big harvest(丰收). {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Then, in the 1600s, more people left their farms and moved to cities. With fewer people farming, the word "harvest" became less useful. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} They knew leaves fell from trees during the season, so people started calling it "the fall of the leaf', or "fall" for short.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} It gradually replaced(替代)"fall" as the word for this season.

    At the same time, British people were making their first trips to North America. They brought both the words "fall" and "autumn" with them. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}