An important question about eating out is who pays for the meal. If a friend of yours asks you to have lunch with him, you may say something like this,“I'm afraid it'll have to be someplace cheap, because I have little money.” The other person may say, “OK, I'll meet you at McDonald's.”

    This means that the two agree to go Dutch, that is, each person pays for himself. He may also say, “Oh，no，I want to take you to lunch at Smith's,”or“I want you to try the Chinese dumplings there. They are great.”This means the person wants to pay for both of you. If you feel friendly towards the person, you can go with him and you needn't pay for the meal. You may just say, “Thank you. That would he very nice.”

    American custom(习惯) about who pays for dates (约会) are much the same as in other parts of the world. In the old days, American women wanted men to pay for all the meals. But, today, a university girl or a woman in business world will usually pay their way during the day. If a man asks her for a dance outside the working hours, it means “Come, as my guest.”So as you can see, it is a polite thing to make the question clear at the very beginning.

People in Los Angeles love cars very much. The city is very big, and its public transportation (公共交通) is slow. So people drive everywhere. But now, a lot of people who like riding are trying to get people out of their cars but on bikes.

Devon says he has to be careful when he rides his bike on the streets. "A lot of people drive very fast, and it's very difficult to be careful." Although riding a bike to work can be dangerous, he likes to ride his bike to work. "It's much better than driving a car. For example, I don't have to think about where to park the car."

Roger drives to work. "You always have to look at the both sides because someone would rush (冲) across by bike. Or you can easily get into an accident."

 If some people live and work near each other, they can ride to work together to make the bike ride relaxing. They call a "bike train". Anna helps make the group—L. A．Bike Trains. "You're in a big group. If you're afraid of riding alone, you can now ride with other people." Anna says that people would feel safer (更安全的) by riding together in a group.

First Man is a picture book, it tells the story of Yang Liwei and his trip to space.

As we all know, Yang Liwei is China's first astronaut to fly into space. Yang was born on June, 21st, 1965 in the city of Huludao, Liaoning province. When he was 38 years old, he took Shenzhou-5 spaceship to space.

To help people get to know the Chinese space hero better and learn about his trip to space, the picture book was born. It is based on Yang's autobiography（自传）Long March to Space. In 2021, One Day in Space, a passage from Yang's book, was included in the seventh-grade textbook in Chinese middle schools.

Yang Liwei left for space at 9:00 on the morning of October 15th, 2003 and came back to the earth at 6:23 on the afternoon of October 16th. During the 21-hour stay in space, he flew around the earth 14 times. With great pictures and simple words, the book tells an exciting story as well as space science in an interesting way. From the book, we know that it is really ____ for people to travel in space. There is no gravity（重力）in space, so people don't feel comfortable. Yang's story tells us that nothing is impossible for a willing heart.

Wu Xiaoxi from the BSTP（北京科技出版社）came up with the idea of writing such a book. "There is a surprise in the book for readers-a picture of a rabbit looking at the moon," Wu says. "China plans to send people to the moon by 2030．We hope to write nice picture books at that time."

Read Allen's diary and answer the questions：

This is Jack's first day of the new term(学期). He meets a girl at the school gate（大门）. 

"Nice to meet you, " he says to the girl. "I'm Jack. ____"The girl is happy to meet him and says, "Nice to meet you, too. I am Maria. "

Now they are in their classroom. They see many new things in it———desks, chairs, books, pencil boxes, schoolbags and some flowers. "What a nice classroom! I like it, " Maria says. "Yes, it is. I like it, too, " Jack says. 

Then they hear（听见）the bell at 8：00 am. It's time for class. A new teacher gets into the classroom. She wears a pair of glasses. "She must be our English teacher, " Jack says to Maria. "I think so, "Maria says. 

"Hello, boys and girls!" the teacher says. "I'm Gina Brown. This is our first class. Let's have English now. "Jack starts his happy day.