A

    Jim comes from the U.S. He is now living in China. He gets up at about 6:30 and has breakfast at 7:00. After breakfast, he says goodbye to his parents and leaves home at 7:30. He usually walks to school. He gets there at 7:55. He has his first class at eight.

    Morning classes are over at 12:10 and he has lunch 10 minutes later. After lunch he plays with his friends.

    Afternoon classes begin at 1:30. Usually there are two lessons in the afternoon. The y finish at 3:30. Usually he plays games or other things at school, and he gets home at about 5:15. He has dinner at six and then does his homework and then watches TV. He goes to bed at about 10:30.

B

    A man bought a donkey (驴子) at the market one day and took him home. Now the man has owned several donkeys already and he knew them very well. One of the donkeys was very strong and brave, another was moody(喜怒无常的). One donkey was very lazy, he hated going to work in the morning and he did as little as he could all day long. When the other animals were being loaded(装载) up, he always tried to be the last so that he would get the lightest load.

    The man took the new donkey into the yard. For a moment he stood there, looking at his new friends. Then, without thinking, he walked up to the lazy donkey and began eating comfortably at his side.

    Though it was late in the day, the man immediately took the new donkey out of the yard, straight back to the market. "You cannot do like this," said the merchant (商人), "It is only ten minutes since you bought him."

    "I don't need him any more," replied the man, "I know just what he is like from the friend he chose for himself. Take him away and give my money back. I don't need donkeys like him."

    An American boy has made a cheap machine that can help blind people read.

    The blind can read by using Braille-a system of small bumps (隆起物) that the blind touch to read the letters. The machine that makes these small bumps usually costs at least $2,000. It is called Braille typewriter. The American schoolboy, Shu ham Banerjee, made a new Braille typewriter from a Lego tool that lets people create robots. Banerjee has called his new machine the Braigo-a combination(组合) of the words Braille and Lego. It costs just $350. It works by changing electronic texts into Braille and then printing it using a computer or a mobile machine.

    Banerjee designed (设计) his Braigo for a school science project. Since then, he has caught the interest of Silicon Valley in the USA. The big technology company Intel spent money on Banerjee's machine in November, but they did not say how much money they put in. Banerjee also got $ 35,000 from his father to help him start the project. His father works as a computer engineer (工程师) at Intel. He spoke about why he gave so much money to his son, saying, started to be interested more, thinking that he's on to something and this invention has to continue, dream would probably be having most of the blind people use my Braigo.

    In ancient China, a woman told the best stories. She married an emperor(皇帝).Sadly, one day, this woman became ill and died. Everyone thought the emperor would soon find another favourite among his wives, but the emperor was very sad. He spent more and more time in his garden, and less and less time caring for the needs of his people. Everyone in the kingdom was worried.

    One day, a priest(牧师)passed when some children were playing with their dolls. The dolls made dancing shadows on the wall. This gave the priest an idea. He knew the stories the emperor's wife used to tell. What if he could bring those stories to life？

    The priest made a puppet(木偶)out of bits of clay(黏土).He painted the puppet to look somewhat like the emperor's wife. When the puppet was finished, the priest silently walked into the emperor's garden, carrying his puppet, a candle and a curtain. He placed the curtain near the emperor's chair. He placed his candle, his puppet and himself behind the curtain. He waited for the emperor to appear.

    The emperor did not even notice the curtain at first. The dancing shadow drew his eyes. As the priest moved the puppet behind the curtain, he told wonderful stories as the emperor's wife. It seemed as if his wife had been spending time with him. The emperor was no longer sad. At the end of each busy day, the emperor went into his garden to visit his shadow wife and hear her stories once again. That is how shadow puppets first began.