Letter A

    Young people are always told that they should make the most of their time, that they will never be as free again. So, my question is — why fill up all this free time with housework？Parents expect their children to get good grades, be good at sports, and be popular with other kids.

    However，there is not enough time in the day to do these things and then do housework as well. It's not fair to expect teenagers to give up their precious time to do boring housework. Parents and children both have jobs. Parents' jobs are in the work-place. Their children's jobs are at school.

    The only difference is that parents get paid and children don't. Parents say that they make their kids do housework to teach them responsibility. But this is just a trick. Parents trick their kids into doing housework because they are lazy.

Yours,

Overloaded

Letter B

    Both parents and children have jobs. The parents' job is to go to work to earn money. The children's job is to go to school. But we all get hungry. Someone has to cook the meals and clean up afterward. We all wear clothes that get dirty. Someone has to wash them, iron them, and put them away. Children work from 9 until 4. Parents work from 8 until 6. Sure, after 4 o'clock, children have homework. But after 6, parents have homework too. They have to do the shopping, go to the bank, pay the bills, and help their kids with their own homework!

    I think it's only fair that teenagers help out a bit at home. They might not like it, but it's good for them．It teaches them how to look after themselves．This is really useful when they leave home to go to college or to live on their own.

    [1] I'm a 34-year-old man, married, lived in a nice house, and have a successful career. But my life was not always so great. I had a learning disability from an early age. I went to a special school where I got plenty of extra (额外的) help. Still, I suffered the rest of my school days in public schools.

    [2] My life improved greatly when I discovered art. The art world gave me a chance to express myself without words. I went to a workshop and gradually became good at making things with clay. Here I learned my first important lesson: disabled as I was in language, I could still be smart and well express myself with clay. And my confidence（自信）came along.

    [3] I got my next lesson from rock climbing. It was a fun thing but I was scared from the start. ⑶I soon noticed it wasn't a talent thing; it needed lots of practice. So I did it more. After about five years of climbing, I found myself in Yosemite Valley on a big wall. I learned that if you fall in love with something and do it all the time, you will get better at it.

    [4] Later I decided to learn ⑷①          to read and write. I practiced reading and ⑷②          , which I used to avoid as much as possible. After two years, I was literate(有文化的).

    [5] Through the long process with art, ⑷③             , and reading and writing, now I've got to a point in my life: I am smart enough to dive into (潜入) an area that is totally unknown, hard, but interesting.

    "Never set foot in this house again!" should father." BANK!" the door closed behind me. With tears in my eyes, I rushed out of the flat and ran along the street.

    The street lights were shining, causing rather sad-feeling. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} I don't know whether it is because I have grown up or because dad is getting old. We differ in our ways of thinking. He always put his opinions on me. We are just like two people coming from two different worlds. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} I wandered the streets, without any aim in my mind. As I walked on there were fewer and fewer people on the streets. When I finally reached the apartment where I lived, I saw that the light was still on.

    I thought to myself: Is father waiting for me, or is he still angry with me?

    In fact, it was nothing. Perhaps, dad was throwing away some of his old stamps. Perhaps he thought they were useless. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} All the lights were off except father's.

    Dad was always like this. He had got used to arguing with me. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} After shouting at me, he never said sorry to me. But after an argument he always came into my room secretly and made sure whether I was asleep.

    The light was still on." Am I wrong?" I whispered, maybe… With the key in hand, I was as nervous as I had ever been. At last, I decided to open the door. As soon as I opened the door, tears ran down my cheeks. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Love is second to none.

A. It feels like there is an iron door between us that can never be opened.

B.I wandered aimlessly.

C.I suddenly realized that the iron door that I had imagined between us did not exist at all.

D. Maybe he didn't know how to express himself.

E.I never had the courage to tell him that I liked collecting stamps.

    With their long tusks (象牙), elephants look strong. However, it is this feature that makes the animal endangered. Many of them are killed for their tusks. People make elephant tusks into crafts (工艺品) and jewelry and sell them to rich people.
    But can these priceless body parts grow back? The answer is no, Live Science said. The elephants' tusks are actually part of their teeth. Nearly all African elephants and most male Asian elephants have these long teeth. About one-third of the tusk is in the animal's skull (头骨). The tusk has a nerve (神经) running down its center. This makes it similar to your teeth. Once you lose a tooth, you will never grow a new one.
    Elephants use their tusks to protect themselves, lift things, dig water and gather food. But losing the tusk will not kill them. The way in which they lose the tusk is what matters. Usually, people get tusks by culling (限量捕杀), which means killing old and weak elephants. They also take tusks from the elephants that have died naturally.

    However, these sources aren't enough to keep up with the demand for ivory. Therefore, some poachers (偷猎者) kill healthy elephants and cut their faces open to remove the tusks. About 27,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year, according to National Geographic.
    As a result of poaching, some African elephants gradually evolved (进化) without tusks, which has allowed them to survive. In Mozambique, about 90 percent of African elephants were killed for their tusks and meat from 1975 to 1992, National Geographic reported.
    Scientists found that about a third of younger females—the generation born after 1992—never developed tusks.