The crow （乌鸦） is an ordinary （普通的） bird. It is about twenty inches （英寸） long and black all over. Crows are dirty birds because they live on old bad food. Crows eat a lot of waste food. In this way they are more useful to us than any other bird. They clean up the dirty things in our streets. Crows are always hungry. They look for food all day long, and in the evening you can see them in large numbers flying back to their nests (窝) in the trees. They sleep there at night. Crows are much noisier than other birds. Very often a large number of crows will get together on one house and talk. Sometimes they talk together, and sometimes they do it by talking like human beings (人类). It is easy to tell from(区别) crows' sounds whether they are pleased or angry. Perhaps crows talk a lot because they are friendly birds. A pair of crows will live together all their lives, and if one of them dies, the other one becomes very sad and quiet for the rest of its life and sometimes it dies, too.

Sixteen is a special age in the United States. There's often a special celebration for a girl's 16th birthday—a big party called Sweet-16. It is like a wedding reception(结婚晚宴) in the number of guests and gifts handed out.

    About a month before the party, the girl's family sends out invitations to the guests. They must buy a special present for the birthday girl and the girl guests find good dresses to wear. A sweet-16 present usually costs $40 to $60. This is about $20 more than the usual-cost of a birthday present.

    The party itself is not held at someone's house. The hostess rents(租赁) a reception hall for the event. Food, cake and a DJ are provided. Around 6'clock, guests arrive and meet the birthday girl. Then the girl and her father have a special father-daughter dance. After that, guests dance for about 30 to 45 minutes.

    Then there is the most important part of the Sweet-16 party, the candle-lighting ceremony.

    The sweet-16 hostess stands behind 16 unlit(未点燃的) candles and dedicates(献给) each candle to her friends, family, and anything that she feels is important to her. A lot of crying and hugging goes on at this time.

    Afterwards, people sit and eat. Most guests begin leaving around 11 o'clock.

    This school year, I have been to two Sweet-16s. I am one of the youngest students in my grade (My birthday is in December). I'll have to wait another year before I can have my own special Sweet-16 party. I can't wait for it!

Do you like playing cards? Do you know some interesting things about cards? The four suits(花色) mean four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The two colours, red and black, mean day and night. The 52 cards mean the 52 weeks of a year. In every suit, there are 13 cards. It means 13 weeks in each season.

In China, people like to play "24" poket games. For example, if you get the four cards, you can play like this: 

First, ten minus four is six.

Second, eight divide by two is four.

Then, six times four is twenty- four.

Is this fun? You can use "plus, minus, times, divide by" to make 24. Would you like to have a try?

I was born in Pittsburgh, a city in the east of the US. With its over 400 1 , the city is sometimes called the "City of Bridges".

Pittsburgh is a big city with a 2 of about 2.3 million. About fifty years ago, there were many steel factories (钢厂) in the city, so people today still 3 it the "Steel City". Times were 4 after the factories closed, and streets were dirty in the past, but now the streets become very5 with modern theaters, shops, and restaurants on them.

Pittsburgh is surrounded (环绕) by hills where you can 6 great views of the city. Many artists, 7 Linda Barnicott and Andy Warhol, loved the beautiful views very much and made lots of great paintings. You can find them in the museums in the city. My favourite painting is Linda Barnicott's My Hometown.

I 8 from Pittsburgh to another city ten years ago but I often 9 now. I miss the people. They are funny and friendly, and I 10 the mountains to the east of the city. I also miss my favourite park, The Point. I often remember the good days when I played games with my friends there.

Eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at night. This saying is all about the importance of breakfast. And now scientists can tell us just why it's so important. According to a study carried out at Imperial College London, UK, skipping the first meal of the day not only means you eat mor eat lunch, but also that your brain wants to find more unhealthy foods.

The study suggests that there is a special part of our brain called the orbitofrontal cortex（眶额皮层），which plays an important part in making choices about what we eat. It is used for identifying the taste of food, especially when skipping breakfast. It is more likely to target high-calorie foods when you're on an empty stomach.

Scientists did an experiment on this. Dr Tony Goldstone from Imperial College London, scanned (Ff#) the brains of 21 men and women, around the age of 25. On the first day, these people skipped breakfast before the scans. On the second day, they had cereal（谷物）, bread and jam as breakfast. After the scan on both days, they had their lunch.

When the volunteers had skipped breakfast, they ate around 20 percent more at lunch, compared with days when they had eaten breakfast. Their brain scans also showed the orbitofrontal cortex was especially responsive to high-calorie foods. "We believe that bit identifies the value of foods - how pleasant, how delicious something is, " Goldstone told The Guardian.

It is the Year of the Dragon. Of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac(生肖), the dragon is the only unreal one. But Chinese people have loved it so much for thousands of years. In China, dragons have long bodies but no wings. They mean good luck. They have a strong ability to control the weather and bring rain.

In the West, dragons also have a long history in old stories and films. Dragons there have shorter bodies and big wings. They are often bad. Some of them can breathe fire from their mouths.

What may be surprising is that the dragons share similar origins. Both Eastern and Western books said dragons were like snakes. One of the earliest pieces of dragons can go back to more than 5,000 years ago in China. Some looked like snakes in a "C" shape. The Penguin Book of Dragons in the West also said people in the ancient world often described dragons as big snakes.

What might have made us come up with the idea of dragons in the first place? Carl Sagan, a scientist, answered the question in a book called The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. He thought people created dragons from what they saw and how they felt.

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