The Spring Festival

    The Spring Festival，Chinese New Year，is the most important festival for all of us. All family members get together on New Year's Eve to have a big meal. ①At the same time，everyone celebrates to each other. At about 12 o'clock，some parents and children light crackers. The whole sky is lighted brightly. We may watch the fireworks excitedly. How busy it is！

    On the first early morning of one year，many senior citizen get up early and they stick the reversed(倒着的) Fu or hang some couplets on the front door. Some house's windows are sticked on red paper cuttings.

    The Chinese New Year lasts fifteen days. ②所以在那十五天的时间里，我们总是挨家挨户的去探访我们的亲戚朋友。 At that time children are the happiest because they can get many red packets from their parents，grandparents，uncles， aunts and so on. The last day of the Chinese New Year is another festival. It names the Lantern Festival.

    So the Chinese New Year comes to the end.

    Bethany Hamilton is a professional surfer (职业冲浪手) in America. Her parents are both surfing lovers. As a baby, Bethany liked to play in the water. She started surfing at the age of five. By thirteen, she had been one of the best teenage surfers in the world. Then the shark attack (鲨鱼袭击) happened.

    On the morning of October 31, 2003, Bethany and some friends decided to go surfing. The sky was clear, and the sun was shining. The 13-year-old surfing star was lying on her surfboard (躺在她的冲浪板上) with her left arm in the clear, blue water. Suddenly a five-meter shark appeared and attacked her. Bethany saw the water around her tum red. She held on to her board and the shark swam away -- but it took her left arm with it. Luckily, the shark attacked only once. It all happened so fast that she didn't even shout.

    In her mind, Bethany thought, "Get to the beach. Get to the beach." She started to swim with one arm. She shouted for help. Her friends didn't know about the shark attack -- they thought at first that she was joking. Then they saw the red water and quickly came to help. It took her about fifteen minutes to reach the beach. They called 911 and. Bethany got to hospital at last. Surprisingly, she was surfing again in a competition only ten weeks later. And less than a year after the shark attack, she won first place in a surfing competition in Hawaii.

    You may know that more people drink coffee than tea around the world．And that, after oil, it is the second biggest traded commodity (商品)．You may also know that the drink comes from beans which are first roasted and then ground (研磨)．But what else do you know about this popular drink?

    It is said that the story of coffee started with an Ethiopian goatherd (牧羊人) named Kaldi．One day Kaldi was surprised to see that his goats were behaving very strangely．Instead of grazing (吃草) quietly, they were jumping around, almost dancing．He also noticed some red "cherries" from a plant that the goats were eating．He tried some himself and was surprised by the feeling of extreme happiness and excitement．He felt like dancing too !

    But it wasn't used as a drink at first．It was used as food．The coffee berries, mixed with animal fat, were used by monks to stay awake during long hours of prayer．From Ethiopia, coffee was later cultivated (培育) in Yemen and the first hot drink was developed there around AD 1000．Three centuries later Muslims were keen coffee drinkers and as Islam spread, so did coffee．Coffee houses appeared in Cairo and Mecca．

    For hundreds of years the plants were protected safely．But some beans were smuggled (偷运) out of Arabia and taken to India．In the 17th century, coffee was soon grown in a new continent．From India to Indonesia, a century later the beans were once again smuggled to Brazil．Brazil is now the largest coffee producer in the world．

    It was the caffeine that made the goats dance and kept the monks awake．Although it is found in other soft drinks and tea, coffee has the most caffeine．In the short term．a couple of cups of coffee can prevent fatigue and delay sleep．But several cups a day, every day, can cause anxiety and restlessness．

    Jason Queally is one of the fastest men in the world on a bicycle.

Every year, an important human-powered bicycle race is held in Nevada, the USA. The speed of the bike is measured for only 200 meters, but players take more than a kilometer to get their bikes going fast. Jason Queally's fastest speed for the 200-meterrase was 103.5 kilometers an hour.

    At this year's race, Jason failed to reach the finishing line. He was speeding along about seventy kilometers an hour when he began to lose control of his bike. When he tried to slow down, it began to smoke. Soon the inside of his bike was filled with smoke. He couldn't see, and he couldn't breathe. At seventy kilometers an hour, a crash could be very serious. Jason was frightened, but he managed to stop the bike safely. He would repair his bicycle and try again another time to be the world's fastest man on a bike. Better luck next time, Jason.

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