Americais a mobile society. Friendship between Americans can be close and real, yet disappearssoon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmasgreetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while, then no more,If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up thefriendship.

   Thiscan be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendship betweenus flows more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending(延伸) sometimesdeeply into both families.

   Americansare ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays and theirhome life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept theirhospitality (好客) easily.

   Anotherdifficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they includeus warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness tous if it requires a great deal of time.This is usually the opposite of thepractice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes,we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet afriend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends.Americans, however, express their welcome at home. But they truly cannot managethe time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They willprobably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. Andthey expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes,the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves to be treatedhospitably.

   ForAmericans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to theirhomes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accepttheir hospitality at home!

Your teacher asks you to collect your classmates' opinions about their favorite school lunches. After asking everyone, you have collected a lot of data(数据) or information and aren't sure how to organize it. Creating a graph (图表) can be a great way to organize and share your data.

Graphs show data in a direct way that is easy to read and understand. There are many different kinds of graphs. Different graphs are better for different kinds of data. Read on to find out about the types of graphs in math, as well as the key parts of a graph.

Bar chart

A bar chart has a horizontal axis (横轴) and a vertical axis(竖轴). It has a title that explains what it shows, and different bars are used to show different amounts. There's a number line along the vertical axis and labels(标签) along the horizontal axis, labeling the data.

Pie chart

A pie chart helps organize and show data as a percentage of a whole. True to the name, it looks a bit like a pie and uses a circle to show the whole. Pieces of that circle, or "pie", stand for the different things. The different pieces of the pie are different sizes depending on how much of the whole pie they show. Each piece is labeled to show what it means.

Line graph

Line graphs are used to show changes to numbers over time. They show what we call continuous data. The vertical axis explains the data being shown. We mark data on a line graph. The different data points are then joined up with straight lines, so we can look at the trend(趋势) it shows.

Flow chart

A flow chart shows the different steps in something using boxes and arrows(箭头). It can often have many different directions and different paths you can take using the information it asks for. Flow charts can be great for explaining a huge process by breaking it down into different steps.

A student is studying British English. He wonders: Can I have a talk with Americans?

Can they catch me? Learners of English often ask what are the differences between British English and American English? How important are these differences?

  Certainly, there are some differences between British English and American English. There are a few differences in grammar. For example, speakers of British English say" in hospital" and" Have you a pen?". Americans say" in the hospital" and" Do you have a pen?". Pronunciation(发音) is sometimes different. Americans usually sound the"r" in words like " car" and" farm". Some speakers of British English do not sound the"r" in these words. There are differences between British English and American English in spelling and vocabulary. For example," colour" and" honour" are British English spellings." Color" and" honor" are American English spellings.

 These differences are in grammar, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary. However, they are not important. For the most part, British English and American English are the same language.

Most parents agree that children should eat healthy food. But how can they{#blank#}1{#/blank#}(鼓励)their kids to eat healthily? Our research suggests it should begin by getting parents to do the same. 

We often see parents choose healthy food like{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(牛奶）and eggs for their kids. As for themselves, they would prepare something unhealthy. Why? They are not{#blank#}3{#/blank#}（确定）whether their kids would like to eat the healthy food. So, their own dishes can be a{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(第二;另一)choice for their children. If kids eat from their parents' dishes, both of them may have unhealthy diets. 

Luckily, we found a{#blank#}5{#/blank#}简单）way: asking parents to think of their meals as their own, rather than as a choice for their children. 

To do the research, we worked with a school. The school{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(计划）to help children eat more healthily. It provided a free{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(晚餐）for 100 families. We noticed all the parents{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(仔细地)chose a healthy meal for their children. Then be-fore choosing for themselves, we asked{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(一半)of them to think of their meal as "for you and only you!" The others were not asked to do that. 

The{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(结果）?Many more parents from the first group chose healthy food for themselves!

When cultures meet, not just their language or clothing may be different. Often their food will be {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (great) different too. People on both sides can discover new chances for trading. This text tells{#blank#}2{#/blank#} some common food plants spread around the world. 

As early as 5000 BC, {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(potato) were traded in South America as a valuable type of food. They{#blank#}4{#/blank#} (take) to Europe in the 1500s and their use soon spread across it. 

Tea drinking started in China. By the early 1600s, traders had begun to ship tea {#blank#}5{#/blank#} China to Europe. Tea drinking soon became fashionable there but because of {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(it) high price, it was a drink for the wealthy. 

Sugar cane(甘蔗) was first used {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(produce) a kind of sweet juice over 8, 000 years ago on the island of New Guinea. {#blank#}8{#/blank#} use soon reached South East Asia and then to the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} ( wide) world. 

Cocoa was used to make a cold, spicy drink in Central America over 3, 000 years ago. The Europeans brought it back with them in the 1520s and added sugar to make the sweet, hot drink we know today. {#blank#}10{#/blank#}it's expensive, many people still love it.