Once upon a time, there was a young man who liked puppets (木偶) so much that he became an apprentice(学徒) to a master puppet-maker. Sadly, the young man was not so clever, and his teacher and the other apprentices were always telling him he had no talent for making puppets, and that he would achieve nothing in making puppets.

    Even so, he was fond of it so much that he worked day after day to improve himself. Though he made every effort, they would always find something wrong with his puppets, and the poor puppets ended up being thrown out of the workshop.

    The young man wasn't going to give up, so he decided that from then on he would spend all his time making just one kind of puppet. Whenever he found a fault in his puppet he would throw it away and start again. Years passed, and with each new attempt his puppet became a little bit better. By that time, his puppet was much better than anything that the other apprentices could make, but he kept making improvements. Living like that, the man wasn't making any money, and many people laughed at how poor he was.

    By the time he was an old man, his puppet was truly wonderful. Finally, after so many years of work, he finished work on his puppet, and said, "I can't find anything wrong with it. This time it is perfect." And for the first time in all those years, instead of throwing his puppet away, he put it up on the shelf, feeling truly satisfied and cheerful.

    It is well-known that the perfect puppet, Pinocchio, came to life after that, had a thousand adventures, and gave that old man –whose name was Geppetto—more joy than any other famous puppet—maker had ever got from any of their creations.

Muhammad Ali was born in the United States in 1942. Today, many people think he was the most talented boxer in the world. They call him "The Greatest of All Time". However, few people know how he became a boxer. The story is unusual.

When Ali was a little boy, somebody stole his bike. Ali cried and told a police officer. The police officer was also a boxing coach. He asked Ali if he wanted to learn how to box. Ali said yes. He wanted to learn how to box because if he ever met the person who stole his bike, he wanted to beat him up! Ali probably never found his bike, but that was a very important day in his life. It was the day he started boxing.

Ali became very successful right away. He wasn't just strong. He was also very fast and smart. In the 1960 Olympics, he won a gold medal for the USA. After that, he became the heavyweight champion of the world. In total, Ali won fifty-six professional boxing matches, and lost only five.

Ali wasn't just a great boxer. When Ali was the champion, the United States was fighting a war in Vietnam (越南). Many Americans thought the war was wrong. The government tried to make Ali join the army. Ali said no. He thought that the war was wrong, so he didn't fight in it. Ali was punished. He was not allowed to box, and he lost a lot of money. However, he didn't care. He still refused to go to Vietnam. Finally, Ali was allowed to return to boxing. He soon became the champion again.

Muhammad Ali always did the right thing. He stopped fighting more than 30 years ago, but people around the world still love him.

A few years ago, my husband and I were in a village for the weekend with our daughters. One day when we walked around the 1 and didn't know what to do next, our daughters told us 2 what they wanted to do. "We want to 3 the rose garden", said Lisa and Emma.

As soon as we walked into the garden, we saw thousands of nice 4 . They all came out in the sunlight. My girls were jumping up and down 5 surprise, and I knew we made the right 6 to come to the garden. They had so much 7 !

I turned to the gardener working there 8 I was curious (好奇的), and asked, "How 9 do roses blossom?" She said, "About ten 10 . And in their short life, they make the world a more beautiful place." "Wow, only a few days!" I was so amazed, "I 11 thought about roses like this. Thank you."

After we said goodbye, I still remembered what the gardener 12 us. She was 13 . We all have something to 14 the world with the time we have. When we do what we can to take care of each other every day, we can make a 15 to our world. We have our own way of making the world a little better for everyone.

Many parents don't let their children do housework when they are young. In their opinion, little children are so young that they can't help1 housework. They think children can't do it 2 .3 I don't agree with them. 

At the age of two, our kids began to help us to do the housework. It only 4 them about 20 minutes to do the housework every day. They 5 help put away toys or clean the house.

I like getting kids to start 6 for some reasons. First, it's fun for kids to help. Two-year-olds like to work on the same thing as their parents. They 7 want to stay with their parents doing things by themselves. It's a good time 8 them to help you when you're busy. Second, it's never too early for them to learn something. Some people think having kids do housework is not robbing (剥夺) them of their9 . Instead(相反), it makes them know the happiness of working. Finally, it does help. I feel that Kate likes doing housework and she helps me a lot.

So will you try to10 your kids help to do housework at home from now on? Believe me, you may get a big surprise if they can keep on helping to do housework. 

Eric's father managed an iron shop. He used to help his father1 the work in the shop. 

One day, Eric asked his father, "What's the2 of a person?" Father thought for a while, "Son, it's difficult to judge (判断) the value of any person because his or her value is priceless. "

Eric couldn't understand it, "How come? If the value of a person is priceless, then why some people get less respect while others get3 ?"

His father4 a piece of iron, "What do you think is the price of this iron?" Eric replied, "10 dollars."

Father asked again, "What5 happen if I make small nails (钉子) with it?" Erie said, "Doing this will6 its price, and it will be worth 50 dollars."

Father continued, "What if we use it to make a lot of springs(发条) for watches?" The son answered, "Then we can get more money from it."

Father smiled and said, "So you see, just because we turn the iron into7 different, its value is different, too." After hearing this, Eric felt like he understood what his father said. 

We often make mistakes in considering our value. Seeing our present situation, we start considering8 as valueless and meaningless.9 our value is not in what we are now but in what we can become in the future. So we should always keep improving ourselves10 try to understand our true value. 

Hi, boys and girls! My name is Eric Brown. I'm 12 years old. I go to No. 10 Middle School. I like English and my English teacher's name is Tom Green. He is 28 years old. He likes dogs and he has a dog. His dog's name is Max. Max is 8 years old. It is a black dog and it is big.

 Every day, Max comes to our school with Mr Green. And Max likes it. Max doesn't go to our classroom(教室). When we are in class, Max is in Mr Green's office(办公室). Max knows that it's time for us to study. After class, all of us go to Mr Green's office and meet Max. We say"Hello" to it and play with it. We are happy to be with it. Max brings joy to our school. We love it.