Mark and his brother Jamie rang their neighbour Mrs.Grady's doorbell.

    "Hi，Mrs.Grady，"said Mark when she opened the door."Would you like us to shovel（铲除）the 1 in your yard？"Shoveling the snow was Jamie's idea，a way to make enough money for a new video game.Mrs.Grady touched her hand to her heart."That would be wonderful，boys.The work is too much for me."

    "It will 210dollars，"Jamie said.

    "Oh dear，"Mrs.Grady was a little disappointed."I haven't been able to get to the bank. I can 3 home﹣made cookies，but I guess that's not what you had in4.

    Mark was going to say that Mrs.Grady could pay them another time，but Jamie cut him off.

    It still snowed 5As they walked 6 the snow out of her yard.Mark suddenly thought of how shehelped him last summer.She didn't look like a strong person，but 7 a big black dog had boxed him in a corner，her door flew open.She ran to him and stood between him and the dog.She 8 to hurry it away.

    "It was nothing.Good 9 watch out for each other，don't they？"she said when Mark's parents thanked her.

    And now Mrs.Grady needed Mark as much as he'd needed her last summer.Mark smiled and began to shovel the snow.Jamie got surprised and 10"What are you doing？It will take you all day.No money!"

    Mark explained."Nobody will pay us if we only do things for money."

    It was a Sunday afternoon, a girl was unhappy. She complained to her father about her hard life. There were so many problems! One problem wasn't solved but1came. She wanted to give up.

    Her father smiled and took his daughter into the2.He filled three 3with water. And he put some carrots in the first one. In the second one, he put some eggs. Coffee was put in the third one. Then he boiled them. The girl watched her father. Her father just waited4saying a word.

    The girl wondered5her father was doing that for. About 20 minutes later, her father 6the carrots and put them into a bowl. The eggs were put on a plate and the coffee was poured into a cup. Turning back to his daughter7, Dad asked, "What do you see? ""Carrots, and coffee.” she answered

    Her father told her to close her eyes and let her touch the carrots. She did and felt the carrots were soft. After that he asked his daughter to take the eggs and feel them. The eggs were hard. At last, her father asked her to taste the coffee. “What's the meaning, Dad?” He explained that8of the things had met with the same unlucky experience—the boiling water, but the three things had 9results.

    The strong and hard carrots became soft and weak after they were put into the boiling water. The eggs became hard after being cooked. The coffee was very special and it 10 the water. "Which one will you choose to be, a carrot, an egg or coffee? That's up to you to decide. "said her father.

    Cui Qingtao is a 17-year-old high school student in Yunnan Province. He was mixing mortar(灰浆)at a building site with his 1when he received his acceptance letter from Peking University which is widely2as a top university in China.

    In this year's college entrance examination, the3adult from a low-income family scored 669 points and applied as a4in the School of Journalism and Communication.

    Cui's home is in a small village. He is the eldest son, with a younger brother in high school5a sister in the fourth grade. To help his family earn more money, he spent his vacations with his brother. And he6at 3 o'clock in the morning to work in the greenhouses.

    7a Sunday, Cui's family was doing building work at the site of a new home when they were told to take the letter from a university. Cui and his family were excited as they8received the long-expected acceptance letter. When his mother9the acceptance letter to his father, who cannot read, a big smile appeared on his father's face.

    In an interview, Cui Qingtao said he worked about 11 to 12 hours a day at the building site in order to help his parents. When asked about his plan for the future, he said, "Now I'm going to leave my home village for college, but I'll 10 and someday change the poor conditions of the village." His words got many praises on the Internet.

    Long ago, everything on the Earth was asleep. Nothing moved. Nothing grew. (One day the Rainbow Serpent(彩蛇)woke from her sleep and came out from under the ground.

    She travelled a long way but finally got 2  because she was alone and so she returned to the place where she had first appeared, and called to the frogs. "Come out！"

    The frogs appeared one by one. It was difficult for them to move forward because stomachs were 3  water, which they had stored in their sleep. The Rainbow Serpent tickled(挠疼)the frogs and, when they 4  , water ran all over the Earth and that is how lakes and rivers were formed.

    Because there was water, all the animals 5  , and the grass and trees grew. The animals followed the Rainbow Serpent across the land. They were happy. Each lived and collected food with other animals of the same kind.

    At first, all the animals behaved well, but some started making 6  , and so the Rainbow Serpent made rules that they all had to obey.

    The Rainbow Serpent said, ""Those who obey my rules will get a reward(奖贫). I will turn them into humans. Those who don't obey my rules will be punished(惩罚)and turned into stone, and will never be able to   on the Earth again. "

    The bad animals became stone and turned into mountains and hills, and those who obeyed the rules were turned into humans, and lived with others of the same kind happily on the Earth.

My sisters and I recently returned from visiting our beloved parents in Florida. For six days, we spent about six hours on the beach 1 . We really 2 ourselves there.

I usually read books on the beach while my mom and sisters enjoyed 3 shells(贝壳). This time they 4 their pockets and bags with seashells, and then took them home. On the last day of our trip,I joined the family 5 of collecting shells too. I grabbed handfuls of(一把) sand and picked out shell treasures. Having 6 so many shell handicrafts(手工艺品) made by my mom and sisters before, I used to take shells for granted(理所当然). But I couldn't help but feel 7 at the shells in Florida. Some were big and in different 8 while some were no bigger than a nail, which was unbelievable.

 Many people know there's a beach full of 9 in Western Australia, which is over 74 miles long! It's called Shell Beach. But nobody exactly knows 10 seashell species(品种) there are on the beach:11 as many as 200,000 different kinds. However, very few of the shells have pearls(珍珠) in them. 12 The Science Network,"A finished pearl takes 15 to 20 years to make, which 13 why a ton of shells might produce as few as three pearls. The probabilities(概率) of them being 14 pearls are, exactly, one in a million."

I was lost in thought. The chances of finding a pearl in a shell are more than one in a million. Compared with shells,15 isn't so hard. The shells with pearls are valued by people and so is the person who gets to the top. So try to be a pearl on the beach!