Service on the 102-km high-speed railway between Shenzhen and Guangzhou started on December 26, 2011. A non-stop trip between the Guangzhou South Station and the Shenzhen North Station takes 35 minutes at full speed.

    The train runs at the highest speed of 300 km per hour. All 36 pairs of trains run every day. A one-way first-class ticket costs 100 yuan. A second-class one costs 75 yuan, 5 yuan cheaper than a second-class ticket on the slower line.

    A high-speed train has 556 seats, including 16 seats in the VIP rooms and 50 in the first-class carriage (车厢). It offers more advanced facilities (先进的设施). For example, the seats are more comfortable, there are toilets for the disabled (残疾人), and there are power outlets (电源插座) in the first-class carriage.

    The high-speed service between Guangzhou and Shenzhen will be a convenient choice for many people. “I won't need to travel to the Guangzhou East Station to take a train to Shenzhen,” said Wang Yi, who lives in Panyu district in Guangzhou.

    Many people still prefer the slower trains, because the terminals (终点站) of the high-speed trains are far away from the centres of both cities. “I would not like to take a high-speed train to Shenzhen. I live in the centre of Guangzhou. First I have to get to the Guangzhou South Station. It is a waste of time for me,” said Zhang Lu.

    Donna Reid had just finished her training as a children's doctor. A famous research hospital in New York had offered her a job with good pay. And her boyfriend, Tony, had a clinic in their hometown and hoped she could work with him. At the same time, a small hospital, Backwoods Hospital, in a very poor area had also offered Donna a position. Now it was time for her to decide where to work.

    Dad: Donna, that research hospital in New York has a good reputation for children's medicine. Some of the best children's doctors in the country work there and you can learn a lot from them.

Mom: Yes, I agree it's a good hospital and the pay is good, too. But, that's not the point.

    Dad: Then what's the point?

Mom: It's in New York, too far away!  Let me tell you what, dear Donna. Tony's clinic is just several blocks away. You don't need to travel far if you work there. Tony is a nice young man and I guess you'll get married soon.

    Dad: Ha! It's hard enough to live with a husband or wife. Working with them, too? That's a choice for trouble. Well, Donna, what do you think?

    Donna: I'm thinking about accepting the offer from Backwoods Hospital.

    Dad: But Donna, look at their offer! You'll be on call six days a week, 24 hours a day. That's really a hard job.

    Mom: Oh, Donna, the pay is another problem.

    Donna: It isn't a dead-end job, Mom and Dad. But anyway, I didn't __.

    Dad: No? Then why did you become a doctor?

    Donna: I want to help people. You know that. And Backwoods serves a very poor and needy population. Backwoods, here I come!

    Libraries give kids a quiet and safe place to read and learn. For over 100 years, libraries have played an important role in Americans' education. But how are these book—filled buildings changing with the times? You may be surprised to find out.

    Benjamin Franklin famously founded(创建)America's first lending library in 1731. But the public library system got its biggest development in the American history in the late 1800's. Businessman Andrew Carnegie donated millions of dollars to help build free public libraries across the country. Between 1886 and 1919, Carnegie's donations helped build 1,679 new libraries.

    Carnegie believed that libraries could offer the chances to Americans, young and old. He knew that the more libraries there were, the more people would have opportunities to read and use books, speeches and news.

    If you can easily find a public library in your community(社区), you'll get more chances. After all, the United States has 9,225 public libraries. Today, libraries keep growing. Seven tenths of the libraries have free Internet. It provides much more information and opportunities to ask for jobs online.

    Libraries are also teaching kids about the fun of reading. The new program Read! Build! Play! adds reading into playtime. As kids listen to a book that is being read aloud, they use Legos(乐高积木)to build images(图像)from the story happily. Today's libraries are always looking for creative programs to bring people into the library.

    Benjamin Franklin once said, "The doors of wisdom(智慧)are never shut." As long as the doors of public libraries are open, what he said is most certainly correct!

    It's Monday today. When Alice gets up in the morning, she finds everything is white. It's snowing. It looks very cold. So she puts on a warm sweater. After having some milk and bread for breakfast, she wants to ride her bike to school. But her mom tells her not to do that because there's too much snow on the road. Then she walks to school. There's a P. E. class on Monday. Alice is very happy because she can play with snow with her friends.

    April 22 is Earth Day. Everyone on earth should care about and protect the earth! The earth has warmed by about 1 °F over the past 100 years, but why and how? Well, scientists are not quite sure. Maybe the earth gets warmer and warmer on its own. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    First, greenhouse effect(效应) is a very important reason for the change of the earth. People give out too much energy into the air every year. It makes the earth warmer. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Sometimes it becomes too hot and sometimes too cold. Sometimes there is too much rain and sometimes too little. The change of the climate makes the earth warmer. In turn, the warmth of the earth changes the climate, too.

    When the earth becomes warmer, there may be more rain and a rise in sea level. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} On a Pacific island, 100 people have to move to higher ground because the sea is rising. These people can no longer live on the coast. Before that, two islands without people went underwater in 1999. Scientists say that the seas can rise by nearly one metre by 2100.

People can affect the earth's air, land and water. As for us, we can do many things to protect the earth.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} We can tell more people about protecting the earth.

Hi, I'm Gina. In February, 2018 my mother had a yard sale. During the sale, she had a conversation with a young girl called Nancy, for they had a common interest in some books she had for sale. They enjoyed their conversation so much that they exchanged their phone numbers. Later they became friends and got together a few times. When my mom moved into her new house, she had a family dinner and invited Nancy and introduced her to my brother. Five months later Nancy married (结婚) my brother.

In 2018, there was another special "yard sale" that I'll never forget. One day, after work from school, I found one of my neighbors had a lot of things out in their front yard with cars and people everywhere. I ran to the yard at once and wanted to find some good cheap things too before everything good was gone. But then I found out it wasn't a yard sale. In fact, policemen were taking the stolen (被偷的) things out of the house. My neighbor was a thief! Luckily, I didn't ask how much the TV was.