One day, some tourists came to a hotel but there were only two rooms left. One was on the fourth floor and the other was on the seventh floor.

    "We Chinese like the number 8. 8 means we will get rich. We also like 9 because it means we can live long. But we don't like the number 4 because it sounds like 'death' in Chinese. I think if we sleep on the fourth floor, we may die?

    The Greeks said,"We want the room on the fourth floor." In Greece, 4 is a lucky number.

    The South Korean said, "We don't like number 4 or 13. 4 sounds like 'death', and 13 is an unlucky number in the west." The tourists from the west said, "Oh, we love number 7. There are seven days in the world as it says in the Bible(圣经).We don't like the number 13. It is an unlucky number. If we sleep on the 13th floor, oh…"

    "In Japan, 4 sounds like 'death', so we don't like it. And 6 is also not welcome. There isn't the fourth floor or the sixth floor in the tall buildings in our country. However, we like 7 very much", said the Japanese.

    At last, only the Greeks lived on the 4th floor, and the rest slept on the 7th floor.

    The robin (知更鸟) stood on an old climbing plant, and sang his most beautiful song. Suddenly the wind made the plant move, and Mary saw something under the dark green leaves. The thick, heavy plant was covering a door. Mary's heart was beating fast and her hands were shaking as she pushed the leaves away and found the keyhole. She took the key out of her pocket, and it fit the hole. Using both hands, she managed to unlock the door. Then she turned round to see if anyone was watching. But there was no one, so she pushed the door, which opened, slowly, for the first time in ten years. She walked quickly in and closed the door behind her. At last she was inside the secret garden!

    It was the loveliest, most exciting place she had ever seen. There were old rose trees everywhere, and the walls were covered with climbing roses. She looked carefully at the grey branches (枝条). Were the roses still alive? Ben would know. She hoped they weren't all dead. But she was inside the wonderful garden, in a world of her own. It seemed very strange and silent, but she did not feel lonely at all. Then she noticed some small green shoots coming up through the grass. So something was growing in the garden after all! When she found a lot more shoots in different places, she decided they needed more air and light, so she began to pull out the thick grass around them. She worked away, clearing the ground, for two or three hours, and had to take her coat off because she got so hot. The robin hopped around, pleased to see someone gardening.

    In the mid 1990s, people started doing business on the Internet. At that time, there were two kinds of companies. First, there were traditional companies which sold things in shops. Then, there were Internet companies which didn't have shops; they sold things only over the net.

    Traditional companies didn't want to lose any business. Quickly, they created their own website and began selling things over the net. These are the so-called "brick and click" companies. Many shops are made of brick, and you click on your mouse to buy things with your computer. That's where the name "brick and click" comes from.

    By the late 1990s, e-businesses like Amazon.com and Buy.com were in trouble. Their profits were not very high, and there was a lot of competition. Many of these businesses lost a lot of money, and in 2000, many e-businesses went out of business.

    Why are "brick and click" companies, like Barnes & Noble, Toys "R" Us, and Walmart so successful? First, many customers know and trust their names. Their websites, like walmart.com, are easy to remember. These companies also have a lot of experience. They know how to run a successful business.

    In the world of e-commerce, companies are fighting for every dollar and every customer. Will "brick and click" companies win the war? Only time will tell.

    Mr. and Mrs. Brown are from America. They are now teaching English in Zhengzhou. Their son Jack is with them. Jack speaks English. They want him to learn some Chinese. Jack is in Grade Three in a Chinese school. He plays with Chinese children every day. He listens to Chinese, speaks(讲) Chinese, reads books in Chinese and writes in Chinese. He is doing well in his Chinese.

People like to take pictures. It's easy for them now {#blank#}1{#/blank#} they can use their phones to do it. Many people also use Adobe Photoshop(一种绘图软件) to make their pictures look {#blank#}2{#/blank#}( good). But an artist called Marina {#blank#}3{#/blank#}( use) Photoshop to make works of art. Back in 2015, Marina {#blank#}4{#/blank#} ( see) some old black—and—white photos online. She decided {#blank#}5{#/blank#}( add) color to the photos so they would look more nice. Marina colorized (给……着色) some {#blank#}6{#/blank#} ( photo) of New York City. People took them about 100 years ago. She also colorized some photos {#blank#}7{#/blank#} famous people, such as France {#blank#}8{#/blank#} ( science), Marie Curie. Colorful pictures {#blank#}9{#/blank#} ( be) more beautiful. They can help people see the past in {#blank#}10{#/blank#} new way. 

X-rays were discovered in 1895 by a German professor, Wilhelm Roentgen. People all over the world were amazed by his invention, the X-ray machine. This invention was so important that Roentgen won the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901.

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, a doctor and speech teacher. The first phone call was made by Bell in 

1876. He got acid (酸) on his pants by accident and wanted his partner, Thomas Watson, to help him. The first words spoken on the telephone were "Mr. Watson, come here! I need you!"

Television was invented in 1926 by John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor. Baird's television certainly didn't look like a television today! Electronic televisions like the ones we have today were invented by Vladimir Zworykin in the 1920s in the United States.

The first computer was built in 1946 by two American engineers, J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. It was developed for the army, and it was so large that it took up a whole room! Later, in 1971, the "microchip" was invented, and small home computers were first produced for personal use. Today computers are used in almost everything we do and are found almost everywhere we go.