{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us develop more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

    Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

    There is another difficult point for us Chinese to understand.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous (慷慨)with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly cannot manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}. We will find ourselves treated hospitably(好客).

    For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

A.Americans don't show their politeness if it requires a great deal of time.

B.Friendships between Americans usually extend deeply into their families.

C.Americans always show their warmth even if they are very busy.

D.Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real.

E.We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends.

F.If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship.

G.America is a mobile society.

    Listening to others requires entering actively and imaginatively into the situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own, and yet so many of us don't listen properly as we should. Listening means more than just sitting silently while someone else talks{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Here are some ways to become a better listener.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Make sure you actually hear fully what your friend is saying, and you can't cut your friend off verbally carelessly. While you might intend to help move the conversation along, your friend might feel as if what he has said need to be continually talked over or sound anything but interesting.

    Nod to encourage the conversation along. A better option to let your friend know you're interested in what he says is just to nod along from time to time. Sometimes you nod along but then start thinking about something unrelated to what he could say{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Turn out background noise. If you're easily distracted by laughter, glasses clinking, children crying, you might need to work extra hard to focus only on your friend{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Don't hesitate to tell them that the background noises are getting in the way. If you can't focus, try moving to another area.

    Don't text or look at your phone!{#blank#}5{#/blank#} For you see, when you're sitting in front of someone, he is the most important person in your world at that moment.

A. Stop the speaker whenever you have a question.

B. Practice silence when someone else is talking.

C. If necessary, ask your friend to repeat himself.

D. Whoever is calling or texting can wait until you're done with your conversation.

E. It means trying to see the problem the way the speaker sees it.

F. In this case, try to push away your thoughts until you're absorbed in what your friend is saying.

G. Remembering ideas from previous conversations proves that your attention is kept and encourages your friend to continue.

    A new urban sport, parkour, is hitting the streets. It has evolved from obstacle course training into a fitness option for young people. In parkour, the outside world is the gym! {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The goal of parkour is a direct route from one place to another. You meet an obstacle, you overcome it.

    Mark Toorock, who teaches the techniques of parkour at his fitness gym, says that parkour is a method to train the body and mind using obstacles as the medium. He says that this new sport is demanding and takes years to master. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    But Toorock, who used to be a martial arts expert, says that everyone can benefit from learning the basic skills involved in parkour like running, jumping and crawling (爬行). These are the things that humans used to have to do all the time. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The original idea of parkour was to return to running and jumping as basic elements in moving from one place to another.

    Georges Hebert, a French navy officer, was so impressed by the effortless athleticism of African tribes that he devised a training method based on running, climbing, jumping, balancing and throwing. The word parkour comes from parcours de combatant, the French term for a military obstacle course. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Dr Kenneth Kao explains that the sport of parkour is not extreme – it is the environment which is extreme and dangerous. Being outside, jumping off railings and flipping over park benches can be quite frightening, so parkour courses in gyms concentrate on practicing all the individual moves to make everything easier. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} However, that is not real parkour because it's indoors with a fixed obstacle. The goal for everyone is to go outdoors.

A. Gyms provide thick floor matting (垫子) for rolling and rubberized boxes for jumping over.

B. The bridges, buildings and railings (栏杆) of each and every city are the equipment.

C. Every action in parkour is natural, so everyone must have the ability to move in this way.

D. Parkour was introduced into china in recent years and has gained popularity.

E. But today, due to modern transport, these basic skills are no longer used on a regular basis.

F. The French word for people who participate in the sport is traceurs or traceuses.

G. Beginners should realize that they won't be jumping over buildings any time soon!

    Competition is all around us and it makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker. It can also teach us how to survive in a fast-paced and stressful world. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. How many of us have seen young boys weeping because their teams didn't win inter-school tournament? How many of us have seen young teenagers cheat just to win? {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. So it's important to develop healthy competition among children.

    When it comes to encouraging healthy competition among children, the first thing to do is set goals for them to stick to. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}.

    Since children may be easily affected by wrong ideas from popular media and the Internet, it's up to you to develop the right kind of spirit in them. Team spirit will help them grow into human beings who aren't easily annoyed by small losses or too excited by victories. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. So give them examples where family members refused to cheat to win.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. When they take an exam, don't ask about how much they expect to score; instead, ask what they wrote about. If your son played a cricket match at school, don't ask him whether his team won or lost; ask him how many runs he scored and encourage him to score higher next time instead. When you let your children know that you're more interested in how they performed rather than whether they lost or won, they will surely try to better themselves.

    Training for a marathon (马拉松) requires careful preparation and steady, gradual increases in the length of the runs. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}, buy the best-fitting running shoes you can find. No one can say which brand will work best for you or feel best on your feet, so you have to rely on your experience and on the feel of each pair as you shop. When you have found shoes that seem right, walk in them for a few days to double-check the fit. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. As always, you should stretch (伸展) at least ten minutes before each run to prevent injuries.

    During the first week, do not think about distance, but run five minutes longer each day. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}, it is wise to take a day off to rest. But during the next week, set a goal of at least a mile and a half per run. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. After two weeks, start timing yourself. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. Depending on the kind of race you plan to enter, you can set up a timetable for the remaining weeks before the race.

A. After six days

B. For a good marathon runner

C. Before you begin your training

D. With each day, increase the distance by a half mile

E. If they still feel good, you can begin running in them

F. Time spent for preparation raises the quality of training

G. Now you are ready to figure out a goal of improving distance and time

Top Poetry Writing Tips

Tip 1: Poetry involves work, rest and play.

{#blank#}1{#/blank#}It involves hard work, especially in the early stage when you are deciding on the overall form and tone of the poem, and getting the bones of it onto the page. But writing poetry should be a playful activity, too. Have fun playing around with the language, the ideas and the music inside the poem.

Tip 2: Poetry requires both words and silence.

Poetry has been defined as "the best words in their best order". Choose your words carefully for their sounds and meaning. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Just as the white space on the page is needed to shape the pattern of words, so the thoughts that are left unsaid, the pauses and the quiet hints, will add something extra to your poem. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}If you have created enough solid stepping stones in words and thoughts, then the reader will follow you to the end of the poem.

Tip 3: {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

Poets often turn to writing a poem when they experience a strong emotion and have the need to express it. The reading of other people's poetry can also give comfort or a sense that you are not alone in how you are feeling. But be careful not to write your poem with abstract emotions and don't tell your readers how to think or feel.

Tip 4: Writing poetry can be difficult to start and hard to let go.

It is often difficult to know how to start a poem, but the trick is to recognise the beginnings of them, in everyday life. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}They can start from remembering a funny conversation that you've overheard at the bus stop, yesterday's nightmare, a secret you've been told, or an interesting postcard that you have noticed in a shop. If you catch yourself thinking about something for more than a minute or two, that's when you reach for a pen and some paper and start jotting down(匆匆记下) thoughts, words and phrases.

A. But poetry is also about silence.

B. Writing a good poem rarely comes easily.

C. Don't be afraid of the gaps that you leave.

D. Poetry needs an emotion and a control of it.

E. Poetry sets the scene for readers to step into.

F. Poems don't have to come from exciting events.

G. You must write your feelings and views with passion.