Jed and Matt were walking home from school. It was the first really cold day of winter. "The 1 on the river is hard!" Matt shouted. "Let's take a shortcut (捷径) across. "

    Jed made a face. "It started to freeze," said Jed. "I don't think it's 2." "You're afraid of everything," said Matt with a laugh. "3 you want to walk all the way to the bridge, go ahead.  I'm going to 4 here." Then he ran toward the river. Now Matt was near the middle of the river. "Are you still 5, Jed?" he laughed. "Look how 6the ice is." Matt jumped up and down a few times to 7 his point.

    Crack! Loud sound filled the air. Matt looked down. In all directions, the thin ice was8away from his feet. Another crack, and Matt was in the river! "Help!" Matt screamed. His wet clothes pulled him down.

    Jed felt the ice, 9 testing the area around him. Using the feet, he pushed 10 slowly toward the hole in the ice. Gripping (抓牢) the ice with his feet, Jed took hold of Matt's 11.

    Little by little, he dragged (拖) Matt out of the water and then across the ice. After what seemed like hours, they reached the 12.

    A police car came up to them. Officer Crane helped Matt into the car. After hearing the story, Crane said, "Well, Jed, it sounds like you are a 13. Maybe I should call the newspaper. Someone from the paper can come and take your picture and write an article. "

    "Good idea," said Matt.  He was feeling a lot  14.  "I have never had my picture in the paper."

    "I was talking about 15 picture," said Crane.  "He is a hero."

    Once there is a boy in London. His name is Jimmy. He starts painting when he is three years old, and when he is five years old, he is already very good at it. He paints many beautiful and interesting pictures, and a lot of people buy his pictures. They say, “This boy is going to be famous when he's a little older, and then we're going to sell these pictures for a lot of money.”

    Jimmy's pictures are different from others' because he never paints on the whole of the paper. He only paints on half of it, and the other half is always empty.

    “That's very clever,” people say. “No other painters have ever done that!”

    One day someone asks Jimmy, “Please tell me, Jimmy, why do you only paint on the bottom (底) half of the paper, but not on the top half?”

    “Because I'm small,” Jimmy says, “and my brushes can't reach very high.”

Misunderstandings

    A man, wearing dirty clothes, with dirty hair and only 35 cents in his pocket, got on a bus and headed straight for the restroom. He thought that if he hid in the restroom, he could ride to New York without paying. But a passenger at the back of the bus saw him. She tapped(拍)the person in front of her on the shoulder and said, "There's a bum in the restroom. Tell the bus driver. "That passenger tapped the person sitting in front of him. "Tell the bus driver there's a bum in the restroom," he said.

    The message was passed from person to person until it reached the front of the bus. But somewhere along the way, the message changed. By the time it reached the bus driver, it was not "There's a bum in the restroom" but "There's a bomb(炸弹)in the restroom. "The driver pulled over to the side of the highway(高速公路)at once and called the police. When the police arrived, they told the passengers to get off the bus and stay far away. Then they closed the highway. That soon caused a 15-mile-long traffic jam. With the help of a dog, the police searched the bus for two hours. Of course, they found no bomb.

    Two similar-sounding English words also caused trouble for a man who wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland, California. His problems began at the airport in Los Angeles. He thought he heard his flight announced, so he walked to the gate, showed his ticket, and got on the plane. Twenty minutes after take-off, the man began to worry. Oakland was north of Los Angeles, but the plane seemed to be heading west, and when he looked out his window all he could see was ocean. "Is this plane going to Oakland? "he asked the flight attendant. "No, "she said. "We're going to Auckland-Auckland, New Zealand."

    Because so many English words sound similar, misunderstandings among English-speaking people are not uncommon. Most misunderstandings are much less serious. Every day, people speaking English ask one another questions like these: "Did you say seventy or seventeen?" "Did you say that you can come or that you can't?"

    Similar-sounding words can be especially confusing（混淆）for people who speak English as a second language. When a Korean woman who lives in the United States arrived at work one morning, her boss asked her, "Did you get a plate?" "No." she answered, wondering what in the world he meant. She worked in an office. Why did the boss ask her about a plate? All day she wondered about her boss's strange question, but she was too embarrassed to ask him about it. At five o'clock, when she was getting ready to go home, her boss said, "Please be on time tomorrow.

You were 15 minutes late this morning." "Sorry," she said. "My car wouldn't start, and…"

    Suddenly she stopped talking and began to smile. Now she understood. Her boss hadn't asked her, "Did you get a plate?" He had asked her, "Did you get up late?"

    Auckland and Oakland. "A plate" and" up late". When similar-sounding words cause a misunderstanding, probably the best thing to do is just to laugh and learn from the mistake. Of course, sometimes it's hard to laugh. The man who traveled to Auckland instead of Oakland didn't feel like laughing. But even that misunderstanding turned out all right in the end. The airline paid for the man's hotel room and meals in New Zealand and for his flight back to California. "Oh well, "the man later said. "I always wanted to see New Zealand."

Hello! My name is Zhao Na. I'm nine years old. I am in Rizhao, Shandong. My first name is Na and my last name is Zhao. My English name is Julia. I like green. My telephone number is 1238-6517. I have a good friend. She is English, but now she is in China. Her name is Helen Smith. Helen is her first name and Smith is her last name. Her Chinese name is Wang Min. She is nine too. Her favorite color is red. Her telephone number is 2816-3018. Helen and I are in the same school. We study in the same class.

    One afternoon, Kate and her brother, Bob, went out to play. Kate was eight, and Bob was ten. "Let's go to the bridge and we can see fish in the river," said Kate.

    "I don't know..." Bob said. "Mum told us, 'Don't go on the bridge.' She said it's dangerous."

    Kate said, "I am not afraid. Are you?" They walked onto the bridge and began looking for fish in the river. The bridge was a train bridge. Trains went over the bridge three times a day.

    The children were standing in the middle of the bridge when they heard a loud noise. "A train is coming!" Bob shouted. "Run!" He ran to the end of the bridge. He was safe.

    Kate ran, too, but she fell. The train was coming fast. Kate ran towards Bob. She fell again right on the train tracks (铁轨). There was no time to leave. She had to lie down between the tracks. A few seconds later, the train went over the girl, but she was not hurt at all. She stood up and said to Bob, "Don't tell Mum! Don't tell Mum!"

    At last their mother found out about the story. She was angry because they went on the bridge. But she was happy that Kate was all right.

    There is an elephant and a monkey. They're friends. But one day they want to know who is stronger(更强壮的). A rabbit says. The one who can get apples from the tree across the river is stronger. The monkey says, "I can't swim." The elephant says. "I can swim. Please sit on my back. So they go across the river. The apple tree is very high. The elephant can't reach the apples on the tree. The monkey climbs up the tree and gels many apples. Then they know they should help each other.