Do you like Sun Wukong? He is one of the most popular novel characters in Chinese history. Not only young children but also adults love him so much. In our mind, he is a great hero in the Chinese novel Journey to the West.

    In the novel, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Seng beat demons(妖魔) and protect Tang Seng when they travel to the Western Paradise(西天). Sun Wukong was born from a stone. He can change himself into a tree, a bird, or and animal. With one somersault(筋斗), he can travel 108,000li.

    Sun Wukong is clever, brave and always makes fun magic tricks. Chinese people love him very much.

    Sun Wukong is also popular in other countries. Many western children love him and learn kung fu because of him. To them, he is a super hero, just like Superman and Spiderman.

    Do you know that a student can produce up to 240 pounds of school waste and lots of waste gas (气体) during a term? This includes transportation, food, paper, pens, pencils and so on.

    Transportation    Some parents drive their kids to school every day. We all know waste gas from cars is a main cause air pollution. If parents who live in a neighborhood can take turns to drive their kids to school each day, that'll be better. Another way of going green is to walk to school if students live near their schools.

    Food    It's surprising that only one elementary school can produce up to 19,000 pounds of lunch waste each year. That's only one school. One way to help take care of the environment is to stop using plastic bags. There are all kinds of environmental boxes for students to put their food in.

    Paper, pens and pencils Lots of paper is thrown away by American students. They throw away about 1.6 billion pens every year. They waste many pens and chemicals (化学药品) in them are bad for the environment. Many more pencils are thrown away than pens. Pencils are made from trees, so if more pencils are thrown away, more trees will be cut down. So students should reuse (再使用) paper, pens and pencils instead of throwing them away.

    Backpacks As fashion comes and goes, almost every kid needs a new backpack every year. They can save lots of money and materials if they reuse the same schoolbags each year.

    In order to learn how the students in our school spend money, we made a survey by asking them some questions. First, we asked them how much money they spent last month. And then we asked how much money they spent on snacks, books, movies, computer games, phones, transportation and other things last month. Our maths teacher helped us make a graph（图表） of their answers as follows.

    In our school, each student spent about{#blank#}1{#/blank#} yuan on average（平均）last month. According to the graph made by our{#blank#}2{#/blank#} teacher, we know how much money the students spent on different things in our school. As the graph shows, they spent most on{#blank#}3{#/blank#} , covering 22% of all. It was followed by computer games and movies. Each of them was {#blank#}4{#/blank#}  . But to our surprise, he students spent {#blank#}5{#/blank#} on books, only 6%.

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    The young woman at the airline check-in desk meant no harm. She greeted a customer with a question which would be no problem in Chinese," What's your problem?" But this question is impolite in English, and the customer became very angry. In this situation, the young woman should say." May I help you?" or" How can I help you?" Then she would not be facing an unhappy traveler.

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    Maybe you would like something. Instead of saying" Giving me a hamburger," say," Could I have a hamburger, please?" or "I'd like a hamburger." English speakers often use the expressions" please "and" thank you". When requesting something, use" Can I" or "Could I". In formal situations," May I" is the best.

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    When someone asks your opinion, you don't want to make them feel upset by saying something they think is unkind. Maybe someone asks," What do you think of my idea?" Don't say," It's a terrible idea." if you don't like it. Say," I don't think it's the best idea." Then people will accept your opinion more easily.

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    When you can't accept an invitation, don't say." I can't. I'm busy" Refuse in a more indirect way." I'm afraid I can't…" or" I'd love to, but…" or" That sounds great, but..." These phrases soften the message and make it easier to accept.

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    Avoid saying others have done wrong. Don't say," You don't understand me." Say, Maybe I need to make clear what I mean." Give special attention to" I" or" We" rather than" you". Take time to learn polite phrasing. Then you'll make your communication with people more pleasant.

Tips for Writing Better Articles

    Good writing skills will help us improve our grades and benefit us later in life.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Choose good words. When we're not sure which word is the right one for a sentence, look it up in a dictionary.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Check facts. If we want people to believe what we write, we must make sure our facts are true.

    Rewrite. A common problem is that we don't like to rewrite. In fact rewriting is the best way to find out and correct some mistakes, like grammar and spelling mistakes. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}, though it takes more time and more work.

    Read aloud. Sometimes it's easier to find problem with spelling and grammar when we read aloud. Reading aloud helps us not only find out our problems but also develop our writing.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Preparing a list is necessary for writing a good article. Such a list includes: Is there a proper title? Have we explained every point? Are all the parts of the article included? This can help us to make sure that we have covered everything.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. But with a few simple steps, we can improve our writing skills and learn how to write better articles.