A short Chinese man is one of the biggest men in the world right now. He is Jack Ma (Ma Yun), the Chairman（董事局主席）of Alibaba Group. On Sept. 19,2014, Alibaba went public（上市）and raised $25 billion（十亿）. Ma, a former English teacher, has become the richest man in China.

    Born in 1964 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Ma grew up as a happy kid. When he was a teenager, he wanted to learn English. Every morning, he got up at 5a.m, rode his bike for 40 minutes to a hotel near the West Lake and talked with foreign tourists in English. He did it for nine years, rain or shine.

    The experience made him an excellent English speaker and also opened his eyes to the outside world. In 1994, Ma Yun heard about the Internet. And on a 1995 trip to the US, Ma was shown the Internet for the first time. He searched the word “beer” on Yahoo, and found that there was nothing there about China. Seeing the chance, Ma returned to China and set up a website called China Pages without even knowing much about computers.

    Four years later, Ma, his wife and his friends set up Alibaba in Hangzhou. He believed in the Internet business potential（潜力）when few other Chinese did, 15 years later, Alibaba has developed into the world's largest e-commerce company（电子商务公司），owning popular shopping websites like Taobao and Tmall.

  My family move to a new flat. I have some new neighbours now. I think they are all good.

    Erden Eruc has been rowing across the Pacific Ocean in a rowboat since he left California on July 10, 2007. He has been heading for Australia with only birds, fish, and sharks ever since.

    Crossing the Pacific is only part of his journey. Eruc has decided to go all the way around the world using his own energy. He will row, bike, walk and climb the world without help from any motors(发动机) at all. His plan includes climbing the tallest peak on six of the continents(洲) along the way.

    For the first part of his trip, he bicycled 5,546 miles from Seattle, Washington to Mount McKinley in Alaska and back, walked 67 miles to base camp and climbed 20,320 feet to McKinley's peak. Now in the second part of his adventure(冒险活动), he is rowing to Australia.

    Why would he try to go around the world this way? He explains that he wants to encourage kids to dream their dreams and get to their own goals. He wants to show kids that there might be hard parts along the way, and sometimes they might not even get to that final goal. But they can have adventures and learn a lot along the way.

    When his trip around the world takes him across land, he enjoys meeting people—especially children. He has already visited many schools and shared his story. Eruc encourages all kids to set their eyes on a goal and not give up. He says, "with goals, we will make progress, and we will be farther along than when we started, even if we don't get to some goals. That's called life!"

    Mr. King was the owner of a large company. One day, he went into his office early in themorning to get ready to go to the airport and set out for a city.

    He was leaving his office when Bill, a night watchman, came in Bill just came off work(下班).

    After saying “Good morning” to Mr. King, Bill told the owner about his bad dream. Last night he dreamed Mr. King's plane crashed after it took off. Mr. King was surprised to hear this. He decided to go by land.

    Bill's dream came true. That morning the plane really crashed just after it had taken off. Later Mr. King returned to his office and heard the accident. To express his thanks, Mr. King gave Bill 5,000 dollars with a letter. Mr. King told Bill that a man like him should be sent away. Bill was surprised and asked, ”Why?” Mr. King said,” Go home and read the letter, and you will know why.”

    Bill went home and opened the letter in a hurry. After he read it, he became sad. In the letter there is only one sentence. But it was enough to tell the reason.

根据短文回答问题

    A young woman turns around and around quickly, and jumps high. In the background, a young girl reads a rejection (拒绝) letter from a ballet school. You have the wrong body for ballet, 'it says,' and at thirteen, you are too old. This was one of the most popular advertisements (广告) of 2014 and it describes American ballet Theatre's principal (主要的) dancer Misty Copeland.

    This was not a real letter. But Copeland says it is very similar to letters from her childhood. While many dancers start at the age of three. Copeland only began to study ballet in 1995 as a thirteen-year-old. People often told her that she was too old, or that she didn't have the perfect body type (She is only 157 cm tall). Her family moved a lot, and it was sometimes difficult for her to attend ballet classes. But Copeland loved dancing and did not want to give up. She stayed with her ballet teacher during the week and spent time with her family only at the weekend. This was a difficult life, but she worked hard and won her first national competition when she was fourteen years old. Copeland joined the American Ballet Theatre in 2000 and performed in many ballets over the next few years. In 2007, she became a solo (单独的) performer, and in 2015 she became its principal dancer.

    Copeland is now a dancer, author and Broadway performer. She also stars in the 2015 film A Ballerina's Tale. So what's next? According to Copeland, anything is possible: "My career (职业) really is just now beginning.'

    Mandy Harvey is a 29-year-old singer from Florida. She lost most of her ability to hear when she was 18.

    Harvey became a singer in her teens. _________ But she decided to start singing after she learned how to feel a song's beat through the wooden floor of a stage or theater. She watches carefully to make sure her musical instruments are tuned correctly and she is singing in the correct pitch.

    Harvey is now a professional singer. But not many people in the United States had heard of her until Tuesday night. That changed when she appeared on the television show “America's Got Talent”The show has four judges who watch people perform and decide if they should continue in the competition.

    Harvey said, "I gave up singing after I lost my hearing. But I want to do more with my life than just give up." As she was singing, one camera cut away to capture images of people in the theater. Many were seen crying. At one point, everyone stood up and cheered. By Wednesday afternoon, a video of Harvey's performance had been played 46 million times.

    Why? Shortly after she finished singing, Simon Cowell, one of the judges, gave her a golden star into the air. That meant Harvey could move on to the final round of the talent competition. Cowell said," I've done this a long time, and that was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen and heard."

    Many people wrote online that Harvey's performance was encouraging, and they will not give up on anything they want to do, either.