It's a rainy Saturday. Mary and her family are spending the afternoon at home. Her uncle and aunt are visiting them.

    Mary's father, Mr Harris, and her uncle and aunt are in the living room. Her father is drawing a picture and her uncle and aunt are watching the news on TV. They are also talking.

    Mary's elder brother, Peter, is in his bedroom playing computer games. He is a computer fan and he spends much time playing on the computer. His younger brother, Jim, is also in the living room. He is playing with his model cars.

    Mary's mother, Mrs Harris, is in the kitchen preparing food for all of them. She is making some hamburgers and orange juice.

    Mary is talking to her friends, Lucy and Tom. They are from another town and want to draw pictures and play with Mary.

    Fluffy, the family cat, is sleeping on the kitchen's sofa. He is a lazy cat. Fluffy eats a lot, and he is a really fat cat.

回答下面5个问题，每题答案不超过8个词。

    One day a little boy came into a fruit shop. He had five dollars and wanted to buy some apples. He said to the shop owner,“Give me $5 worth of apples, please.”

    When the shop owner gave him the apples, the boy counted them and felt very surprised. Then he said:“Last Friday, my mother bought apples here for $5, too. Why did you give me fewer apples?” “Don't ask questions, boy. I have no time for questions.”

    “Excuse me, sir.” said the little boy, “but…”

    “It is all right, my boy,” said the shop owner, “Don't you know? The fewer apples you get, the less fruit you will have to carry.” “All right.” said the boy and he gave $4 to the shop owner. He was just going to leave the shop when he heard the words:“Come back! You must pay me $5.” But the boy replied: “Don't you know? The fewer dollars you get, the less money you will have to count.”

    It isn't hard to plant potatoes.

    First, you take a seed potato and cut it into four pieces. Be sure each piece has one or two eyes where it will begin to grow.

   ①    Second, cut the pieces in water for one day.

   ②    Third, plant each potato piece about four inches under the soil.

   ③    Fourth, water the soil two or three times a day.

   ④    Finally, put out any weeds（杂草）in the area. Your new potatoes will be ready to eat in about two months.

    There is a new shopping mall near my school. It is very easy to find. It is near the bus stop and the taxi rank. The mall is very big. There are five floors of shops and each floor is very big. There are lots of clothes shops. It is great for girls. However, there are not many shops for boys. There is only one sports shop. I think the mall needs some more. There are lots of restaurants on the top floor. You can eat different kinds of food from different countries. I like Chongqing Restaurant best. It has great food from Sichuan. I like the big cinema. I like watching a film before I go shopping. I do not like the computer games center. It is small and there are too many people. The mall is a fun place to go. It is a good place to meet friends.

    Many Chinese students are good at English grammar, but their spoken English is so poor that they are afraid to speak in class or have a talk with others. There may be some reasons for their problems with spoken English.

    First, they fail to express themselves clearly because of a limited(有限的)vocabulary. The useful way is to enlarge their vocabulary. However, you can still communicate with others with a limited vocabulary, if you are active. Others will understand you with the help of your body language.

    Second, they are worried about making mistakes. Because they are shy and nervous, sometimes they may make mistakes easily. Yet we should know what we aim at is FLUENCE(流利) not ACCURACY(精确) when speaking. So we should speak as quickly and well as we can, even though sometimes we may use a wrong word or tense(时态), but it doesn't matter because others will still understand you.

    The third reason is that they don't pay enough attention to listening to what others are saying. So while you are speaking, you can't find the suitable topic or words to say. You have one mouth but two ears! What you hear is necessary for you to start speaking.

    Fourth, most Chinese students are passive(被动的) language learners. They just sit there waiting for speaking chances, and don't actively look for chances to improve their spoken English. All they can get is to accept the fact that their English remains poor.

    “Practice makes perfect ".So please be active from now on, try to catch every chance to speak wherever you go.

USE IT or LOST IT? It is up to you.