Americans love pets. They own about 70 million dogs and go million cats. These animals are often treated as part of the family. However, they don't always bring fun to people. Sometimes they even bring hurt. Here let's take the dogs for an example.
"I sometimes get up at three or four in the morning and I surf the Internet."
"I often check my emails forty times a day."
"I often spend more than three hours during one time on the Internet."
"I spend more time in chat rooms than with my real-life' friends."
These are some students' answers about surfing the Internet.
Do you know any people like these? They are part of a new addiction (瘾) called Internet addiction. Internet addicts spend at least thirty to forty hours online every week. The use of the Internet can be an addiction like drug use. People lose control of the time they spend on the Internet.
For example, one college student had been missing for several days. His friends were worried, and they called the police. The police found the student in a net bar. He had surfed the Internet for several days and nights.
Studies show that about 6-10％of Internet users become addicted. And people worry about the teens because the Internet is changing the playing field for some of them. They spend more time in cyberspace (网络空间) than in the real world of friends and family.
Is "surfing the Internet" a hobby or an addiction for you? You may have a problem if you have these symptoms (症状):
You do not go to important family activities or you do not do your school work because you like to spend hours on the Internet.
You can't wait for your next online time.
You plan to spend a short time online, but then you spend several hours.
You go out with your friends less and less.
The Aborigines (澳洲土著) have lived in Australia for about 60,000 years. They painted pictures inside caves, and these are the rock paintings that have given us so much information about Aboriginal life. For example, some of the paintings that are about 10,000 years old show us with boomerangs (回旋镖). From this we know that the Aborigines started using boomerangs for hunting at that time. Other pictures show kangaroos, so we know that there were kangaroos at that time.
The Aborigines believed that spirits made people, animals and plants, and that these spirits still live on the Earth. For Aborigines, no one can own the Earth-the Earth belongs to the spirits.
In 1700, there were many Aboriginal groups with a population of 750,000 all over Australia, and there were probably more than 240 different Aboriginal languages. The groups did not have a leader. Instead, things were decided by the older men in a group. People from different groups often travelled hundreds of miles to meet each other.
Aboriginal life changed when an English boat arrived in Australia in 1770. Many Aborigines were killed in the wars that they had with the English. More Europeans came, and they started taking land from the Aborigines. The Europeans also brought new illnesses that killed the Aborigines. The result is that today there are only about 300,000 Aborigines in Australia.
Seven years ago, Kevin Stephan, then aged 11, was playing baseball when a player accidentally hit him with a bat (球棒).
Kevin fell down and his heart stopped. Penny Brown, the mother of another player, was watching the game. Penny usually worked in the evenings as a nurse, but luckily that evening she wasn't working. Penny ran to help Kevin and saved his life.
Nearly seven years later, Kevin was washing up in the kitchen of the Hillview Restaurant in Buffalo, New York State. Normally, 18-year-old Kevin had classes in the afternoon, but that week there were exams and he didn't have any classes. At about 2 p. m. , Penny Brown was having lunch with her family in the restaurant. She was eating when some food got stuck in her throat. She was very frightened because she couldn't breathe.
Kevin was a volunteer firefighter in his free time and he ran to help. A waitress tried to help her, but the food was still stuck in Penny's throat. Kevin pulled his hands quickly into her stomach and saved Penny's life. He didn't know it was Penny, but his mother, Lorraine Stephan, was also having lunch in the restaurant. She realized that Penny was the woman who saved Kevin's life, seven years ago, at the baseball game. Both Penny and Kevin were completely amazed by the coincidence (巧合)!
It is park at the bottom of the ocean. It's cold down there too. There's no air to breathe. The water pressure is high. There may be fishes that could hurt you. The deep sea can be an unpleasant place. But people are still fascinated by it, not just because of the amazing scenery. The seafloor might hold the secret to the beginning of life on Earth.
Oceans cover more than two-thirds of our planet. Yet, we have explored just a small part of the underwater world. A new project is there to explore the ocean deeper. A new US machine can carry people down to as deep as 6,500 metres. It will take the place of an older machine called Alvin. The old one has been in use for 40 years, but it can only go down to 4,500 metres. Alvin played a key role in many important tasks. Alvin helped biologists collect worms, chemists gather rocks, and oceanographers (海洋学家) map the seafloor and take water sample (样本).
But now it's about time for a new one. The new machine will be like Alvin. It'll also be about 27 feet long, about the size of a small school bus. The seating area inside will be small, about two metres wide. Like Alvin, it'll carry a pilot and two passengers. It will be able to move like Alvin does. It'll give passengers more chances to enjoy the view. Alvin has only three windows. The new one will have five. It will travel more than a mile an hour faster than Alvin. Getting to the bottom faster and moving around more quickly will allow researchers to make the most of their time underwater.
①it is park
②people hide some secrets
③there may be dangerous fishes
④there is no scenery
⑤it is cold
⑥there is high water pressure
You speak, write a letter, make a telephone. Your words carry a message. People communicate with words. Do you think you can communicate without words? A smile on your face shows you are happy or friendly. Tears in your eyes tell others that you are sad.
When you put up your hands in class, the teacher knows you want to say something or ask questions. You shake your head, and people know you are saying “No”. You nod and people know you are saying “Yes”. Other things can also carry messages. For example, a sign at the bus helps you to know which bus to take. A sign on the door helps you where to go in or out. Have you ever thought that there are a lot of signs around you and that you receive messages from them all the time? People can communicate in many other ways. An artist can use his drawings to tell about beautiful mountains, about the blue sea and many other things. A writer can write books to tell about all the wonderful things in the world and also about people and their ideas. Books, magazines, TVs, radios and films all help us communicate with others. They can help us to know what is going on in the world and what other people are thinking about.
Many people like talking with the word “dog”. They love their dogs and look after them well. But dogs without owners to care for them have a different kind of life. “To lead a dog's life” tells a person has an unhappy life.
Some people say we live in a “dog-eat-dog” world. That means many people are competing for the same things, like good jobs. They say that to be successful, a person has to “work like a dog”. This means he has to work very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired.
Still, people say “every dog has its day”. This means that every person enjoys a successful time during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that “you can never teach an old dog new things”.
They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.
We often talk about weather with the word “dog”. “The dog days of summer” are the hottest days of the year. The rain can make the weather cool. But we do not want it to rain too hard. We do not want it to “rain cats and dogs”.
People from other countries will find many different surprising things in Britain.
Greek: A man from Greece sees a special way of driving in Britain. People drive on the left in the British street, but the British people never feel surprised. The Greek man said, "I've been in Britain for nearly a month now. But at first, I couldn't always remember to drive on the left. Every time, my friend reminded me.”
Japanese: Japanese people can't understand why British people keep their shoes on at home. In Japan, people walk in the room without shoes. If a visitor keeps his shoes on at home in Japan, the Japanese people think he is very impolite.
Spanish: The Spanish people mind the way that the British people greet each other. They themselves seem to be afraid of touching. When they meet, they just smile or nod but never kiss or hug in Spain. But the British people think kissing is a very usual greeting when they meet!
There is ail old saying: “When in Rome, do as Romans do.” When we go to a foreign country, we should follow the etiquette (礼节）of country.
Library of Congress (国会）is in the United States. This library is the largest library in the world. It is 3 stories high and the book shelves in it are 500 kilometers long.
Resources
The library has a large collection of resources like newspapers，magazines, CDs, videos and CD-ROMs. There are also many rooms for people to meet each other or listen to music. It also has a language learning center. It gets 2,000 questions a day, and some can be answered in a few minutes. Some need more time, sometimes a few months. All workers in the library use computers to help them.
How to join
If you are a middle school or above, then you can come to the library and fill in a form. Don't forget to bring your ID card. You must be an American and live in the United States.
If you have time, come along to America and take a look around for yourself!
Long ago, people lived on wild animals，fruits and other plants and they didn't need to use money.
As time passed, families had more products than they needed, such as animals and crops. So they needed to trade (交易）with others. They began to use money to make it easier. However, it was not like the money we use today. They used shells, rice, salt or large stones.
During the 600s BC, people began using coins as money. Because they were easier to carry than goods (货物)，countries began to make coins as their money.
The Chinese were the first to use paper money, probably in the 11th century. An Italian traveler, Marco Polo, saw the Chinese use paper money when he visited China in the 1200s. After his travel, he told the western people what he saw. But European countries didn't start using paper money till the 1600s.
Today we have many ways to pay for things, such as coins, paper money and cards. Some prefer to pay by card. That's because paying with a card is easier and safer than carrying around a lot of “real” money.
