—______ we reach an agreement.
What does taking a risk mean? It means trying 1 things even if（即使）they make you feel uncomfortable or afraid. One of the greatest risk I'd ever taken was playing a role in my high school's fall play. I was not only a person who had 2 performance（表演）experience, but also I stuttered（口吃）.
Then 3 of performing in front of people made me worried. The reason why I 4 to perform was that I wanted to take part in my school theatre program.
On the day of the audition（试演）,there were also some acting exercises to warm us up. We were divided into pairs to 5 parts of the play. I felt very worried. After I said some of the lines（台词），my partner said, “I 6 you are stuttering. Is that for dramatic effect or do you really stutter?” I was speechless.
When my 7 to audition came, my heart was beating fast. Across from me sat the director and his assistants（助手）. Needless to say. I was really 8 my performance. I played the role of a man painter who pretended（假装）to be a woman. My partner was playing a businessman who wanted to marry me（the woman）. We said our lines and, 9, I didn't stutter. We went through it several times, and finally it was over. I was so 10.
The next Monday I was told that I had made the play. How excited I was! It was a lot of fun doing the play, and it was clear to me that my stuttering couldn't 11 me doing what I wanted to do, and taking risks was well worth the time and 12.
Every living thing on Earth is either a plant or an animal, right? Wrong! Many organisms（有机体）in our world are neither. Some of them float through the air, and some lie hidden in the ground. They do not need sunlight to survive, and if the weather becomes too cold, they can become inactive until conditions improve.
What are these? They are called fungi(菌类), and you see them almost every day. Many kinds of fungi seem disgusting, such as the green black things that appear on the food which are left too long in the refrigerator. But other kinds are not so bad. For example, the yeast that is used to make bread and mushrooms (蘑菇) are both fungi.
What makes fungi different from plants and animals? An animal can move around by itself. Fungi get around too, but they don't have feet, wings, or tails. They have to wait for wind or some other outside force to move them. Plants are different from fungi because they have chlorophyll（叶绿素）. It helps them make food from the energy in sunlight. Fungi do not have chlorophyll.
Some fungi are bad, while others are not. Some fungi cause diseases, such as athlete's foot, which makes feet uncomfortable. Other kinds of fungi can be used to make medicines, which have saved many lives.
Fungi clean up more than wounds, though. They are the world's first recyclers. Without fungi, our world would be a mess. Since fungi cannot make their own food as plants do, they must get their food elsewhere. Many fungi get their food from dead plants. They break them down and turn them into soil. The fungi get a meal, and the world gets a housecleaning.
When was the last time you saw three men running down a forest trail（小径）in the rain wearing flip-flops（拖鞋）？That's what my friend Brandon, Josh and I were doing last autumn. We were looking for a waterfall（瀑布）.We didn't have much time to get to the waterfall and back, so we were running. We were wearing flip-flops to prevent our shoes getting dirty.
It was raining, but lightly. It kept us cool as we climbed over giant stones and through a shallow（浅的）stream. We followed red arrows（箭头）and crossed that stream several times, walking on toward the promised waterfall. Time was not on our side, however, and we were forced to turn around. As we started back, we looked at the shallow stream we had just crossed. Where did this rushing river come from? That was when we realized a flash flood was around!
In the few minutes the water rose at a fast speed. Now there were no big stones to be seen-only what looked like lumps（隆起）covered with rushing water. We had no choice but to move our way back carefully in the rushing water -in flip-flops. We had crossed the stream not once or twice, but six times in search of a waterfall that we never even reached!
With most of the crossings, we needed each other's help if we didn't want to be washed away by water. Wet all over, we felt relaxed after we made the last crossing.
"My dad always told me to keep off a river when travelling in the rain." Josh said as we hurried back down the path.
"Why didn't you tell us that earlier?" I laughed.
"Would it have made a difference?" came the reply.
He had a point.
While it is common for restaurant owners to connect with their customers, a restaurant owner in the U.S. is taking it to a whole new level. Tim Harries gives out free hugs（拥抱）to every customer at the end of each meal. The atmosphere（气氛）at his restaurant “Tim's Place” is so positive(积极的)that customers often call it the "World's friendliest restaurant”.
"Tim's Hug” is in fact an item on the menu described as a "love” treat. Tim's hugs are doubly special because of everything he has achieved. The 26-year-old is probably the only Down syndrome sufferer(唐氏综合症患者)in the U.S. to own a restaurant，but he has several other things to be proud of— he's a skillful special Olympian, an excellent sailor, and all experienced fisherman. He was also chosen as Homecoming King and Student of the Year in high school! So when a man like Tim hugs you，it is sure to be a special and unforgettable experience
When Tim expressed interest in opening a restaurant，Keith，a small businessman himself, supported him. Tim hired other people to manage the place and do the cooking, and he introduced the idea of free hugs. He realized that people want to feel at home at a restaurant. That is why he included "love” as all item on the menu. Customers can order the free hug from Tim，and even if they don't, he'll probably hug them anyway．
The restaurant has been around since 2010，and Tim has given out over 19,000 hugs in the past five years — he keeps count using a special Hug Counter．Many customers love visiting "Tim's Place". "I've been coming here once a week." said Michelle Garth-Jones, a regular customer. "I love local restaurants, and this special one has a story that stays with you."
Many expressions that we use in American English come from novels. Today we will look at some of them from Lewis Carroll's famous novel "Alice in Wonderland" in detail.
The story is about a young girl falling down a rabbit hole. When she finally lands, she finds herself in a strange world and meets some strange characters.
The first character Alice meets is the White Rabbit, who runs past her and says some strange words. Alice chases（追赶）him, and that is where her adventures begin.
In English, chasing a white rabbit means chasing an impossible clue and finding yourself in a misleading situation.
Then, as she runs after the rabbit, she falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
To fall down the rabbit hole can mean to enter a confusing（令人困惑的）situation. However, usually we use this expression to mean we get interested in something to the point of distraction（分神）.It often happens by accident and is about something not that meaningful.
Later in the story, Alice meets the March Hare and the Hatter at a crazy tea party. Hares（野兔）have long been thought to behave excitedly in March, which is their mating（交配）season. Scientifically, this may not be true. But to be mad as a March Hare means that someone is completely mad, or crazy. The expression mad as a Hatter also means to be completely crazy. Of the two, mad as a Hatter is more common. But don't tell the March Hare. Who knows how he will react（反应）！
Near the end of the story, Alice meets the Queen of Hearts. A woman who is called a Queen of Hearts likes controlling others and always tries to control everything and everyone around her.
The Internet nowadays opens a wide world to people, including teenagers, but many parents worry that their children may meet with something unhealthy when searching online. In order to solve this problem, a new search engine for children called Kiddle has appeared.
Search results are filtered（过滤）,so only safe website are shown and descriptions are written in simple language. Searches with bad words are shut off, too.
Kiddles uses the same colors as Google in its logo and a similar design on its homepage, too—with an extra robot picture.
The top three Kiddle search results show safe websites and pages written specially for kids, and those websites and pages are well chosen and checked by Kiddle developers.
The fourth to seventh results will be safe and trusted websites that are not written specially for kids, but have content written in a simple way. These results are also chosen and checked.
Results on the eighth and owwards pages are safe and famous websites that are written for adults. They provide expert content, but are harder for kids to understand.
Unlike on Google, most results appear along with large thumbnail pictures（缩略图）to make it easier for children to find what they are looking for. For example, when searching for "meow meow". Google produces pages for information about a drug（毒品）that has "meow meow" as its nickname（绰号）,but Kiddle lists information only about cats, even with some cartoon pictures.
The company explained, "Websites which appear in Kiddle search results satisfy family-friendly requirements, as we filter websites with unhealthy content."
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Kiddle—a Child-Friendly Search Engine |
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Characteristics |
Only safe websites are shown. Descriptions are written in simple language. bad words appear. |
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Logo |
It uses the same colors as Google with a robot picture. |
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Content |
The top three search results |
Websites and pages are written for kids, after being well chosen and checked. |
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The fourth to seventh results |
Websites are also worth and have content written in a simple way. |
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The eighth and onwards results |
Websites are safe and famous, written for adults, and they are not for kids to understand. |
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from Google |
Kiddle has many thumbnail pictures. Kiddle only gives safe information. |
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Advantage |
Kiddle satisfies family-friendly requirements. |
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—I （wash）dishes in the kitchen and didn't hear the doorbell.
—I'm not sure. I （not check）it carefully.
建议 | 理由 |
1).锻炼身体 | …… |
2).旅行观光 | …… |
3).公益活动 | …… |
4).自主学习 | …… |
注意：1）不得使用真实的姓名和学校名；
2）回信需要包括所有要点，并适当发挥；
3）语句通顺，意思连贯，书写整洁；
4）词数不少于90字（文章开头和结尾已经给出，不计入总词数）。
Hi, Xu Li,
How time flies! I'm happy to talk about your coming summer vacation.
I'm looking forward to your reply about your meaningful summer vacation.
Wang Hua
