学进去

Nowadays, people usually shake hands when they meet each other. Do the Chinese always greet others like this? In fact, handshaking was introduced to our country around 100 years ago.

There were several kinds of greeting in ancient China. Among them the fist and palm salute(拱手礼) was a quite common one, with a history of about 3, 000 years. It was first used by people in the West Zhou Dynasty. In ancient times, if people met a stranger, their hands were always ready for holding something used for fighting. Holding out both hands showed that people could feel relaxed.

When people meet, men usually use their left hand to hold the right one. It’s believed that people considered the left as the important side for men in Chinese history. While for women, the important side is the right. So when they give the fist and palm salute, they should put their right hand on the top. When someone presents the fist and palm salute to you, you are supposed to do it back as well.

In many wuxia or kung fu TV series and movies, people greet each other with the hold fist salute, or Baoquan in Chinese. The gesture (手势) is that the right hand is made a fist, while the left band is to cover the right fist. It’s similar to the fist and palm salute, but they are different. Baoquan is widely used among kung fu masters and students.

So, don’t make a mistake.

	Six years ago	Now	In the future (将来)
Appearance (外貌)	又矮又瘦	个子高	打算学习如何煮饭和打乒乓球 (learn how to…)
liked / like
could / couldn’t can / can’t

How time flies! I changed a lot.

Six years ago._____________________________________________________________________________

Now. ____________________________________________________________________________________

Thank my parents and teachers for their help!

Do you like shopping on the ______ ? I like to buy books online (在线的). Usually you don’t have to pay a lot. When I want to know something about the book. I write ______ to the online shop for an answer. I am shy (害羞的). It is ______ for me to talk to the shopkeepers in real shops.

Sometimes online shops have pictures of books. They can ______ you some pages of the book, too. I think this is very helpful. I don’t like read books in shops because the shopkeepers may come and ______ to me. I don’t know ______ to say to them.

I can shop at midnight if I want to. Real shops close at nine o’clock in the evening. Some people may worry about that the postman may lose or damage (损坏) the things they buy from online shops, but I don’t ______ about that. I think it is hard to damage a book and most of the postmen are very ______.

Some people say that shopping in real shops is good because you can go with your friends and look at many different things. They call this window shopping. I don’t have any friends and I don’t like to talk too much — it makes me ______.

I am teaching my grandmother how to shop online. She cannot walk very fast so it will make shopping easy for her if she shops online. My brother ______ wants to learn how to do it. He is very busy most of the time. When he has a little free time, he can shop online.

A clever man

A gentleman met Bill one day. The rich man said, “They say you are very clever, but I don’t believe it.” Bill said with a smile (微笑) , “I am not clever. Instead (然而) , you are very stupid (愚蠢).” The gentleman became very angry. Bill said, “Please don't be angry, sir. If (如果) you don’t believe (信) what I said, let me ask you one question. If you have a group (组) of cows, and I give you another (另一个) group, then how many groups of cows do you have?” “Why, that’s the easiest (最简单的) question in the world! One and one is two, I have two groups of cows.” Bill laughed and said. “You are wrong, sir. Two groups put together are still one group. That is the easiest question in the world.”

It is evening, _______ old cock (公鸡) is _______ in a tall tree. A fox comes to the tree and looks at the cock. “Hello, Mr Cock, I have some good news for you.” says the fox. “Oh?” says the cock, “What is it?”

“All the animals _______ good friends now. Let’s _______ friends, too. Please come down and play _______ me.” “Fine!” says the cock. “I’m very glad to hear that.” Then he looks up, “Look! Something is over there. “_______ are you looking at?” asks the fox.

There seems (似乎) to be apps (手机应用软件) for everything. And mobile apps have been a part of (一部分) our life. The following apps are part of the most popular ones.

Ctrip can be a helper when you feel it’s hard to buy train or plane tickets. You can buy tickets anywhere anytime.

Ximalaya Reading has lots of books including (包括) poems (诗歌), short stories, novels (小说) and even fairy tales for children. You can listen to books online. You can also download book recordings (录音).

BabyBus is a very good friend for children under three years old. Kids can learn to speak, understand numbers and draw pictures with the help of this app.

Word 100 can help us learn English when you’re playing games. So if you have problems (问题) in remembering the new words when you learn English, use it!

A blind man took out a small blackboard and put it near him. There was a sentence on the blackboard. It said. “I’m blind. Please help me.” Some people walked by and gave him some coins. When the coins touched the ground. they made a little noise. And the blind man nodded(点头) his head and said “Thank you.” Then a young woman came up to him. She cleaned the words on the man’s blackboard and wrote a new sentence. Guess what? Many people gave the blind man more coins. And the coins made much more noise. He had no time to nod his head and say thank you.

At last, the woman came back. She stood in front of the blind man without a word. The man knew it was her. He asked,“What did you write on my blackboard?” The woman smiled and said, “I did nothing, but just made your words beautiful.” It said, “It’s a beautiful world, but I can’t see it!”