A long time ago, there was a kind businessman named Antonio in Venice. One day, his friend Bassanio wanted to ask a lady named Portia to marry him. But he didn’t have any money to buy clothes and travel to her city. The man then tried to
1． some money from his friend Antonio.

However, Antonio had spent all of his money on some ships at sea. So he decided to borrow money from Shylock, a money-lender.

“I can lend you money,” said Shylock. “But
2． you don’t return it on time, you must give me a pound of your own flesh（肉）.” Antonio agreed.

Bassanio asked Portia to marry him successfully, but Antonio’s ships
3． at sea. This meant that he had no way to return the money to Shylock. He
4． face Shylock in court （法庭）.

Bassanio wanted to help his friend, but he didn’t know what to do. Then portia dressed
5． up as a male lawyer （律师）and followed Bassanio to the court. She checked the contract（合同）between Shylock and Antonio. Then, she told the court that Shylock could
6． one pound of Antonio’s flesh. But he had to do it
7．making Antonio lose blood.

This, of course, was impossible. The court
8． Shylock for trying to kill Antonio. The court took half of his money and gave the other half to Antonio.

Words in the Snow

In the time of the Yellow Emperor, there were no written words. People recorded things by tying knots（打结）in ropes and carving（雕刻） shapes on stone walls. One day, the Yellow Emperor discussed an event with a wise man named Cang Jie. Cang took out a piece of knotted rope, but found it was rotten（腐烂的）. It was impossible for him to remember the event clearly. Then he turned to a stone wall, but could hardly read the shapes on it. They had been carved by another person except himself.

“The ropes will be rotten. And the shapes can only be read by a few people, "the emperor said to Cang. “Can you come up with something better?”

Cang thought over the matter for days and nights. On the morning after a heavy snowfall, the earth was completely white. He saw the footmarks of some different animals by accident. These footmarks helped him to recognize what animals had passed by. Cang suddenly had an idea. He picked a stick and drew on the snow-covered ground. He first drew a tiger and a bear to show that they had passed by. But soon, he found this was taking too much time. He realized that he had to make the drawings easier.

All the shapes on the stone walls flashed through his mind. Cang kept making all kinds of shapes on the ground easier. To show the sun, for example, he used a circle with a dot（小点）in the middle. A half-circle and a vertical line（竖线）made up the moon. And three curves（曲线） were used to show water. Later, the sun appeared. These simple marks shone brightly in the snow.

In the end, Cang created a whole set of symbols to record things. People could easily understand these symbols. Since then, they have been able to record their own history.

Migratory birds （候鸟）fly to different places during different seasons. They may fly day and night for months at a time. During this long journey, when and how do they sleep?

In 2016, some scientists studied a group of frigate birds（军舰鸟）during a ten-day flying journey. They found that frigate birds can sleep while they’re flying! According to this study, these birds take two kinds of short sleep.

The first is called Rapid Eye Movement（REM, 快速动眼）sleep. It is the deepest period of sleep. For humans, REM sleep can continue for many minutes. For flying birds, however, REM sleep continues for only a few seconds（秒）. Even so, this period of sleep is still very important for their brain health.

The other kind of short sleep is “half sleep”. Frigate birds put only half of their brain to sleep, while the other half stays awake. The eyes of these birds are always connected to the waking part of their brain. In other words, they sleep with their eyes open. It is still a little dangerous to take such a short sleep, though. So, these birds prefer to stay awake most of the time. Before reaching land, they spend less than three percent of their time sleeping.

However, not all migratory birds sleep in this way. Many will make several stops on their way to get a good rest. Some stay completely awake for their whole journey. Alpine Swifts（高山雨燕）,   for example, can keep flying for nearly 200 days. There are few signs of these birds sleeping during their long trips.

The sleeping habits of birds are different from species（物种） to species. This makes the study of migratory birds very exciting for scientists. In the future, we may learn more amazing things about these animals!

A．

B．

C．

The Bird Mask

Today, doctors know a lot about how to stop germs (病菌) from spreading. They suggest people cover their mouths when they cough. Washing your hands often also helps.

However, people haven’t always known about germs. For many years, even doctors didn’t really understand how illnesses spread.
17． Some doctors even tried dressing like birds.

In 1619, the French doctor, Charles de Lorme, invented a special uniform. He hoped it could protect doctors who were treating plague (瘟疫) patients. The uniform had a long coat, gloves, boots (靴子) and a hat.

The doctors also carried sticks so they wouldn’t have to touch the patients. The most special part of the uniform was the mask (面具).

18． It had a beak (鸟嘴) that was about 15 cm long. There were also two eyeholes cowered in glass and two nostril (鼻孔) holes.

At that time, doctors believed the plague was spread by bad air. Any air that had a bad smell was dangerous.
19． They believed this could stop them from breathing the bad air and they wouldn’t get sick because of the plague.

Did it work? Well, not really. Certainly the germs sometimes traveled through the air, and the flowers weren’t able to stop them.
20．

Some forms of plague only spread through certain animals such as mice. The doctors’ uniform helped to protect them from this danger. However, largely the coat, gloves, boots and hat did the job, not the bird mask.

One Leaf, One World

Maybe you know Chinese paper cutting, but have you ever heard of leaf-cutting art?

In autumn and winter, many streets
29．（cover）in fallen leaves. Most of us probably just pass over them without paying much attention. But not Kanat Nurtazin, an artist from Kazakhstan （哈萨克斯坦）. He will pick up some fallen leaves and cut beautiful artworks out of them.

Kanat works at a university. He
30．（keep）drawing as a hobby to stay creative since 2013. This long-time hobby has also allowed him
31．（express）himself through art.

In 2013, Kanat
32．（start）a project called “100 Methods of Drawing”. In this project, he tries to use different materials and skills to create artworks. Among all these creative paintings, leaf-cutting art
33．（be）one of his favorites.

To make leaf art, Kanat first chooses a leaf from his collection. Then, he simply
34．（imagine）a funny story or a lively moment （时刻）. He draws it on a piece of paper and sticks the paper to the leaf. After the glue dries, Kanat uses a razor（剃须刀）to cut out the pattern（图案）on the leaf. Finally, the artist finds a beautiful background to take pictures of the leaf. And this “leaf story” will be shared online. A leaf’s life is short. But if you look at it with your creative eyes, like Kanat does, you too can give the leaf a second life by
35．（make）it tell an interesting story!

Rob Frenette, a Canadian boy, was often bullied （欺凌）at school. He was often lonely and scared. When he was fifteen, however, he decided to do something about his problems. He walked into a newspaper office and told them about the bullying. His story went into the newspaper and soon, all the TV stations in Canada wanted to talk to him about his experiences. They also wanted to hear his ideas about how to stop bullying.

In his free time after school, Rob helps other people with bullying problems.

With his friend Katie Neu, he set up the website www. bullyingcanada.ca. On the website, visitors can find advice, stories and poems about bullying, in both English and French. When people are upset, they can talk on the phone or online to Rob and his team.

Every weekend, Rob answers e-mails from people who have been bullied at school. He also speaks to children and teachers around Canada about bullying.

Rob’s most important message is: “When you’re bullied, there’s nothing wrong with you. So, keep trusting yourself. And remember that there are people who care about your problems. You just have to find those people. ”

One of Rob’s ideas is “Blue Day”, a special day that works to stop the problem of bullying in schools. On that day, students have to wear blue clothes, and in class, they learn how to stop bullying from happening. More than 150 Canadian schools now celebrate Blue Day. Rob says he won’t stop until there is Blue Day in every school in Canada.

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