Cutting Down the Amount of Homework（高一适用）

More and more students in Beijing are getting shorter sleeping time according to a recent study.     

A Quick E-mail（高一适用）

Mr Lynch left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick E-mail. Unable to find the piece of paper on which he had written her E-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory.     

A Wealthy Computer Programmer of Only 16（高一适用）

Computer programmer David Jones earned 35,000 dollars a year designing new computer games,yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a check card. ,Instead, he had been told to wait another two years until he is 18.     

The First Cotton Gin （高一适用）

Cloth-making was greatly increased, both in the United States and in England, by the invention of a machine to remove the seed from the cotton, which grew abundantly(大量地) in the southern area of the United States. This machine was the work of Eli Whitney, a young man from New England who had gone south to teach at school.     

Variety in Folk Songs（高一适用）

It is generally understood that a ballad is a song that tells a story, but a folk song is not so easily defined. A ballad is a folk song, but a folk song is not a ballad unless it tells a story.     

Mr,Mrs,Miss and Ms（高一适用）

Almost everyone knows the meanings of Mr, Mrs, and Miss. Mr is used before the surnames or full names of men. Mrs is for married women and Miss is for sigle women. But what is Ms?     

Mother＇s Day（高二适用）

An American woman Anna Jarvis ws the first person to decide that mothers should have a holiday in their honour each year.Miss Jarvis started her campaign in 1906 in her home city Philadelphia.She wrote thousands of letters to congressmen(国会议员）,city officials,teachers and newspaper publishers,     

Less TV Reduces Kid＇ s Weight（高二适用）

PALO ALTO, California-Switching off the television may help prevent children from getting fatter--even if they do not change their diet or increase the amount they exercise, US researchers said last week.     

The Water Cycle（高二适用）

Most of the earth is covered with water. About 70 per cent of the water on earth is in the oceans,but water also exists in rivers and lakes. It occurs as ice or water vapour in the air. All together, there are about 330 million cubic (立方体的) miles of water on earth.     

Eyeglasses（高一适用）

Do you wear glasses yet, I mean? Because if you don't, you will. I never thought I would, but I do, for reading and writing.     

Bill Gates（高一适用）

Bill Gates is one of the world‘s richest men.It is estimated that heearns about US $30 million a day.This figure,however,depends uponthe value at any time of his computer software company,Microsoft.     

John Denver（高一适用）

John Denver has got international fame as a pop star, song writer,actor and environmental activist(环境保护者). Songs like Take Me Home,Country Road, Rocky Mountain High and Annie‘s Song have become very     

Don＇t Go to Kauai（高二适用）

Don‘t go to Kauai. Go to any of the other Hawaiian Islands—Maui, Lanai, the Big Island—but leave Kauai for us. The weather onKauai is so unpredictable. Sometimes it rains all day—in fact,