Each nation has many good people who help to take care of others. For example, some high school and college students in the USA often   many hours as volunteers in hospital ,orphanages or    for the aged. They read books to the people in these places, or they just visit them and play games with them or listen to their    .
Other young volunteers go and work in the homes of people who are sick or old. They paint, clean up. Or repair houses, do their shopping and mow their lawns. For boys who no longer have fathers there is an    called Big Brothers. College students and other    take these boys to baseball games or on fishing trips and    them to get to know things that boys usually learn from their fathers.
Each city has a number of clubs where boys and girls can go to play games or learn crafts. Some of these clubs show movies or organize short trips to the mountains, the beaches, the museums or other       of interest. Most of these clubs use a lot of high school and college students as      because they are    enough to remember the problems of younger boys and girls.
Volunteers believe that some of the      people in the world are those who help to bring happiness. Helping others brings them much pleasure.

阅读短文

读下面短文, 用方框内所给单词的适当形式填空, 每个单词只用一次。

Once a man had a hen and the hen laid two golden eggs every day. The man was very happy. Every day he took the two golden eggs and  ___1_____ them in the market. With the money he and his family lived ____2____.

One day one of his friends said to him, “Friend, every day you take these two eggs to market and sell ____3____ there. It is not easy money, isn’t it? Why not take out all eggs from her ____4____ at once?”

He liked the idea, but couldn’t make a ___5_____ to kill that hen. A few days ___6_____ he decided to implement (实施) that idea because he found the ___7_____ in his friend’s advice, and he was  __8____ tired of (厌烦的) taking those eggs to the market daily.

The next day he killed the hen and then opened the hen’s stomach. But as he opened her stomach, he couldn’t find ____9____ in it. He looked for them here and there, left and right, up and down, but there was nothing  ____10____. 

1根据短文内容，填人适当的词，完成句子。每空词数不限。

I'm Kitty. Today the clothes at Xingxing Clothes Store are on sale. So I want to buy some clothes for my grandparents, my parents, and myself. Let me have a look. This yellow sweater is at a very good price--only 15 dollars. And it's OK for my grandfather. For my grandmother, I want to buy a pair of black shoes. It's very comfortable (舒适的). How about this blue T-shirt? Oh, my father can wear it to play basketball. And-there are many socks in green, yellow, black, blue, red, and white. I know my mother likes red very much, so I will buy these red ones. I need pants, so I will take these blue ones.

1.The          is only 15 dollars.

2.Kitty wants to buy          for her grandmother.

3.The blue T-shirt is for her      

4.Kitty's mother likes red         

5.Kitty needs          , so she will buy some.

The world is not only hungry but also thirsty for water. This may seem strange to you, since nearly 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. But about 97% of that is sea water or salt water. Man can only drink and use the other 3% of fresh water from rivers, lakes, underground and so on. And we can not even use all of that because some of it has been made dirty.

Earth Day is April 22. But on all other days, we must also remember how important water is. The water that we use is the most important natural resource on the earth. Today we face serious water problems. One of them is water pollution. All kinds of things from cars, factories, farms and homes make our rivers, lakes and oceans dirty. Polluted water is very bad for people to drink. And dirty water is bad for fish, too.

How do cars and factories make our water dirty? First they pollute the air. Then when it rains, the rain water makes our drinking water dirty. Dirty rain, called acid rain is also bad for plants, animals and buildings. Scientists say that in 30 years, more than half of the people in the world won’t have enough clean water. We have to learn how to stop wasting water. One of the first steps is to develop ways of reusing it. Today in most large cities, water is used only once and then sent out into a sewer system (下水道). From there it returns to the sea or goes underground.

But even though every large city reused its water, we would still not have enough. So we should make use of sea water by removing the salt in it. If we can take these steps, fresh water won’t be used up.

1.The world is thirsty for water because _______.

A. we don’t have enough fresh water      B. a lot of water goes into sewer systems

C. only 70% of the earth’s surface is water                  D. sea water is widely used rather than fresh water

2.From this passage, we know acid rain _______.

A. is only bad for living things       B. is not bad for buildings and factories

C. can be produced in factories        D. is bad for people, animals, plants and buildings

3.One difficult way we can solve the problem is to _______.

A. use the water with salt in it           B. remove the salt from sea water

C. get water from underground              D. reuse the water in cities

4.What is the best title for this passage?

A. Fresh water and sea water               B. A thirsty country

C. The importance of water  D. The world’s water problem

There are hundreds of funny and strange expressions in the English language. A lot of them include country names or nationalities. Take these examples:
The Dutch（丹麦人）are the target of most English expressions about nationalities. Why are there so many jokes about the Dutch in English? And what do these expressions mean? In the 17th and early 18th centuries, there were three wars between the British and the Dutch, and Dutch became a bad word. So double Dutch means something that has no meaning or is impossible to understand. A Dutch uncle is someone who gives much stronger advice than they need to. There are later expressions, which are funnier and kinder, like to go Dutch, which is nowadays a popular expression. It means to pay for your part of a bill. This often happens when a group of friends have a meal together, and each person pays for the food they ate. I’m a Dutchman is another commonly used expression. This means not being able to believe something.
An expression with a similar meaning to double Dutch is it’s all Greek to me, which means I don’t understand. The expression was made famous in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar although the expression is actually hundreds of years older.
If you take French leave, you are not present or leave somewhere without permission. For example, you could take French leave from a classroom or the place where you work. This expression is from the 18th century when French people left parties without saying goodbye to the host or hostess.
There are Chinese whispers, which mean confused（令人困惑的）messages. This describes the fact that a message can often change as it is passed from person to person. This expression comes from the First World War when foreigners were often confused by Chinese language.
Many people find English expressions confusing, but now that you know about some of them, you can easily have fun finding out many more funny English expressions.
【小题1】Are there many jokes about the Dutch in English?
【小题2】When did Dutch become a bad word?
【小题3】What does “French leave” mean?
【小题4】Which three expressions mentioned above have similar meanings?
【小题5】What do the funny and strange expressions in the passage have in common?