A good relationship with teachers today may help you in the future. You will need teachers’ written recommendations (推荐信) to apply to a college or for a job after high school. Teachers are another group of adults in your life who can look out for you, guide you, and provide you with advice. They are willing to answer questions and help you with your personal problems.

We all have our favorite teachers—those who seem truly interested in us and treat us as smart people. You can do lots of things to develop a good relationship with you teachers. Show up for class on time, finishing all homework. Be respectful and ask questions. Show an interest in the subject. Show the teacher that you care.

If you’re having problems with the teacher, try to figure out why. If you don’t like the subject being taught, it can affect your relationship with the teacher. If you find a subject hard, talk to your teacher or a parent about extra tutoring. If you find it boring, talk to your teacher about some other ways of learning.

What if you just don’t like the teacher？When it comes to working with teachers, personality (个性) can come into play just as it can in any relationship. Learning to work with people you don’t connect with easily is a good skill no matter what your goals are.

Before you try to get out of a class to escape a teacher you don’t like, here are a few things you can do to make a difficult relationship work.

●Meet with the teacher and try to communicate what you’re feeling. Tell him or her what’s in your mind.

●Turn to the school counselor (指导老师), who can offer some suggestions for getting out of a

difficult relationship. Sometimes a counselor can act as a mediator between you and the teacher.

●If your relationship problems can’t be solved in school, then it’s time to tell your parents. Let them meet with your teacher and try to work them out.

Teachers are there for more than just homework and they know about more than just their subject matter. They can help you learn how to function as an adult and a lifelong learner. Undoubtedly, there will be a few teachers along the way who you’ll always remember and who might change your life forever.

    When you sit down to plan your holiday, the first step is to make sure you’re very clear about what you want to get out of it. Do you want an immersion in culture, or do you want to simply recharge your body batteries? Do you want to read a sack of novels or tango till dawn? Do you want extensive family bonding time or time for every member of the family to try things on their own?

    Get a good guidebook or two and read up on the culture, history and attractions of the destination. Surf the Internet for more information; read local publications online. The more you know, the better you’ll be able to appreciate the place and choose from the many options it presents. And the better you’ll understand all the new things―sights, issues, people, rituals you encounter.

    Take clothes that are adaptable and cram everything you need into a carry-on bag if you can. Your heart will soar when you get to skip a line at the check-in counter  when you arrive and breeze by passengers waiting for their bags.

    Remember that the best moments of just about any trip are the unexpected ones. Leave plenty of time to visit an irresistible shop, have a long chat with an old-timer at a café or go on an impromptu day trip with new-found friends to a secret local spot.

Eat where the locals eat; shop where they shop. Ask the hotel clerk for recommendations. On my last trip to Hawaii, I heard about a neighbourhood hula festival from a hotel clerk. I feasted on homemade bread and fried chicken, and watched a heart-warming hula. It’s one of my most treasured memories. Open yourself up to the locals and you’ll find your most precious souvenirs.

I needed to buy a digital camera, one that was simply good at taking good snaps (快照), maybe occasionally for magazines. Being the cautious type, I fancied a reliable brand. So I went on the net, spent 15 minutes reading product reviews on good websites, wrote down the names of three top recommendations and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store. There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list. And it was on special offer. Oh joy. I pointed at it and asked an assistant, “Can I have one of those?” He looked perturbed (不安).“Do you want to try it first?" he said. It didn't quite sound like a question. "Do I need to?" I replied. "There's nothing wrong with it?" This made him look a bit insulted and I started to feel bad. "No, no. But you should try it," he said encouragingly." Compare it with the others. "

     I looked across at the others: shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based around the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have to spend hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two certainties that I had entered the store with: first, soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model.

     But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice. In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen. The assistant seemed a sincere man. So I let him take out my chosen camera from the cupboard, show how it took excellent pictures of my fellow shoppers... and when he started to introduce the special features, I interrupted to ask whether I needed to buy a carry-case and a memory card as well.

      Why do we think that new options (选择) still offer us anything new? Perhaps it is because they offer an opportunity to avoid facing the fact that our real choices in this culture are far more limited than we would like to imagine.

1. The shop assistant insisted that the writer should __ .

     A. try the camera to see if there was anything wrong with it

     B. compare the camera he had chosen with the others

     C. get more information about different companies

     D. trust him and stop asking questions

2. What does the writer mean by "it would be worth half what I paid for it"  (Paragraph 2) ?

     A. He should get a 50% discount.

     B. The price of the camera was unreasonably high.

     C. The quality of the camera was not good.

     D. The camera would soon fall in value.

3. The writer decided to try the model he had chosen because he __ .

     A. knew very little about it

     B. didn't trust the shop assistant

     C. wanted to make sure the one he chose would be the best

     D. had a special interest in taking pictures of his fellow shoppers

4. It can be inferred from the passage that in the writer's opinion, __

     A. people waste too much money on cameras

     B. cameras have become an important part of our daily life

     C. we don't actually need so many choices when buying a product

     D. famous companies care more about profit than quality