What do you think Salman Rushdie, Bill Clinton, Paulo Coelho and Fyodor Dostoyevsky all have in common? They are all writers, you might say. Yes, and all of them are also members of a new club: writers of books that British people cannot finish. In a recent survey of 4,000 adults (成年人) on books, there were some interesting findings.

32% of the people said they couldnˈt finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. Another book was James Joyceˈs 1922 novel Ulysses, which has more than 1,000 pages. Surprisingly, Louis de Bernièresˈ novel Captain Corelliˈs Mandolin was also included. The book has sold more than 2 million since 1994, but not many people seem to be able to finish it.

There were more interesting results in the survey. 55% of the people said they bought books for decoration and they had no plan to read them. A spokeswoman from a publishing (出版) house said,“It seems that people buy some books just to make their bookcases look good, rather than actually buying a book that they want to read,” she added. “People are buying books because they think they will be good for them, rather than because they think theyˈll enjoy them.”

The findings said many people found it hard to make time for reading. Main reasons for this included: feeling tired (48%), watching TV (46%), and playing computer games (26%).

But who really cares? The book industry is happy because people are buying books anyway. And readers are happy because they can decorate their bookcases and make a good impression (印象) on others.

Dolphins are not fish. They are mammals (哺乳动物) , They live in groups and speak to each other in their own language. But they are quite different from almost all the animals. Their brain(大脑) is as big as man’s and they live a long life— at least 20 or 30 years.

  Like some animals, dolphins use sounds to help them find their way around. They also use these sounds to talk to each other and to help them find food. They do not use their ears to get sounds, but use the jaw—the lower part of the mouth.

Dolphins are friendly to man, and for thousands of years, there are many stories about dolphins and man. In the 19^th century, in a dangerous part of the sea near New Zealand, there was a dolphin. The seamen liked him very much and gave him a very good name, Jack. From 1871 to 1903, Jack met every boat in the area and showed them the way. In1903 apassenger(乘客) on a boat with the name “The Penguin” shot and hurt Jack. Luckily the dolphin didn’t die, and after a long time he was well again. He helped the ships find the way through the area for nine more years, but he didn’t help the boat “The Penguin”.

Today, some people still kill dolphins, but many countries in the world now protect them. In these places, people mustn’t kill them.

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Studying, eating and sleeping, the three things seem to take up much of students' lives. But that's not true for students at Tian Xingeng Middle School in Ningbo, Zhejiang.

   The school has given students a list of 100 things that they should experience in junior high. It includes taking a walk with your parents, helping others and learning to swim.

   "Only after students experience things and learn from them can they truly grow up," said the headmaster Wang Jianping.

   Fu Zhuozhen, 13, from Shenzhen, agree with Wang a lot. She used to be shy until she tried skiing(滑雪) last winter.

   At first, she was so afraid of the height that she wanted to give up. But with her friends' encouragement, she moved her skis slowly and finally she succeeded.

   "It's was not as hard as I had thought," Fu said. "I realized that if you don't try, you'll never know you can do it."

   Doing something other than studying not only builds your character, but also helps you form a good attitude(态度), according to Li Ziyue, 15, from Xi'an.

   She once helped farmers pick up corn. The corn stalks(杆) were almost as tall as her. As she made her way through the stalks, the leaves brushed against her body and flies were around.

   "After two hours, I was so tired and my hands were bitten by flies," Li said. "But the farmers have to do it every autumn. I felt ashamed(惭愧的) that I used to avoid hard work and waste food, which I hardly do now".

News One: 29 October, 2015

The government of China plans to end its one-child per family policy(政策) and instead let families have two children. The plan was announced Thursday after high-level meetings in Beijing.

China，which has the largest population，made the one-child policy in 1980. The government allowed only a small number of couples to have two children for so many years. For example, some couples in the countryside could have two children.

News Two: 05 October, 2015

The first of the 2015 Nobel Prizes has been announced. Sweden’s Nobel Prize committee (委员会) says the Nobel Prize for medicine will go to scientists from Ireland, Japan and China.

William Campbell fromIrelandand Satoshi Omura from Japan share the prize for their discovery of the medicine avermectin. The Nobel committee praised their work on what it calls a “noveltherapy(新疗法).” The treatment fights disease caused byparasites（寄生虫）.

The prize for medicine is also going to Chinese researcher Tu Youyou. She discovered artemisinin. Artemisinin is a drug that has greatly made the number of people who die from malaria(疟疾) smaller.

News Three:09 December, 2015

Oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels since 2009.

Brent crude oil, one of several kinds of oil on the world market, dropped below $40 abarrel（桶）on Tuesday. However, the main group of oil producing countries has been unable to reduce the oil production.

  I have two daughters and one son. They are Mary, Laura and Eric. Mary is seven. Laura and Erie are five. They watch a lot of television, maybe five hours a day. I'm worried that it's much. What should I do?

Catherine

   Television can be a way of learning and relaxing. But studies show that too much television can make kids more likely(可能的) to be fat and fight with others.

   The American Academy of Pediatrics(AAP,美国儿科学会) says that older kids shouldn't watch more than 1-2 hours of television every day, and that kids under the age of two should not wash any television. The shows kids watch should be educational. All in all, kids shouldn't watch too much television. You should ask them to spend more time playing with friends, exercising or reading.

Now, many people like to travel and they go to different places. Some of them even want to travel to the South Pole（南极）. Should they do that? Yes or No ?

Lin Zhibin, 14, from Zhejiang

I think we should travel to the South Pole. There are many beautiful animals and many other birds. We can’t bring them back to the zoos, so I think we can go and see them there. It’s good for us to know more about the animals.

Wang Qi, 14, from Beijing

   I don’t think it is good to travel to the South Pole. If we travel there, we will bring so much pollution. Now the ice in the South Pole is melting(融化). We should protect the environment there.

Zheng Wen, 13, from Shanghai

Now there are more and more people in the world. If we can start traveling to the South Pole now, maybe some day we can move to live there.

 He Maimai, 14, from Shanxi

  If we travel to the South Pole, we will make it another America or Asia. Lots of people would want to travel there. It could cause great damage(伤害) to animals there.

Do teenagers in small villages do chores at home? How about the teenagers in big cities? Here is a survey. We asked 4,000 teenagers in China several questions. Half of them come from big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The others are from small villages. We made a diagram(图表）of the result of our survey. Let’s have a look at it. We found out that teenagers from small villages do more chores than those from big cities. Maybe it is because they live a harder life. Our advice to parents in big cities is that parents should give their children some chores to do. Doing chores teaches teenagers to take care of themselves.

    Today, more and more students use the Internet. Last week, we did a survey about students using the Internet. One hundred students joined in the survey.

As we know, Americans have lots of public holidays every year. We'll introduce some of them in today's China Daily. Let's have a look.

No.4 middle School

Kunming ,yunnan

April 2nd ,2004

Dear editor (编辑)，

I live in a beautiful city. Many visitors come to my city. There are so many colorful peacocks (孔雀) here.

The peacocks mostly live on the grass land of Dongfeng Square. They are given food freely by visitors. They usually throw food to them, and don’t think about at all whether the food is right or not. Some of the peacocks became ill, some even died after eating the bad food given by the visitors.

I’m sure most of the visitors who throw food to the peacocks really like the birds, but don’t realize (意识到) that they may be doing them harm (伤害).

The visitors should be told that what have done is very harmful to the birds, and this kind of thing must be stopped from happening. Perhaps we can build some small shops beside Dongfeng Square to sell peacock food. For us every person, it’s our duty to give more love to these beautiful birds and to look after them carefully.

Yours,

Sun Yan