Peter is 15 years old. He likes playing computer games and listening to music. Once he spent the whole night playing computer games and listening to music. He was excited and shouted along with the MP3 player. The next day when he walked out of his room after listening to the MP3 player, he couldn’t hear anything about his mother’s words. His mother took him to the hospital at once. It was moderate(中度) hearing loss(耳聋).

Are you like Peter? If you are doing this now, stop it at once. A study shows that lots of young people enjoy listening to their MP3 players. And they always listen to them at high volume. There are about 100 million people listening to MP3 players in Europe(欧洲) every day. Most of them are young people. The study finds that if people listen to MP3 players at a very high volume for more than five hours a week, they may lose their hearing in five years.

High-volume music can keep people excited, so young people would like to keep the volume high. It’s too bad for their ears. So the MP3 player listeners should keep the players at safe volume, no higher than 60%~70% of full capacity(容量). If people near you can hear the sound of your MP3 player, it means you are keeping your MP3 at a very high volume. Turn it down, please!

I am Wilson. My sister and I spent our summer holidays with our uncle this year. He was a geologist(地质学家) and loved to collect stones.

One day, he bought us two backpacks and asked us to go to the mountain with him. We walked the whole day. Every now and then he put stones in our backpacks. To our surprise, he also took some stones out from them. But we thought he had just found better stones.

When we returned to the house, we were very tired. The backpacks were so heavy that we felt relaxed when we took them off. Yet our uncle’s backpack was half empty.

“Why did you give us so many stones?” we asked.

“I didn’t. You did,” he said. “You didn’t know it, but I gave you a little attitude test today. I listened to every word you said. Whenever you were complaining, I added a stone to your backpacks. Whenever you talked about something with positive(积极的) thinking, I took out a stone. And now look at your backpacks.”

Our backpacks were full of stones.

“Your negative(消极的) thoughts are just like stones. You carry them in your mind just like those stones in your backpacks. The more negative thoughts you have, the heavier your mind will be,” said our uncle.

With great love, our uncle told us important understanding on life—the power of the attitude.

   Some people live in high mountains. The air up high is thin. Mountains people are used to the thin air. They feel good when they live up high.

    Most people live in low places. If they go up high, their head hurts and they sometimes feel dizzy (头晕目眩的) and sick. They have to breathe faster. Their hearts beat faster. They have to move slowly. If they stay up high for a long time, their bodies will change. Their lungs will become large. Their larger lungs will help them to breathe the thin air.

    Airplanes fly high over the mountains. Big planes have enough air so the people inside won't get dizzy. The air gets thinner as you go higher. Out in space there is no air at all.

    In California, South America, most people live far up on the mountains. Sometimes they go down to the low country. People living there feel fine. But the people from the mountains feel sick.

 As an English, I can speak three languages—English, German and French, so do you think the British people are very good language learners? The fact is that they aren’t.

Some statistics (数据) from the survey done by the European Commission (欧盟委员会) showed that 62% of the British people only speak English. 38% speak at least one foreign language and 18% speak two or more. Compared with the British people, 56% of the people in other European countries speak at least one foreign language and 28% speak two or more.

From this you can see that the British people are famous for not speaking foreign languages and that they are not good language learners in Europe.

And the survey also showed that English is the most widely-spoken foreign language. Many European people can have a conversation in English. That’s why my people don’t think it is necessary to learn a foreign language.

In Britain, students are not required to learn a foreign language. That means learning a foreign language is only an option at school. In UK schools it is common for children to start learning a foreign language at 11 and many of them give it up at 14. So why don’t students continue learning foreign languages at school? Because they think it is more difficult to get good marks in languages than in other subjects such as science or history.

To solve this situation, the British government is looking for different ways to improve language learning at school. One way is to start learning it at a much younger age. Another one is to give school children more choices.

Changing the British attitude (态度) to learning foreign languages may be a hard task but the government decides to try!

Overweight(超重)is one of the biggest health problems now. Being overweight affects more than how you look. Too much fat can kill you. Whatˈs worse, overweight children turn into overweight adults(成人).If youˈre obese now, you probably will grow into an obese adult.  But hereˈs good news.  You can fight overweight.

    Change your eating habits.

    You are what you eat. Kids like snacks.  Did you list any healthy snacks? One study of eating habits showed that soft drinks are the first in the snack list. Next, kids choose salty snacks, like chips.  Whatˈs more, the list is full of junk food from No. 3 to No. 11. Finally, No. 12，kids picked a healthy snack-fruit. So, think about your snack choice again.

    Get outside to exercise

    Jim, a player on his school football team, had a weight problem not long time ago.  He could never get anyone to play with him. So his father and he started playing football for a few minutes every night.  Ten minutes turned into an hour or more.  In just a few years, the heavy kid became athletic, fit and healthy.

    More TV means more fat

    Nearly every American kid watches TV for 2 hours and 56 minutes every day that adds up to 44 days a year of sitting. More TV (or more Internet surfing, or more computer games) means more fat.

    Eat an apple a day, walk around the house, play with your family...  Do it today, and do it  more tomorrow. It will help you a lot.

    1. Try to get up early.

    2. Try to take more exercise.

    3. Try not to sit in front of TV or computer for too long.

    4. Try to eat more healthy food.

 Monkeys are clever, but they are very greedy (贪婪的) as well. They have suffered (吃亏) a lot because of this. But they never change this way.

In India, people use monkeys’ greed to catch them. Do you know how they can catch monkeys? Here are some instructions.

●Make a hole（洞）in a big pumpkin. The hole must be just right—not too big or too small.

●Put some jujubes (枣) in the hole.

●Leave the pumpkin under a tree. Make sure there are some monkeys in the tree.

●Hide yourself and watch the monkeys.

When you leave, the monkeys come down to the pumpkin. When they find a hole in the pumpkin, they don’t know what’s in it and one of them puts its hand into the hole to find out what is inside. When it touches the jujubes, it will clench (攥紧) some of them in its hand. So it isn’t able to take its fist (拳) out of the hole. You can’t come close at this time. Will the monkey drop off the pumpkin? Don’t worry. It seems it likes the pumpkin better than its life. It will run with the pumpkin, clenching its fist more tightly. Finally, people can catch it easily.

A young woman was walking through a supermarket to pick up a few things when she noticed an old man following her around．Thinking nothing of it，she ignored him and went on shopping．After she got what she wanted，she went to checkout line，but the old man got in front of her．

“Pardon me!” he said，“I’m sorry if my staring（盯）at you has made you feel uncomfortable（不舒服的)，it's just because you look like my granddaughter，who just died recently．And I miss her very much．”

“I’m very sorry，”said the young woman．“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes．” the old man said．“As I'm leaving，can you say ‘Good-bye，grandpa’ to me? It would make me feel so much better．”

“Sure,”answered the young woman．

As the old man was leaving，she called out．“Bye-bye，grandpa!”

When she stepped(迈步) up to the checkout counter（收银台），she saw that her total was $178.50．

“How can that be?” she asked．“I only bought a few things!”

“Your grandpa said you would pay for him，” said the clerk.

Different countries have different customs(习俗). When you travel to other countries, please follow their customs.

Very often people forget to tip when they travel in the United States. When someone serves you at a restaurant or in a hotel, it is usual to leave some money for his or her good service.

In England, make sure of standing in line even though there are only two of you. And it’s a good idea to talk about the weather in England. It’s a popular topic among the British.

In Japan, people usually give cards to each other when they meet for the first time. When a person gives you a card, don’t put it into your bag right away. The person hopes you can read it.

And be careful of your language. A kind body language in one culture may not be polite in another.

Sodagreen is a band(乐队) from Taiwan. There are six people in the band.They write and sing their own songs. Many young People like them.