Peer pressure leads many high school students to follow the crowd. It took me two years of high school to realize that I was   (1)   of standing on my own feet and taking on the challenge of wrestling. What’s more, I have   (2)   a lot from this experience.

Wrestling has a long history in my   (3)  . My grandfather and my two uncles wrestled. The tipping point for me was the constant   (4)   of my family to them. I remember my grandfather told me how he felt when he was   (5)   as New York State Champion. I could never have imagined that   (6)   till the night I won my first match.

I never realized the   (7)   demand that wrestling took on one’s body. The long hours of learning new moves, lifting weights, and the mental preparation needed to   (8)   for this sport is overwhelming. I had to learn to manage my   (9)   between school, home and friends. Learning to manage a constant diet of   (10)   on a daily basis became more important than stopping by McDonalds for a hamburger and milk shake.

Wrestling is more of an individual sport.   (11)  , it requires the help and support of a team to be successful. The coaches taught us to   (12)   ourselves and also the opponents(对手) we face on the mat. At Christmas, we as a team brought toys for the   (13)   children in the Upstate Hospital cancer unit who could not be home for the holidays with their families. Here I came face to face with the children who never knew   (14)   they would be able to leave the hospital and live a(n)   (15)   life. This made me realize that I should live each day to the full because no one can tell what life has   (16)   for us.

Wrestling has showed me that I am capable of being   (17)  . I can’t go back in time to change the past.   (18)  , the confidence I have gained allows me the possibility of   (19)   my wrestling career in college. From this sport, I now know that to be   (20)   you must not be afraid to try something new.

The time may soon come when we say goodbye to most of the world’s languages. Today humans

express themselves in over 6,000 different languages. But that is quickly changing. Many scientists say that over half of these languages will disappear within the next 50 years. After 100 years, the languages

used in the world will not be more than 20.

     Why? It is because people from different cultures live and work together much more often than before. This brings changes. The languages of the world’s main cultures are replacing the languages of the smaller cultures. Most international trade takes place in world languages such as English. People respect their own cultures and traditions, but when it comes to getting a job, knowing a world language is often necessary. It may mean the difference between success and failure.

    People in different cultures think it good for them to share a popular language. They can quickly share ideas and work together. Knowing the same language means easier communication and is a basis for trust.

     Is the death of a small local language such a terrible thing? The answer is maybe. Many cultures may have words for many useful things we know nothing about. If their languages die, their valuable wisdom may be lost forever. The future of the world’s language depends on our actions now. Will we protect endangered languages or allow them to quietly disappear?  

Time will have the last word.

Every people uses its own special word to show its ideas and feelings. Some of these expressions are commonly used for many years. Others are popular for just a short time. One such American expression is “Where’s the beef?” It is used when something is not as good as it is said to be. In the early 1980s “Where’s the beef?” was one of the most popular expressions in the United States. It seemed as if everyone using it at the time.

Beef, of course, is the meat from a cow, and food is more popular in America than a hamburger made from beef. In the 1960s a businessman named Ray began building small restaurants that sold hamburgers at a low price. Ray called this “McDonald’s”. Ray became one of the richest businessmen at last in America.

Other business people watched his success. Some of them opened their own hamburger restaurants. One company called “Wendy’s” said its hamburgers were bigger than those sold by McDonald’s or anyone else. The Wendy’s Company began to use the expression “Where’s the beef?” to make people know that Wendy’s hamburgers were the biggest. The Wendy’s television advertisement showed three old women eating hamburgers. The bread that covered the meat was very big, but inside there was only a bit of meat. One of the women said she would not eat a hamburger with such a little piece of beef. “Where’s the beef?” she shouted in a funny way. The advertisement for Wendy’s hamburger restaurants was a success. As we said, it seemed everyone began using the expression “Where’s the beef?”