Most people have ambitions（雄心）. An ambition is something we wantto do, want to be or want to have. A student’s ambition, for example, might be to pass his or her exams and then get a good job. A player’s ambition could be to win an important competition. A businessman’s ambition is usually to make a lot of money.

    Not all ambition are about success at work, however. Some people just want to be good people, have a family or help others.

    Ben’s ambition is to be a sports writer. He writes sports for his class newspaper. He likes most sports, and swimming and football are his favorites. Trudy’s ambition is to be a concert pianist. She is very serious about it and practices every day with her best friend Lily. It is very important to her.

    Harry’s ambition changes every day! One day he wants to be an astronaut. The next day he wants to be a pop singer. The next day hen wants to drive a racing car（赛车）. His mother would be happy if his ambition was to get up in time for school every day!

    What ‘s your ambition?

根据短文内容，选择正确答案。

  Now the society (社会) is developing very fast. And our life is becoming better and better. With the development, it is true that times are changing for the old people. But not all the changes are bad ones. Modern medicine, for example, has made old people healthier than ever before. Another advantage is that there are much more old people than there used to be. This means that old people often have a good social life with their own clubs and activities. Old people, too, have more money than their own parents and grandparents had.

  The biggest disadvantage of modern life is loneliness. The young leave home when they grow up and many old people live alone. Fewer old people have brothers and sisters. An old personˈs one or two children may have moved to another part of the country. Even when they live near, the young people have their own work to do and their own children to look after. They have not much time for the old. Problems of loneliness often start when people stop work. When people retire, they find it difficult to start a new life without their jobs. Maybe they would like to enjoy talking with others in their free time.

  The world has changed so fast that it is difficult for old people to understand the problems of the young. And the world is changing even faster these days than fifty years ago. What will it be like when today’s young people are old?

We are learning English, but how can we learn English well? A student can know a lot about English, but maybe he can not speak English.

There are many things we need to know that we do not learn at school. For example, if we want to use our money wisely, we need to shop carefully. We need to know how to compare the prices of things in different shops. We need to be able to compare the quality of different brands. We need to know how to make a choice when we shop.

Knowing how to make such choices is a “life skill”, and we need these skills if we want to live useful and happy lives.

Some of these choices are small. For example, will I take an apple for lunch or a pear? Will I go to school by bus or on foot? Will I wear the red T-shirt or the blue one to the movies? Other choices are more important. For example, will I eat healthy food for lunch or will I eat junk food because it is tastier? Will I work hard in all my classes or will I only work hard in the classes I enjoy? We make choices like these every day.

We have to realize that the choices we make can affect the rest of our lives. Just as importantly, our choices can also affect other people. The next time you decide to waste time in class, play a joke on someone or talk loudly at the movies, think about this: who else does your choice affect?

Different people have different dreams and plans for the future. Some of them want to be rich and famous, others dream about having a family. My greatest dream is to be healthy. My second dream is to fly to the USA. I am always interested in that country. I would like to visit my friends there. Besides(另外), I would like to see different places like New York. I like basketball best. I would like to see NBA games and meet NBA players. Of course, I would always like to walk down Manhattan and see the Statue of Liberty.

As for my plans for the future. First of all, I want to pass all the exams in high school and go to college. After college, I want to teach in the school. I think this is my favourite job. And finally, I would like to have my own family. Of course, I want to have a son and a daughter . These are my dreams and plans for the future. I hope they will come true(实现) one day.

As teenagers, you have many dreams. These dreams can be very big, such as winning the Nobel Prize. Or they can be small. You may just want to become one of the ten best students in your class.

  Once you find a dream, what do you do with it? Do you ever try to make your dream real?

  Follow Your Heart by Australian writer Andrews tell us that making our dreams real is life’s biggest challenge.

  You may think you’re not very good at some school subjects, or that it is impossible for you to become a writer. These kinds of thoughts stop you from getting your dream, the book says.

  In fact, everyone can make his dream come true. The first thing you must do is to remember what your dream is.

Don’t let it leave your heart. Keep telling yourself what you want. Do this step by step and your dream will come true faster because a big dream is, in fact, many small dreams.

  You must also never give up your dream.

  There will be difficulties on the road to your dream. But the biggest difficulty comes from yourself. You need to decide what is the most important. Studying instead of watching TV will lead to better exam results, while saving five yuan instead of buying an ice-cream means you can buy a new book. As you get closer to your dream, it may change a little. This is good as you have the chance to learn more skills.

You are driving alone in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1,An old lady who looks as if she is going to die.

2, An old friend who once saved your life.

3,The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be onepassengerin your car?

Think before you read on…

This is a question that was once actually used when you are looking for a job.

You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and you should save her first; Or you could take your old friend because he once saved your life and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back. However, you may never be able to find your perfect partner again.

The person who was chosen (out of 200 people) had no trouble coming up with his answer. He simply answered, “I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams.”

Sometimes, we get more if we are able to give up our thought limitation(限制). Never forget to “Think Outside of the Box.”

A teacher sent four of his students to go to a small farm to see apple trees in different seasons. The first student went in winter, the second in spring, the third in summer, and the last in autumn.

   They pictured their feeling to the teacher. The first student said that there were no leaves on the trees. It made him very disappointed. The second student said his eyes were full of light green. It made him feel hopeful. The third one disagreed. "What are you talking about? How pretty the trees were! The sweet smell of the beautiful flowers spread here and there." The last one shook his head. He only saw a lot of apples on the beautiful trees.

   The teacher smiled and told his students none of them were wrong. They each just saw one season. He continued, "The trees are not the same in different seasons. You can't judge a tree by only one season."

   Everything has different sides in our life. Don't hurry to make a conclusion（结论） before seeing the whole of it.

 ●Our Needs

People are different, but they all have the same needs.Needs are things people must have to live. Our bodies need food and water. We also need air to breathe. We need a place to live to keep us safe. We need clothes to keep us warm. If we did not have these things, we could not survive.

Needs may be different for people who live in different areas. If you live where it is cold, you may need special clothes to keep you warm. If you live where it is hot, you may need more water.

People have found new ways to meet their needs. Farmers grow food that people eat. They used to plant seeds by hand. They used to pick plants by hand. Now they have machines that do this work.

●Our Wants

Wants are things people would like to have but do not need to live. Suppose* you hope to get a football for your birthday. A football is want. You can live without it.

Sometimes we must make choices between things we want. Suppose you want to go to a birthday party for your uncle. That day, a friend asks you to go to a movie. The movie is at the same time as the party.

If you choose to go to the party, then what would you give up? What would you give up if you went to the movie?

“Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell.”

This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unknown person who lived in Rome in AD（公元）53 wrote it.

We all love new inventions. They are exciting, amazing and can even change our lives. But have all these developments really improved the quality of our lives?

Picture this. You’re rushing to finish your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings, a QQ message from your friend appears on the screen, the noise from the television is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer goes blank（空白的）and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up all night to get it done. How happy do you feel?

Inventions have speeded up our lives so much that they often make us feel stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from noisy cities, who have no telephones, no cars, not even any electricity often seem to be happier? Perhaps because they live simpler lives.

One family in the UK went “back in time” to see what life was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons Benjamin, 10 and Thomas, 7, spent nine weeks in a 1940s’ house. They had no washing machine, microwave（微波炉）, computer or mobile phones.

The grandmother, Lyn, said, “The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes.” The boys said they fought less. Probably, they said, because there was less to fight over, such as their computer. Benjamin also noticed that his grandmother had changed from being a “trendy（赶时髦的）, beer-drinking granny”, to one who cooked things.