Is there anything strange high up in the wor ld's tallest mountains? If so, is it a big bear? Is it a monkey? Or is it a kind of man? No one knows. This mystery has puzzled the world for years.

    In 1887, a mountain climber found large footsteps in the snow. They looked like the footsteps of a very large man. But men didn't walk without shoes in the snow!

    In1906, another climber saw many more footsteps. He saw a very large animal standing on two legs. As he watched, it ran away very quickly. Fifteen years later, a newspaper had new stories about the "something". A mountain climber said he had seen the snowman walk slowly in the snow. He said it looked like a very large man.

    From then on, more and more people had stories to tell. But not until 1951 did a mountain climber bring back pictures of the large footsteps. The pictures showed clearly that the snowman walked on two legs. So it was not a bear or a monkey. Could it be an apeman? And the mystery keeps growing. Someday we may find out what made the large footsteps.

Yang Min, 15, of Shanghai, checks the phone for a missed call or message more than 60 times a day. “I can’t focus in class or do homework,” Yang says. “What’s wrong with me?”

Yang, along with many other teenagers in China, gets into trouble by using high-tech products like mobile phones and i-pads. High-tech products are good, but they also bring us many problems.

Wang Zihan, 16, of Beijing, used to check his e-mail every day. But in the last six months, he hasn’t visited his e-mail box. “There is too much junk mail in my box,” said Wang, “I have to find one piece of useful mail in mountains of junk mail. That’s annoying. ”

When Xu Shengna visited a website sent by a stranger last year, the 14-year-old lost her QQ account(账号) to a virus(病毒). She was very angry. “It was a terrible thing for me. QQ is the only way for me to communicate with some of my classmates and friends,” said Xu. “Now I have lost contact(联系) with them. I’ll never visit any websites sent from strangers again,” she added.

“High-tech products give modern middle school students a new way to learn and communicate,” said Liu Xiaodong, headmaster of a high school in Shanghai. “But students need self-control and they should learn to stay away from trouble. High-tech products can be their good teachers and friends.”

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.