There were once two guitar makers in a town in Mexico. One was known for low price and the other for the high quality（质量）.

The young maker, who made the cheap guitars, could make guitars very _______ .  But the old maker took his time and paid much attention to the quality. Everyone _______  to buy a guitar because it was a sign of being rich, so both makers were very _______ .

But bad times came to the town and no one _______  much money. The young maker did well. However, the old maker went out of business. No one could _______  his guitars.

After a few years, the cheap guitars that people bought began to fall apart（散开）. Some people were so _______ that they went to young guitar maker's house to get their _______ back.

When they were arguing with（争论）the maker, a  _______  came from behind the crowd. “How can you blame（责怪）him? He never said the guitar were _______ . It is all of you who are to blame. You were only ________  how they made you look！” the voice came from the old guitar maker. “I have spent my whole life learning how to make good guitars. Something that is really good takes a lot of time and ________ .”Hearing this, those people left

“Please teach me how to ________ good guitars.” said the young maker. The old maker taught him and the young maker taught others. Now, the town is known as the guitar capital of Mexico.

   Spud Webb was born in Texas, the USA, in 1963. He was very small-much smaller than the other kids at school. However, he had a big dream—he wanted to play in the NBA.

While attending junior high. Spud tried out for the school team, but he was refused to play at first because he was too small. He did not lose heart. When he finally got the chance, he scored 20 points in his first game. From then on, he was star of the team.

In senior high, Spud often had to sit in the stands because of his height. He practised even harder and got the coach to change his mind. Spud went on to become leader of the team. In his last year of senior high, he was named Player of the Year in Texas.

However, no university would invite him to play basketball simply because he was only 170cm tall. He decided to play at a junior college. There he led his team to the national championship. This brought him to the attention of North Carolina State University. As a result, he succeeded getting a scholarship.

Although he was a great player at university, the NBA was not interested in him because all its players were more than 20cm taller than he was. After he graduated, he played in another basketball league. He remained there for about a year before the NBA took notice of him. In 1985, he joined the Atlanta Hawks and became the shortest player in the NBA at that time. He had many great achievements, but his proudest moment came in 1986—he won the Slam Dunk Contest.

Through hard work, Spud Webb proved that size and body type does not matter you can do almost anything if never give up.

   As the technology develops, the number of e-readers（电子阅读器）grows quickly. Some people worry that days of paper books will be gone. Is there a future for bookstores? Some readers from the Internet shared their opinions.

Qian Xiaohua, a Chinese reader, thinks that reading a book is much better than reading from an e-reader. There is no need for readers to worry about the battery（电池）life. Readers can also avoid the harm of staring at the screen. Most importantly, books can be kept for a long time if they are well taken care of.

Nicky is from Canada. “After all, you can’t replace the touch of paper, the smell of print, and the immersive（沉浸的）feeling of being in a bookstore. You can’t do that with an e-book,” she says.

The reader Bruce comes from Italy. “Things are the same in Europe.” he says. “And only in real bookshops can readers make unexpected discoveries. The governments should do something for it.”

Johnny, who comes from Malaysia, is both a reader and writer. Most of his books are sold online on Amazon, JD and eBay. The cost is lower and the book can be brought all over the world. However, he still loves the old bookstores. “Something about them makes my heart warm,” he says. He thinks that maybe writers can try this way: sell their books online and read books at bookstores. This will keep bookstore alive while the writer can have a global（全球的）market.

   A book Review of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer

One of my favorite great books is The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. The story is set in the state of Missouri, in the U. S, in the nineteenth century.
38．

Tom, the hero of the book, is a lively and clever boy. He doesn’t like people telling him what to do,
39．. He and his best friend, Huck Finn, run away to an island in the middle of Mississippi River. Tom has more trouble because a bad man named Injun Joe is looking for him. Later, Tom escapes from a cave with another friend, Becky. He also finds Injun Joe’s treasure box and takes it away.

My favourite funny story in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is when Tom is told by his aunt Polly to paint the gate white. The work is a punishment because missed school one day. At first, Tom is watched by his friends and laughed at, so he feels quite bad. But soon he turns the situation round,
40．. To that he enjoys painting the gate white, and his friends want to try. He asks each friend to give him something valuable. In return, they are allowed to do some of Tom’s work!

41． Mark Twain wrote it in 1876. It describes people’s lives in the southern states of America at that time. It tells how young people grow, how people love each other and how bad people pay for their actions. Today, it is still read and loved by people all over the world, and it is thought to be one of the greatest American stories.

What is Boxing Day （节礼日）

Boxing Day is on December 26. It is a
53． holiday in the U. K. and Ireland. On this day, people spend time with their family members and friends.

Why is it
54． Boxing Day? First, it has nothing to do with sport of boxing（拳击）. Boxing Day
55．back to the Victorian era（维多利亚时代）. At that time, many churches put a box in front of their gates, and people would have their donations（捐赠物）in the box. What's more, on the day after Christmas Day, domestic servant（家仆）were given time to visit their families because they
56．work on Christmas Day. Each servant would be given a box to take home. There were
57．, money and sometimes food inside the box.

Until 2004, Boxing Day hunts（狩猎）were a
58．part of the special day, but the ban（禁令）on fox hunting has put an end to it. However another "sport" shopping, has appeared in recent years. Boxing Day has now become a day for people to buy things at lower price, which sounds like the Double 11 shopping day in China.

Chinese Products More Popular Abroad

Riding a Mobike on the street, you might hear some people speaking Chinese aloud. Turning to the right. You see a Sichuan-style restaurant. After walking into a store, you see that Huawei smartphones are on sale.

But you’re not in
59．, you’re in Manchester in Britain. In fact you might see similar things in many other cities. Chinese
60． have been going global（全球的）.

Chinese food has been enjoyed in Western countries for a long lime.
61． meet local people’s tastes, Chinese restaurants have made some changes to the dishes. One
62． is the meat. “We like to eat meat with the bone（骨头）in, but people here don’t. So Chinese restaurants provide big pieces of meat without bones.” said Yin Hang, who is studying at University of Wollongong in Australia.

Some Chinese brands（品牌）are also becoming more
63．. In many cities in Europe, stores sell TCL televisions, Haier fridges and Lenovo computers, according to Reuters（路透社）.

In the past, most western people thought Chinese products were cheap and unreliable（不可靠的）. But now, things have
64． greatly. More people trust Chinese brands “Made in China” becomes cool.

   Here is some advice to help you become good at a foreign language.

The most important factor（要素）is how much time you spend with the language. The more time you spend, the faster you will learn. This doesn't mean sitting in class looking out of the windows, nor listening to other students who don’t speak well. This means spending time on what you are learning-and enjoying it.

Listen wherever you are. Read what you are listening to. Listen to and read things that you like, things that you can mostly understand, or even partly understand. If you keep listening and reading, you will get used to the language. One hour of listening or reading is more effective（有效的）than many hours of class time.

Buildup your vocabulary you’ll need lots. Learn these words and phrases through your listening and reading. Read online, use online dictionaries, and make your own vocabulary lists for review. Soon you will see your new words and phrases elsewhere. Gradually（逐渐地）, you will be able to use them.

Choose passages that you are interesting to you, that you want to listen to and read. Find the words and phrases that you need to understand your listening and reading. Discover the language by yourself, like a child growing up. Take when you feel like it.

Do not worry about what you can’t remember, or can’t yet understand, or can’t yet say. You are listening and improving. The language will gradually become clearer in your brain, but this will happen at a time that you cannot control.