1．　　My name is Ryan and last summer my family and I went to an island for our summer vacation. There were so many fun and interesting things to do on the island, but my favorite was fishing. Every day, my mom, my dad, my younger brother Derek and I went to the beach. We took our little fishing boat with us. Mom didn't like fishing, so she stayed on the beach and read a book.
　　One morning, while we were fishing, we heard a loud noise. "What was that?" I asked. "Oh, don't worry, Ryan. It might be a turtle (海龟) swimming under the boat, "said Dad, Derek and I looked around the boat, but we couldn't see anything. Then we heard a different noise, which sounded like an animal. "Look, Dad, there it is!" shouted Derek. It was a sea turtle and it couldn't swim well. "Let's go closer and see what's wrong with it," Dad said.
　　When we got closer, we saw that there was a piece of plastic (塑料) around the turtle's legs. "Let's help it," I said. So Dad jumped into the water, swam to the turtle and brought it back to the boat. "There you go, little turtle; now you can swim to your family," Dad said as he cut the plastic off. Then Derek and I put it back in the water. "I know!We should make a sign about not throwing rubbish into the sea, and put it in the sand on the beach," I said. "I'll help, too," said Derek. "Great idea, boys. If we don't all do something to stop sea pollution, these sea animals will die."

3．　　Flamenco is very popular in southern Spain. It begins with guitar music and clapping (击掌) and then dancers join the performance. Sometimes a woman dances alone and sometimes she dances with a man. The woman always wears a long, colorful dress. She moves her arms and hands slowly but her feet move in fast difficult steps. The man often wears black. Both dancers click their shoes on the floor when they dance around each other.
　　Cossack dances are from Russia and Ukraine. They are very energetic — some are more like gymnastics than dancing! Dancers have to be very fit because they jump very high and kick their legs up and down. They often jump over swords (剑). The movements are similar to traditional Cossack activities, for example, sword fighting and getting on and off horses.
　　Limbo dancing is first from West Africa but today it is an important part of celebrations in the Caribbean. Young people have to dance under a pole (杆). The pole is often on fire and the dancer mustn't touch it! After a successful "limbo", they put the pole lower and do it again. Some dancers can dance under a pole just twenty centimeters off the ground!
　　Mask (面具) dances are important for the Dogon people in Mali. Each village makes different masks. They are often huge and colorful. There are masks of people, monsters or local animals like crocodiles and monkeys. Mask dancers are always men and they dance to the sound of drums for hours after the death of a person in the village. Today, Dogon villagers also perform the dances for tourists.

4．　　When do children start to talk? If you ask a group of parents when this happened, most will say " around twelve months of age". They will probably even remember what the children said. Many parents keep a diary of their child's "first words".
　　We can never predict what a first word is going to be. Often it's the name for " mummy " or "daddy", but it could just as easily be the word for an animal or a favorite toy. Everything depends on what has most caught the child's attention. But one thing is certain: after the first word, others come quickly. By 18 months, most children have learned about 50 words. By two, the total has risen to around 200.
　　Early words are actually one-word sentences. One of the first features (特征) of language a child learns well is to control the rise and fall of the voice to make the difference between stating and questioning. In English, daddy with a high rising tone (声调) means "is that daddy?" Daddy with a high falling tone means "There's daddy". Of course, only very basic meanings can be communicated using tones alone. So it soon becomes necessary to learn some grammar.
　　In English, grammar means learning to put words in different orders. Children have to see that mummy push is different from push mummy. They start practising such changes at around 18 months. By two, they have learned the basic patterns of word order, and we hear them saying such things as man kick ball and where daddy go.
　　What are the parents doing all this time? They're acting as teachers and they always have an active role to play in their child's language learning.

6．　　Something that I learnt from both my parents was the importance of having respect (尊重) for other people. I remember one day when we were travelling on a bus and (1)       sat down while other people were standing. My mother shouted at me, "(2)       immediately! You have young legs and you don't need to sit down. " At the time I felt embarrassed about being told of (3)      , but now I understand. I think children nowadays have (4)       that respect and it really makes me angry if I see children sitting down while (5)       people are standing.
　　One area in which we had a lot of rules was table (6)      . For example, we weren't allowed to start our meal (7)       the oldest person had started. We had to say "thank you" when our food was (8)      , and eat everything on our plates before we could (9)       the table. We couldn't make any noise when eating. Worse than that, we were only (10)       to have sweets at the weekend, as a special (11)       if we had been good.
　　Although my upbringing (养育) was perhaps a bit (12)       compared with modern children, I'm very thankful to my parents for giving me a clear (13)       in life. Even though I was sometimes (14)      , I think it has made me a better person. In my view, children need clear rules, but more than that they need to learn how to get on with (15)       people and realize they are not the center of the world.

18．假定你是李平，请阅读以下邮件, 接受邀请并回复。词数 80 左右，可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Matt,
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Li Ping