Usually people start small talk by asking about things like family, work, school or sports. They ask each other questions like “Do you live in this area?” “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” ”Where do you work?” “What school do you go to?” and “Do you like sports?”. It is also common for people to ask such questions as “Where do you come from?” “How do you like living here?” and “What do you do?”. These are polite questions. They are not personal or private. But it is uncommon and considered impolite to ask questions about a person’s salary, such as “How much money do you make?”. They don’t ask how much money someone paid for something,for example, “How much does your house cost?”. It is OK to ask children how oldthey are, but it is not polite to ask older people about their age, especially women. It is not polite to ask people questions about politics or religion either unless you know them very well. People don’t ask unmarried people, “Why are you single?”, and they don’t ask a married couple with no children, “Why don’t you have any children?’. These are generally considered too personal for first meetings.”

6 What Money Is For?
Money is a blessing when it is used rightly. The same is true of all other good things. They bless if used well; they curse when abused. Many people do not seem to know what money is for. They want it above all things. But they want it to spend chiefly on themselves.
Some boys appear to think that money is to buy good clothes and foods, toys and amusements. Some also seem to think that money is to buy leisure with. They consider that the highest happiness is to live without work. But that is not at all what money is for. We should get nearer the truth than that.

Money is our circulating medium in trade. Families need it to buy things they must have. In this way society exists, and the world of traffic prospers.Money means food, clothing, dwelling schools, books, wise recreation and the means of doing good.
Of course money is not something to hoard. Its value is in its use. A million gold dollars would have been worth no more than a million stones to Robinson Crusoe on his island home. There was nothing to buy, and therefore, no use for money. And so money that is simply hoarded is of no value. It does not purchase the necessaries of life, nor relieve those who are in want. That is not what money is for.

The Bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil". That is, money sought for its own sake is the cause of all sorts of evil--lying, stealing, cheating, robbery, and even murder. This is the best reason for avoiding the love of money.

7. I Dread the End of the Year
"I dread to come to the end of the year," said a friend to me recently, "it makes me realize I am growing old."
William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies at 25". He was right. Most men at 25 are satisfied with their jobs. They have accumulated the little stock of prejudices that they call their "principles", and closed their minds to all new ideas; they have ceased to grow.

The minute a man ceases to grow--no matter what his years--that minute he begins to be old. On the other hand, the really great man never grows old.
Goethe passed out at 83, and finished his Faust only a few years earlier; Gladstone took up a new language when he was seventy. Laplace, the astronomer, was still at work when death caught up with him at seventy-eight. He died crying, "What we know is nothing; what we do not know is immense."

And there you have the real answer to the question, "When is a man old?"
Laplace at 78 died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had a lot to learn.
As long as a man can keep himself in that attitude of mind, as long as he can look back on every year and say,"I grew," he is still young.
The minute he ceases to grow, the minute he says to himself, "I know all that I need to know,"--that day youth stops. He may be twenty-five or seventy-five, it makes no difference. On that day he begins to be old.

8. Education---a Means to an End
Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only for the purpose of educating them; our purpose is to fit them for life. As soon as we realize this fact, we will understand that it is very important to choose a good way of education which will really prepare children for life.

In many modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that, by free education for all--whether rich or poor, clever or stupid--one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough: we find in such countries a far larger number of people with university degrees than there are jobs for them to fill. Because of their degree, they refused to do what they think "low" work; and in fact, work with hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries.

But we have to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is more important than that of a professor in a way: we can live without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns. In countries where there are no servants because nobody is willing to do such work, the professors have to waste much of their time doing housework.

In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever job is suited to his brain and ability, and secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that is very bad to be unwilling to do one's work, or to laugh at someone else's. Only such a type of education can be called valuable to society.

终于到了乔丹这篇 Air Jordan
Sports fans all over the world recognize the name of Michael Jordan. From Taiwan to Tennessee, kids wear clothes with his picture on them. Jerseys with his number 23 on the front, jackets with the Bulls logo on the back, and Air Jordan athletic shoes all reflect the fame of this superstar. Michael Jordan has become the most famous attraction of the world's favorite spectator sport.

Michael Jordan was born in 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Michael did not look like a future superstar. He was very shy and didn't like to talk to other people about himself. He was also very short. He showed little promise of having a future career in basketball. When he tried out for the freshman team in high school, Michael didn't make it. The next year, however, after a large growth spurt, he made the team. The rest is history.

Michael's road to fame began at the University of North Carolina. He brought an acrobatic style to the game that few had seen before. Michael used his quickness and strength to reach the basket again and again. He bacame famous for his powerful slam dunk. Basketball fans from all over the world began to take notice. One reporter wrote that when Michael went up to dunk the basketball, it looked like he could fly. He was given the nickname "Air Jordan".