Are you ready for the coming festive season? What gifts will you give to make your friends feel special? Here teenagers share their ideas for gifts and look forward to the ones they'll get.

Hu Ziwei, 15, Nanjing Foreign Language School

My class will have a gift exchange party, during which we will put on a small talent show. Many of us had our gifts ready a week ago. I believe that the boys will give magic tools, stationary （文具） or sweets, while girls are likely to give dolls or mobile accessories （挂件）.

The biggest fun about these parties is not knowing from whom you'll receive a gift and who will receive your gifts. The computer will decide everything! Our teacher hopes the activity will help us get to know each other better – you see, we've only known each other for three months. I'm looking forward to my surprise gift!

Liu Wei, 17,Beijing No 8 High School

Although my birthday was in November, I'll get a special birthday gift from my classmates this week. A．collective （集体的） birthday party is scheduled for all the students who had birthdays fall in the last six months.

My classroom has been decorated with colorful ribbons and Christmas balls. Someone told me that there will be a huge birthday cake and that a personalized gift sent with best wishes from other students is being prepared for each birthday student. I'm sure we will treasure this event and I'm so looking forward to the big moment!

Yin Zhaohua, 19, Jixi No 1 High School in Heilongjiang

I'm still enjoying the gifts I received on Christmas Eve. Nowadays traditional greeting cards are being replaced with apples and sweets, which symbolize （象征） hope for the year ahead. I got more than 20 apples this Christmas, which means I sent a similar number of apples out. I think apples are healthier, more environmentally and friendly gifts than cards sent through the post.

Wu Shang, 16, Mianyang High School in Sichuan

These last two weeks have been filled with every kind of exam so the atmosphere（气氛） on campus is not at all like a holiday. I miss the days when I got handwritten cards.

In fact, I haven't received or sent holiday cards since the Internet became popular. It's so fast and easy to send an e-card. Also, text messages are fun and convenient （方便的）. I'll send warm hugs to my best friends on New Year's D．ay to let them know that I'll be always there for them.

1. Where is Yin Zhaohua from?

A．He is from the east of China                   B．He is from the capital of China

C．He is from the north of China                  D．He is from the west of China

2. Before the gift exchange party, Hu Ziwei knows _____________

A．from whom she'll receive a gift           B．who will receive her gifts.

C．what gift she will send to her classmates    D．that she may get a magic tool

3. In Liu Wei’s classroom we can’t see _____________ during the collective birthday party.

A．some colorful ribbons                              B．some Christmas balls

C．a huge birthday cake                               D．some mobile accessories

4. On New Year’s D．ay Wu Shang will _____________.

A．have an important exam                   B．send some handwritten cards

C．meet and hug her best friends warmly       D．send some text messages to her friends

5. From the passage we can infer _____________

A．the kids share the same ideas about gifts  

B．the kids will receive and send expensive gifts

C．apples are sent as gifts to keep young kids healthy

D．the kids are trying to show their wishes in different ways

Before I even started school, people felt that I was not going to amount to much. At the age of four, I started speech lessons because even I could not speak well enough to be understood.
First grade was a struggle. I not only had difficulty speaking, but I was expected to learn to read and I just couldn't do it. My parents grew more and more frustrated. They bought books and offered great rewards if I could read one of them from start to finish to them. Well, with my speech problems and now my reading problems, I did not like to do reading and so refused to do it whenever possible.
Second grade was not much better. It was in the second grade that the teacher decided that I needed special education. I remember the days of taking the physical exams. However, after all that, they decided that I did not qualify for special education.
It was in third grade that a new school was built close to where I lived. I remember going there with my parents and helping to get the school ready so that we could transfer(转学). It was a happy day that we started school at Vandalia. However, things did not get better as my parent expected.
It was now time for fifth grade. Mrs. Wakefield was my teacher, and if ever there was a teacher that deserved a gold star, it was her. She did not make me feel upset. Instead, she helped me in so many ways and built my self-confidence so that I actually did believe that I could do something special. And that is just what I did.
For the past 22 years, I have been a fifth grade teacher. Because of Mrs. Wakefield's influence in my life, I am now encouraging students who have had difficulties in their lives to believe that they can overcome and become someone. I have won a large number of awards but I know that all of them belong to one fifth grade teacher who believed in me and challenged me to be all that I could be.
I still have a class picture of her with her fifth grade class hanging on the wall of my office, encouraging other teachers to reach out to their students.
【小题1】 What does the underlined phrase “amount to much” mean in Paragraph l?