As the saying goes, time is money. And in my opinion, time is even precious than money. Why? Because when money is spent, we still have a chance to earn them back. But when time is wasting, we can never get it back. There is no doubt whether time is very limited, and even a minute is of great value. We should make fully use of time to do what should be done. It’s the pity that a lot of people still didn’t appreciate the value of time. They are wasting their time doing nothing of useful. We should form the good habit of race against time and make a difference in our world.

   Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not bring so much material home in the first place.

The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.

Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.

But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.

There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary material we are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.

I’m writing to tell you about discussion we recently had about if it is good or not for families to own cars.

As the development of people’s living conditions, more and more people have our own cars. Some of us think it’s good to own a car. Firstly, it’s a convenient, fast, and comfortable mean of transportation. Secondly, it shows that people are becoming richer, and the country much strong. It also makes relative businesses and industries to develop faster.

Others have different opinions. They think that cars give off waste gases and polluted the environment. Too many cars will have some bad effects, such as more accidents. Beside, the limited parking space is another big problem.

In my view, people should think careful before they buy a car.

Yours truly,

Li Hua

   Immigrant children are often highly motivated and have ambitious parents. And these clever, knowledge-hungry youngsters often achieve higher results than the rest of the classmates.

In 1954, the United States opened its borders to an immigrant from Syria. His son, Steve Jobs, became one of the most creative entrepreneurs（企业家）.In the current refugee crisis, that might look like a fairy tale, but it is not that unbelievable.

While immigrant youngsters might face cultural, social and economic disadvantages, the top 10% of 15- year-old students with an immigrant background in the United States did just as well as the top 10% without an immigrant background, as measured by Pisa, an international test.

In fact, when considering social background, these high-achieving immigrant teenagers were almost a school year ahead.

This doesn't only happen in the United States. In 13out of the 37 countries with comparable data, including the United Kingdom, the top 10% of immigrants were at least 10 points ahead of the non-immigrant students in Pisa, after considering social background.

These highly motivated students, managing to overcome the double disadvantages of poverty and an immigrant background, have the potential（潜力）to make exceptional contributions to their host countries.

On average across all countries, top performing immigrants and non-immigrants reached similar levels of performance on the Pisa mathematics test. Many immigrants seem determined to make the most of any opportunity that arises. Their children also seem ready to take on an academic challenge. Alongside the Pisa are questions about students' willingness to try to solve more complex problems. First-generation immigrants, including in the UK, are more likely than average to want to stretch themselves and try to answer more difficult problems.

The OECD's research shows that in most cases immigrant students and their parents hold an ambition to win the matches, and in some cases they go beyond the expectations of families in their host country. For example, parents of immigrant students in Belgium, Germany and Hungary are more likely to expect that their children will go to university and get a degree than parents of students without an immigrant background.

   During the recent school holidays I was walking past a playground on my way to a meeting. The thing that _____ me was not the number of children _____ the fresh air on a pleasant Queensland winter day，but the number of older people _____ those children.

Sure，there were a few younger mums and dads，but there were _____ more“old folk”who I doubt were all grandparents. It is great that they are able to _____ quality time with their grandchildren. After all，we often hear people say that their _____  for retiring（退休）is that they can devote more time to their families. However，I _____ how many grandparents are spending their retirement years taking on the role of full-or part-time _____ of their grandchildren.

Retirement is a(n) _____ time. We are generally living much longer than our own grandparents did, but as we ______ we become more limited in our ability to pursue our own ______. However, what if your plans for pursuing some of these lifetime dreams are ______ out of a sense of ______ for your family?

So how can you keep a ______ balance between helping out your family and ______ your dreams altogether？I'm not sure where the answer lies，but having an open and honest ______ with your family should be at the top of the list. You need to nip any sense of duty in the bud（对……一开始即加以阻止）— and sooner ______ later.

By all means，help your family whenever you can. Everyone will ______ from it，and your grandchildren will get the rewards from staying with their ______. Do it because you want to，not because you feel you have to. ______ spare time for yourself to realize your dreams and ensure that nobody puts your retirement on hold.