When I was in my first year of middle school, my father died. And my mother was ill just after I got into the high school. I had to   1  going to school because my mother had no money to pay my school bills.
We began to work in people’s gardens to save up money for me to go back to school. Finally I returned to school. 2 my mother __3  the next year. And my world went dark. I asked my headmaster if I could work for the   4 this summer vacation, so I could pay my bills. He was a nice man and let me work in the school garden during the  5 . I can’t study well because of my mother’s death. At the end of my second year, I didn’t  6 most of my exams and the teacher told me I had to repeat the year. After _7  summer working in the school garden, I went   8  to lessons again. But suddenly I fell ill.
Because of my disease (疾病) I was  9  and couldn’t work at school. I was hopeless(無(wú)望的). My headmaster told me not to give up. And my teachers and classmates     10  me a lot. Now, I’m feeling better and will finish my third year.
My life is still not   11 . A few students laugh at my poor clothes. They also call me “farmer” because I work in the school garden. But I   12  hard days will always be followed by sunshine.

When I was in my first year of middle school, my father died. And my mother was ill just after I started high school, I had to stop   1  school because my mother had no ___2___ to pay for my school bills.
We started working in people’s gardens to save up enough money  3  me to go back to school. After some time, I returned to school. Unluckily, my mother died the next year. Suddenly my world went  4 . I asked my headmaster  5  I could work for the school so I could pay my bills. He was a nice man and let me  6  in the school garden during the  7 . I had not been able to study well because of my mother’s  8 .   9  the end of my second year,   I  10  most of my exams and was told I would have to repeat (重復(fù)) the year. After  11  summer working in the school garden, I went back to lessons again. But suddenly I fell  12 .
Because of my illness, I was weak and couldn’t work at school. I was hopeless. My headmaster told me not to give up (放棄). And my teachers  and  classmates  helped me  a   13  . Now I’m feeling better and will finish my third year.
My life is still not  14  . A few students  15  my poor clothes. They also call me ‘farmer’ because I work in the school garden. But I know I have to do with such problems.

The Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Some parents send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia, regardless of how much this costs. Many also want their children to take extra-curriculum activities (課外活動(dòng)) where they either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a better start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is, so parents often spend a large amount of money on education. Even poor parents manage to buy a computer for their son or daughter.
In fact, most parents fail to see that the best education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents can see that their children’s skills are different; they will usually be skilled in some areas while poor in others. However, they fail to realize that today’s children are lack (缺乏) of self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take exams and how to study effectively. They are not teaching them the most important skills they need. They do not teach them to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can help achieve this by teaching their children practical skills like cooking, sewing and other housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and finish his job step by step. The result, a well--cooked dinner, will give a child a lot of satisfaction and confidence. All these will help the children step to success in the future.
An old machine such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child as a toy may make him curious and arouse(喚醒) his interest. If he will spend hours looking at it, and try to mend it; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. Such activities do more than teaching a child to read a book. They teach them to think and to use their minds. This is much more important than learning by reading a book.
1．Is the writer satisfied with the Chinese parents’ ideas of educating their children?
2. Put the underlined sentence “the more expensive an education is, the better it is” into Chinese.
3.What are the children lack of today?
4. How is the experience of cooking according to the fifth paragraph?
5.What does the underlined word “They” refer to(所指的是) in the last paragraph?