Can you play music? Can you play it well? If your answers are no, then the news of a professional band (职业乐队) of 14 disabled players playing around China can surely surprise you. This band is famous. They won many prizes for their wonderful performances and also played for the 2008 Paralympics (残奥会). They even played when leaders (领导人) from other countries came to visit China.

All of the band members (成员) are students of the band leader. And at first, there were around 40 players. But as time went by, some changed their jobs and some went back to hometown to live their own life. The 14 players really loved music and they stayed.

At first, the band was too poor to pay for teachers to teach them. But they didn’t give up and just practiced for over eight hours every day.

It doesn’t matter who you are. As long as you work hard, your dream will come true and you’ll live a happy life.

E

You may know the song Happy Birthday very well. 【小题1】 The writer is an American girl. And she was very rich (富有的) after that.

When she was a child, she was poor. 【小题2】 She was not happy because she didn’t have money to buy a gift for her.

The night before the party she was in bed, thinking about the gift when her grandma came in. 【小题3】 Hearing (听到) the girl’s story, she said, “I think I can help you. How about singing a song to her? Happy birthday to...”【小题4】 They sang and sang. Suddenly she woke up (醒来). It was a dream (梦)! She wrote it down at once and wanted to sing it to her friends at the party.

【小题5】 “It sounds beautiful! We never heard such a beautiful song before. Thank you for giving me the wonderful gift,” said her friend. And they learnt to sing it. Later more and more Americans knew her.