同学你好，该知识点来自沪江网校《英语零基础直达大学六级【随到随学班】》的课程，想要更系统的学习，欢迎进入课程学习。不仅可以和更多的同学一起学习，而且还有老师、助教随时的学习指导和知识点解答哦。

同学你好~
答疑区提出的问题应在班级授课范围内哦，可以看看这里的答疑规范，请同学理解。
https://class.hujiang.com/topic/3779138/

这篇文章可以缩短一点：
The Emperor of Heaven intended to pick up twelve animals in order to represent the Chinese zodiac. The first twelve animals to arrive can be selected. The cat and the mouse were good friends and both of them wanted to take part in the activity. The cat said to the mouse, ”Let’s sign up for it! But I used to get up late, what should I do?”
The mouse said, “It doesn’t matter. You could sleep as long as you like. Trust me and I will wake you up tomorrow morning.”
The next morning, it was still early. There was o animal on the road. The little mouse went out happily, but it forgot to keep its word that it would wake the cat up. However, the little mouse met a big river. He went across the river on the back of a cow. When they arrived, the mouse jumped from the cow’s back to the front of the cow and said proudly, “I am the first.”
In this way, the little mouse became the first animal in the Chinese zodiac, while the cow came in a close second. And it was followed by the tiger as the third one. After that it came the rabbit, dragon, snake and other animals.
The last one to arrive was the pig who ran here in a sweat.
Because the cat got up too late, it could not be selected into the twelve animals of Chinese zodiac. From then on , as long as the cat saw the mouse , it would catch the mouse.

祝同学学习进步~