China has once again showed its ability to change the world with its “four great new     1     (invent)”—high-speed rail, mobile payment, shared bicycles, and online shopping.

China’s new-generation high-speed train, the Fuxing Hao, which can travel     2     a speed of 350 km/h, is now one of the     3     (fast) trains in the world. Besides high-speed rail, China    4     (improve) people’s lives in many other innovative(创新的) ways over the last ten years.

Bike sharing, for example, is not new itself. But China has made it much more     5     (convenience) and popular both in China and overseas.

And back in China, when riding a shared bike, you can stop     6     (buy) and eat whatever you want     7     (simple) with a tap on your phone. You could easily pay with your smart phone by    8     (scan) the seller’s QR code (二维码). Cashless payment has grown into     9     popular choice for Chinese people—even a pancake seller is using mobile payment.

Besides, the four innovative ways of life are most appealing (吸引) to youths from 20 countries taking part     10     the Belt and Road (一带一路) Initiative (倡议), and they wish their countries would emulate (效仿) China in terms of technological achievements.

People have long dreamt of a car that flies through the sky. However, of the world′s more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful has succeeded with a person    1    board. Tomohiro Fukuzawa and his team in Japan′s SkyDrive have recently carried out a successful test flight of a vehicle carrying a person. In a video    2    (show) to reporters last week, a vehicle that looked like a motorcycle with propellers (螺旋桨) lifted up to two meters off the ground. It    3    (fly) in circles in a protected area for 4 minutes.

If the flight time can be extended to 30 minutes, the car will have more possibilities. Unlike airplanes and helicopters, “electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles”    4    (design) to offer quick point-to-point personal travel. They can do away with    5    (have) to deal with airports, traffic jams and the cost of paying for pilots. Possible uses for connecting faraway    6    (region) and providing transportation in disasters have also been noted.

Tomohiro Fukuzawa heads    7    SkyDrive effort. He hopes the flying car can be made into a real-life product by 2023. The Japanese government speaks    8    (high) of the futuristic project. The goal is to expand the flying car′s    9    (commerce) use by the 2030s.

Experts compare the excitement about flying cars to that of the days    10    the aviation industry got started with the Wright Brothers and the auto industry with the Ford Model T.

Life on Mars

Some people believe humans could live on the planet Mars by the year 2100. Our own planet, the Earth, is becoming more and more crowded and polluted because of the rapid increase in population.     1    (hopeful), people could start all over again and build     2     better world on Mars. Here is what life there could be like. At present, our spacecraft are very slow—it would take     3    (month). With the development of technology, the journey might only take about 20 minutes by 2100 in spacecraft     4     travel at the speed of light!     5    , the spacecraft would travel so fast that the journey might be quite     6     (comfort). Many people would feel ill. Humans cannot survive     7     water, oxygen or food. Nobody knows     8     there would be enough water or oxygen on Mars for people there. Gravity could be another problem. The gravity on Mars     9    (be) only about three-eighths of that on the Earth. People would have to wear boots that are specially designed to prevent     10     from floating off into space. Life on Mars would be interesting as well as challenging.