On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered in the Sierra mountains about 160 km from San Francisco. Everyone     1     (convince) that they could find their fortunes. Thousands of people from all over the country rushed to the hills. So many people came that there existed a critical     2     (short) of food. Even when supplies arrived, their goods were dumped on the beach because there was no place     3     (store) them. As many sailors left their ships to hunt for gold, their ships were pulled to shore and had them made into stores and hotels.

No one obeyed the law and everything was     4     chaos. People out fighting fires came back to find their house robbed. Many thought the fires were     5     (intent) set.     6     (anger) citizens took the law into their own hands. They hung without trial people who they thought were robbers.

But with powerful measures     7     (adopt), the place finally returned to a     8     (harmony) community. Many fortune-hunters did find their fortunes. Some of those,     9     managed to keep their money, built huge houses on Nob Hill. But the fortunes could be lost just as easily. Many lost their money on betting.

By 1855, the gold rush was over. Today, San Francisco is one of the major cities in the United States. And it is all     10     they found gold in those hills.

Chinese seal (印章) carving originated during the Shang Dynasty. In the beginning, the characters carved on seals were the same as     1     (that) used in writing, such as Xiaozhuan of the Qin Dynasty. However, with Chinese writing     2     (become) increasingly standardized and simplified, it became a tradition to use Xiaozhuan for seals.

In ancient times, seals were regarded as     3     guarantee of authenticity (真实性). Today, they are more of a sign of authority of a legal person     4     an artwork.

After the Qin Dynasty, materials for seals were     5     (strict)classified. Jade (玉) was only used for emperors, gold and silver for high-ranking     6     (office) and copper (铜) for the low ranks. Various types of stones were used from the Song Dynasty,       7     led to a boom for seal carving.

    8     (early), seal carving was accomplished only by workers. During the Song Dynasty, scholars and artists began to get involved in it. They combined seal carving with calligraphy and painting,       9     (make) this traditional art more popular in China.

To protect this artistic treasure, Chinese seal carving     10     (include) on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

    1    (drive) by a burning desire for adventure and travel, Li Bai left home and started to travel around in his early     2    (twenty). His footsteps covered almost the whole country. During his travels, he visited famous mountains and great rivers,     3    (encounter) different customs and practices. These travelling experiences also nourished his love of nature and inspired him     4    (write) numerous poems in the romantic style.

Isabel Allende is considered to be among the greatest Latin American novelists. Her very     1    (success) novels are a mix of reality and mysticism (神秘主义). They are often based on her own     2    (experience) of life and of being a woman. To promote her books she travels the world giving lectures. At present she     3    (live) in California with her family.

Allende was born in Lima, Peru in 1942. Her family kept moving around when she was young. She grew up and went to school in Lebanon,     4     she learned English. Allende got     5    (marry) when she was 20. She became successful early on and had     6     variety of jobs. She was a well-known TV personality and a journalist with a feminist magazine.     7     1959 and 1965, she worked for the UN. She also translated romantic novels from English to Spanish, which sparked her desire     8    (write). Pablo Neruda, famous Chilean poet, told Allende she had too much     9    (imagine) to be a journalist and should write novels instead. In 1981, she started writing her dying grandfather a letter. This     10    (eventual) was transformed into her first bestseller The House of the Spirits (1982). Allende was immediately compared to Gabriel García Márquez. More bestsellers, awards and international acclaim (赞赏) followed.