People eat rice all over the world

Rice is believed to have been first grown in China or possibly somewhere else in eastern Asia around 10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of rice farming comes from a 7,000-year-old site near the lower Yangtze River village of Hemudu in Zhejiang province in China.

Rice is a kind of food which requires much labor. In developed countries, the planting and harvesting is done     1     (most) with machines.    2    , in much of the world, these things are still largely done by hand. It takes one farmer 1,000 to 2,000 working hours     3     (raise) a rice crop on 2.5 acres of land. The fact that rice     4     (need) so much labor means     5     (keep) a lot of the population on the land.

Rice is also a crop    6     need of lots of water. The wet rice     7     (grow) in most of Asia needs hot weather after a period of rain and conditions provided by the Asian     8     (rain) seasons affect many places     9     rice is grown.

Rice straws (稻秆)     10     (leave)in the fields add nutrients (营养物) to the soil after rice is harvested. For the next crop, rice farmers can often enjoy a good harvest by adding little or no fertilizer (肥料).

La rou, or preserved meat, is a winter season specialty in China. They are customarily made during the last lunar month on the     1    (tradition) Chinese calendar when the temperature is cool     2     not freezing to dry and preserve these staples. La rou, generally refers to pork products while other cured meat, la wei, is made across China     3    (depend) on local availability, using goose, duck, rabbit, and even seafood.

The preserved meat     4    (consider) a form of cultural heritage in many places. Similar to bacon, the Chinese preserved meat is made with large quantities of salt, some of     5     are smoked over with fire     6    (achieve) more flavor. There are many kinds of preserved meat in China with     7    (incredible) diverse ingredients and recipes, bringing a wide range of flavors from sweet to hot.

Each region has its own seasoning and flavor profile. The Cantonese     8    (vary) is sweet, flavored with sugar, rice wine, and so y sauce. In Sichuan, it tends to be hotter, seasoned with chili pepper and Sichuan pepper powder. Both of them are great choices     9     ingredients for dishes like fried rice and vegetable stir-fry. Cured poultry products are commonly found in South China. They are slaughtered, butchered, and rubbed with alcohol before salting, which     10    (dry) out the meat and prevents bacteria growing on it.

【推荐1】My favorite color is orange. It is a warm and bright color, and it makes me feel happy and safe. When I     1     (see) this color, I think of fall. When I go outside, I enjoy    2     (walk) through the dark orange leaves and listening to the sound they make under my feet. I also think of the smell of fire. It’s great to be at home and sit by the warm fire with     3     (I) family. This warm and beautiful color should be everywhere this season!

Most of us think that the world’s oldest color is black or dark grey. However, scientists have discovered that bright pink is the oldest     1     (know)color. They looked at 1. 1-billion-year-old rocks deep beneath the Sahara Desert.     2     (make)powder from the rocks, then they found a bright pink color. Dr Nur Gueneli     3     came from the Australian National University led the research. She said it     4     (produce)by ancient organisms that lived in old oceans. At that time, tiny organisms were     5     largest life forms on the earth.

Dr Gueneli said her first     6     (react)was complete amazement. She said her team thought the rock powder might turn black in their experiments. Instead, it turned pink. Another researcher said, “Dr Gueneli came into my office and     7     (show)this bright pink material, saying, ‘Look at this. It turned out to be a real color, 1. 1 billion years old.’” The rocks could contain other colors, from a blood red to a deep purple. Gueneli accounted     8     the importance of her findings. She said, “Imagine you could find a fossilized(石化的)dino saur skin that still has     9     (it)original color—green or blue. That is     10     (actual)the type of discovery that we’ve made.”