Johann Strauss was     1     Austrian composer of light   music，particularly dance   music and operettas (轻歌剧). He was born   in Vienna in 1825. Although his father didn't   want him     2     (become) a musician, Strauss studied the violin     3     (secret) when he was a child. When his father discovered his son was practicing on a violin one day, he gave him a beating,     4     (say) that he was going to beat the music out of   the boy. But that didn't prevent the boy from becoming one of the greatest     5     (composer) of all time. He wrote his first waltz at six. At the age of 19, he decided to devote himself to     6     (write) music. He formed his own orchestra and made a   successful tour to Europe and soon became   famous. The emperor of Austria was so     7     (please) with his music that he   appointed him the conductor at the court balls   of Vienna. It was for these occasions that he   wrote some of his most popular waltzes, among     8     was the well­known favorite TheBlueDanube. In all，the talented Johann Strauss   wrote more than 500 masterpieces. In his   lifetime, he was known     9     the Waltz   King, and was largely responsible for the    10     (popular) of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

Have you ever imagined singing together with hundreds of people while at home alone? It can be realized     1     (easy) by a virtual choir. Anyone with a video camera and     2     Internet connection can take part in a video choir from anywhere. A virtual choir helps connect ordinary people together and     3     (enable) them to add their voices to those of other individuals.

Award-winning     4     (compose) and conductor Eric Whitacre came up with the idea of a virtual choir. Whitacre began studying music in 1988 and got a master’s degree     5     musical composition in 1997. Over the next ten years, Whitacre’s     6     (origin) compositions became popular among choirs and singers. In 2009,     7     (inspire) by a video from a girl singing one of his works, he created his first virtual choir, “Lux Aurumque”,     8     received millions of views on the Internet. The virtual choir     9     (become) a worldwide phenomenon since then.

The virtual choir is a wonderful way for people to sing with one voice,     10     (make) the world a better place.

Longjing tea,     1     has topped the list of the ten most famous teas in China with its color, taste and shape,     2     (name) after its region of production—Longjing Village of West Lake. The good environment and water resources are good for the     3     (grow) of the tea, confirming (证实) the saying that “Longjing tea is the     4     (good) among all of the teas in the world”.

Thanks     5     Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, the tea has earned a high reputation. It is said that Emperor Qianlong visited a mountain of Longjing Village of West Lake on his travels in Hangzhou, and he saw some ladies picking the tea at     6     foot of the mountain. He was so interested in their movements that he decided to have a go himself.

While     7     (pick) the tea, he received the news of his mothers illness, so he carelessly put the leaves in his pocket and     8     (leave) Hangzhou for Beijing. He visited his mother immediately upon     9     (he) arrival in Beijing, and his mother smelt the pleasant smell of the tea leaves from his pocket and wanted to have a taste. After drinking a cup of tea, she found herself completely     10     (energy), and she even praised it as a cure for all illnesses.

Jade is found in mountains and riverbeds, and the Chinese people consider jade     1     (be) “the essence of heaven and earth”. In Chinese culture, jade has its cultural meaning.    2     (traditional), the Chinese people thought jade is the most precious stone, a material containing the essence of virtue.

The     3    (early) Chinese jade is from the early New Stone Age Hemudu culture in Zhejiang province. The history of jade in China    4    (date) back to Shang dynasty when jade was used as a medium of exchange.

Jade is important to Chinese culture because of its beauty, practical use and social value. In Book of Rites, Confucius said that there are 11 virtues    5    (represent) in jade: kindness, justice, propriety, truth,    6    (honest), music, loyalty, heaven, earth, morality and intelligence.

Jade is so deep-rooted in Chinese culture     7    there are famous stories about it, such as "He Shi Zhi Bi”. In the story, Bian He found a piece of raw jade and tried to give    8     to the King of Chu State. However, two generations of kings didn't recognize its value and cut off his feet    9     a punishment for his trying to present an unworthy stone to them. Eventually, King of Wen found it was a rare treasure. It     10    (carve) into a disc and named after Bian He.

The five interlocked Olympic rings have become fairly familiar at this point. But do you know what they mean and the story behind their    1    (create)?

The 1912 Olympic Games, held in Sweden, were the first to include athletes from    2    were then considered the five continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and America.    3     (inspire) by what had become a    4    (true) global event, Coubertin designed the symbol of the Games: the Olympic rings. Since 1920, the Olympic rings    5    (use) in every summer and winter Games.

Given what we know about colors and their many symbolic    6    (mean), it seems like it’d be safe to assume that each color featured in the Olympic rings would stand     7    something specific, like a continent.    8    in reality, that’s not the case at all. Coubertin    9    (choose) the six official Olympic colors——blue, yellow, black, green, red and white (featured in the background)——because when he introduced the symbol in 1913, every single flag of the nations     10    (participate) in the games could be reproduced using the colors in the Olympic symbol. Or, in his own words: “The six colors thus combined reproduce those of all nations without exception.”