Jia Pu, also known as Zu Pu in China, which     1     (mean) “the family tree”, is about clans (宗族) and the tracing of their lineage (家系) and history. It tracks the growth of the clan members by     2     (record) their political, military or academic achievements. It also praises the clan’s ancestors and encourages future generations to pursue worthy cases.

What was the first piece of Jia Pu like? Before the     3     (invent) of writing, Chinese family information was recorded by tying knots on ropes. Objects such as arrows, shoes, and bronze coins     4     (tie) to the knots to show the number of generations     5     members in a family. This information was orally passed on to later generations. Such were the earliest     6     (form) of Chinese family-tree records.

The oldest     7     (write) piece of Jia Pu, Ni’s Family Tree, dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period. Before the Qin dynasty, there were already several recorded pieces spread     8     (wide) throughout the country. During the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties, keeping a piece of Jia Pu became increasingly popular     9     people. After the Tang dynasty, editing Jia Pu was considered a major event among people of     10     same surname.

“What do you call traditional medicine that works?” “Medicine.” This old joke contains more than a milligram of truth. For example, Tu Youyou,a Chinese chemist,    1    (begin) testing the sweet wormwood used in local herbal remedies    2    a cure for malaria (疟疾). But not every folk cure is so closely examined.

Over 1.7 billion people, most    3    (live) in the world’s poorest countries, are affected by Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS). These often lead to    4    (disable) and place a heavy burden on health-care systems. They are    5    (bad) equipped to deal with them. They    6    (refer) to as “neglected”. A study published in 2009, in International Health, estimated that they received only 0.6% of the money given by rich countries to poor ones for health purposes.

A team put a crude sample on    7    they were working through two rounds of chromatography. Their analysis revealed (揭示)    8    oil which proved effective at killing trypanosome parasites. For many researchers, that would have been the cue for a trip to the patent office.     9    for Dr Osei-Safo the point is not to make a refined pharmaceutical, but rather    10    (direct) those who are ill towards the best treatments available from herbalists.

Languages keep borrowing words from other languages. This is one of the reasons     1     languages keep changing almost every day.     2     we should do about the increasing number of “borrowed words” in our vocabulary is something that deserves careful thought. In England nowadays, there is no one to decide     3     new words should be accepted into the language. A standard was first set for the English language by King Henry Ⅶ. That is     4     we have the phrase “the King’s English”. King Henry Ⅶ was a poet who showed great concern for language. He set a standard for     5     people were to speak English, but today     6     can make a decision is anyone’s guess.

However, there is an organization to make decisions like this in France.     7     “borrowed words” will be used or not is decided by a government department. At one time the department banned (禁止) some “borrowed words” from English, including “weekend” and “e-mail”. It was supported by French people. This was     8     they wanted to keep their language pure and unique.

Today, the spread of “borrowed words” is mostly due to the easily accessed Internet and television programmes from across the world. Some people believe that this progress is good, while others worry     9     it may result in language pollution.     10     opinion you agree with is up to you.

Last week, our forum     1     (ask) people to share some funny or strange stories about using English with us.     2     our surprise, we received so many     3    (post), which reminded us that some of     4     English we learned in the classroom is rather     5     (difference) from the English in the outside world. Yancy heard her teacher Maggie ate a big frog.     6     (actual), Maggie had a sore throat. What made Sophie     7    (confuse) is that the first floor she was told was in fact the ground floor to     8     (she) knowledge. In another post, Julien couldn't understand why his pen friend used “wicked”, such a negative word, to describe his nice grandfather. Zheng Xu, a hard­working Chinese exchange student, was     9     (disappoint) at his teacher’s comment “Not bad!” on his paper,     10     means “fantastic”.