The British Museum,     1     (locate)   in the Bloomsbury area of London, is the first national public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection numbers some 8 million works, making     2     one of the largest in existence. It has been     3     (wide) sourced, and documenting the story of human culture     4     its beginnings to the present. As with all other national museums in     5     United Kingdom, it charges no admission fee. Its ownership of some of its most famous objects     6     originally came from other countries is controversial, particularly in the case of the Parthenon Marbles. Today the museum no longer houses     7       (collection) of natural history, and the books and manuscripts (手稿)   once it     8     (hold) now form part of the independent British Library,     9     it still keeps its universality in collections of artificial works     10     (represent) the cultures of the world, ancient and modern.

Starting around 4,000 BC, traditional Chinese painting has developed continuously over a period of more than 6,000 years. Its growth has certainly reflected the changes of time and social conditions.

With Buddhism introduced     1    China from India around the first century AD, the art of painting religious murals (壁画) became important. By the 4th century, landscape painting     2     (make) itself an independent form of expression.

    3    , during the Song Dynasty (960~1279), paintings of historical characters and stories of everyday life gained growing     4     (popular).

Around the 9th century, bird-and-flower painting     5     (separate) from decorative art to form an independent style,     6    subjects included a rich variety of flowers, birds, insects and fish. Many of the scholar painters worked with ink and brushes.They produced paintings of such things as plum blossoms(梅花), orchids(兰花), bamboo, chrysanthemums(菊花), pines, etc., using their subject matter     7     (reflect) their own ideals and characters.

Modern paintings often mix several colours on one brush or mix their colours with black inks. As     8    result, they have obtained varied colours. Such     9     (technique) have been widely adopted and     10     (far) developed in the contemporary period.

In much of Asia, especially the so - called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea,     1     Vietnam, food is usually eaten with chopsticks.

    2     (chopstick) are usually two long, thin pieces of wood or bamboo. They can also     3     made of plastic, animal bone or metal. Sometimes chopsticks are quite artistic. Truly elegant chopsticks might be made of gold and silver with Chinese characters. Skilled workers also combine various hardwoods and metal     4     (create) special designs.

The Chinese have used chopsticks for five thousand years. People     5     (probable) cooked their food in large pots,     6     (use) twigs (树枝) to remove it. Over time, as the population grew, people began cutting food into small pieces so it would cook more quickly. Food in small pieces could be eaten easily     7     twigs which gradually turned into chopsticks.

Some people think that     8     greatest Chinese scholar Confucius, who lived from roughly 551 to 479 B.C., influenced the     9     (develop) of chopsticks. Confucius believed knives would remind people of killings and were too violent for use at the table.

Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, for example, most people traditionally eat with     10     (they) hands.

Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known    1    (local), is home to several hundred ancient human statues. After this remote Pacific island    2    (settle) by the Polynesians (波利尼西亚人), it remained isolated (与世隔绝) for centuries. All the resources that went into the statues, some of    3    are ten metres tall and weigh over 7,000 kilos, came from the Island itself. Yet when Dutch adventurers landed in 1722, they met a Stone Age culture.

The statues,    4    (carve) with stone tools, were transported for many kilometers to the large stone platforms, without the use of animals or wheels. The identity of the statues builders was    5    doubt until well into    6    twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian    7    (explore), thought the statues had been created by the people from Peru. Bestselling Swiss author Erich Daniken believed they were built by aliens. Modern science has proved that the statues builders were Polynesians, but not how they moved their    8    (creation). Local folklore (民俗) believes that the statues walked there    9    (they), while researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues there,    10    (use) ropes and logs.

The Grand Canal, known to the Chinese    1    the Jing–Hang Grand Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the longest canal or artificial river in the world. It runs north and south eastern China. The canal    2    (stretch) over 1,100 miles from the city of Beijing to the city of Hangzhou.

The original canal system began around the year 605,    3    Emperor Yang was in power. He realized that he needed a quicker and    4    (efficient) way to move food from China’s southern rice-growing region to the country’s north. So, the first section of the Grand Canal was ordered to be constructed,    5    (connect) existing canals, lakes, and rivers. An    6    (estimate)one million people, mostly farmers, worked on the construction, which took six years. Future rulers continued to expand and improve the waterway, and it eventually became    7    vital national lifeline.

The Grand Canal    8    (make) great contributions to China’s unification, economic development and cultural prosperity in the past hundreds of years. It is awarded as one of the great    9    (project) of ancient China, and still has a    10    (significance) influence on China both economically and culturally