The United Kingdom or the UK     1     (make) up of four countries. They are England,Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has     2    interesting and long history. Wherever you go in the country, you will be surrounded by     3    (evident) of four different groups of people who took over at different times throughout history. The Romans,     4     great achievements included building towns and roads, came in the first century. Then in the     5     (five) century arrived Anglo-Saxons who introduced the English language and changed the way people built houses. The Vikings came in the eighth century. They     6     (leave) behind lots of new vocabulary and also the names of many locations across the UK. The last group, the Normans, conquered England in the 11th century. They had castles     7     (build) all around there. The Normans were in fact French, so many French words     8     (slow) entered into the English language.

The UK is a     9     (fascinate) mix of history and modern culture. If you keep your eyes open, you will be surprised to find that you can see both its past    10    its present.

China has nearly 5, 000 years of     1     (record) history. However, the history of Chinese furniture is even longer than     2     of its writing, which can be traced back to more than 7, 000 years ago.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of the furniture was hand-made using high-quality hardwood     3     raw materials, which are now rare and expensive. Ordinary people often use wood such as pine, elm, and beech, but the quality between the woods     4     (different) greatly.

Classical furniture is mostly made by hand. Modern machines cannot     5     (complete) replace handwork. The shapes carved by the machine are neat but the lines are rigid and lacking in vitality. The most delicate aspect of Chinese classical furniture is the structural part of the work. Combining pieces of wood together,     6     (use) nothing more than the wood itself, is a basic skill of all carpenters in ancient China. It was first discovered in the wooden structure of the Hemudu site     7     the ancestors lived. This structure fully represents the     8     (create) and artistry (艺术性) of humanity.

Ancient Chinese     9     (philosophy) have been expressed in traditional Chinese furniture.     10     (achieve) that, skilled carpenters properly matched the curves and straight lines of the furniture.

Xuan paper, known as one of the Four Treasures of Study, first came into     1    (exist) in Xuan Prefecture in the Tang dynasty. The traditional skill of making the paper    2    hand has been passed down through generations. The process takes as many as 108 steps, all of     3    require a level of delicacy.

Take papermaking master Zhou Donghong, for example. He uses a fine screen to filter (过滤) a mixture of water and fibers. It takes him and his partner only 15 seconds     4    (form) and shape it, but they’ve devoted    5    (they) to perfecting the skills for decades.

“There are a lot of tricks of filtering the fibers, and timing is     6    ( difficult) part of all. We have only one chance to filter the right amount of fibers , and only the proper weight guarantees the paper is neither too thin    7    too thick, and the margin(差额) for error is extremely small, ” said Zhou.

The skill of papermaking,    8    (recognize) as a national treasure, has also proven to be an international one. We felt    9    great sense of pride as it was listed as a world intangible culture heritage by UNESCO in 2009. Since then, in Jingxian County, Xuan papermaking     10    (teach) in schools.