Chinese silk is famous all over the world. It has bright colors and it feels ________ and comfortable, so it is wonderful to be made into silk clothing. Silk clothing has beautiful ________. Among them, the most popular patterns are flowers and birds. Besides, silk plays an important part in Chinese culture.

The history of silk in China began more than 5,000 years ago. Silk was valuable in ancient China. Wearing silk was a symbol of being ________. At the very beginning, only members of the king’s family could wear silk.

Silk was also popular among foreign people. They loved silk and would like to ________ a lot of money for it. The Chinese kings used to keep how to make silk a secret. Anyone who told the secret or took silkworms (蚕) out of China would be killed. So the secret of silk making was kept unknown ________ 200 B.C. Then, some other countries began to know how to make silk.

There were no cars or planes 2, 000 years ago. People bought or ________ all kinds of goods along a road between China and Europe. People called it the Silk Road because most of the goods going on the road were made of silk. The road was 8,000 km ________ through mountains and deserts. It was ________ a long way to go and it was not easy.

The Silk Road is very important to both China and the rest of the world, either ________ or at present. It once played the role as a land bridge ________ the East and the West. Today, China and five other central Asian countries are working together. They want their Silk Road treasures to be on the World Cultural Heritage list (文化遗产名录).

Chinese New Year Painting, or nianhua in Chinese, is a kind of traditional paintings to be put up on walls and windows during the Spring Festival. Its bright colors and different subjects show the Chinese great expectation for happiness and wealth.

Chinese New Year Painting is an old handicraft (手工艺品). Its first form was a picture of a door god during the Tang Dynasty. Later, more subjects such as the Kitchen God, women and babies were included. As the Chinese New Year arrives, every family puts up its New Year paintings in order to say goodbye to the past and welcome the future. One of the most famous woodblock New Year paintings comes from Yanjiabu of Shandong Province. It covers all kinds of themes and forms. They show people’s everyday life.

As time went by, people found New Year paintings old-fashioned. Besides, they considered the door god too scary to be put up in their homes. They wanted something more artistic. So in the middle of the 1980s, the sales of New Year paintings dropped greatly.

Usually, colorful woodblock New Year paintings are made as follows. Firstly, artists draw a simple sketch (素描) on the paper. Secondly, they make the simple sketch on the wood board and print a few samples (样品). Thirdly, they add color to the sample. Lastly, when the preparation is finished, the printers paint color on the color board, and then put paper on the wood board and brush the paper. Then the colorful woodblock New Year paintings are ready.

There are four main themes in the Chinese New Year paintings...

The weather gets colder, the days get shorter and the leaves change colours and fall off the trees. Soon, winter is here. Snow c    66     the ground. People live in warm h    67     and wear heavy coats outside. Our food comes from shops, but what happens to birds?

Birds do many different amazing things to get t    68     the winter. Some of them migrate. This means they travel to other places where the weather is much w    69    , or where they can find food.

Many birds migrate in autumn. Some travel in large groups, because the trip can be d    70    . For example, wild geese fly in noisy V-shaped groups, while some other birds fly a    71    .

How do they know when it is the time to l    72     for the warm place? Scientists are still studying this. Many scientists think migration is part of a yearly cycle of changes that a bird goes through. The cycle is controlled by changes in the amount of daylight and the weather.

Birds can fly very l    73     distances. For example, the Arctic terns live close to the North Pole (北极) in summer. In autumn, they fly south, all the way to the South Pole. Each spring they r    74     to the North Pole.

Most birds migrate shorter distances. Do you know how they find their way to the s    75     place each year? Birds use the sun, the moon and the stars for the direction.

76. 你们学校英文报纸Campus Life正在开展以“Reading habits”为主题的征文活动。用英语写一篇短文，表达你的看法。

1.       文中不得出现你的真实姓名和学校名称；

2.       语言通顺，意思连贯，条理清晰，书写规范；

3.       词数70左右，文章的标题和开头己给出，不计入总词数。

Reading habits

Different people have different reading habits.

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