Once upon a time, there was a man called Zhang San. He worked very ________ until one day he finally saved 300 taels of silver (银两). He was very happy about it. But he worried that someone might ________ it from him. So he decided to find a safe place. He thought, “To carry it along with ________? Too heavy. To put it in the drawer at home? Thieves might break in.” Finally he had a “good” idea. At midnight, Zhang San ________ a hole in the corner of his backyard, and buried (埋葬) all his money in it. However, he still worried that somebody would come and steal it. Then he had a “________” idea. He put a sign near the place saying “No 300 taels of silver buried here.” Then he left in peace.

Unluckily, his next door ________, Wang Er, saw the whole thing. _______ Zhang fell asleep, Wang came out. By the moonlight, he saw ________ big sign Zhang San put. He knew what it meant. So he stole all the money. But before he went away, he was filled ________ fear. “What if Zhang San finds his money gone?” Wang Er thought. “What if he suspects (怀疑) me?” Then he had the “best” idea. He left a sign, ________. And it said, “Your neighbor Wang Er did not steal it.”

Wearing traditional Chinese clothes, a young Chinese woman often plays guzheng on the streets of Paris, France. She is Peng Jingxuan.

Peng _______ in 1995 and began to learn guzheng when she was seven years old. In 2018, Peng went to Paris _______ music. In the city, she saw many people do street performances, but _______ of them knew about Chinese music. _______ she decided to play guzheng on the streets.

Peng made her first performance in front of a theater in _______ same year. “I was very nervous at that time, but a lot of people said that they enjoyed my performance,”Peng said. Then she started to perform during weekends and holidays. Later, Peng posted _______ first video of playing guzheng on the streets online and it quickly went viral (走红). She was very _______ about this. Since then, Peng _______ many videos of her street performances. They have got many likes and made Peng a very popular guzheng artist.

Peng hopes to bring guzheng _______ a bigger stage. “I will keep playing guzheng and I hope I can play a _______ part in bringing traditional Chinese music to the world in the future,” Peng said.

Social media platforms (平台) from the Chinese mainland are getting popular among young people in Taiwan Province, according to Xinhua Daily.

A student named Wang Li ______ at Taipei First Girls High School. Two years ago, she downloaded Xiaohongshu, ______ popular lifestyle-sharing platform. “I think it is a great helper ______ I can learn some makeup skills to improve myself.” On Feb 11, Xiaohongshu ranked first on the list of popular apps in the Google Play Store in Taiwan Province, with more than five ______ downloads. Most of its users were in their twenties, Xinhua Daily reported. ______ popular app among the young in Taiwan Province is Douyin. Nearly 70 percent of users are at the age of 24. There are so many live-streams (直播) that they ______ as platforms to do online shopping, too.

Zhang Hongyuan, a professor from a university in Taiwan Province, said that ______ using the same social media platforms, young people from both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan Province feel closer to each other. ______ amazing the technology is!

“This helps them ______ understand each other than before and encourages them to join hands for the development of Mainland-Taiwan relations,” said Zhang. Though many people from Taiwan Province have never been to the mainland, the apps have made them ______ much about the mainland.

In today’s Talking About Your Study, William, a top student, is invited to talk about ________ he learns more from test papers.

Hello, everyone, I feel happy to share with you my ways of learning more from tests. Each time after taking ________ exam and seeing my scores, I have a lot to do.

In one notebook, for example, I write down the questions I ________ wrong. And then I compare my idea ________ the right answer. I also write down the questions that took me a long time ________ about in the test. I try to find out where I ________.

In another notebook, I write down good sentences and paragraphs mostly on English test papers, ________ the test passages are usually good to study from. They ________ help make my writing better.

For science subjects, I often find out more about the background of a question to help me understand the question better. After I searched and learned about the background, I found it much ________ to solve similar problems. Finding more background ________ has helped my study a lot.

I hope my ways can really do you a favour.

Everyone may have a chance to make the world a better place. Teenagers can make a difference, too.

Kyle Van Der Velden is a 16-year-old student in Wayne Hills High School. One day in school, he met a cleaner and saw him ________ away a lot of pencils. The cleaner told Kyle that he got pencils every day ________ he cleaned up the classroom. ________ he did not know what to do with the pencils, so he just threw ________ away.

One day Kyle got some information from the Internet. Some people in poor countries needed pencils badly. So Kyle decided to collect pencils ________ them. Later Kyle joined a group called Right-to-Write as a volunteer. The group sends pencils ________ people around the world. They collect pencils and put them into bags. Then they give ________ bags to people who travel to poor countries. The pencils will ________ to people in need by these travelers.

Kyle goes to different schools to collect pencils. He ________ 3,790 pencils since he began the job two months ago. He has done the job really ________! We should learn from him.

Once upon a time, the colors of the world started to fight.

Green said, “Clearly I am the most important. I am the color of grass and ________. Without me, all animals would ________.”

Blue said: “Well, think about the sky and the sea. It is the water that is the symbol of life.”

Yellow laughed and said, “The sun is yellow, the moon is yellow, ________ the stars are yellow. So I am the most important color.”

Red shouted out, “I am the color of love and courage! I fight ________ the truth.”

The colors went on ________. Suddenly there came ________ strong wind. And it started to rain heavily. The colors were so ________ that they hugged close to each other.

The rain began to speak, “You foolish colors, don’t you know ________ you were all special and different? Now, join your hands and come to me.”

Doing as they ________, the colors joined hand in hand. From then on, whenever a good rain washes the world, a rainbow appears in the sky, letting ________ remember to admire one another.

The sweetest memory of my childhood is about ______ round table. When I was little, my family would get together ______ dinner on different festivals. We kids would be playing games around the table while the adults ______.

When I got a bit older, my aunt brought back her boyfriend and my grandpa cheerfully added another ______ to the round table. It seemed a little more crowded, but we felt much ______ to each other. When I was twelve, my grandpa passed away (去世). That made us ______ sad. However, when the whole family got together once again, we totally agreed ______ his chair, his bowl and chopsticks should still be there. Even though his seat was empty, we felt as if he had never left us.

We all have a table like this in ______ homes. It is a sign of reunion (团聚) of our family. Usually, different cultures ______ by us around the table. We express the love not only for our family, but also for a community, our nation and even the whole world.

The history of our nation has been the stories of looking for or running to the round table which we belong ______. The round table has been a symbol of the Chinese feelings. It was, it is and will always be.

My neighbor Uncle Wang works in a park as a cleaner. He has worked there for more than 10 years. He is also known _____ a kind-hearted person in our neighborhood. Nothing can make him _____ than helping others when they are in trouble.

Last Sunday morning, Uncle Wang was cleaning the park. Suddenly, he heard a woman _____ for help. He ran up quickly to see what happened. The woman’s 16-month-old baby girl choked (噎住) on a small piece of apple _____ her face turned purple. The baby was too young to save _____. And the mother was nervous, too. She didn’t know _____ to do to help her daughter properly. Luckily, Uncle Wang had ever taken part in courses dealing with such situation. He took the baby in his arms without thinking twice. With the _____ help, Uncle Wang held the baby upside down and gave her a few pats on the back. After a short while, he succeeded in getting _____ piece of apple out of her mouth. To everyone’s delight (高兴), the baby _____! The mother was so thankful that she cried with joy. She thanked Li Ping over and over again.

But in Uncle Wang’s mind, helping others ______ just helping himself. He hoped more people will volunteer to give a hand to those in need. With joint effort, the world could be more and more beautiful.

Before the Shenzhou-15 returned to Earth, Fei Junlong, an astronaut, sent a reply letter to a student named Tsering.

The 16-year-old boy comes from Tibet (西藏). He _________ at Beijing No. 80 High School now. Over 10, 000 letters _________ to the astronauts, but they only sent one reply. Tsering was _________ of all!

In Tsering’s letter, he shared about Tibetan stories of the starry sky and _________ interest in learning about the sky. He also wrote about moving from Tibet to Beijing.

“I’m very happy to study in Beijing! I have many friends _________ we often chat about information technology,” Tsering wrote in _________ letter.

Tsering truly felt _________ about the achievements of Chinese aerospace (航空工业). In the future, he wants to study computer science at Tsinghua University. He wonders _________ he can reach for stars and make his dream come true.

In Fei’s reply, he shared his own experiences _________ Tsering. “The road to success is never smooth. Only _________ studying hard can dreams come true.” he said. In the end, he wished success to Tsering and his classmates in their studies.

Every boy wants to find treasure. And Tom was no different. One summer day Tom told Huck about his idea.

“Where can we look for treasure?” asked Huck.

“It _______ on islands, under dead trees, but mostly under the floors in haunted houses.”

Therefore, one Saturday afternoon Tom and his friend went to look for treasure at the haunted house on Cardiff Hill. It was such a quiet and lonely place that the boys feel very _______. They entered quietly, and explored downstairs. There were spider webs everywhere and everything was old and broken. Then they threw their tools in a corner and walked upstairs, but there was _______ there. They were just about to go downstairs and start digging when Tom stopped.

“What is it?” whispered Huck, with his face _______ pale in fear.

“ _______ quiet! There’s someone downstairs.”

The boys lay down and looked _______ the holes in the wooden floor. There were two men downstairs. One was an old Spaniard in a wide hat and _______ was dirty and unpleasant-looking.

Tom and Huck shook with fear when they heard the Spaniard speak _______ they found it was the murderer Indian Joe. He said:

“It’s time for us _______, partner. What will we do with the $650 from the robbery?”

“Why not keep $30 each and leave the bag here?”

________ dirty man went to the fireplace and moved a stone. Then he lifted out a bag full of money and took out some coins. The two boys forgot all their fears when they saw there was real treasure downstairs.

Then Indian Joe started digging a hole with his knife ________ suddenly hit something.

“What is it?” asked ________ partner.

“It’s a box.” said Indian Joe. And he put it in his hand and pulled out a handful of gold coins.

“There are thousands of dollars in there,” shouted Indian Joe ________.

“What will we do with this, Joe? Will we bury it again?”

“No, someone ________ find it,” said Indian Joe. “Let’s bury it in the number two den.”

Tom and Huck got up as soon as the two men left. They decided to watch out for the “man in the wide hat” when he came to town and find out ________ the number two den was.