There was a young painter who made money by painting portraits (肖像画). His dream was ________ famous. One day, a rich lady asked him to paint a portrait for her and promised to pay ________ 10,000 dollars.

After a week, the lady came to take the painting. The painting was wonderful, ________ she was not happy with it. She told the young painter, “I will buy this painting only for 3,000 dollars.” The young painter felt ________ at what she said. Then he ________ with the lady, hoping that she would keep her promise.

The rich lady said to the painter, “The person in the painting is me. If I don’t buy this painting, nobody else will buy it. So you have to sell it to me for 3,000 dollars.”

The young painter said ________, “No, I prefer not to sell it rather than be humiliated (羞辱) by you. Someday, you need to spend 20 times the money ________ the painting, because you break your promise today.”

After that, the painter worked very ________ day and night. Finally, he became famous in the field of art.

The rich lady soon forgot about the artist and what he had told her. But one day, one of her ________ told her, “There is a painter selling a painting called ‘Liar’ (说谎的人) for 200,000 dollars. The lady in the painting looks really like you.”

Then, the rich lady remembered the painter. She quickly went to ________ sorry to him and paid 200,000 dollars to buy the portrait.

In ancient times, a King had a big stone placed on a roadway. He then hid himself behind a tree and watched to see if anyone would ________ the stone out of the way. Some rich men and an official (官员) came by and just ________ walked around it.

Many people wished the King to keep the roads_________ again, but none of them did anything to get the stone ________ the way.

There a/an ________ came along. He was carrying some vegetables. When he reached the stone, he ________ his vegetables and tried to push the stone out of the road. After much pushing and pulling, he finally ________.

After the farmer went back to pick up his vegetables, he noticed a purse (钱包), lying on the road where the ________ had been.

Inside the purse, there was ________ money and a peice of paper from the King, “The ________ is for the person who gets the stone out of the roadway.”

Two men were sitting together in an airplane. They were on a long journey. One of the men was a teacher. The other was a cook.

They sat without talking for a while, then the cook said, “Let’s do something to pass the time.”

“What do you want to do?” the teacher asked. “We can ask each other riddles (谜语),” the cook said, “You start.”

“Let’s make the rules first,” the teacher said. “To make the game more interesting, we play it for money. If we don’t know the answer to a riddle, we have to pay a dollar.”

The cook thought about it and said, “That’s not fair (公平的). You are a teacher, an educated man. You know more things than I do. I am just a cook.”

“That’s true,” the teacher said, “What’s your suggestion?” “If you don’t know the answer to a riddle, you need to pay me $100. If I don’t know the answer to a riddle, I’ll pay you $50.” the cook said.

Thinking for a while, the teacher said, “OK. That’s fair. Who’ll go first?”

“I will,” the cook said. “Here is my riddle. What has three legs when it walks, but only two legs when it flies?”

The teacher repeated the riddle, “What has three legs when it walks, but only two legs when it flies? Mm, that’s a good one. I’m afraid I don’t know the answer.”

He gave the cook $100, then he said, “What’s the answer?”, “I don’t know,” the cook said and gave him $50.

Every morning, my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every day, I open my books in class and start my lessons. Every evening, my mother reads magazines at home. And every night, I look at the photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on the wall in my bedroom before I go to sleep. Can you imagine the life without paper or printing?

Paper was first created about 2,000 years ago in China. After it was invented, People started to write on paper to make books. In those days, books were only produced by hand. So there were not many books, and they were expensive. Only a few people had the chance to read books.

Printing was invented in China during the Sui and Tang Dynasties (朝代). The development of printing made it possible to produce books more quickly and cheaply. More and more people can read books. Knowledge and ideas spread (传播) faster than before.

The Internet was created in the twentieth century. Although the Internet is still young, it is growing very fast and becomes powerful. A much larger amount of information can be stored in different forms on the Internet. We can find it much more easily than that in books.

Nowadays computers and the Internet are used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can be also read online. Will there be paper and printing in the future? Let’s wait and see.

As we know, China is a big country with a long histoiy and rich culture.     51     Many foreign people, especially the young people, are interested in learning something about Chinese culture. Most of them come to Shanghai to learn it.     52     It is also one of the most international cities in the world.

    53     They learn Chinese Calligraphy (书法), kung fu and tea ceremony (茶道). The students hope to learn more about Chinese culture.     54    

However, some Chinese young people are not interested in Chinese traditional culture. Some important Chinese culture is disappearing.     55     We should do something to protect our traditional culture from now on.

My invention is a robot snake. __________________________________________________

That’s all about my invention. I hope you like it.