When you sit down with your family to eat a meal, do you ever wonder where and when the tradition （传统） of     21     chopsticks began?

People say that the first chopsticks were used in China 5,000 years ago. The practice became popular in Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Today they are a symbol （象征） of Asian culture. Of Asian countries, Japanese have a day to     22    them. August 4th is Chopsticks Day in Japan. The different cooking traditions of Asia lead to different kinds of chopsticks. For example, the Japanese use sharp chopsticks because they eat a lot of fish. Sharp chopsticks     23    picking the fish from the bones.

Chopsticks are made from different kinds of material Bamboo chopsticks are common because the material is easy to break apart and doesn’t burn     24    .People also use wood and bone for chopsticks. Some rich people had theirs made from precious metals. Many kings used silver chopsticks, for it was believed that they would    25     black if there was poison in the food. There are also many table manners     26    chopsticks. For example, never stick your chopsticks upright in your rice bowl or tap on your bowl with your chopsticks. People believe this is impolite to the host.

The Tiger Mother, Amy Chua and her book named Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother are famous all over the world, especially in America and China.

Amy Chua is a Chinese American, born in the USA to middle-class Chinese parents who moved to the US from China. She was born in the year of the tiger, so she called herself Tiger Mother. Amy Chua is very famous because of her parenting styles （养育方式） . She has two daughters, Sophia and Louisa. She is very strict with them.

From the moment her daughters were born, she had set targets for them. She decided that the two girls would play instruments, Sophia the piano and Louisa the violin, and what is more, they would be the best at it. At the same time, they had to be the first in study.

The two girls always get an A in each lesson. Sophia could read books and began to play the piano when she was 3 years old. Once, Louisa got the second place in a maths test when she was in Grade 5. After that, Amy Chua made Louisa do 20 pieces of paper and there were 100 maths problems on each paper. A week later, Louisa got the first place and she is the first all the time from then on.

Every day cars kill or hurt many people on roads. Sometimes the drivers drive too fast or do not drive carefully enough. Some of them_______the traffic rules and cause accidents.

According to some researches, it is usually the pedestrians （行人） who cause the accidents.A lot of road users are very careless. They walk or run across the roads_______the cars. They walk in the roads but not on the walkways. They get into or out of cars in the middle of the road. Some do not take the trouble to_______the green lights and simply cross the roads against the red lights.

Many people think accidents often happen on busy roads in large cities, but this is not always true. For example, Tokyo is one of the busiest cities; however, there are_______accidents to pedestrians. The reason is that the police there are very strict and the pedestrians are very careful.Pedestrians never cross against a red light and they_______ follow traffic rules.

Do you know alcohol （酒精） is another main cause of traffic accidents? It delays people's response. Those who have drunk alcohol are_______ in making decisions. They need a few more seconds to react （反应） . Alcohol drinking is especially dangerous for motor car drivers. It's not only drivers who may have accidents after drinking, drunken pedestrians may put their lives in danger as well.

Three days after their wedding, Anna Koslov kissed her husband Boris and said good boy. A soldier, Boris followed the Russia's Red Army. The young couple expected that they would be t______again soon and raise their family together.

But when Boris r_______home, he found the house cold and empty. Anna was gone. Anna's family was driven away by the government and no one knew whether she was alive or not. Boris spent years searching for his wife, but never found her. Over the years, both Boris and Anna remarried other people and had children. But they never forgot each other.

As time went by, Boris and Anna's husband or wife passed away. In 2007, Anna went back to v_______the old house. She wanted to pay tribute to （对....表 示敬意） the time they'd shared there. At the s_______time the town received another visitor-an 80-year-old man who had come to lay flowers at his parents' gravestone （墓碑） . But when he saw the women cross the road, he knew s_______had happened.

“I thought my eyes were playing games with me," Anna said.“ My heart jumped. I knew it was him. I was crying with j_______.”It was Boris, the man she thought she had lost 60 years ago,

“I ran up to her and said,” My darling, I've been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life ...”Boris said.

Eileen Collins is the first woman ever chosen to be a spaceship pilot. She is also the first woman to command （指挥） a spaceship. Today she has flown more than 5,000 hours in more than 30 kinds of airplanes.

Talking about high school, she said, “I began reading all kinds of books about famous women pilots. These women went and flew into dangerous places. Their stories encouraged me.” In 1977 Eileen got a pilot' s license and the following year she graduated （毕业） from university.She went into space in 1999 at the age of 43. She took with her hopes and dreams of a nation of young people on the earth.

Eileen is not only an astronaut but also a wife and the mother of a young daughter. She has short curly hair and friendly brown eyes. She met her husband, Pat, while they were together in the air force （空军）.

When she was named as the First Woman Spaceship Commander in 1998, Eileen smiled and said,“When I was a child, I dreamed about space. It was only a dream that I would be one of the astronauts someday. I hope all children will be encouraged to reach for their dreams, when they see I go into space. I believe dreams do come true!”