Just like the red post box and Buckingham Palace, red buses are a big part of the city of London.

London has had     1     big bus system since the 1820s. At that time, two horses pulled a bus. There weren’t many horses in those     2     (day). Drivers often took the most popular routes (路线)     3     (get) more money. They also competed with other drivers by     4     (make) their prices lower to win more passengers. In the 1840s, more rules came in. Numbers and colors helped passengers know     5     the buses were going.

The     6     (one) motor buses came into the city in the 1900s. They     7     (call) “Vanguard” and were red. They were different     8     the big buses of today and looked more like old carts but without the horses. Then, the London General Omnibus Company was     9     control of all the Vanguards. They put a “winged wheel” symbol on them. The symbol has changed a little, but it is still     10     (wide) used on all London transport to this day. And the buses are still red.

Paper was first created about 2,000 years ago in China. After its invention, people started to write on paper to make a book. In those days, books were only produced one at a time     1     hand. As     2     result, there were not many books, and they were expensive. So, few people had the chance to learn to read.

Printing     3     invented in China during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Later, development in printing made     4     possible to produce books more quickly and cheaply. Knowledge and ideas spread faster     5     ever before. In a way, we can     6     the invention of   paper and printing to the introduction of the Internet in the twentieth century.

    7     the Internet is still young, it is growing very fast, and may become more powerful than printing. A much larger amount of information can be stored on the Internet than in books. Someone with an Internet connection can find information much     8     easily than they can find in printed forms. And the machines we use to read it are now small and light, often smaller and lighter than a book.

Computers and the Internet are used in classrooms now, and newspapers and magazines are already read online. So what direction will traditional printing take     9     the future? Will books be replaced by the Internet? Let’s wait     10     see.

Some scientists in the US     1     (one) had the idea of linking computers together in the 1960s. They wanted computers in universities, research (研究) departments and the military (军队) to communicate with each other. At that time, computers filled whole rooms and were     2     (difficulty) to use.

Slowly, many researchers started to link their computers together.     3     in the 1980s the Internet     4     (open) to business and personal use. Today, people all over the world are using the Internet     5     (free).

There are many ways to use the Internet. For example, we can use it to communicate with other people. The most popular way     6     communicate is through electronic mail, or “email”. We can also use online messenger services to send messages to people. The Internet allows us to use the World Wide Web (also known as WWW     7     the Web). The Web is made up of many     8     (connect) pages of information. We can use the Web to play games, read the news or learn about our favourite     9     (sport) stars and singers.

The Internet     10     (change) the way we live so far. It allows us to explore (探索) the whole world from the top of our desk.

【推荐3】Do you use Wikipedia (维基百科) to find information about people, places, things and events? Have you ever w    1    who writes all the information? The website is actually run by thousands of o    2    people, as well as computers that can automatically update certain pages. You can even write something on a page if you want to.

Of course, it means that somebody can write incorrect information on a page. That does happen sometimes, but usually somebody else c    3    the information quickly.

Wikipedia has listed how many times each page has been edited this year and one page stood out. “Death in 2016” was edited 18,230 times. That is probably because lots of wellknown people, i    4    English singer David Bowie, American singer Prince, American boxer Muhammad Ali and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, died in 2016.

The 2016 US presidential election (总统选举) was followed by people around the world. It was a    5    a popular page to edit on Wikipedia. The “Donald Trump” page had 8,933 edits and took second spot.

Pages about movies, sports, world events, disasters, musicians and artists all appeared on the top 25 most-edited list.

The Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh’s page received 3,551 edits during the year. Four Wikipedia editors rewrote the page in order to give people a c    6    understanding of the painter’s true nature, according to one editor.

The v    7    of pages that were edited shows how people with entirely different interests are still all looking for information.