What do you know about the Tang Dynasty? You will probably think of Li Bai, one of the most famous _____ in history. And now, his life story has hit the big screen in China in the movie Chang’an. It is like a love letter to Chang’an and the stars in the Tang Dynasty poems.

The movie tells the life stories of Li Bai and his close _____ Gao Shi. They _____ each other very early ago and became good friends after that. It also tells the stories of other famous poets such as Du Fu, Wang Wei, Wang Changling and so on.

The movie starts _____ the memories of Gao Shi about Li Bai. Gao Shi told _____ stories to the inspector (督察). With his telling, people will find it easier to enjoy the movie and _____ understand the rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty. The friendship between Li Bai and Gao Shi touched people. And it makes people feel the warmth _____. It shows the true reasons why Chang’an is not only the name of a capital city, but also a cultural _____.

The almost three-hour-long movie includes forty-eight _____ Tang poems. Some children can even ______ the poems along with the whole film. It shows the deep cultural background and the beauty of Chinese characters to the world.

In ancient China, there was a man named Yue Yangzi. One day he _______ up a piece of gold and took it home with excitement. When he got home, his wife was _______ and said, “An honest man doesn’t drink a thief (小偷)’s water or accept food that comes with shame (羞愧). Why do you keep others’ things for _______?” Yue Yangzi felt sorry for what he had done, _______ he set the gold back to where he found it.

The next year, Yue Yangzi left his home to study. The school was so far _______ his home that he could hardly get back. But just a year later, he gave up his study and came back.

“Why do you return?” asked his wife in _______. He replied, “I felt bored and I missed you very much.”

Without saying _______, the wife took a pair of scissors, went to her loom (织布机) and said, “This cloth is made of the nicest _______. Now if I cut it, all my work will be wasted. It’s the same as your studies. You can learn a lot only by _______ to learning. Now, you’ve ended halfway. Isn’t it the same as cutting the cloth?”

Yue Yangzi felt moved by the words. He left home for his school _______. From then on, he studied hard. Finally, he became a learned man.

Almost everyone has his own hobby. My hobby is reading. When I was young, I didn’t have any hobbies. I always watched TV at home all day and my parents were ________ about me.

One day, my father took me to my aunt’s home. When I got there, I saw my cousin ________ in his room. I ran to him and said, “Reading books is so boring. Why not go out to play games? That’s more ________.”

“I don’t think so. Reading is really interesting, and also I can get a lot of ________ from my books.” Then my cousin asked me some questions, but I couldn’t ________ most of them. He was two years younger than me, but he knew much more. My face turned red.

That day he told me many interesting stories. I ________ myself in his stories. From then on, I became interested in reading. Now I have a room ________ books. In my free time, I’m happy to be ________ and read the books. I do well in my subjects because of all the books I’ve read, and I’m especially good at ________. I have won many prizes in writing contests (比赛). That makes me feel very ________.

Some students often complain that learning English takes up too much of their time. ________ they work hard, they still cannot get good grades on tests. “Why?” they always ________, “How can I enjoy success?” The story of Chinese astronaut Deng Qingming might help to answer their ________.

Deng became an astronaut trainee (接受培训者) in 1998. Since then, he ________ almost all of his time training hard to become an astronaut. ________ these years, Deng saw lots of trainees flying to space one after another. He, however, was always a trainee. He often felt ________. Sometimes, he even cried. But Deng never gave up.

Although he is in his fifties, he keeps training hard. “I must be ready whenever the chance comes to me,” he once said. ________, on the night of November 29, 2022, his dream ________. He and two other astronauts flew into space by Shenzhou-15 spaceship. Deng ________ twenty-four years for this moment.

So, if you want to give up learning English, think about Deng’s story. Your work might not pay off quickly. Be ________, please. You don’t need to worry. Try to improve your ways and keep going. One day, success will knock at your door.

How much do you know about Ningxia? You may know that it is _______ northwestern China. You may also know that it has deserts. What else? Let’s learn more about this beautiful place. If you go to Ningxia, you should _______ Shapotou. It’s a desert in the city of Zhongwei. It became a _______ place because of the TV show Where Are We Going, Dad? Except for (除了) _______ , Ningxia also has a lot of lakes and wetlands. The capital city Yinchuan has almost 200 natural lakes and 400 wetlands (湿地).

About one third of Ningxia’s _______ is the Hui people. The Hui people sing a kind of folk _______ called “wildflower” (花儿). It is so popular that many Han people can also sing it. The Yellow River runs through Ningxia. It makes the soil _______ . People can grow a lot of rice there. Many of them eat rice every day. People in Ningxia also make a living by feeding sheep and cattle (牛). They make full use of these animals’ skins. They blow air into sheep skin and make it into rafts (筏子). They can use the rafts to _______ the Yellow River. It’s exciting.

What’s new in Ningxia? Ningxia has also built new high-speed railways. Two high-speed railways has connected Ningxia with Qinghai and Gansu. It’s _______ fast. They will ________ travelers a lot of time. It makes more and more people come here to enjoy its beauty.

Harry, who owned a boat, lived near the sea with his family. They made a living by ________. One day, he asked a painter to paint his boat.

While the painter was painting, he found there was a hole at the bottom of the boat, and he decided to ________ it. When he finished his work as Harry asked him, he got his money and left.

Several days later, Harry came to the painter and gave him some money which was much more than the payment for painting. The painter didn’t know ________ and said, “You’ve already paid me for painting the boat!” 

“It is not for the painting, ________ for having repaired the hole!” Harry said.

“It’s just small service. Certainly you ________ pay me so much for something unimportant,” said the painter.

“My friend, you don’t understand what I mean. Let me tell you what happened. My ________ took the boat and went on a fishing trip yesterday. When I noticed they had taken the boat, I was extremely ________. I remembered the boat had a hole that hadn’t been repaired yet. I forgot to tell them about it. You can’t imagine how happy I was when I saw them walking ________ safely. Then I checked the boat and found you had repaired the hole. It was ________ that saved my children’s lives!” Harry said with excitement.

Just repair the “hole” you find. Small acts of kindness can make a ________ difference.

One sunny afternoon, Emily was walking to the park to meet her friends. Along the way, she noticed a coin on the ground. Emily picked it up and thought to herself, “This must be my _______ day!”

Emily continued walking to the park, feeling excited about what the rest of the day might _______. When she arrived, her friends were playing a game. Emily joined them _______ and had a great time.

After the game, Emily and her friends decided to get some ice cream from a nearby store. _______ they were waiting in line, Emily noticed a woman holding a piece of paper and crying quietly.

“Excuse me, is everything okay?” Emily asked.

The woman said that she had lost her job and was having _______ paying her bills. Emily felt sorry for the woman and remembered the lucky _______ she had found earlier. She took it out and handed it to the woman, saying, “I hope this _______.” The woman looked at Emily, _______ and thankful. “Thank you so much,” she said. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Emily felt a warm feeling inside, knowing that she had made a _______ in someone’s life. When she walked away, she looked up at the sky and said, “Thank you for the lucky coin.”

The rest of the day went by _______. Emily and her friends enjoyed their ice cream and played more games in the park. On the way home, Emily noticed another on the ground. She picked it up, smiled, and said to herself, “I guess my good luck is really still going strong.”

Almost every Chinese person knows the two lines of the famous poem, “Every grain on the plate comes from hard work (谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦).” _______ sadly, many of us don’t actually get the real meaning of these lines: Don’t waste food.

A CCTV program reported that the food Chinese people throw away every year is much enough to feed 200 million people for a year. Do we have too ________ food? Of course not. According to the UN World Food Program, there were 828 million _______ people around the world in 2022, especially in developing countries.

Chinese people are famous ________ being friendly. Many Chinese _______ even think that they lose face if their guests (客人) eat all the food on the table._______, many people know the importance of saving food now. Here are some rules for you to save food.

Don’t order too much in the ________. Only order as much as you can eat. If you cannot eat all the food, take the rest of _______ to your home.

Don’t _______ any food in your bowls when you have meals.

Remember, we should take these rules ________.

10 . The astronauts on Shenzhou XV came back to the earth safely after spending 186 days on China’s space station. Before returning, they sent a ________ to the earth. It was to 16-year-old Tsering Dargy.

Tsering is from Tibet, and is studying in Beijing. Over 10,000 people sent letters to the astronauts, but Tsering was the only one to have a ________. “I was very excited and was ________ enough to get the letter. I want to thank our country for giving me the ________ to write the letter,” he said.

In his letter, Tsering showed his strong ________ in the sky. When he was a child, his grandfather told him stories about it. In 2021, he ________ from Tibet, the place closest to the sky on the earth, to Beijing, the place closest to the ________ of China’s space aerospace industry (航天航空工业).

The astronaut Fei Junlong wrote the letter to Tsering and ________ him a lot. “As you wrote in your letter, the road to success is never ________. Only by working hard can you make your dreams ________,” Fei wrote. He ended the letter by wishing Tsering and his classmates success in their studies.

Tsering is now studying hard. “My dream is to learn computer science at Tsinghus University. Then I can work in space one day.” he said.