Nov 28 - Thousands of football fans paid their final respects to football legend Diego Maradona on Thursday. Huge crowds of people lined the streets to say goodbye to     1    (he). The car carrying his body     2    (cover) with the Argentina flag and a football shirt with his trademark number 10. Thousands more walked     3    (silent) past his coffin(棺木) as it was put on public display at the Presidential Palace. They were crying, blowing     4    (kiss) to their hero and praying(祈祷).

Maradona passed away     5     Wednesday, aged 60. He died of a heart attack. One fan said: “Maradona represents Argentinianess. He transcended football. He has my respect. I had to be here.”

Diego Armando Maradona is widely regarded as one of the greatest players     6     have ever stepped onto a football field. Many consider him     7    (be) the best. He captained his     8       (nation) team when Argentina won the 1986 World Cup. He scored the famous “Hand of God” goal against England in the quarter-finals. In that same game, he scored another goal that was voted as the greatest goal of the     9    (twenty) century. Maradona played for Barcelona in Spain and Napoli in Italy. Current Barcelona captain Lionel Messi said, “Maradona will never leave us because Diego is eternal(不朽的).” Brazilian legend Pele said he     10    (hope) to “play together in the sky” one day with Maradona.

In 1949, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL) came together to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). In 1996 the NBA     1    (create) the WNBA, the Women’s National Basketball Association. And in 2001 the NBA set up a development league    2     (help) train future players.

The NBA is one of the four major professional sports     3     (league) in the US. It is made     4     of thirty teams in major cities in the United States and Canada.

In 1992, the United States Olympic men’s basketball team was called the “Dream Team”. For the first time there were players from the NBA. Among them were Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. There’s no doubt     5     the Americans brought home the gold medal that year from Barcelona. It was during the 1990s that the number of top NBA players from outside the US began to grow     6    (rapid), In 2002, Yao Ming was the first choice in the NBA draft (选秀). He    7    (pick) by the Houston Rockets.

Yao Ming became the first international player without college experience in the US     8    (choose) first overall (状元). He was a     9    (talent) player and proved     10    instant hit in the US.

Yao became the third Chinese national ever to play in the NBA. The first was Wang Zhizhi. He joined the Dallas Mavericks in 2001. The second was Mengke Bateer. He made his first NBA appearance in 2002.

One morning, Mr. Wolf told his wife he would catch some toads (癞蛤蟆)for her to eat.     1     (hear) these annoying words, Mrs. Wolf grabbed a pan to beat him. Not wanting to     2     (scold) by his wife, Mr. Wolf decided to invent something to help him catch goats. He got     3     (inspire) when he saw a spring(弹簧) and invented a pair of spring shoes. With the magic shoes, Mr. Wolf     4     (jump) onto the sky above the sheep village where the goats were practicing spears (标枪). Seeing Mr. Wolf, the goats immediately threw their spears at him with a     5     (frighten) look on their faces. Hearing a loud noise, Red Wolf opened the door and found her husband     6     (trap) to the wall with many spears in his body. As a determined inventor, Mr. Wolf didnˈt lose heart. He improved his invention and made a new pair of spring shoes, hoping     7     (catch) the goats.

In order to defeat Big Big Wolf, Slow Goat     8     (lose) in thought. Suddenly, a good idea occurred to him. After a few days’ experiment, a magic insole (鞋垫) was invented,     9     (make) Mr. Wolf badly injured as he hit his house heavily. And he had to have his house     10    (repair)in the following week.

Are you absent-minded? Sometimes I wish I were. So many things     1     (achieve) by people who just left something in     2     (they) pocket or forgot to switch off a machine.

Like what happened to this group of Swedish     3     (scientist). According to the British newspaper, The Independent, they left their equipment     4     (turn) on over the weekend by accident and ended up creating a synthetic (合成的) form of the world’s most absorbent material.

Their experiments to create     5     they now call Upsalite were not going well till the errors happened. Johan Gomez de la Torre, researcher at the Uppsala University, said, “A Thursday afternoon in 2011... by mistake (we) left the material in the reaction room. Back at work on Monday morning we     6     (discover) that a hard gel (胶体) had formed and after drying this gel we started to get excited.”

The breakthrough has far-reaching commercial applications,    7     (include) cleaning up huge oil spills.

It might also have been by chance that the US engineer William Percy had a bar of chocolate in his pocket     8     he visited a factory which produced equipment for radars. It was during     9     Second World War. Percy was inspired when the sweet melted and he decided     10     (investigate). The scientist observed the effect the equipment had on popcorn and other foods and invented another machine with similar technology. It was the precursor (前身) to the microwaves we see today.

As a parent, I’m torn by society’s love affair with phones. On the one hand, it’s awesome to be able to know that our kids have a means of     1     (keep) in touch with us in an emergency. On the other hand, I know I somehow managed     2     (survive) my childhood as well as the majority of my life to date without a 24/7 means of communication.

So I often think whether kids     3     (real) need to have phones at school. During the past year, schools     4     (try) to carry out a “no electronics” policy but have met with strong disagreement from parents     5     want their kids to have access to a phone in case of an emergency (紧急情况). However, a 2015 study found kids did better in school when mobile     6     (device) were banned (禁止).

According to     7     study, teen’s test scores increased by 6 percent after phone bans were applied. The results were even     8     (good) for kids who were struggling academically, whose scores improved by 14 percent after the ban.

So what’s your opinion? Ban phones and leave kids without a means of communication,     9     allow their grades to suffer because     10     the unavoidable distraction (分神) of technology?