If we are honest with ourselves, most of us have dreamed of     1     (be)rich and famous. Most musicians form a band because of the same interest     2    writing and playing music. They may play anywhere     3     (earn)some extra money as well as achieve their dreams. However, the Monkees,     4     started differently,     5    (begin) as a TV show with musicians playing jokes and music in the programme. Only after a year or so       6     they become more serious and they       7    (produce) their own records and later became even     8    (popular) than the Beatles in the USA. The band once     9    (break) up and then reunited. In memory     10    their former time as a real band, they produced a new record in 1996.

Our grandparents seems to have magic powers sometimes. Give them a Chinese lunar calendar    1    they will know what the weather will be like days or even months later.

What's the secret? They are following the 24 Solar Terms (节气),     2    were added on Nov. 30 to the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (人类非物资文化遗产) by the United Nations (UN). It is a knowledge system and social practice    3    (form) through people's observations of the sun's annual movements and its influence on the climate.

The 24 Solar Terms    4    (come) into being during the Qin and Han    5     (dynasty). At that time, most Chinese people made their living on farms, so weather changes were    6    (extreme) important for them. But of course, they had no satellite, internet or weather broadcast    7    (help) them.    8    these difficulties, they managed to work out 24 Solar Terms by studying the sun's movement and also    9    (pay) attention to other natural changes such as air temperature, water and crop growth.

It is honored as China's    10    (five) great invention, after papermaking, printing, the compass and gunpowder. Now, it is still widely used in daily life even in the age of technology-based modern farming.

In Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, food is usually eaten with    1    (chopstick).

Chopsticks are usually two long, thin pieces of wood or bamboo. They can also    2     (make) of plastic or mental. Sometimes chopsticks are quite artistic.    3    (true) elegant chopsticks might be with Chinese characters. Skilled workers also combine various hardwoods    4    metal to create special designs.

Five thousand years ago, Chinese people probably cooked their food in large pots,    5    (use) branches to remove it. Food in small pieces could be eaten easily with branches     6    gradually turned into chopsticks.

Some people think that the great Chinese scholar Confucius, who lived     7    551 to 479 BC, influenced the     8    (develop) of chopsticks. Confucius believed knives would remind people of killings and     9    (be) too violent for use at the table.

Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, most people traditionally eat     10    their hands.

During my childhood, whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I would climb the mountain near our house. Walking together, we had a lot of conversations through     1     I learned many valuable lessons. He always stressed to me, “You should have objectives and capacity like the mountain. This has     2     (large) influenced my life.     3     the mountain-climbing, we couldn't have had enough time to spend together because my father was busy.

Today we visit a small museum in the American state of Maryland.    1    is called the National Cryptologic Museum(国家密码博物馆). There you will find information that    2    (be)once secret. The National Cryptologic Museum is on Fort George G. Meade, a military base near Washington, D. C. It tells not only the story of cryptology but also the men and women    3    have worked in this    4    (usual) profession.

The word cryptology comes    5    the Greek "kryptos logos". It means "hidden word".

Cryptology is writing or communicating in ways    6    (design) to hide the meaning of your words.    7    museum has many examples of equipment that was once used to make information secret. It also has equipment that was developed to read secret    8    (message). The method of hiding exact meanings    9    (call) coding. People have used secret codes throughout history     10     (protect) important information.

China plans to build 3,300 km of new high-speed railways in 2020, with the total length hoped to exceed 36,000km.

The 3,000-plus km of high-speed railways are part of the     1     (plan) development of 6,800 km of new railways for the new year as the country will keep fixed-asset     2     (invest) on railways on a large scale, said Lu Dongfu, general manager of the China Railway Corp.

The country     3     (see) an expanding high-speed railway network over the years, with a total length of 28,000 km by the end of 2019, accounting     4     more than two-thirds of the total high-speed railway in the world.

China’s railways are expected     5     (transport) 3.54 billion passengers and 3.37 billion tons of goods this year,     6     general manager said. By the end of this year, China will see 850 Fuxing high-speed trains put into service     7     the research and development of Fuxing high-speed trains running at 350km, 250 km, 200 km and 160 km will be     8     (great) strengthened.

China will continue to promote the application of digital tickets     9     explore more flexible pricing mechanisms(价格机制) for high- speed trains, Lu said.

The total revenue (收益)of railway transport saw a record rise of 10.9 percent year-on-year last year,     10     (reach) 772 billion yuan.

The earth, the planet on     1     we are living, is the third planet from the sun. It came from the shrinking (收缩) of a vast cloud of dust and gas in outer space. Many scientist believe that the earth,   as well as the sun and the other planets in our solar system,     2     (form)   at least five billion years ago.   The earth is slightly flattened at the North and South Poles,     3     it would look like a perfect ball if you were far out in space.

Nowadays, millions of lonely singles are now going online, which is a sharp contrast     1     the past. With that situation     2     (go) on, the World Wide Web is quickly becoming the world’s most popular matchmaker.

Singles are flocking (涌向) to the Internet     3     (main) because there is little time     4     (leave) for their busy lifestyles to do that. Apart     5     its quick speed, using dating sites (交友网站) is convenient. Many singles say they are tired       6     the bad dating experiences and are ready to try something else. Dating sites also make     7     easy to avoid the persons that you are not     8     (interest) in. In the real world, ignoring someone you don’t like can be difficult.

Despite all the advantages, online dating also     9     (present) own set of problems. People aren’t always those who they declare to be in their online description. Safety is another concern. You are just     10     (like) to find a criminal online as your Mr. or Miss Right.

Yesterday, I was walking down the street     1     I saw four separate dimes (角) on the ground shining in the sunlight. I bent down, picked them up and entered the post office. Inside a lady     2     (dig) through her purse at the counter anxiously looking for change to mail a package. Believe it or not, she was exactly forty cents short. How amazing it was! I placed my dimes on the counter. The smile I got in return was worth a thousand     3       (dollar).